And just then, she heard heavy footsteps in the corridor. And looked. And there he was, striding toward her in a navy-blue suit custom-fit to conform to his hulkingly masculine figure. He was large, blond, with a beard and piercing blue eyes that she was certain could see right beneath her black turtleneck.
She didn’t do suits.
“Little Olive,” he said. “How nice to see you.”
As he always called her.
He’d said it at her father’s funeral too.
“Little Olive. How are you?”
And it had broken her. To see him, not in a business meeting, not in a highly visible charity event. But in the quiet after the funeral. With his blue eyes different than she’d ever seen them. They didn’t hold a challenge.
There was concern.
And she’d wept.
And he’d held her.
She hardened herself against that memory now.
“Hello, Gunnar. Not raiding any villages and carting women off against their will today?”
He arched a pale brow. “The pillaging must cease sometimes.”
“Must it? For here you are.”
“Is it pillaging, or is it business? I know you like to pretend to be very victimized by needing to compete with the best.”
“But see, I win half the time. So I’m not certain how you can maintain that you’re the best.”
“Because some people prefer form over function.”
“No. It’s just that some companies are capable of providing both. Some of us think outside the suit,” she said, taking a step toward him and tugging the lapel of his jacket. She regretted it in an instant. Heat arced between them.
And she tried, she really tried, to remember the times they’d clashed over the years. Not the time he’d pulled her out of the potted plant.
Not the time he’d taken her back to her empty family home after that very worst day of her life, when she’d said goodbye to her father and felt more alone than ever.
Not when he’d sat across from her in that living room and looked at her with sympathy. Let her cry and talk and share memories. Had wrapped her in a blanket and carried her upstairs.
And when he’d set her down in front of her bedroom door, all disheveled and her eyes stinging from tears, she’d put her hand on his chest and felt his heart beating hard.
He’d taken his jacket off downstairs and was wearing just a white shirt, unbuttoned at the throat and she’d wanted him.
She wasn’t fifteen and she knew how she wanted him now.
So she’d stretched up on her toes, her mouth a breath from his.
“No, Olive.”
The refusal stung, even now.
“Go to sleep. You’re tired and grieving. And you would not thank me in the morning.”
He’d hurt her. Broken her with that refusal, even as he’d knit her emotions together with his concern earlier.
And when she’d seen him again at a business function he’d acted as if the night hadn’t happened.