But Mr. Hart’s a professional and wastes no time taking a seat and shifting a folder uneasily as he sits down.
“Thank…you for seeing me today, Mr. Hart,” I hear myself say. Sounding like someone who knows what they’re talking about, but in my head, I feel like I’m stuck in that magic moment our hands touched and our eyes locked just now.
“I would’ve seen more of you sooner,” he rumbles cryptically. His eyes are moving down my whole body, giving me another instant shiver.
His dark eyes are as strong as the rest of him, and as much as I feel overdressed for what seems pretty casual, the man fills a pair of jeans and a tight shirt like nothing I’ve seen up close before.
His shoulders look like something chiseled from granite, but they flex and relax with his natural movement.
His clothes look like they were poured over him if only to prevent women from climaxing at the sight of what I can plainly see is perfection underneath.
“I mean…at Jase’s graduation. I was running late that day. An emergency at one of the sites,” he explains. Almost as if he’s apologizing to me for not making it. Cementing the real secret I still carry from that day, wishing he had come earlier. Wishing he had hugged me or even kissed me in congratulations.
The man I’d never even met until now, surpassing every expectation.
Making me so fully aware of my limitations.
I suddenly feel foolish compared to a man of his size, strength, wealth, and business experience.
Reddening more than I did when he introduced himself, I can see how far-fetched my not-so-little fantasy has been.
There’s just no way a guy like him would ever….
“So, tell me, Vanessa Campbell. What is it you see yourself bringing to Hart Construction?” he asks calmly.
His eyes seem to bore into my soul as he presses his huge fingertips together, building a little steeple and gently tapping his fingers together.
He’s making me feel hypnotized as I feel my jaw slacken and my mouth gaping a little.
But no words come out, and I’m a complete blank.
Mr. Hart pretends to look over some notes, letting me off the hook by not looking at me directly for a moment.
He frowns to himself as he thumbs the resume his secretary put on his desk.
“Well?” he asks, looking up at me with a face of stone like he’s all business now.
And everything that just happened was just my imagination.
But his eyes tell a different story. Almost like he’s wrestling with something himself. As if I’ve caught him at a crisis moment, and he has to play hardball because that’s how a man like him does things.
Right?
I stammer some garbage about a personality I don’t have. I feel myself really blowing it once I launch into my on the fly spiel about being a conscientious worker and how organized I am.
But Mr. Hart’s either heard it all before, or he’s just being friendly.
Giving his son’s friend a fair hearing before letting her down.
Jase did set up an interview, but it’s no guarantee I’ll get the job.
Especially not now that I’ve painted myself as little Miss Perfect.
Idiot!
“Be yourself,” Dad said. But I was terrified that I’d definitely not get the job if I did that.
Mr. Hart holds up the resume, lifting it high into the air with his huge arm as he keeps his eyes fixed on me.
It takes a second for it to register, but I jump at the sound of it hitting the trash can by his desk.
My mouth is well and truly wide now. Astonished.
I feel my insides shrivel, figuring this is the ‘get out and don’t waste my time’ moment. But he doesn’t say a word, only narrows his eyes on mine before they pass over me again.
A low sound, almost inaudible, escapes him.
And then I feel it again.
That feeling runs through the floor, right up into my core as my crossed leg starts to pump up and down.
A little mew of fresh arousal squeaks out of me, and his look shifts from firm to something else in a second.
“Good,” he growls, leaning back and studying me while I try to figure out what the hell is happening to me. “You don’t have to try and impress me, Vanessa,” he says softly, breathing in deep and relaxing into his huge leather chair.
As if he’s settling back to binge-watch his favorite series.
I have to force my leg to stop pumping. Sure that I’ll leave a puddle right here in the chair if this keeps up.
How can one man turn anyone on so much simply by existing?
“I…I wished you’d come earlier on graduation day, too,” I hear myself whisper.
Mr. Hart’s eyes instantly become wider as he leans forward.
“What do you mean?” he asks, his whole face lighting up with that question.
“I…I mean…,” I stammer, realizing this is as good as killing the job offer, but for some reason, a bigger part of me needs the man to know, somehow understand that I wanted him there more than anyone else, and I still don’t even know why.