“Not as good as you, I don’t think.” He tosses me a wink before looking at his brother. “I’ll wait in the conference room. Are we using the one down the hall?”
“Yeah. I’ll be in there in a few minutes. Let me take care of a few things and grab the files.”
“You go take care of those things. I’d hate for you to be distracted.” Ford leaves, chuckling under his breath.
Once he’s gone, Graham shoves his hands in his pockets and turns around. He studies me carefully, like he’s not sure what to say.
“Graham, listen,” I begin, “I’m sorry about all this. I mean, I’m not sorry. Friday was amazing. I might have . . .” I start, then stop.
“You might have what?” he smirks.
“Nothing,” I smirk back. “On a serious note, I don’t want this to blow back on me. I need this job. I like working here. Maybe we could transfer me to another department or something.”
He bites the inside of his jaw. “No,” he says on an exhale. “That’ll never work. I think that would cause more problems than just leaving you here, actually.”
“Really? I was thinking maybe it would just put us out of sight, out of mind.”
“I didn’t see you all weekend and I couldn’t get you out of my mind,” he admits guiltily.
Forcing a swallow, I try to keep myself steady. The air thickens around us, white noise flowing passed my ears. “I couldn’t get you out of mine either.”
“We’ve found ourselves in a predicament.” He sits on the corner of my desk, his face sobering. “I need a little bit of time to get this figured out. I need you to work here. You fit in our company perfectly. But I do need to concentrate and I don’t know how to swing that.”
Our gazes hold on to the admissions, the energy between us crackling. His features soften and I want to reach out and touch his face, feel the smoothness of his cheeks, but I don’t.
“Is my schedule clear today?” he asks.
“I cleared it on Friday. Ford called and mentioned the meeting, so I went ahead and rearranged things. I also dug out a few files I thought we may need based on my conversation with your brother.”
Graham’s brows shoot to the ceiling. “Very good.” He stands and disappears into his office. When he returns, he motions for me to follow. “This should take most of the morning. Take notes, ask questions if you don’t understand something, and try to breathe.” He leans in and smiles. “Don’t forget to breathe.”
“Will do. And Graham?” I ask when his hand hits the door.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to know something.”
“What’s that?”
“You look incredible today.”
The corner of his lip tugs up. “Thank you. So do you.”
“I’m not sure how I’m going to handle this visual and then seeing you in action. I might have to, you know . . .” I wink.
His eyes blaze, his hand falling off the door. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“No, probably not,” I shrug playfully.
“Don’t you even think about it.”
“Well, it wouldn’t technically be in your office, so it wouldn’t be against the rules.”
“The rules are now amended to include all Landry property,” he declares.
I sigh, looking at him through my lashes.
“Mallory, for the love of God, stop fucking with me. I need to concentrate.” The door flies open and we start down the hall. Employees step to the side as we make our way down, mutterings of “Good morning, Mr. Landry” with a few swoons from women clasping notebooks to their chest can be heard as we pass by.