"Look, miss. If you don’t want to schedule another appointment, I’m going to have to ask you to leave," the secretary said, turning her full attention back to me.
"That’s not necessary, Jess." I turned at the sound of his gravely voice. James and several other people—college kids with laptops, from the looks of them—were coming out of a pair of double doors just off the reception area. "I was in a presentation," he explained, holding up his phone.
"It’s okay," I said, my voice wobbling. He had grown out his facial hair to a thick stubble, too long to be just a five-o’clock shadow. It made him look older and his green eyes stood out even more. They looked bright in the white light pouring through the tall windows behind me. My eyes moved down to his lips as they curled in an expression of curious, but not unhappy, surprise.
I could tell he was waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Seeing him, being near him again, seemed to have shut down certain parts of my brain.
"Okay. Why don’t you come with me? We can talk in my office."
He walked us through the cubicles to his office and closed the door behind him, then walked through the room to stand behind his desk. I made it a few feet past the door and froze.
"Well, this is unexpected," he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Why are you in Boston, Allie? You should have let me know ahead of time, we could have had dinner or something." Which implied of course that he already had plans. Did he have a girlfriend? How had it never occurred to me to ask?
His defensive body posture, the distance and the desk between us, the shock of seeing him again, it all threw me off. Suddenly, everything was feeling like a huge mistake. "It was sort of last second," I admitted.
He checked his watch. "Well, I’ve got a half hour or so until my next meeting. Are you hungry?"
"No."
"Okay," he said, arching an eyebrow curiously. He sat down in his chair and leaned back into it, his hands behind his head as he studied me. "So what’s up? Why are you here?" He sat up straighter, his expression darkening. "Nothing bad happened, did it?"
"No, no. Nothing like that," I quickly assured him. I tried to settle my racing heart, but his aloofness had shaken my confidence. But what had I expected? For him to grab me and confess his love for me on the spot?
His eyes stared at me, and for the first time they strayed from my face. As he looked over my figure, I saw a flicker of the darker desire I recognized from his car. It was something.
I knew just what to do. I pulled my purse around and opened it, digging for the card.
"Are you all right, Allie?" he asked.
"Just give me one second," I said. I found it. I took out the card, rubbed it between my fingers for luck and courage, and set it on his desk. "Here."
He picked it up. A grin spread across his handsome face as he recognized it. "You still have this?" He laughed. "I always figured you would have thrown it away as soon as you passed a trash can."
"I still have it."
He looked up at me, then checked both sides of the card. "No expiration date. That was foolish of me." He looked every bit the professional businessman while looking over this contract, and it turned me on even more. "Okay, well I’m a man of my word. What do I owe you?"
I tried different ways of saying it in my mind, all of them sounding strange, artificial, wrong. But as the silence drew out I gave up, and just said what I felt. "You," I squeaked.
"Me?" he said.
"I wanted you," I said again. "That’s why I came here."
It sounded silly, like some over-wrought scene from a badly directed movie. I waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t. He played with the card in his fingers and stared at me. Finally he stood up and walked around his desk. He handed me the card.
"You want to tell me what’s really going on here?"
"What happened in the car..."
"That was a stupid mistake," he said, his voice darkening. "And I’m sorry for it. I crossed a line with you I had no right to cross."
I shook my head. "That’s not what I meant."
"There’s nothing else to say about it."
"Of course there is. I know you’re my..."
"Your brother," he finished for me, his mouth for