Bargaining with the Bride (Honeybrook Love, Inc. 1)

This was much more than he'd bargained for. He thought kissing her would be like any other kiss; warm and interesting, but fine. Nothing life-changing. Pleasant.

He had been dead wrong.

The second he touched her lips, pure electricity coursed through his body. Like lightning in a bottle. It had been nearly impossible to break away from her. The instant her pale, supple skin was flush with his own? The way her breasts crushed against his chest? He was lost to her.

Which, if he was honest with himself, was as perplexing as it was intriguing. He’d been in countless relationships, but could never recall feeling this way before. Then again, no woman had ever sighed against his lips the way Rachael did. No one had felt as good as Rachael did in his arms…

It was possible, likely even, that this was a huge breakthrough in his research. After all, there was a reason people said there was no such thing as platonic friendship between men and women. True, he’d noticed Rachael before tonight, whenever her skirts clung to her thighs or her blouse hugged her in just the right way. But tonight? It was like she’d been a different person all together.

Out of her business attire, her soft blond curls cascaded around her face and whenever he looked at them he imagined wrapping one of those ringlets around his finger. Or weaving his hands between the locks and tugging gently…

He rolled down the window, welcoming a blast of chilled evening air. Maybe this was a breakthrough, but somehow it felt a lot more like a serious, gaping flaw in his logic. Even worse, he was beginning to wonder if this entire bet had been one colossal mistake.

He pulled into his driveway, locked the car, and then plodded into his town house. When he opened the door, he heard a dull thud and the tinkling of glass as the door connected with something that had been left in its path. He flicked on the light and found a brown moving box labeled “fragile” sitting in the foyer.

Damn movers.

He tapped out a message to Deanna, instructing her of the best time to pick up the rest of her things, then circled into the bedroom. As far as he could tell, she’d gotten everything else. Of course, the one thing he’d hoped she’d take with her, she’d left behind.

On top of the polished oak dresser sat the letter she’d written two days before. Since then, he hadn’t seen her, but he’d probably read her note more times than he’d spoken with her in the last month. Slowly, he re-opened the letter and reads the words over again.

Garret,

I know that leaving a message with your secretary is probably a better way of getting in touch with you than this, but I couldn’t bear to say the words out loud. I have to go and I think you know that. I can’t live like this—not knowing if you’ll come home or getting messages from your personal assistant that she found you asleep at your desk again. Nobody could live like this.

You deserve to be loved, but I deserve that too. I wish you the best, truly.

Sincerely,

Deanna

He stared around the room. Yes, every last remnant of her was gone. Time to start fresh yet again. He glanced at the note, then crinkled it into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket in the corner of the room.

After stripping off his clothes and changing into sweats, he lay on his bed, cell phone in hand, thinking. Someday someone would understand how much the company meant to him. What the research would do for humanity. Wasn’t that more important than one relationship in the grand scheme of things? Maybe if they’d had his research sooner, his parents might have…

He pushed the childish thought away and tossed his phone in the air. Deanna was gone and the best thing to do was to focus on the present. He had to do something about Rachael. Had to make a decision about how to proceed. Had to look into this, study it…fix it. Fix the way his heart practically beat out of his chest when he thought about that kiss.

One thing is for certain. I’m not going to get anywhere just laying here.

He shoved up from his bed and paced the house, careful not to wake his sleeping pug, and collected every employee manual from his file cabinets and every ounce of research he had on his project. There had to be some guidance in there. Some small nugget of how to proceed with Rachael.

But there was exactly nothing. Nothing at all. He had never been one for deterring office romance so long as both parties behaved responsibly, and while there were some bylaws for office involvement, they only pertained to break-ups.

Knowing himself, he never thought there would be a need for rules involving entanglements with upper management. Maybe his brother, Brooks, might have needed them, but he was hardly ever in a relationship long enough to bother with bylaws. He would already have been broken up by the time he finished reading the paragraph.

Brooks...

He had to talk to someone about his predicament, and sadly he could only think of one option. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket before thumbing through the numbers. The co-owner of his company might have a few things to add, and though he wasn't keen on telling his brother the situation on the whole, he might have a few words of wisdom.

Gritting his teeth, he pressed the little "talk" button and held the phone to his ear.

The line clicked to life after the second ring, but rather than his brother's gruff tone, a breathy female voice greeted him. "Mr. Adams' phone."

"Could I speak with Brooks, please?"

"May I ask whose calling?" She replied in a practiced voice, though she was clearly restraining a serious case of the giggles. And that's when he recognized the voice. Of course. Brooks’ secretary.

He heard the rumble of his brother's voice from the background and this time the woman did laugh. Well, at least that told him as much as he needed to know about the intra-company dating policy.