would be totally crazy.”
“He really has you flustered,” Chelsea mused.
“It looks like Ty could use a hand behind the bar.”
“He’s fine.” Then her attention shifted, and her lips curved. “Although maybe I should vacate this stool for a customer—because there’s one headed in this direction who should be able to make you forget the mystery kisser and probably your own name.”
Allison turned her head to follow her friend’s gaze and sucked in a breath when her eyes locked with Nathan Garrett’s cool gray ones.
She immediately turned back to Chelsea. “Are you crazy? He’s practically my boss.”
She didn’t know if it was the words or the heat that she could feel infusing her cheeks, but somehow her response magically tied all of the loose threads together for her friend.
“It was him,” Chelsea stated. “You kissed Nathan Garrett.”
“He kissed me,” she clarified. “And it was only because of the mistletoe.”
“If he’d kissed me, I wouldn’t have let it end there.”
“You mean he hasn’t kissed you?”
Her friend’s brows lifted. “I know he has a reputation, but it isn’t all bad. In fact—” she grinned “—most of it is very good. And if he’s half as good a kisser as his brother Daniel, I can understand why your pulse is still racing.”
“My pulse isn’t still racing,” she denied.
Chelsea just smiled, rising from her stool as the soon-to-be CFO slid onto the vacant seat on Allison’s opposite side.
“What can I get for you, Nate?” Chelsea asked, returning to her position behind the bar.
“I’ll have a Pepsi.”
“Straight up or on the rocks?”
He smiled. “On the rocks.”
The bartender stepped away to pour his soda, and Nate turned to Allison. “You skipped out early today.”
She shook her head. “I only take a half-hour lunch each day so I can finish at four on Fridays.”
“I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Is that going to be a problem, Mr. Garrett?”
“I don’t see why it would.”
Allison picked up her wine, set it down again. Dammit—Chelsea was right. Her pulse was racing and her knees were weak, and there was no way she could sit here beside him, sharing a drink and conversation and not think about the fact that her tongue had tangled with his.
“I think I’m going to call it a night.”
“You haven’t finished your wine,” he pointed out.
“I’m not much of a drinker.”
“Stay,” he said.
She lifted her brows. “I don’t take orders from you outside of the office, Mr. Garrett.”
“Sorry—your insistence on calling me ‘Mr. Garrett’ made me forget that we weren’t at the office,” he told her. “Please, will you keep me company for a little while?”
“I’m sure there are any number of other women here who will happily keep you company when I’m gone.”
“I don’t want anyone else’s company,” he told her.
“Mr. Garrett—”
“Nate.”
She sighed. “Why?”
“Because it’s my name.”
“I meant, why do you want my company?”
“Because I like you,” he said simply.
“You don’t even know me.”
His gaze skimmed down to her mouth, lingered, and she knew he was thinking about the kiss they’d shared. The kiss she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.
“So give me a chance to get to know you,” he suggested.
“You’ll have that chance when you’re in the CFO’s office.”
She frowned at the plate of pita bread and spinach dip that Chelsea slid onto the bar in front of her. “I didn’t order this.”
“But you want it,” her friend said, and the wink that followed suggested she was referring to more than the appetizer.
“Actually, I want my bill. It’s getting late and...” But her friend had already turned away.
She was tempted to walk out and leave Chelsea to pick up the tab, but the small salad she’d made for her own dinner after Dylan had gone was a distant memory and she had no willpower when it came to the Bar Down’s three-cheese spinach dip.
Allison blew out a breath and picked up a grilled pita triangle. “The service here sucks.”
“I’ve always found that the company of a beautiful woman makes up for many deficiencies.”
It was, she was sure, just one of a thousand similar lines that tripped easily off of his tongue. And while she wanted to believe that she was immune to such an obvious flirtatious ploy, the heat pulsing through her veins proved otherwise.
Then he smiled—that slow, sexy smile that never failed to make her skin tingle. It had been a long time since she’d been an active participant in the games men and women played—so long, in fact, that she wasn’t sure she even knew the rules anymore.
What she did know was that Nathan Garrett was way out of her league.
Nate didn’t usually have any trouble reading a woman’s signals, but while Allison’s words were denying any interest, the visible racing of her pulse beneath her ear said something completely different.
She didn’t want to want him, but she did. That wasn’t arrogance but fact, and one that was supported by the memory of the kiss they’d shared. A kiss that, for some inexplicable reason, she was pretending had never happened. He was tempted to ask her why, but he decided it wasn’t the time or the place. Because he knew if he pushed, she’d just walk away—and he didn’t want her to walk away.
So he picked up his glass and gestured to the plate in front of her. “Are you going to share that?”
She took her time chewing, as if thinking about his request. Then she shrugged and nudged the plate so that it was between them.
He’d eaten dinner with his brother, but she didn’t know that, so he selected a piece of bread and dunked it. He was usually a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, but the grilled bread in the warm cheesy spinach dip was surprisingly tasty. “This is good,” he said.
“And addictive,” Allison agreed, popping another piece into her mouth. “Which is why I rarely come here.”
“Not because of the poor service?”
Her lips curved, just a little. “That, too.”
Her smile, reluctant though it was, stirred something low in his belly.
She was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, her sexiness tempered by sweet. Definitely attractive, just not his type. Or so he’d always thought. He’d had countless conversations with her, sat in numerous meetings beside her, and never felt anything more than mild interest.
Until the Christmas party.
When Allison walked into the ballroom that night, it was as if a switch had flicked inside him, causing awareness to course