Page 8 of Boss's Baby Surprise
“Are you telling me I should try to steal Alayna from you when I have my own firm?” She smirked.
“Not at all. More like telling you if they figure out a way to clone her, you need to make sure you get one.”
She laughed. It was a delightful tinkling bell sound that made me think fairy magic had to be real. How else could somebody like Clarissa exist? Her smile brought joy, and her presence made me happy for no reason other than she was near. If it wasn’t magic, I didn’t know what it was.
I was surprised she didn’t have wings. I felt like declaring loudly for all to hear, ‘I do believe in fairies. I do. I do.’
“So, what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” she asked.
I pointed out the door, gesturing toward Alayna and Steve. “Well, Steve has a project with Alayna for the afternoon. That leaves us on our own.”
“That could be dangerous,” she teased.
She had no idea how dangerous. Especially if I let down my guard. Thoughts ricocheted through my head of just how dangerous I wanted to be with the woman who sat across from me. Thoughts that had nothing to do with sketches of buildings and aesthetic public spaces.
“You have no idea,” I said.
Clarissa glanced down, a tinge of pink blushing her cheeks.
“I think I have an idea of how dangerous you could be.” Her eyes met mine for a brief second. She bit her lower lip as her gaze darted away from me again.
I eased back in my chair, lacing my fingers and folding my arms to prop my head against my palms.
“How about this? You tell me when it's getting too dangerous for you.”
She put her pencil down and closed the sketchbook over it. “I don't know if I should play this game or not, but I’m feeling pretty daring right now.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked.
She continued to chew on her lower lip. Her cheeks grew brighter as she gave me a little nod.
“Then maybe we should take this game out of the office,” I announced.
Her eyes went wide, and she swallowed before she nodded.
“Where do you want to take this?” she asked.
I had a short list of where I wanted to take her. Trial by fire, see if she could keep up. My groin tightened, and I felt the primal urge to growl and haul her out of her chair and throw her plump ass over my shoulder before carrying her out of the office and into a cave to ravish her. I clenched my jaw and willed the caveman inside me to calm the fuck down.
Dinner would be nice. I should start with dinner like a civilized man. Even if she didn’t make me feel like one.
“Did you want to go over my sketches?” she asked.
I wanted to go over more than just her sketches. Sketches, we could review in the office.
“I want to have one of those conversations where we don’t have to worry about who walks in. I want to find out more about you,” I admitted.
“Me? I pretty much already told you everything there is to know about me.”
Slowly, I shook my head back and forth. “You’ve told me about your plans for your career. You’ve told me about your education thus far. But you haven’t told me about you. I don’t know why you want to become an architect.”
She opened her mouth and shifted to speak. I held up my hand, stopping her before she gave me a generic, well-rehearsed answer.
“I have questions that I shouldn’t ask while I sit on this side of my desk and you're sitting on that side of it.”
“Questions that you could ask sitting across from me at a dinner table?” she asked. Her blush still colored her cheeks.
“Are you asking me out to dinner? Because if you were, I could ask how far down that blush goes? And that’s not something I would dare to ask you while we sit here.”