Chapter 18

Damien had walked all over the eighteenth floor looking for Mandy and couldn’t find her. He paused in front of the reception desk and clenched his fists. He wasn’t going back to his office until he found her.

He had gone to the baseball game on Saturday with Rob, thinking it was nice to hang with his old friend, something he hadn’t done in a long time. Halfway through Rob had confessed Mandy had given him the tickets. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

Clearly Mandy was thinking about him, but she was ignoring him. He spent half his workdays trying to run her to ground in her cubicle and the other half trying to engage her in conversation with him via e-mail or instant messaging.

Her responses were polite but brusque.

It was driving him insane. He had to see her. He had to talk to her. He had to make love to her.

He no longer cared if he wasn’t capable of having a relationship with Mandy. He had to take whatever she was willing to give, and if that was just sex, so be it.

Their little decision on the plane back from Punta Cana to leave it alone, at just good memories, had been either stupidly naïve or just plain crazy.

“Can I help you, Mr. Sharpton?” The receptionist stared at him nervously from behind an enormous fake floral arrangement sitting on the desk.

He could barely see her around the damn thing. Shoving the meadow-in-a-vase over, he asked, “Have you seen Mandy Keeling?”

She dropped her pen, and her lip trembled. Damn, without meaning to he was glaring at her ogrelike. He tried to smooth out his features as she shook her head.

“I haven’t seen her. But I could call…”

Damien cut her off with his hand in the air, because right at that moment he spotted Mandy coming out of the rest room. “Never mind.”

It had been twenty-two long and lousy days since he’d seen Mandy, except for that split second in his office doorway when she had scurried away from him.

Now as she walked toward him, he swallowed hard. She looked incredible. Her hair was loose, falling past her chin in those waves he loved, and she was wearing a sundress. The coral one she’d had on in Punta Cana. He figured she was wearing the dress because it had no waist, but he could tell with one glance that her stomach had popped out even farther.

Her breasts were bigger, too, if that were possible.

Something happened inside of him. Everything shifted and cracked and splintered, and he took a deep breath.

“Mandy.”

She looked up at him, her hand still in the purse where she’d been digging for something.

Her mouth opened in surprise, and a smile flitted across her face. But then she glanced at the receptionist and tucked her hair behind her ear nervously. “Mr. Sharpton? Did you need me?”