“What is it you’re here to fix?” she demanded.
“Your grandmother says you need shelves.”
Her cheeks turned a soft pink. “You don’t have to help with my shelves. I can do a Google search for a solution after work.”
“A solution? So, it’s a challenge? This I’ve got to see.” He reached for her doorknob.
Her hand got there first. His covered hers for an instant, before he politely pulled back. He ignored the warmth of her skin, but not the flash of awareness in her eyes or the deepening blush on her cheeks. She’d felt something, too.
So much for a hungry man ignoring food in his path.
She frowned. “Shouldn’t you be working? It’s almost nine o’clock.” She blinked, as if realizing she wasn’t at work, either. “I’ve already made some phone calls and sent some emails. I was getting ready to leave to spray the main winery building again with anti-skunk-smell solution.”
“The only thing I have on my work schedule today is a review of the equipment purchases you’re proposing and a phone call to my broker.” He planned on puttering around town spending time with the girls. But lurking on his mental agenda was Christine’s agreement to his five-year growth plan. That required time spent together. Logical time. Businesslike time. Time to discuss where their differing points of view converged.
Building shelves in her bedroom while she left for the winery wasn’t a good idea. Unless... “We can build the shelves together. An exercise in team building.”
“Team building?” She mulled that over as slowly as a sip of fine wine.
“We need to learn to trust each other.” His voice had dropped very low. He cleared his throat. “So we can agree on how we build and grow the winery, year after year.”
He hadn’t been tempted by her in an expensive business suit, but there was something about Christine in her work clothes that was a lawsuit waiting to happen. He couldn’t let his guard down. This was about employee buy-in.
“Fine.” She opened her bedroom door.
Her windows faced south. The sun bounced cheerfully off yellow walls, drawing him in. The room was brighter than his house had been in years. A small narrow bureau stood next to the bed, cluttered with framed pictures. Cardboard moving boxes were stacked in one corner. Slade would never have admitted to longing for a mere double bed, but hers, with its puffy golden comforter, was luxurious compared to the hard twin bed he’d been sleeping on for months.
She crossed the room and opened the closet, which was a smaller version of the master-bedroom closet in his house, the closet where his father hung himself.
Air left his lungs in a rush. Slade looked away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her move boxes out of the closet, making a new stack in another corner. One box flap opened, revealing several designer shoe boxes.
Slade remained by the door, breathing fast and shallow. His hand drifted to his tie, traced the silk upward to the knot at his throat. “You don’t...you don’t want shelves on the wall?”
The twins peeked in around him.
“No. In the closet. On this side.” She patted the closet wall.
He didn’t do closets. Ever. But she’d drawn his gaze to this one, until he was fixated on the bare closet rod. Instead of seeing it smooth and empty, he saw a rod with a belt attached.