Page 50 of The Ice Queen in the Corner Office

“And you think she would have given us cookies laced with pot?”

“She wanted me to relax,” Jill said, as though it was obvious. Her teeth gritted. “I never would have fallen asleep in bed with you, I never would have stayed in this room with you if it weren’t for those cookies.”

“But you would have wanted to,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes and pinched her lips tight. “What?”

“Pot doesn’t make you do things you don’t want to do, it just lowers your inhibitions. You wanted to stay here.”

“Pot destroys my good sense.”

“And you’re still standing,” I said, propping myself up with pillows behind my back. “You’re still here and I still respect you and we could go into work tomorrow and have a professional relationship and everything would be fine.”

To my utter shock, a tear rolled down her cheek. “No. We couldn’t. Because now I know what it’s like to fall asleep in your arms. I know that you’re kind and good and never tried to get in my pants, even when we shared a bed. I couldn’t…” She shook her head and swiped at her eye.

“What? What couldn’t you do?”

She huffed out a sigh of annoyance, but she didn’t back down. “Why do you always do that? Why don’t you ever just let me off the hook with a vague response?”

“Because I want to know what’s going on behind your gorgeous eyes. I care about what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling. I want to know why you don’t think we could work together after we shared a bed.”

She glared at the ceiling, but dropped her gaze, fiercely determined, to mine before she spoke. “Because I couldn’t be in the same room with you without wanting you. I couldn’t be in a boardroom and not despise every inch of distance between us. I couldn’t walk into your office without wondering how good we could be together.”

My heart leapt, and I had to fight to keep a goofy grin off my face. “So, let’s find out. No pressure, no promises, just an experiment. Spend more time with me, all inhibitions lowered, and let’s find out if what we have is worth pursuing?”

She paced the short distance from the door to the opposite wall and back six times before she threw off her coat and stopped at the end of the bed, facing me. “One week. If at any time I want out, you leave with no hard feelings.”

“I’ll leave and I won’t take it out on you at work, but I can’t promise no hard feelings.”

She threw her arms in the air and growled. “This is why this will never work. Neither of us can do this casually. There is no way I’ll be able to work with you if this blows up, and there’s no way I’ll be able to work with you if I walk out of this room right now.”

I grinned, I couldn’t help it. “What I’m hearing you say is that you already have feelings for me.”

To my utter amazement, she grinned back. “I don’t hate you.”

I spread my arms. “Come over here and get back in bed. Cookies for breakfast.”

Her eyes popped wide in surprise, but then she shrugged and climbed over the end of the bed and curled up next to me, the side of her arm touching mine. “Hand me a cookie.”

Who was this woman who continually surprised me? “You want more pot? Really?”

She chewed on her bottom lip for just a moment. “I want to get out of my own head. I want to enjoy this moment. I want to wallow in what I want even though I know it’s bad for me and find out how I feel after it’s all done. I’ve never done that before, and I want to give it a try.”

I handed her a cookie and took one for myself. I tapped my cookie against hers in a cookie toast. “To freedom.”

“To freedom and bad choices,” she said with a wry grin.

God, I wanted to kiss her. Instead I ate a cookie and watched her eat hers. She was a delicate cookie eater, taking small, careful bites, as though savoring every moment. “These are damn good cookies for being vegan.”

“That’s a myth,” she said. “I find vegan food to be far more delicious than food laden with milk and eggs and butter, not to mention processed foods.”

“So what was it?” I asked. “Are you an animal lover? Or a health nut?”

“Neither?” she said with a shrug. “Both? The truth is I’ve never cared for meat or milk, so it wasn’t a hardship to quit it. I try to eat healthy because it makes me feel good, but I don’t consider myself a health nut.”

I grabbed another cookie and chewed, but I wasn’t feeling any different. I didn’t drink, I definitely didn’t do drugs. I was almost one hundred percent certain I wasn’t doing drugs at that moment. I’d eaten five cookies the night before and I hadn’t felt a thing. They tasted like regular cookies. I’d smoked pot when I was a trouble-making teenager and it had definitely had an effect. I’d never eaten pot, but I should have felt something if those cookies had been dosed.

I opened my mouth to explain that to Jill, but she was smiling, looking more relaxed than I’d ever seen her, and I could think of no good reason to burst her little pot bubble. “So,” I said. “You’ve got the whole day free, no obligations, no inhibitions, what do you want to do?”

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