a tiny toothed grin. She was Tate’s star and moon, the reason she’d taken this job and lived in Miami. Briana was basically Tate’s reason for living at all. Three months ago, she’d turned two, and her baby chatter was becoming real words like mama and no. Tate rubbed a finger over the picture, touching the chubby cheeks she loved to kiss and nuzzle. She loved her daughter’s smile and the simply joyous look she always had in her eyes. It never failed to make Tate’s heart ache.
They were supposed to be a family living happily ever after. And here she was in another state, thousands of miles away from the only family she had left in Maryland. All because of him. No, she corrected herself, moving here and starting over had been her decision. Leaving their family high and dry had been Patrick’s. She wouldn’t take the blame for what wasn’t her fault.
She’d loved him enough to alienate herself from her relatives because they didn’t care for him. Had loved him enough to marry him and have his baby. And he’d used her enough to take their savings and all the furniture in their house. Now, nine months after his betrayal, she knew Patrick had never loved her. Their three-year marriage had been a complete lie. And that was fine. She’d resigned herself to that fact, even if Briana’s smile reminded her of it every day.
Another reminder of the mess her marriage had turned out to be was writing this damned column. Each morning she came in to another stack of mail, another stack of someone else’s relationship problems. And she was the one charged with helping them, when she hadn’t been bright enough to see the signs of her own union falling apart. If that wasn’t ironic, she didn’t know what was.
“Okay, get it together, Dennison,” she berated herself. Taking a deep breath, she thought about the letter she’d just read for the second time, about the circumstances and the issues she needed to address.
There were a few. For instance, why was “In love and confused” the only one with gainful employment in this household? What she needed to do was make this boyfriend of hers get a job. “A real job at that,” she said aloud and then chuckled and moved on to the next issue.
“Excuse me?”
The deep male voice startled her, and Tate jumped, backed up and slammed her leg into the side of her desk.
“Damn it!” she swore, leaning over to rub her leg and looking up just as the owner of the voice had moved in to catch her.
“Are you all right?” he asked, touching a hand lightly to her shoulder and leaning over slightly to look at the leg she was rubbing.
The full skirt she had on today was a thin paisley material, and it fell between her legs as she rubbed. She realized with a start how much of her thigh she was actually showing and hurriedly pulled it down.
“I’m fine,” she said, clearing her throat. “Just fine. Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said. Then he took a step back, stood straight, his eyes trained directly on her.
Tate prayed a big gaping hole would open in the middle of this tiny office floor and swallow her up. Embarrassment spread across her cheeks and down her neck in a heated rush. “How can I help you, Mr. Donovan?”
Yes, she told herself in a stern voice, this was Sean Donovan, the boss, or at least one of the bosses. Tate knew that the Donovans owned Infinity and several other media ventures in the Miami area. She’d done her research when she’d applied for the position. He was the younger of the two brothers, the more serious and intense one. Dion was the tall and dangerously handsome one.
For a minute or two—she couldn’t really count right now, but she knew that it seemed like a really long time—he stared at her without speaking.
“Sir?” she prompted, her palms starting to sweat. It was a horrid nervous habit she had. Either her hands sweated or she tripped over her words as if her mind had drawn a blank or her tongue had suddenly become too big for her mouth.
“Call me Sean,” he said. If it were possible, his voice sounded even deeper than it had just seconds ago. “And you’re Mrs. Dennison?”
“Yes, I’m Ms. Dennison.” She clapped her lips shut, appalled that she’d actually stressed the Ms. “I’m Tate,” she said in an effort to correct herself.
“You write the ‘Ask Jenny’ column?”
She nodded. “I do.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets and began looking around her tiny office. He wore a slate-gray suit and a crisp white shirt with an aqua-blue tie. The colors seemed to highlight the buttery tone of his complexion. His head was completely bald, his goatee, full and trim around the bottom half of his face. He was startlingly fine up close, and Tate had to gulp to keep from drooling.
When he stopped looking he turned to her again. Tate shifted from one foot to the other. His stare was intense, as if he were looking straight through to her soul. Her heart hammered, and the palms of her hands sweated profusely.
“Forgive me for staring,” he finally said. He looked away only because he was shaking his head. Then his eyes, the warm brown orbs, seemed to zoom right back in on her. “I just pictured the writer of this column a little differently.”
A ping of offense vibrated through Tate’s chest, and she stood a bit straighter, staring at him with a little more heat than she had been. “I don’t understand your meaning.”
“I thought you’d be older,” he said abruptly.
“Well, I thought you’d be more professional,” she said.
Again her lips clamped shut. Tate needed this job, desperately. But she wasn’t about to be disrespected for the sake of a paycheck.
His hands came out of his pockets and went up into the air as if she’d been trying to stick him up.
“My fault,” he said. There was a twinkle in his eyes, sort of like they were smiling at her. Because his mouth certainly was not. He had the same quizzical expression he’d had when he came in. “I didn’t mean anything by that. Just that from reading the column and the advice provided, I assumed the writer was a more mature, experienced woman.”
“I assure you, Mr. Donovan, I’m very mature. And experience doesn’t make up for common sense. I graduated third in my class with a degree in journalism. I minored in English and have worked on two widely distributed newspapers before coming to Infinity. Is there a problem with my work?”
He was shaking his head before she gave him a chance to answer. “Absolutely not. In fact, I was coming to get a feel for the possibilities.”
As he spoke he took a step closer to her desk. Now, he didn’t look as imposing as he had seconds ago when he’d made his “older” remark. Still, Tate’s thighs began to quiver, and her heart beat a quick rhythm in her chest. She flared her fingers, made a move that she hoped seemed natural and wiped her palms on her skirt. “What kind of possibilities?”
“Maybe we can discuss them over dinner,” he said, his fingers touching the edge of her desk as he leaned forward slightly.
He was a very tall man. And Tate considered herself tall for a woman, at five feet nine inches. Even so, she had to look up at him, into those eyes that seemed so deep and so assessing.
“No,” she snapped. “I can’t go to dinner with you.” She spoke quickly and moved her arms for some unexplainable reason. The action sent her hands flailing until one smacked into a picture frame on her desk, sending it toppling over.
Of course it would fall right in front of him, and of course he’d pick it up and look at it instead of just setting it upright. Or just leaving it alone and getting out of her office.
“Who’s this?” he asked, examining the picture.
Now she was flustered and offended all over again, even though she’d never really calmed down. He’d asked the question as if he deserved an answer. He was her boss, not her man. She took one deep inhale and slowly released the exhale.