Page 21 of Taken With You
“Hello Maggie.” Garrick swept up his plate. “I was just leaving.”
Amanda hit her head with the butt of her hand. “I remember now.” Anything to draw Mags’s attention away from Garrick. “I’ve got crush brain, sorry, Mags. I’m glad you’re here. We’ve got a lot of readings to do.”
Did she? She couldn’t remember. Every thought that had been in her brain before Garrick almost kissed her had sizzled into ash. Maggie knew it, too. She stared at her, and then at Garrick, and then back again.
“I’ll leave your plate, Amanda.” Garrick stepped away, toward the door, and then addressed Maggie. “You make sure she finishes it, right? She’s been working too hard and forgetting to eat. I can’t have my partner fainting on the job.”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “I will indeed.”
“I’ll be in the cabin office.” Garrick burned a hole through her with those midnight-blue eyes. “We’ll continue this business later, Amanda.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, striding out with the silverware rattling. Amanda watched the way the folds of his T-shirt flexed until the darkness of the evening engulfed him.
When she turned back to Maggie, her best friend eyed her with a raised brow, head atilt.
“Boy,” Maggie said. “I sure did interrupt something.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Amanda couldn’t move. It was like the soles of her feet were glued to the concrete floor by a century of sticky, spilled juice. Garrick had left the winery, but her mind was still swimming with the memory of a kiss that didn’t even happen.
“Girlfriend?” Maggie’s expression turned stern. “Seriously, are you all right?”
Amanda sank her fingers into her hair, shoving the wayward pieces off her forehead. With Garrick out of the room, her hormones plummeted as her libido ebbed from a boil to a still-unnerving simmer. In that wake crept a slow, unsettling realization of what could have happened after that almost-kiss.
“Oh, boy.” Maggie slipped a boho bag off her shoulders and hung it off the back of Garrick’s chair. “Heck, that guy is the hottest addition to our little valley in years, but I was sure you’d steer clear of him. He’s your boss.”
“Partner.”
“That doesn’t make this situation any less fraught with complications, am I right?”
What the hell had happened? She hadn’t intended to crack open a no-entry door by ogling Garrick like every other woman and a few of the men on the line. He was her business partner, and she wanted it to stay that way. But he…he’d wanted her to stare at him.
He wanted her, too.
“If you’d been hit by a bus, you’d be in less shock.” Maggie gripped her by the elbows and gave her a little shake. “Talk to me.”
She could hardly think, never mind speak. She pressed a hand hard against the middle of her chest, willing her heartbeat to stabilize instead of race and trip, trip and race. How did this happen? When did it happen?
“All right, I’ll start the talking.” Maggie pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her shorts. “I found out a few things about your mysterious new partner. The only clues you let slip were that his name is Garrick, and he has an office in New York, but with a little sleuthing, I found out who he is. Considering your what-just-hit-me face, this seems suddenly relevant.”
Amanda glanced at the phone Maggie turned for her viewing. A headline from a New York gossip website screamed from the screen.Kane Enterprises In Play For Neptune Ltd.Beneath was a picture of Garrick, elegant in a black suit, with a gorgeous dark-haired woman hanging on his arm. Amanda struggled to reconcile the supremely confident man smiling in the picture with the man smelling of sweet grapes and hard labor she’d nearly kissed.
Maggie jutted her chin forward. “Pull your eyes away from him, will you?”
Shit.
Still ogling.
“I’ll read the caption.” Maggie turned the screen around. “Will this New York playboy bachelor charm the heiress to the Neptune fortune right out of her shares?”
She heard the words but didn’t understand. “She’s not his wife—he’s not married.”
“I know. He’s single. Thus the word ‘bachelor.’ But you’re missing the point. Themanypoints.” She shoved the phone back into her pocket. “First, your boss is a billionaire. With ab.”
“I know.” She’d read all those articles before she’d committed to their partnership. She knew all about his collection of sports cars, the Joe DiMaggio baseball card he’d spent a fortune to acquire.
“First, I can’t believe you kept that from me.” Maggie threw up her arms in exasperation. “And second, did you notice the word ‘playboy’?”
