Page 9 of Daring Lance

Bernadette was halfway through the door when she called out, “We’ll email you the details from the pool. Lily brings her iPad, and she doesn’t start videotaping until Ruben gets in the water, so we should have a few minutes. Ruben’s typically late because he watchesWheel of Fortune, and it ends right before class starts.”

“Uh, okay.” Willow crossed her arms in front of her as Bernadette closed the door behind the trio, leaving Lance at her side, his gaze everywhere but on Willow.

Lance sighed. “That was an unexpected turn of events. Who would have guessed that the ladies were involved in a money laundering scheme? I doubt it’s anything that dramatic.” Lance finally looked at Willow, a sheepish grin on his handsome face. His deep blue eyes sparkled with humor, which she found slightly annoying based on the predicament they now found themselves in, and Willow definitely meantwebecause there was no way she was taking on both the website translation and whatever mess the women were in by herself.

“Yeah, and you thought their underwear website was simply a hobby.” Willow drew out an exaggerated breath. “I better fire up my computer to see what exactly you’ve gotten us into.” Willow took her computer from her desk and placed it on the coffee table before she took a seat on the couch.

“Us? I don’t know the first thing about website design, and unless they need the site translated into English, I’m out.”

Willow crossed her arms, allowing her head to fall slightly toward her right shoulder. “That’s interesting. I thought you spoke Spanish and Portuguese like a native?” She’d suspected that Lance’s friends had exaggerated his language abilities. But why they had wanted her to think him linguistically proficient was still a mystery to her. She doubted their intent was to bring the two of them together. That wasn’t going to happen even if the friends wanted it to. She had no desire to begin a relationship that would end as quickly as it had started. She was certainly not going to follow him as he moved from country to country. Neither would she be dumb enough to wait for him to return to south Florida, believing he was faithful to her while away on assignment for months on end. No thank you. Not interested. Not that it mattered as Lance had not indicated that he wanted to pursue anything with her. Sure, he had questioned her about her claim that he wasn’t her type, but that was probably his bruised ego talking.

Lance rubbed the bottom of his chin, and Willow admired his strong jawline before she mentally shook herself. Why couldn’t she be in the room with Lance for more than five seconds before thinking about his body?

“My friends may have gotten a little carried away. I can order a beer in Portuguese, and that’s about it.” He chuckled under his breath. “I can’t be of much use to you when it comes to the website translations.”

Willow arched a brow high on her forehead. “Plant it right next to me on the couch while we both find out what you got me into—”

“Seriously—”

“Lance, do you want me to tell that scary pack of senior citizens that I can’t help them, and they should ask you instead?” She drummed her fingertips along the outside of her forearms.

He drew out a long breath, and Willow knew she had him. She couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips as he took a seat next to her on the couch. Willow pulled upLily’s Lingerie.

“Whoa! This is not what I expected!” Willow quickly clicked through the website. “This is well done. They must have spent a fortune on the photography.” She dared a sideways glance at Lance, and her lips twitched as he rubbed his hand down the side of his neck, a deep red burn creeping upward from his shirt collar.

Lance let out a strangled groan. “I don’t think this is my, uh—”

“A lot of these models look Brazilian. They certainly have the bodies to market thongs and a demi bra.” Willow purposely zoomed in on the backside of one of the models sporting not much more than a wisp of black lace. Lance squirmed beside her, and it was all she could do to hold back her laughter.

“It doesn’t look like there is that much copy to translate, so that’s a good thing.” He must have made a quick assessment of the site because his gaze was now fixed on her front door, definitely nowhere near the computer screen.

Willow glanced back down at the computer screen and scrolled through several more pages ofLily’s Lingeriebefore she closed her laptop. “I think you’re right. The translations shouldn’t be that hard, and once I figure out how to edit the website, my job should be pretty easy overall.”

For the first time since sitting down next to her on the couch, Lance looked her in the eye. He still had a faint red stain on his neck, but the strangled expression he had worn a few seconds ago was gone. Instead, a hint of a grin teased his mouth. “I apologize for getting you involved in this when you’re already busy with work, but when the women approached me, well, they can be ah…rather pushy.”

Willow laughed. “Tell me about it.”

“Right? They ambushed me at the pool this afternoon. Claimed that since I was under forty, I had to know someone who could help them out with the website translations. Something about having a team meeting that morning and conducting a competitive analysis of their business. A multi-lingual website being an opportunity they needed to pursue in order to gain market share. You, of course, were the first person with any computer programing skills to pop into my mind.” His eyes darkened to a sapphire, and it was now Willow’s turn to squirm.

She swallowed, realizing for the first time that if she moved as much as an inch, her thigh, bare in jean shorts, would be touching Lance’s. “Ah, yeah. I mean, that makes sense, since we had discussed it the other day at the beach with your friends.”

“Yeah,” Lance held her gaze for several seconds, his entire body stilled. “You know, Willow, you never did explain to me why I wasn’t your type.”

Willow scooted several inches toward the couch’s arm and away from Lance, about as discreetly asLily’s Lingeriemodels were displaying cleavage in demi bras. “I, ah—” She sucked in a couple of deep breaths and finally decided the hell with it. She might as well be honest with him, and then they could both move on, in different directions. “I have no interest in moving again.”

“What?”

Willow quickly stood up, unable to sit this close to Lance despite having put some additional distance between them. “As I mentioned before, my parents were foreign diplomats. We lived all over the world, sometimes moving more than once in a year.” Willow threw her hands in the air. “I have no desire to do that again.”

Lance bent his head ever so slightly, his confusion obvious to her. “What does that have to do with me not being your type?”

Willow’s eyes grew wide. Were all men this dense, this slow to connect the dots? Based on her experience to date, she could answer her own question. Yes. “Lance, think about it. You move around for your job. You are never anywhere for more than a few months at a time. Your friends even pointed out that fact the other day at the beach.”

Lanced nodded and stood up. Taking only a few steps, he stood no more than a few inches in front of her. His breath brushed against her skin, causing tiny chills to climb over her body. “That’s true, Willow. I do enjoy living in different places, content to move every few months. However,” He brushed the pad of his thumb down the side of her cheek, and Willow sucked in a surprised breath. “I also think that we connected during the week before Luke and Madison’s wedding, and we were obviously attracted to each other. And that kiss we shared at the reception? I don’t think either of us can claim that it was simply a one-time thing.” His eyes bore into hers as her heart hammered against her chest.

“No, but Lance—"

He pressed his fingertip against her lips. “No ‘buts,’ Willow. We connected, and I think if you would let yourself, you’d admit that whatever this is, it’s worth exploring.”

---