lunch if we don’t put our skates on,” she said.
“I’m ready to go. I thought we could walk together.”
“Oh. Great idea. Except I’ve still got one last call to make. And I don’t want to make you late, too,” she fibbed. “Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll see you at the restaurant? “
Again, she didn’t give him a chance to object, brushing past him and walking toward her office. She didn’t let her breath out until she was through the doorway and safely out of sight.
This was why it always paid to keep work and her private life separate. She lifted the sheaf of papers and smacked them against her forehead. From now on, anything to do with her personal life stayed at home and was handled after nine to five. No exceptions.
As for Ethan … He would get the message. He’d have to, because she wasn’t exposing herself any more than she already had. The sooner they both forgot her breakdown last night, the better.
ETHAN WATCHED ALEX disappear into her office, a frown on his face. In the two years he’d worked with her, she’d never once had trouble meeting his eye—except for today. Mind you, she’d also never let him as close as she had last night. Prior to that, the most personal topic they’d discussed had been her hatred of black cherries. To be fair, he hadn’t volunteered the intimate details about his own life, either, but he’d always had the sense that even if he’d tried to get closer to Alex she would have kept him at arm’s length. She was happy to joke and spar and compete with him, but anything deeper than that was out of bounds. It had never really bothered him before, but today he felt distinctly pissed that he’d been shut out.
He straightened his cuffs and buttoned his suit jacket and told himself to get over it. It wasn’t as though he was in the market for a new bosom buddy—he had his brother and a handful of mates he could rely on to have his back. And it definitely wasn’t that he was keen to play Dr. Phil and pass the tissues. It was no skin off his nose if Alex didn’t want to share.
He was about to head for the elevator when a blinking red light caught his eye. The printer Alex had been hovering over so urgently was jammed.
He couldn’t say what made him open the various flaps and trays to check for a paper jam. Perhaps it was because Alex had been so jumpy and furtive. Or maybe some other instinct guided him.
Whatever it was, it took him only seconds to find the culprit—a single page that had folded in on itself instead of exiting to the out tray. He pulled it free and straightened it, shaking toner dust off his fingers.
He scanned the first few lines but comprehension was a few moments in coming. His head came up and he turned to stare toward Alex’s office.
What on earth …?
Surely she wasn’t seriously thinking …?
He took a step, the incriminating evidence in hand, then stopped. What was he going to say to her? Hadn’t he just established for himself that their friendship was limited to work and the racquetball court? That she didn’t want to discuss her private life?
He slowly folded the sheet in half, then into quarters before slipping it into his jacket pocket. He went to join the rest of the partners for lunch.
He had it right the first time—this was nothing to do with him.
CHAPTER THREE
ETHAN KEPT AN EYE OUT for Alex as the rest of the partners arrived and seated themselves in the private dining room at Grossi Florentino, but she didn’t slip through the door until a good ten minutes after everyone else was perusing the menu.
He watched as she made her excuses and took the last remaining chair between Keith Lancaster and Toby Kooperman at the other end of the table. She smiled at Keith when he said something, then leaned back to allow the waiter to place a napkin across her knees. He returned his attention to his menu, but the sound of her laughter drew his gaze.
She had one hand pressed to her chest and her eyes shone with amusement as she talked animatedly with Keith. Ethan watched the tilt of her head and the flush in her cheeks and the way she gestured with her hands and had to remind himself that it was none of his business that she was planning to buy frozen semen from some faceless donor in the U.S. because she was afraid she’d missed the boat. It was her life, her decision. Nothing to do with him.
And yet.
She was only thirty-eight years old and she was an attractive, sexy woman. Not conventionally beautiful, perhaps, but incredibly appealing with her rich brown eyes and chestnut hair. More than once when they’d been lunching together he’d found himself fixating on her mouth, with its lush, full lower lip. She was smart, too, and funny. If she hadn’t been a fellow partner and if he hadn’t instinctively known that she was not the kind of woman who did casual affairs, he would have asked her out long ago. There had to be a bunch of men out there who would give their eyeteeth to meet someone like her.
And yet she was planning on using a sperm donor to become pregnant. It simply didn’t make sense to him that a woman with as much as she had to offer was taking such a compromised route to motherhood. He wanted to push back his chair, grab her arm and drag her somewhere private so he could point out that she was selling herself short, big-time.
He didn’t. She’d made it more than clear that they didn’t have the sort of friendship that invited that kind of straight talking. They were work buddies. Good for a little bitching about office politics, a joke at the water cooler and a weekly workout. That was it.
He dragged his gaze away, joining in the conversation around him. As with most partner lunches, the wine flowed freely and the room became noisier as the meal progressed. Ethan stuck to one glass since he had a heavy afternoon schedule and kept an eye on the time. Occasionally, against his will, he found himself watching Alex and his mind did a loop of the same circle of thoughts. He repeated his mantra—nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you—and returned his attention to his end of the table.
He decided to give it twenty more minutes before he made his apologies when Alex pushed back her chair and stood.
“Well, someone has to pay for this lunch,” she said. “I’d better get to it.”
Laughter greeted her announcement as he pushed back his own chair.
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
She looked at him and he caught a flash of unease in her eyes. He crossed to the door and waited for her to join him.
“I don’t think they’ll be billing many hours this afternoon,” he murmured as they made their way through the restaurant.
Her gaze flashed toward him before skittering away again.
“Probably just as well, given the way they’re working their way through the wine list.”
They both stopped when they reached the double front doors. Outside, the sky was a dark, leaden gray, and rain was pouring down.
“Good old Melbourne,” Alex said, then she glanced ruefully at her shoes. “What are the odds of us finding a taxi that’ll take us half a block up the road?”
He didn’t bother responding, simply flipped up the collar on his suit jacket.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She sighed and turned up the collar on her own jacket.
He was about to open the door when a waiter rushed to their side carrying a large golf umbrella.
“With our compliments,” he said, offering the umbrella to Ethan.
“Thank you. We’ll get it back to you this afternoon,” he said.
Although given the amount of money the firm would drop on lunch, the restaurant could afford to give every partner an umbrella and still come out on top.
He held the door open and Alex stepped out under the restaurant’s portico. He followed, breathing in