one bit. He put a hand on Abby’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll call you tomorrow so we can go over the list of concerns.” His hand dropped as he faced Spence again and nodded. “Mr. Jameson.”
Yeah, whatever. “Rylan.”
Spence watched the engineer leave. He’d never had such a sudden negative reaction to a person in his life. Rylan could have said anything and Spence would have disliked him.
Abby leaned back with her hands resting on the table on either side of her hips. “Heavy-handed as always, I see.”
Facing her head-on, without a buffer, tested the defenses he’d thrown up against her. He shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t mean anything. If only his brain and his body would listen to that order.
Despite standing ten feet apart, Spence felt a familiar sensation spark inside him. Desire mixed with lust and a bit of confusion. The intensity hit him full force.
“Did I interrupt your date?”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. Because I’m incapable of meeting with a man without crawling all over him.”
“You said it, not me.”
She exhaled loud enough to let him know she had better things to do. “What do you want?”
She didn’t back down. He’d always loved that about her. The boss-employee boundaries didn’t mean much to her. If she had a thought, she said it. If she disagreed, she let him know. She’d been tactful in not making angry announcements in the office lunchroom, but she wasn’t the type to coddle a man’s ego, either.
He’d found that sexy. So sexy even as his life crumbled around him and his relationship with his father, which had never been good, disintegrated.
“Is that how you talk to your boss?” He figured he may as well try to reestablish the lines between them. Like it or not, they had to figure out a way to tolerate each other.
For him, it meant ignoring the way she walked and the sound of her voice. Forgetting that he once was willing to go against his father to be with her. But he had to smash all of those feelings, all that vulnerability, now.
“Is that what you are? Last I checked, you ran out of the office and never looked back. If this were a cartoon, you would have left a man-size hole in the wall.” She smiled for the first time.
“I’d had a surprise.” As if that was the right word for seeing the woman you wanted locked in the arms of a father who turned out to be a constant disappointment.
She pushed away from the table. Without looking at him, she finished straightening the stacks of files. Made each edge line up. “You still think you’re the victim then?”
“You were kissing my father.”
She glanced over at him again. “Why are you here, Spence?”
No denial, but just like the last time they’d talked—yelled and argued with each other—and a hint of sadness settled in her big brown eyes. Her shoulders fell a bit and for just a second, she didn’t look like the confident, in-charge woman he knew her to be.
He had no idea what that meant. But he did have a job to do. “This is an important project and—”
“I mean in DC.” She picked up the stack of files and hugged them tight to her chest. “Are you back permanently?”
He hated that question. Derrick had asked it. People at the company had asked. The guy at the rental car company wanted to know. Spence gave her the same answer he’d given to everyone for three weeks. “Derrick needs some help.”
“Huh.” She frowned at him as her gaze wandered over his face. “I don’t really think of you as the type to drop everything and come running to assist someone else.”
Charming. “It’s not as if we know each other all that well, do we?”
“I guess not.” She bent down and picked up her bag. She looked cleaned up and ready to bolt.
“Derrick’s fiancée has a health issue,” he said.
The anger drained from Abby’s face. So did some of the color. She took a step forward with her hand out, but dropped her arm right before she touched him. “Did something new go wrong with the pregnancy?”
“You know about that?” Sure, the pregnancy had been on the gossip sites. One of the playboy Jameson heirs settling down was big news. Their lives had been followed and dissected for years. Every mistake highlighted. Every girlfriend photographed. The rumors, the lies. But the family hadn’t confirmed the pregnancy because it was too soon and too personal. “Are you two friends?”
Abby’s expression went blank. “You sound horrified by the idea.”
Admittedly, he was acting like a jerk, as if everything was about him. Ellie, Derrick’s fiancée, needed support. Spence got that. But still... “Well, it will be a bit uncomfortable, don’t you think?”
“As uncomfortable as this conversation?”
For some reason, the response knocked the wind right out of him. He almost smiled, but managed to beat it back at the last minute. “Look, we’re going to need to get along.”
She shrugged. “Why?”
Man, she had not changed one bit. “Why?”
“You’ve been back for three weeks and we’ve successfully avoided each other. I say we keep doing that.”
She sounded aloof and unaffected, but he could see her white-knuckle grip on the files. Much tighter and she’d cut off circulation to her fingers. In fact, this close he saw everything. The flecks of gold around the outside of her eyes. The slight tremor in her hands.
He could smell her, that heady mix of ginger and something sweet. It was her shampoo and it floated to him now.
He inhaled, trying to calm the heartbeat pounding in his ears. “Now who’s running?”
“Do you really want to have this conversation? Because we can.” She took one more step. The move left little more than a whisper of air between them. “I’m not the one who saw something, misinterpreted it and then threw the mother of all hissy fits.”
The air in the room closed in around him. He could actually feel it press against his back. “Misinterpreted?”
“You’re offended by my word choice?”
“You were kissing my father!” He shouted the accusation loud enough to make the walls shake.
A sharp silence descended on them right after. In the quiet, she retreated both physically and emotionally. The air seemed to seep right out of her.
“That’s what you think you saw.” Not a question. Not really even a statement. She said the words and let them sit there.
The adrenaline shooting through him refused to ease off. “Hell, yes!”
“You can let yourself out.” She walked around him and headed for the door.
“Hey.” His hand brushed against her arm. He dropped it again when she glared at him. “Fine. No touching.”
“None.” Which sounded like not ever.
Regret plowed into him. He came here for them to talk this out. He’d gone into the computer and looked up her schedule. Came here unannounced, thinking he’d have the upper hand.
“I want us to be civil toward each other,” he said as he struggled to bring his voice back under control.
She shook her head. “No.”
“What?” He’d been the one to offer the olive branch. He hadn’t insisted on an apology or that she take responsibility. But she still came out swinging and didn’t stop.
“You lied to me,” she said