I laughed. “Why stop at email, why not by conference call?”
She blushed slightly. “You’re right, email is a little off. Perhaps we need to stick with cliché. I don’t go out much, do you?”
I practically snorted. “No.” Then I frowned. “Why don’t you go out much?” She was a beautiful young woman. She was always professionally dressed making her look intelligent and at the same time feminine. Today wasn’t much different. Her hair was pulled back as usual. Instead of a skirt, she wore a conservative navy-blue dress. Like her skirts, it outlined her curves perfectly. Yes, she was smart and beautiful, and even sexy although I shouldn’t think of her like that.
I couldn’t imagine she didn’t have a boyfriend. Holy shit, had I just asked my assistant to be my fake wife when she had a boyfriend. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
This time she snorted. “No. I work and I go home. I hangout with my sister. I’m not big on partying. I never really was. I suppose I’m sort of boring.”
“I don’t find you boring.”
“You don’t?” She looked at me with her gray eyes. There were little flecks of blue in them that I’d never noticed before.
I shook my head. “I find you smart, efficient—”
She rolled her eyes. “I think that is the definition of boring.”
“Not for a guy like me who likes smart and efficient. We could say we fell in love over filing.”
She laughed, and it was lovely. “So romantic.”
“It could be. All those folders and papers, so neatly organized, in a large metal cabinet. It sounds romantic to me.”
“Well, it’s not a walk on the beach, but I suppose for our purposes, it could do.”
A walk on the beach. I wondered if that was the sort of thing she enjoyed. “I live on the beach. Perhaps our story is that we worked through a weekend at my place.”
She seemed to like that. “The attraction had been growing—”
“Through email?” I joked.
“Through all of it. Working in close proximity, messages we sent, and then that weekend, away from the office…”
“One thing led to another,” I finished for her.
“Right. Maybe we went for a walk on the beach and you kissed me.”
My gaze drifted to her lips and I knew for certain if I was walking on a beach with her that I’d want to kiss her. Fucking A, I had an urge to kiss her now.
I turned to look ahead of me, chastising myself for thinking of her in those terms. She might be my fake fiancé, but she was my assistant first.
“Unless that’s too corny,” she said.
I kept my gaze forward as I said, “No. It’s not corny at all. I could totally see that happening.”
When she didn’t respond, I turned to look at her. She was staring at me and then she too turned away.
“Me too,” she said. Then she looked out the window of the plane.
I watched her for a moment and realized that if I felt awkward, she must too. She probably felt even more weird because she was my assistant. Technically, she was subservient to me. We were playing roles, but our positions hadn’t changed.
“You could have said no,” I blurted without thinking.
She turned to me, her brows furrowed as if she wasn’t sure what I was talking about.
I looked down for a moment, feeling a bit foolish in my awkwardness. “About this fake marriage,” I clarified. I looked at her again. “It would have been alright if you said no. I know this must be weird for you…it’s a bit strange for me.”
“Oh?” Now her expression was uncertain. Like I’d said something that made her feel self-conscious. Shit, did she think I believed it was strange because of something about her?