Chapter Nine #3
Both Rob and Garrett barked with laughter.
Lily filled the last vacant spots on her cart. “I’m headed to the third floor. I’m finished on two.”
“Great. We’ll take care of the Admin area down here, then pack up the last of the plants and meet you up on three,” Garrett said. “Those Chamaedorea palms would look good in the finance reception area.”
“Sure thing,” she said and turned her cart for the elevators.
“Oh, and Lily?”
She glanced back.
“No plants go in the finance division executive offices at the end of the hall, especially Lucas Van Dorn’s office. That damn bean counter keeps cutting my landscape budget, and it’s payback time.”
She laughed and headed for the elevators. At the third floor, she tugged her cart out and pushed it off to one side. The reception desk on this floor was occupied by a young and very beautiful receptionist who beamed when Lily explained who she was and what she was doing.
“I already heard. My friends on the first floor called me. This is great.”
“Glad you’re happy,” Lily said and pulled the two largest Chamaedorea palms off her cart, then set one at each end of the lobby. “These are to go in here,” she told the still beaming receptionist.
“Mr. Buchanan is so sweet to bring me plants,” the girl said, with a wistful expression.
Lily recognized that look, and she felt a sharp pain on the right side of her heart, right next to the stress tear the perfidious organ suffered last week at Rhett’s mansion.
The beautiful receptionist had an obvious crush on her CEO.
How often did Rhett visit down here to elicit such blind adoration?
Lily removed the brown-paper sleeves from the Chamaedorea palms and immediately spotted some dried yellow fronds she hadn’t noticed when selecting the makeup stock back at the nursery to fill in for the drowned palms at Rhett’s mansion.
Unwilling to leave any plants less than perfect at BDC for Rhett to complain about, she started peeling the spent fronds from the stalks of both palms. Several more dried fronds were visible at the top of the palms, and Lily groaned when she couldn’t reach them.
The elevator suddenly dinged, and Lily spun around to see who had arrived. Garrett and Rob pushed their full cart out into the reception area, and she blew out a sigh of relief.
The young receptionist turned her radiant smile on Garrett and waited to be noticed. Fickle little thing, wasn’t she? Lily couldn’t imagine why, but she felt an inexplicable stab of irritation at the young woman for her sudden disloyalty to Rhett.
“Why the scowl, Lily?” Rob asked.
“I need a stepladder or step stool to reach the dried fronds at the top of these palms,” she said.
“I’ll go down to the truck and get the stepladder for you,” Rob offered.
Garrett glanced at his watch, then over at Rob. “No, you take the cart down that left hall and start unloading these plants we brought up. I’ll get Lily a stepladder and then unload the rest of her plants down the hall to the right. This is taking longer than I thought.”
“Sure thing,” Rob said and guided his cart down the left hall lined with more anterooms and doored offices.
Lily felt a wave of panic at Garrett’s urgency. “Please hurry,” she said as Garrett headed down the opposite hall.
He was back in a few minutes with a three-step ladder. “Here you go,” he said and placed it in front of her, then maneuvered her cart away from the wall.
“I’m so sorry about these palms,” she told Garrett. “I could have sworn I checked every one before I pulled the stock.”
He held up a hand. “It’s okay, Lily. I’m a landscaper, remember? There’s nothing wrong with the Chamaedoreas.”
She hoped he was right and climbed up the ladder to strip the miscreant fronds at the top.
Garrett’s cell phone rang. He checked the readout and answered, “Hey.” He smiled. “Like clockwork.” He glanced at Lily, then away. “Peeling dry fronds off the top of two palms.”
Lily’s head snapped up. Who was Garrett talking to?
“You bet. I’ll call you and let you know.” He clicked off, pocketed his phone, and reached for the cart.
“Garrett?” Lily called.
He turned.
She hesitated, embarrassed now to ask him who was on the phone.
He grinned. “That was Tammy checking up on you.” He pushed the laden cart toward the opposite hallway from the one Rob had pedaled through.
“Oh,” Lily said, mostly to herself since the receptionist had gone back to her typing.
Why had Tammy called Garrett and not her, she wondered and watched him push the cart across the lobby.
She pivoted on the top step to resume her manicuring when the elevator dinged and the doors parted.
She jerked at the sound, this time accompanied by a small wave of panic.
Garrett was here in the lobby with her, so who had just arrived?
Her peripheral vision caught Garrett turning toward the elevator—looking nervous—and that only fueled Lily’s anxiety.
She refused to be caught staring at the elevator occupant and pivoted on the top step to reach for a dried frond in one continuous motion.
Her shifting weight bobbled the miniature ladder, and she felt the stubby legs lift off the tile.
Grabbing for the tall palm to steady herself, she missed and clawed only air as the little ladder tilted up and over.
Lily flailed in midair and awaited the inevitable crushing contact with the marble floor, praying nothing would break.
She heard Garrett yell, and her peripheral vision caught movement as her body was miraculously snatched out of the air and crushed against a suited muscular frame.
Her arms flew out to cling and hang on like a panicked rhesus monkey, ecstatic she hadn’t slammed her skull onto the marble floor and overwhelmed by an intoxicating scent of male and aftershave from where her face lay buried against a shirt collar and neck.
Neither she nor her savior moved for a several long moments—Lily, heart pounding and close to hyperventilating.
She opened her eyes and peered over a broad shoulder to see Garrett frozen in place and gaping at her.
The little receptionist looked like a goldfish with her mouth opening and closing repeatedly.
The adrenaline rush subsided, and Lily felt her savior slowly lower her to the marble floor without breaking contact with his torso.
She felt every inch of her chest and abdomen slowly ease down her savior’s suit, and her eyes nearly rolled back in her head from the intoxicating scent and erogenous shifting of two perfectly aligned bodies.
Her feet touched the floor, and two big hands cupped her elbows until she secured her balance and, more importantly, jumpstarted her lungs to normal oxygen-seeking mode.
One large and embarrassingly noisy gulp of air did the trick.
Two more deep breaths, just to be on the safe side, and she slowly tilted her gaze upward to see who had streaked to her rescue.
She wanted to look, yet she didn’t want to look for fear of who was holding her at this moment.
First came a strong chin, then a sensual mouth, two intense green eyes, and Lily went deathly still.
Rhett.