Kate looked away under the pretense of checking her email, but not before she caught the way Matt was looking at her. She looked back for a moment, and Matt gave her a hint of a smile that was just a tiny bit sad.
She wasn’t an idiot. She knew her friends all thought she was besotted with Kennedy Dawson. She wasn’t. Not anymore.
She didn’t know how to explain it to them, though. She could barely even admit to herself that once upon a silly time, when she was far younger and more idealistic, Kate had looked up from her computer, locked eyes with her new boss, and promptly—stupidly—fallen head over heels in insta-love. The kind of all-consuming, butterflies-in-the-stomach, wedding-fantasy type “love” usually reserved for eighth graders and Disney characters. She’d even been so naive as to think maybe, just maybe, the way his eyes darted away when she looked his way meant something. She’d foolishly let herself believe that he’d been quietly watching her, the same way she found herself looking at him more than necessary.
And then reality slapped her. Hard.
Five years ago, Kate had inadvertently overheard a conversation among the three guys discussing how undatable she was. Kennedy’s exact words were She’s hardly irresistible, after which he’d suggested they all agree never to date her. Hearing Ian and Matt agree to the pact had stung a little—she was human, after all. But hearing Kennedy’s casual dismissal of her had damn near ripped her heart out.
And yet . . . she was grateful for it. Really. Truly. It had been exactly what she’d needed to cure her of her childish visions of love. Not to mention, it had given her perfect clarity on what she wanted: someone who did find her irresistible. And he was out there. She just had to . . . wait.
“I’m hungry,” Matt announced. “You guys hungry?”
“You just gave Kennedy shit for having lunch at two thirty—” Ian broke off when Matt gave him a look. “Yeah, okay, I could eat. Kate, let’s go eat.”
“I have work to do,” she said, even as Ian pulled her chair backward, and Matt grabbed her purse.
In the end, she let them take her to lunch. Not because they were her bosses but because they were her friends. And though they’d never say so, she knew they were trying to make her feel better about the Kennedy/Claudia thing. Which she fully appreciated but was unnecessary. Kate’s heart had gotten over its foolish Kennedy infatuation years ago, and her brain was far too smart to still be in love with her boss.
Unfortunately, her body was impossibly, irrationally, annoyingly still in lust with the man.
2
Tuesday, March 26
Kennedy glanced at the grandfather clock on his office wall, an antique that his friends never failed to give him shit for. It was half past seven, and he wasn’t even close to being done with work for the day.
The late lunch with his girlfriend probably hadn’t been the smartest decision. Then again, if he hadn’t taken Claudia to lunch, she’d be planning their dinner date, wondering if he felt like sushi or Italian or whatever new, hip place had just opened in the West Village, where she’d inevitably order a pile of vegetables, regardless of where they ended up.
Instead, she’d eaten half a Cobb salad at three p.m. and then spent the next fifteen minutes telling him she wouldn’t possibly be hungry for dinner after such a late lunch. One of the unexpected perks of dating a model was that Claudia spent a lot of time deciding when not to eat, which meant he was off the hook from the typical early-courtship routine of having to finagle reservations at every hot spot in NYC.
And actually, Claudia wasn’t a model—she was a former model, which was even better. She was stunning, but at thirty-three, she’d decided to “give up the life,” as she put it, and put her time toward “philanthropic endeavors.” Also her words.
He’d had his doubts about her, considering she’d been the result of a blind date set up by his mother, but he had to hand it to his mom. Now he had a beautiful girlfriend who spent most of her time raising money for charity and who, on the clingy scale, was hanging in there at a respectable seven out of ten, with ten being I need my space, damn it.
Though, if Kennedy were brutally honest, and he almost always was, Claudia’s clingy score was increasing lately.
He wasn’t loving her recent penchant for showing up at his office in the middle of the day unannounced. Today was the third time in a week that he’d had to take Claudia to lunch so she’d quit bugging his assistant with God only knows what variety of girl talk . . .
Kennedy slid his chair two inches to the left, a habitual motion that allowed him to see through his open office door to Kate’s desk.
As expected, the familiar sight of the back of Kate’s head greeted him. She’d worn her dark-brown hair in the same straight, basic style as long as he’d known her. He liked that about Kate. She was predictable. Steady. Reliable. At least as it pertained to her job duties.
On a personal level, she was a pain in his ass.
And yet, there was a comfort even in that. Kennedy and Kate may have gotten on each other’s nerves more often than not, but he also knew they were the same. They both liked calm. Order.
And somehow over the past few years, she’d become his calm. She was his order.
Even when she annoyed him. Which was . . . always.
Kennedy glanced at his inbox. There was plenty to contend with, and yet . . .
He stood and walked to his office doorway. He cleared his throat. Kennedy knew Kate heard him, because her fingers paused for a split second before resuming their rapid-fire typing.
“You see my note about George Overby?” he asked. “I need a lunch place for Monday.”
“Done,” she said, her fingers continuing to fly across her keyboard. “It’s on your calendar and confirmed with his assistant.”
Kennedy gave a slight shake of his head in amused irritation. He’d just sent the request not five minutes ago, but then, Kate seemed to delight in staying one step ahead of him. She was one of the few people who could.
He tried again to get under her skin. “Well, I hope it’s someplace that can accommodate—”
“It’s at Augustine. The chef knows he’s coming, and they’ve got a whole gluten-free situation worked out.”
Kennedy lightly rapped his fist against the doorjamb. Damn. She was good. Really good. “Thank you,” he said begrudgingly.
Finally, her fingers left her keyboard, and she spun in her chair toward him, her expression slightly wary. “You’re welcome.”
He nodded toward her computer. “What are you working on?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You really want to know?” She picked up a legal pad, which he knew she used as her running to-do list. Well, that and her iPad. She had some elaborate system that involved “migration,” and color coding, and archiving, and he didn’t know what else, but he was pretty sure it was something a little supernatural. If he believed in such things. Which he did not.
“Not really,” he admitted. “But I’m sorry if Claudia’s interruption today necessitated your working late.”
“I’m not going to tell you what we talked about,” she said, starting to turn back to her computer.
Irritation rippled through him, partially at her assumption that curiosity over her conversation with Claudia was the only reason he’d asked what she was working on, partially at the fact that she was right.