Page 3 of XOXO, Valentina

I raised my chin at him. “I don’t need to explain the importance of keeping up with one’s belongings to you, do I?”

“I understand,” he said in a choked voice. “It’s not that.”

“Well, what is it?”

He sank into his chair. “It’s nothing,” he said.

I waited for a moment, but he remained silent and returned his attention to his monitor.

The teachers and administration at PES thought I was a strict boss. They called me Iron Lady behind my back, but I wasn’t offended. I was proud to be compared to a tough-as-nails leader like Margaret Thatcher. As a single mom to a son who’d grown taller than me at eleven, I had to be tough.

My chest tightened when I thought about the next item on my agenda. “Tell Mr. Morales to come to my office during his planning period,” I said.

Mr. Collins nodded, still not looking me in the eye. “I’ll buzz him now.”

I went into my office and closed the door with a firm click. Filled with comforts of home, my office was my sanctuary. School awards lined the bookshelves, and photographs of my son, Shane, topped my desk. Framed art projects hung on the walls, and a de-humidifier misted the air.

I settled in my ergonomically designed chair and tackled the important messages one by one. By the time I finished everything, my stomach alerted me it was time for lunch.

Tomorrow was shopping day, and our pantry looked like it had been raided by a swarm of hungry teens. Or at least one six-foot-tall teen.

I’d given Shane the last of the decent food I could scrounge up. Luckily, I had an emergency pack of crackers in my bag.

I grabbed my romance novel and tore into my crackers. I got little time to read, and I was behind on my to-be-read pile. Luckily, I fell straight into the narrative, and before I knew it, I was transported to the frozen forests of Alaska.

My busy schedule left little room for fun, so reading was my escape. I liked to read paperbacks, not ebooks, but I didn’t like anyone to know what I was reading. If steam levels of books were like hot peppers, I preferred Carolina Reapers. Since my book preferences might be frowned upon by many of the parents in the carpool line, I hid the covers under a quilted book jacket and hardly ever read in public. No one would guess that underneath the fabric jacket was a smoking-hot lumberjack. And only my closest friends knew my secret identity as Valentina, a popular online book reviewer for the Blue Ridge Book Club who specialized in erotic romance.

My sex life was non-existent, but my book boyfriends were many.

My current boyfriend was a handsome, rugged outdoorsman with a penchant for flannel.

After a few pages of reading about the lumberjack’s exploits in the frozen tundra, my mind drifted to Mr. Morales, who would be scrumptious in gray-and-green plaid.

A knock at my door startled me, and I dropped my book on the desk. I didn’t have time to put it away before the door swung open and the object of my fantasies peeked around the corner.

“You wanted to see me?” Mr. Morales asked.

Adrenaline shot through my system.Mother of Pearl!He was gorgeous.

When I’d first interviewed Mr. Morales, it had been over the phone. He’d sounded young and full of life—exactly what we needed at PES. I’d had no idea the smile I’d heard over the phone would be so devastating in real life.

His hair was always perfectly tousled, as if he’d either been running his fingers through it, or just rolled out of bed. His eyes were caramel brown and tipped up in the corners, as if he had a secret he was willing to share with the right person. The perfect amount of stubble decorated his perfectly square jaw. I imagined what his scruff would feel like scraping along the sensitive skin of my neck… or against my inner thigh.

He smiled, and a bolt of desire shot straight to my core. I clasped my hands in my lap, trying desperately to block my inappropriate reaction to his extreme handsomeness. My mind reeled as I forced it out of the land of flannel-wearing heroes and back to the elementary school where it belonged.

“Come in, and close the door, please,” I said.

Mr. Morales wasn’t a hero in my novel. He was an employee who’d made a mistake and needed to be dealt with. It sickened me for PES to lose such a fabulous teacher, but it was my duty to fire him.

3

Chapter 2

Gabi

Mr. Morales’s dark eyebrows drew together. He closed the door behind him and stood just inside my office. “Is everything okay?”

“Sit down,” I said.

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