The One and Only(13)

“And what about you? I hear you’re striving to become an editor.”

Mallory frowned and shifted her legs again. I sucked my lower lip between my teeth and bit down to keep from groaning while I directed my eyes out the window.

“I didn’t put that on my application,” she said slowly, her eyebrows furrowing together even more. “And I’m pretty sure I never mentioned that to Janice, either.”

I recognized my mistake as soon as her suspicious eyes narrowed. My only options were to lie out of my ass or fess up. Though it pained me to admit, I didn’t want to lie to her.

“I spoke to a few of your professors,” I said casually, hoping she’d accept my response and let it go. It’s not like it was unusual for an employer to vet their potential employees.

“Do you do that will all of your employees?”

Fuck.

If I honestly believed she was fishing in an attempt to gauge my interest or catch me in a lie, I’d be pissed off—and rightly so. But one look at her puzzled expression and I could tell that she was genuinely curious.

“Not once,” I admitted. “Well, I guess it’s once now. Special circumstances.”

Her weight moved the seat, only this time, she was shuffling just slightly closer to me. Her brow was still drawn together in confusion, but her lips were curled in a disbelieving smile.

“Was that before or after we spoke on Monday?”

Since she seemed to be responding well to brutal honesty, I decided to continue the trend.

“Before. And just in case you’re wondering—yes, you’re the first employee I’ve ever gone out with.”

“How did you know?”

I shrugged. “It was a safe bet. I know it’d be on my mind if the roles were reversed.”

“Has anyone ever tried?”

“Sure. But I have the rules in place for a reason. It’s also a good excuse to avoid the awkward rejection conversation. I don’t date much. Don’t have the time for it.”

Mallory cocked her head to the side, regarding me warily as she asked, “Then why are you here?”

“For you, I’ll make time.”





7





Mallory





‘For you, I’ll make time.’

The sentence replayed in my head during the rest of the date. Not only the words themselves, but the intense look he fixed me with as he said them and the smile that followed. It was something I knew I’d never forget. A shift that’d stick with me forever.

The first pang of a potential love.

Brian didn’t strike me as a romantic kind of guy, but I somehow knew he would understand my feelings. Not that I dared to mention them yet. All I could do was hang on to the feeling and hope that one day, we could look back on this together and agree that it was the moment where we really began.

Either that or I was as naive as some people thought I was. But I didn’t care. Not when I found someone who made me so happy.

When he asked the driver to stop a block away from my apartment so we could walk together, I was pleasantly surprised.

When his fingers linked with mine, I started to realize that I might have been wrong in my assumption about him not being romantic.

“This is nice,” I said, laughing with glee as he swung my hand in an exaggerated fashion. “Best first date I’ve ever been on.”

“Really?”

“Really,” I confirmed with a smile. I reluctantly let go of his hand to take two steps up onto my stoop and turned around to face him, grateful to be the one looking down at him for once. I loved tall men, but my neck was sore. “No contest.”

Brian sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and propped one foot on the step. He shoved his hands in his pocket and leaned close as he whispered, “So what’s a man got to do to get a second date with you?”

My heart fluttered wildly at the prospect. Not just because he wanted a second date, but because he was asking what he needed to do to ensure he’d get one.

The truth was, he didn’t have to do anything except ask. But why pass up such a perfect opportunity to get what I had been aching for all night?

“Well...” I started, raising my hand and concentrating hard on keeping my fingers from shaking as I rested my palm on the side of his neck. “You could kiss me.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth and he was pulling himself up to the step below me, his fingers weaving into my hair while his lips captured mine in a searing kiss.

A lot of things happened all at once. Or at least that’s what it felt like to me.

First, I gasped against his lips—not because I had never been kissed before, but because I had never been kissed like that. Brian was different from the other guys I had dated in a lot of ways—and every single difference became crystal clear as he kissed me in the way that a man should always kiss a woman.