His mouth softened under hers, and after a moment of sheer awkwardness, he closed his arms around her and hauled her against his chest. Though she’d initiated the kiss, it didn’t take long for him to show her who was in charge of it. A small shift of his chin, and he was the kisser instead of the kissed.
He turned her slightly, facing away from his mother, and ran his tongue against the seam of her sealed lips. She gasped, shocked he’d actually gone there, and he took full advantage of the situation. He tasted like wine and something else she couldn’t place, and that was about as far as she got before she couldn’t think of anything except his lips on hers, his tongue against hers. She curled her hands into his shirt, and a small moan escaped her. She jumped at the sound, jerking back and covering her mouth in surprise.
Mr. Gale stared down at her, breathing heavily, his focus clearly on her mouth. It did weird things to her insides—things that made her want to launch herself back into his arms, only for real this time, and take that kiss a step further.
Like, stepping right into his bed.
She lifted her face, going for another taste. His eyes darkened, and a sexy growl escaped him, so quiet she might have imagined it. He fisted her shirt at the small of her back and closed the distance between them. She sucked in a breath.
If she didn’t, she might pass out.
“Enough,” Mrs. Gale shouted, forcibly jerking Maggie out of her lust-hazed tunnel vision. “If you think I’ll buy this…this…indecent sham as something real, you’re even less fit as the head of this company than I suspected.”
Mr. Gale—God, she didn’t even call him by his first name in her mind and she’d just kissed him—turned to his mother. Instead of letting her go like she’d expected, he tightened his grasp on her waist and kept her tucked against his side. “There’s nothing indecent in this room. We love each other and aren’t ashamed to show it.”
“This is unacceptable. Whatever this”—she gestured between Maggie and Mr. Gale—“is, it needs to end. Now. I’ll contact you with a list of suitable candidates, and you will woo them all. And you will pick one of them and kick her to the curb where she belongs…or you’ll pay the ultimate price.”
Not waiting for an answer, she stormed out, closing the door behind her with a firm click. Even though she hadn’t slammed the door, the effect was still there. Maggie jumped and dropped her hand—which had been covering her mouth—to her side. Mr. Gale let go of her, and he immediately stepped back to a respectable distance.
She still didn’t look at him. Didn’t dare.
God, what had she done? So much for keeping her disastrous love life—real or fake—out of the office. She’d kissed her boss. Her boss. Jesus.
After counting to three, she blurted, “I’m sorry. So, so sorry, Mr. Gale. I have no idea what came over me, but she kept yelling and calling you worthless, and you work so hard and don’t deserve to be treated that way, and I just, I don’t know, snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I…I…”
“Did the perfect thing,” he said, his voice as calm and collected as always. “Damn brilliant, really.”
“It was stupid and irresponsible and—” She staggered back and glanced at her boss’s face for the first time since they’d been left alone. “Wait. What?”
Instead of anger and disgust, which she’d totally expected to see, he smiled at her. Actually smiled. And he had dimples. Two of them. In his cheeks.
What just happened?
Chapter Three
Benjamin rubbed his jaw, and his smile widened as he replayed the look of pure shock on his mother’s face when Maggie threw herself into his arms and declared their love for one another. Love. What a silly notion, and an absolutely perfect weapon against his mother’s ultimatum. She would be as disoriented in the face of love as he would be, because neither of them had a clue what it was.
The Gale family ran on ambition, not feelings. And that was a damn good thing, too. If she had said they were marrying for money, or for convenience, his mother would have been on them quicker than a lion on a wounded gazelle.
But instead, she’d used love. It had been enough to send his mother running, and it had bought him some much-needed time to get his shit together. He had no doubt his mother could challenge his position if he refused to at least try to settle down and be responsible. But if he already had a fiancée…
Hell, she didn’t have a case against him. And she was fully aware of that.
Maggie’s ruse had literally saved him. Of course, she was panicking, and looked as if she might be close to running from the office. But after she handed him that ingenious plan, there was no way he was letting it slip out of his fingers. He’d make her see that it was resourceful, not irresponsible. Her lie saved both their asses.
They were in a win/win situation.
She licked her lips—lips that he couldn’t get his mind off of now that he’d had a taste—and shook her head. “N-No. It was stupid. All she has to do is ask a few questions around the office, and she’ll find out the truth. She’ll fire me. I won’t be able to pay my rent, or help my parents out back home. I’ll be disgraced, and no one will hire me. I’ll have to leave the city and go back to milking cows and training—”
Milking cows? Jesus. People still did that? Didn’t they have machines for that? “Maggie.” He pressed a finger to her soft lips, and she shut up. It took all his self-control not to kiss her into a silence, but he had a feeling if he did so, she’d bolt. She was already seconds from hyperventilating as it was. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
She flushed even more. “No, it’s not. I messed up so bad, just like I always do, but this time it’s at work.”
“But we don’t have to tell anyone. No one needs to find out.” He lifted her chin with two gentle fingers, and her upturned face was more vulnerable than he’d ever seen it before, and so impossibly beautiful. He tried another smile, hoping to set her at ease, but if anything it seemed to freak her out even more—probably because he didn’t smile much anymore. Or ever. “We can make this into something real. Well, not real, but for the sake of everyone else it will look authentic. Like we were dating all along.”
Her gray eyes—they were definitely gray with blue flecks, now that he was this close to her—watched him, full of so many questions he could practically hear them. She was so different from the society women he usually dated.
The last one, Elizabeth, he’d been with for a year, and she never showed him even an ounce of emotion or softness. But Maggie? Ah, she showed every emotion as she experienced it, and it was refreshingly sweet. He didn’t know how to do the same. All his life, he’d been trained to hide his feelings.