But still, a good day's work indeed. He smiled, thinking about Faith's reaction. She was going to be over the moon.
* * *
As Faith picked out a long-stemmed apricot rose from the bucket at her feet, Mary appeared across the bench from her with a folded piece of paper in her hand.
"I've just had a call from head office about you," she said, her voice accusing.
Faith stopped what she was doing and looked up. "About me personally?"
Besides the initial paperwork when she'd started at the store, she hadn't had any direct dealings with the head office other than the impersonal pay slips. She wiped her hands on her apron and waited.
Mary planted her hands on her hips. "Have you been talking to the head office without my knowledge?"
"Of course not," Faith said, and then realized she'd been talking to Dylan on the weekend without her manager knowing. And would be talking to him again about their next two dates. But he had her phone number-he wouldn't be contacting her via her manager.
Hands still on her hips, Mary lifted her chin as she spoke. "It was Anne in Human Resources. They're offering you a promotion."
Faith's breath caught. Hang on...
"A promotion?" she repeated, trying to make sense of it.
"To the head office." Mary thrust the piece of paper at her. "They emailed the details."
Faith took the paper but didn't want to open it in front of the entire store. "I'll be back in a few minutes," she said and went out the back door to the lane. Then she opened the folded email printout.
It was a formal letter of promotion to the head office. To a desk job. She scanned the list of duties and found they were all things that didn't involve customers. Or flowers.
Frustration started simmering in her belly. She'd spent most of her life being told what would happen to her. Announcements would come that she'd be moving to another family member's house the next week, that she'd have to change schools, that her father would be visiting and taking her to a theme park, that he would be returning her to yet another relative afterward. The best thing about being an adult was that she was in charge of her own life.
So getting notice out of the blue saying she was being moved to a desk job that she hadn't applied for and certainly didn't want was particularly unwelcome.
She was ambitious, yes, but not for just any promotion. She had a very clear vision of what she wanted in her career, and this job-being stuck in a boring office, away from customers and the daily joy of working with flowers-wasn't it.
Besides, was this really out of the blue?
She'd kissed the CEO, and in less than a week he'd come to the store for a full-day inspection-something the others said he used to do, but hadn't done since she'd been working there. And now a promotion.
What was Dylan Hawke really up to?
The thought made her uneasy, so she went back through the door and told Mary that she was declining the offer.
* * *
Dylan drove into the parking lot of the Santa Monica store for the third time in a week, still not sure what to make of the call he'd had from Anne telling him Faith had turned down the promotion. With all her ambition, he'd expected her to leap at the opportunity. So, surprised and intrigued, he'd jumped into his car to talk to her face-to-face.
As he walked through the door, Mary dropped what she was doing and headed for him, her face covered in a fawning smile. Faith wasn't in sight, and he was more disappointed than he should have been at not seeing an employee.
Then she walked in from the cold room, carrying a bucket full of flowers. She was wearing black biker boots that almost reached her knees and a bright purple dress that peeked out around the yellow Hawke's Blooms apron. Her wild hair was caught up on top of her head and sprang out in all directions. He only barely resisted a smile-this woman was a force of nature.
Her step faltered when she saw him.
"Mr. Hawke!" Mary said when she reached him, darting suspicious glances at Faith. "Twice in one week. We're honored."
He paused before answering. He hadn't planned what he should say here-how had the offer of the promotion gone down at the store level? Should he mention it now, or play it cool for the moment? He glanced across at her as she pulled stems one by one from the bucket. His gut was telling him not to mention it until he'd at least spoken to Faith.
He smiled at Mary. "I just have a few follow-up questions from the other day."
"Well, I'm at your service," she said, untying the apron strings at her back. "Would you like to talk here, or perhaps at the café next door?"
"Actually, I'd like to talk to Faith if she has a few minutes."
Faith's hands stilled and her face grew pale. He was torn between wanting to reassure her and wanting to demand an explanation. Instead, he turned an expectant expression to Mary.
"Of course, Mr. Hawke. If that's what you want." But her face was sour. She really didn't like Faith getting more attention than her.
"Excellent." He smiled and rocked back on his heels. "You mentioned a café next door?"
Mary's mouth opened and closed again. "Er, yes. Courtney can finish that order. Faith. Can you come and talk to Mr. Hawke, please?"
"Certainly," Faith said, wiping her hands on her apron and removing it. The entire time, she kept her gaze down.
"Thank you," he said to Mary, and then opened the door for Faith and followed her out onto the pavement.
"Have I just made things difficult for you in there?" he asked.
She lifted her chin. "Nothing I can't deal with."
He was beginning to see how true that was. Faith Crawford was most definitely her own woman. From bidding on the CEO of her company at a charity auction to get his attention for her work, to turning down a promotion most of his staff would jump at and not bowing to the head office... The more he got to know this woman, the more he liked her.
They found a secluded booth at the café and ordered coffees.
"I heard you were offered a promotion." He leaned back and rested his arm along the top of the padded vinyl booth. "You turned it down."
The corners of her mouth twitched. "You heard I was offered the job? Are you sure you don't mean you arranged for me to be offered the job?"
He grinned. The fact that she spoke her mind was a very attractive feature. "Okay, I might have had a hand in it. After watching you in the store for a day, I realized your potential was being underutilized, and I implemented a plan to rectify that."
"Is that all it was?" She arched an eyebrow and waited.
"You think it's about more?" His gaze dropped to her mouth, and his pulse picked up speed. "You think you were being promoted because I'd kissed you?"
"Maybe it wasn't that straightforward, but we kissed, and suddenly the store has an all-day inspection and I get offered a job in the head office. Tell me that's not a coincidence." Her gaze didn't waver, challenging him to be honest.
"It's not a coincidence, but it's not direct cause and effect, either-there were steps in between. When you talked about your store and your designs not being submitted for the catalog, it made me wonder what was going on here, and I came to check it out. That's when I realized your potential."
She tapped her nails on the table, but the rest of her barely moved. "So it wasn't payback of some kind? Or a way to assuage your guilt about kissing an employee?"
"I don't work that way." He tried not to be insulted, given that she didn't know him very well, but it was good at least to have her concerns addressed now, before they had their other two dates. "I passed your name to HR with a suggestion that they check you out. They arranged a couple of people to come in as customers and ask for you so they could see your skills and how you interact with customers, and then one of the staff from the head office dropped in to see Mary and watched you while she was there. Her name was Alison-she chatted to you for a while on your break, apparently. You earned this completely on your own merits."
She looked into his eyes for a long moment and then nodded. "I believe you."
Their coffees arrived, and she tipped a packet of sugar into her cappuccino. He watched her hands as they worked-as efficient and graceful with a sugar packet as they were with flowers. What would they be like on his body? Fluttering over his neck and collarbone. Trailing a path down his chest, his abdomen.
He tore his gaze away and stirred cream into his own coffee. "Did you turn the job down because you thought you hadn't earned it?"