Page 28 of Taken With You
Her face heated, remembering the day all too well. “The crushing is not the problem anymore. I need help in the lab, in the cave.”
“Then get it.” A muscle flexed in his cheek. “When is the last time you slept? One gust of wind could knock you over. I’ve seen this before. You work too hard.”
She crossed her arms. “So do you.”
“I have two hundred employees who depend on me. I have to delegate since my brother died.” He slapped a hand on the foosball table. “But like you, Dominic rarely took a minute off, no matter what the circumstances. And he died at his desk.”
His words rang in the room. He swiveled on a foot and muttered a curse. Staring at his broad, flexing back, she absorbed the shock of the revelation. What had she read about Garrick’s brother’s death in the public obituary and news reports? She only remembered the fact that he’d died. Because Garrick’s brother had been in his mid-thirties, she’d assumed he’d been in an accident or had a rare cancer. In the end, she’d figured it was none of her business, and she’d already pried too much into Garrick’s life. Now the pieces began to fall into place, as she remembered Garrick’s overly generous allowance for hiring workers, his insistence on keeping her and everyone else properly fed, the picnic on the hill…and now foosball in the middle of the working day.
She stepped toward him, but those unbending shoulders warded off her touch.
“The crush is temporary,” she said. “In another week or two, it’ll ease up.”
“So you keep saying.” He turned his head, granting her his profile. “I’ve handed you all the resources I can. I want you to stop being a worker bee.” His jaw flexed. “Instead, be the queen.”
She grasped her arms and hugged them close. She’d never considered being the queen of anything…except maybe a good man’s heart.
She jolted at the thought
Dismissed it as foolishness.
She said, “I’ll call Mags.” She dropped her arms, flustered. “They’re busy at Windsor, too, so I didn’t want to tap that resource. But Mags may be able to coax some lab techs into an extra shift here.”
He turned to face her, listening, waiting for more.
“Also, I’ve been training a graduate student. She’s good. Very good. I’ll give her more responsibilities.”
He turned to face her. With sympathy pinching her heart, she met his turbulent gaze. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, daring to graze her fingers up his arm. “I didn’t know about Dominic.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” His jaw tightened. “It was unfair to drop that on you.”
“I’m glad you did.”
Ripples of emotion crossed his face. She watched every one of them as an intimacy warmed the air between them, as the room began to crackle with the sizzle of unseen sparks. As her breathing deepened and her lips parted and she couldn’t pull her gaze away from his.
He bit off a word,Hell,right before he lowered his head.
Not a thought passed through her mind. Not a single doubt assailed her. The act was as simple as breathing, as inevitable as the rising of the sun. All her worrying over the past week about whether to throw herself into Garrick’s arms melted away. She fell into him or maybe he fell into her, but suddenly her lips were caught up in his—warm, firm, demanding. His heart pounded under her hand. His fingers slid across her waist and drew her against him. His moan vibrated against her mouth and those little tremors spiraled through her. Why had they denied this? Time beat to the race of her pulse. A rush of joy flooded through her as his hard chest pillowed her breasts, as his other hand slid to cup her backside.
Suddenly, he lifted his head and gasped like a drowning man. She swayed in his grip, senseless, wanting so much more.
“Damn it.” He loosened his grip. “We can’t do this.”
Her feet hit the floor with a jolt.
“Foosball,” he said, stepping back, “was a mistake. I made you a promise.”
“Promise?”
Words felt so strange in her mouth. She wanted to do other things with her tongue.
“You’re exhausted.” He put more space between them. A rush of cold air assaulted her. “I know it. You know it. Let’s call this a carve-out.”
“What…?” What on earth was he talking about?
He combed two hands through his hair and kept them there. “It’s when you give away a part of a company, a split-off, a divesture. Put something important aside—”
“Garrick.” Her tongue felt sluggish, and he wasn’t making any sense. “English.”
