“It’s one thing to joke around about me calling you boss in bed, but it’s another thing entirely for you to be my actual boss. We slept together, and the attraction between us is still there. It would make it incredibly difficult for us to work together. The barn door is already open so to speak, and leaving it as a one-night stand won’t close it.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. And this day had started out so well…
Chapter 3
I had a reputation for being unflappable in the field. Nothing ever threw me for a loop. But when I walked through the door to the office and found Xander on the other side of it, I was stunned. In an instant, I went from excited anticipation for the position I was about to take, to crushing disappointment. There was no way in hell I could work for Xander after the night we’d spent together. There went the job that would allow me to stay in Atlanta and see what could build between us. And judging from the look on his gorgeous face, I was going to have a hell of a time convincing Xander how obvious it was that I couldn’t take the job.
“I don’t mix business and pleasure.”
“Don’t,” he growled, his dark eyes popping open and meeting mine with a burning intensity that had me taking a step backwards.
I didn’t have anywhere to go, though, since the closed door was right behind me. “Xander,” I whispered, my sadness over the situation in which we found ourselves filling my voice.
“No,” he barked. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to you boil us down to less than what we really are.”
Even though my heart raced at the way his voice got raspy, I couldn’t let it sway me. “It was one night—” I started, but he didn’t let me finish my thought.
“Enough of your one-night bullshit,” he hissed, pinning me to the door with his hard body while his hands pressed against it on either side of my head. “It was the first night of many—something which we were both on the same page about when we parted ways this morning, damn it.”
I dropped my head onto his chest. “That was before I walked in here and discovered you were the guy I was interviewing with.”
“That’s an excuse, and I’m not willing to accept it. Nothing’s really changed.”
My head snapped back up, and my spine straightened. If he was trying to go about convincing me to take the job and keep him in my bed, he was doing a shitty job of it. Pissing me off was definitely not the way to go. “It’s not an excuse,” I spat out. “It’s the reality of our situation.”
“Our reality is that you’re going to damn well learn how to mix business and pleasure because you’re going to spend your days working with me and your nights in my bed.”
“You can’t force me to take the job!”
His eyes narrowed, and his jaw hardened with determination. “Fight me for it.”
“What?” I sputtered, my hands pushing at his chest while I tried to figure out what the hell he was getting at.
“You heard me. You win, you don’t have to take the job. But if I win, you’re going to work here, and I don’t want to hear any more bullshit about us being a one-night stand.”
His voice rang with confidence—too fucking much of it. I was a woman in a man’s world, which meant I was used to being underestimated on a regular basis. It had irritated me in the past, but it hurt like hell to think Xander believed it would be easy to defeat me on the mat. “You might want to think twice before you challenge me. Many others have done it before you, assuming I’d be an easy target. They learned the hard way, each and every time, exactly how stupid they were. I’m just that damn good.”
He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, aiming towards his desk. “Based on the sheer volume of redacted information in your file, I’m expecting you to be incredibly skilled.”
I was uncomfortable thinking about him reading my file, even the little information they would have given him access to. After the way we met, the night we’d spent together, I didn’t see Xander as a colleague. He was the man I wanted to date, and I wanted him to look at me the same way. But at the same time, I also didn’t want him to see me as anything less than his equal. His willingness to put our potential future together on the line made me wonder if he really did, though. “Then why the challenge?”
“Because I’m that fucking good, too. And my motivation will give me the edge.”
That was a damn good answer. “Okay, you’re on,” I conceded.
“Let’s go.” He grabbed my hand and yanked me away from the door to open it.