The Secretary's Bossman Bargain

She didn’t care if she shouldn’t do this, only knew within hours she wouldn’t dare. So she did it now.

“It’s been wonderful,” she admitted and trailed off when he brushed his mouth across her temple and placed a soft, almost imperceptible kiss there. “Unexpected and…surreal and wonderful.”

He held her so tight, so intimately, and whispered against her hair, “We should’ve done this before.”

Going pensive at the note of lingering lust in his voice, Virginia played with the buttons on his shirt while Marcos checked his phone and made a call to the office. As he spoke into the receiver, she stole a glance at him.

His voice rumbled in her ear, and his arm around her was absently moving up and down her bare arm. She’d been unable to keep from staring at him all week, and had been secretly delighted that most times he’d been checking up on her, too.

When he hung up, he gazed out the window at the passing car lights and said, “You’ll wire yourself the money from my account and take care of your problem straight away. Promptly, tomorrow morning.”

A command. As an authoritative man and, also, her boss.

“Understand?”

She hadn’t noticed she’d flattened her hand on his chest until his own big one came to cover hers. She watched their fingers entwine. Lovers’ fingers.

God, she’d done the most reckless thing. Look at her—draped all over her boss. Imagine if this ever got out? If people knew? Worse of all, her tummy was in a twist because she loathed for it to stop. And it had to—tonight. “Yes, I’ll take care of it right away,” she murmured, and on impulse took a good long whiff of his familiar scent.

“I’ve been thinking.” Marcos turned her hand around for his inspection and his thumb began to slowly circle the center of her palm. “I’d like to offer your father a job.”

“A job?”

“I figure if he realized he could be useful, he’d break the cycle of vice he seems to be stuck in.”

She thought about it, still resting her cheek against his chest, feeling utterly contented and yet dreading tomorrow when that feeling could be replaced with unease. “Why?” she asked then.

He quirked an eyebrow, then narrowed his eyes. “Why what?”

She fingered the heavy cross at his throat. “Why…him?”

“Why not?”

She shrugged, but her heart began to flutter at the prospect. “Maybe he’s just hopeless.” As hopeless as she was. How would she bear Monday at the office? She was terribly in lust with the man. He was an extraordinary lover, made her feel so sexy and wild she wanted to take all kinds of risks with him, and now he offered her father this incredible lifeline?

“Maybe he is hopeless,” Marcos agreed, chuckling.

But no, he was not hopeless, no one was. A smile appeared on her face. “Or maybe he will want one more chance.” And maybe she could handle Monday after all.

She’d survived so far, had feigned not to want Marcos for days and weeks and months. Now she’d act as though nothing had happened. As though when he looked at her, her insides didn’t leap with joy, and when he smiled at her, her stomach didn’t quiver.

He smiled at her then, causing all kinds of happenings in her body, and stroked her cheek with his warm hand. “I’ve looked into him. He was a smart, dedicated man, and he could be one again.”

Virginia contemplated his words, pleased that Marcos was smart enough to look past her father’s mistakes and see the hardworking man underneath. And a plan formed in her mind. Her father had managed a large chain store so successfully that, if everything hadn’t gone downhill after her mother’s death, he’d be CEO by now.

“You know, Marcos,” she said quietly, straightening on a burst of inspiration, “I think he might enjoy coming to Mexico.”

Silence fell. The car swerved to the left and into the small airport driveway. Virginia remembered the look of grim solemnity in Marcos’s face during their tour of Allende and she plunged on.

“He might even enjoy working at Allende,” she said. She tossed the bait lightly, hoping to plant some kernel of doubt in him so he’d reconsider his decision regarding the company’s future. But he went so still, she almost regretted it.

He stared at her with a calculating expression, then gazed out at the waiting jet. “Maybe.”

Neither said another word, but when he pulled her close, ducked his head and kissed her, she fought not to feel a painful pang.

This was where they’d first kissed.

It only made sense it would be where they had their last.