“I’ve got it.”
I take the basket from his hand and pick up the pace.
I’m an hour early for work. There’s no reason Jenny should be there at this point, but even if she’s not—even if I have to hunt her down somewhere on Bliss property—she’s not getting ahead of me on this one. Yesterday was a freak anomaly, a rare slip-up on my part, and I won’t let it happen again if it kills me.
Sure enough, I enter the bullpen only to see lamplight streaming from her office. It’s the only one that’s lit up at this hour of the morning. At seven a.m., the sun has risen, but it’s not high enough to do any justice to the skylights.
Jenny is seated behind her desk when I get there, tapping away at her keyboard, and I can’t help but feel a little pang of disappointment. Unlike yesterday, she’s fully dressed. At least I think she is. The gray short-sleeved blazer she’s wearing could easily be paired with the bottom of the red bikini.
Not that I’d be into that.
This is a place of work, and I’m going to reestablish my authority.
I clear my throat and she jumps about a mile out of her chair. She scrambles to her feet—the blazer is paired with a skirt, damn it—and her mouth is shaped in a perfect O. When she sees that it’s me, she lets out a laugh that’s somewhere between a guffaw and a giggle. It’s the kind of sound she would have made back when she was still going by Genevieve, and it warms my heart more than I expected.
“Roman,” she breathes. “What are you doing here? You scared the hell out of me.”
I survey her again. “What are you doing here? Nobody comes to the office this early.”
She shoots me a look. “Is that why your social media accounts are in such a sorry state?”
This woman. One day she’s a vixen in a cover-up, swaying her hips in front of me like all she wants is my attention. The next, she’s a corporate queen who’s going to whip us all into shape. Who is she, really?
“Speaking of social media….” I approach the desk and set the gift basket straight in the center. “That was fun, your little photo shoot in the pool yesterday. But I don’t think you’ve seen enough of the resort property yet to represent us to the best of your abilities.”
Her mouth falls open, a playful offense crossing her face along with a flash of something else. “I can assure you that I have more than enough to work with. In fact, I had so much to work through and process that I’m here earlier than you, so—”
“Ah, ah….” I hold up a hand in the air. “You can test gift shop merchandise to your heart’s content, Miss London, but you can’t get out of taking the grand tour.” A pleasant pink color comes to her cheeks. I never thought I’d feel any sense of triumph at making Genevieve Starlight blush. “Get changed. I’ll meet you in the lobby in five.”
I turn away from the desk before she can argue and head back out into the lobby. I left rather abruptly before. Greg probably needs some reassurance that he’s not going to get let go before the trial period is out, and if I get any closer to her in that skirt suit, I don’t know what’ll happen. If she shimmies out of it while I’m standing here….
All I know is that it will be one hundred percent inappropriate for the office.
“But I have work….” The protest coming over my shoulder is weak.
I wave it off. “Get changed.”
Out in the golden sunrise light of morning, Jenny walks next to me with her head held high.
She looks dynamite in the yoga outfit I chose for her to wear.
It’s not from the gift shop, though the sight of her in the curve-hugging spandex makes me think we should start stocking it. I had it delivered from an exercise boutique in town, and it was worth every penny.
Her dark hair is twisted into a low knot at the back of her neck, and she has a yoga mat in its holder slung over her right shoulder. “I take it we’re not swimming, then?” She cuts her eyes across at me, and I catch an impish sparkle playing there.
“After yesterday? I don’t think so.”
She sniffs. “I thought yesterday was quite successful.”
“I thought yesterday was—” I stop myself before the words unbearably sexy slip from my mouth. It was unbearable, but I wouldn’t call the erection that strained the front of the swim trunks sexy. “I thought yesterday put us on uneven footing.”
Jenny looks at me like she has no idea what I mean. “You want me in front of the camera?”
“No. I want me calling the shots. That’s why we’re going to take a class of my choosing. You need to get acquainted with the resort and all it has to offer before you start making decisions that are going to affect our brand image.”
“I see.” I’ll be damned if I don’t see a satisfied smile punctuating her lips. Maybe it’s a product of my imagination, because before I know it, she’s turned a serious eye to the path ahead of us. “Is this beach yoga?”
“Yes. We offer morning sessions five days a week.”
She nods as we reach the end of the wooden walkway and head out onto the sand. A couple of years ago, I had a section of rubberized flooring installed about forty feet from the water so nobody twisted their ankle in the sand, and the classes have been a hit.
Today, the crowd looks bigger than usual. There are already ten people out there, which is…unexpected. As we approach the practice surface, the instructor, a woman named Azalea, bounces over with a delighted expression. “Mr. Bliss!” She claps her hands in front of her. “I didn’t think I’d see you here today.” There’s nothing remotely cautionary in her tone, but there’s something about her expression….
“It’s a gorgeous morning. I thought I’d bring my new social media manager to experience the class for herself.”
Azalea looks between the two of us with an even wider grin, then sticks her hand out for Jenny to shake. “I’m Azalea, the instructor for most of the morning classes. So, you’re playing up the romance angle for the resort?”
Jenny smiles back, wrinkling her nose in a way that’s utterly…adorable. That’s not a word I thought I’d ever use to describe her, but here we are. “I’ll certainly use that strategy at some point.” She cocks her head to the side and lets Azalea’s hand go. “Is this…a particularly romantic yoga class?”
Azalea laughs. “I guess it doesn’t have to be, but I always see a little more…connection in these kinds of classes. With the sun radiating down, tan skin on the beach….” She shrugs. “It makes you appreciate your partner all the more.”
“What kind of class is it?” Somehow, Jenny sounds absolutely at ease, as if it couldn’t matter less what kind of class this is.
“I thought I mentioned it at the very beginning.” Azalea lets out another confident laugh. “It’s couples yoga.”
7
Jenny
My very first instinct when the words “couples yoga” come spilling out of Azalea’s mouth is to run.
I can sashay out of a pool in front of Roman, sure, but there was a reason I was never in the drama club’s musicals in high school. The reason was that they always involved dance numbers, and they always, always involved dancing with a partner. That kind of intimate touch is on another plane from what I was prepared to deal with this morning.