“Oh.” Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Is the refrigerator in the basement broken?”
“Nope. I thought I’d make you dinner tonight to celebrate making the fundraising goal for the year.”
“What do you mean? I need two hundred and fifty thousand for the year.”
“Yep.” He placed a stick of butter and a bottle of wine in her refrigerator. “I’ll have it by the end of this weekend, if not today.”
“What are you going to do for the rest of the month?” Her stomach lurched at the thought of him walking out of her life so quickly. She didn’t want him to leave yet. Being the only remaining full-time employee at the Foundation bothered her. Sure, she had the kids, but they weren’t her peers, people she could confide in if needed.
“I’m going to raise money.” He grinned. “Unless you want me to stop, but judging from the condition of the building, overfunding the Foundation isn’t possible. The building needs a new paint job on the exterior and interior, the gym floors need to be refinished.” He shrugged. “The whole place needs to be updated.”
“I’d hate to invest all that money in the building when the lease is only for another year. I can’t count on the owners renewing the lease. I think they’d like to sell it.”
“They want to sell it?” His eyes narrowed.
“That’s what I’ve heard.” She took a sip of the coffee she’d abandoned on the counter. “The rumor is that a few developers are interested in demolishing the Foundation and building apartments for college kids.”
“How much?”
“How much what?”
“What do they want for the building?”
“I don’t know. It can’t be much. You’ve probably noticed that the building is in shambles.”
“I’ll find out.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to find a way to buy it.”
She laughed. “You think?”
He smiled. It was only a small lopsided grin, but her heart may have skipped a beat or two. “I know so.” He folded up the paper grocery bags and stacked them next to the sink. “I have some stuff to take care of today so I won’t see you at the Foundation, but I’ll be here at six to make you dinner.”
“Oh.” She hesitated, not sure how to respond. Dinner sounded nice, but dinner with Alec probably wouldn’t be a good thing, at least for her. The tiny spark of interest she felt on the first day she met him was growing at an unsustainable pace. By this rate, she’d be professing her undying love for him in a week or two. Oh hell, who was she kidding, by the end of dinner she’d be at his mercy. “I’ll probably work late again. I can’t seem to finish everything that needs to be done.”
“Hire another person.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. The Foundation has the money.”
“It’s not officially in the account.”
“It’s being wired today.”
“I don’t like to mix business and…” She halted her words midsentence because it suddenly seemed insanely presumptuous of her to assume that Alec wanted to mix anything with business. He claimed to be kidding about the whole women throwing themselves at him comment, but she had a strong suspicion it was true.
Within seconds, Alec closed the space between them, not close enough to touch her, but close enough for her to feel the electricity zinging between them, bouncing off the walls, filling her lungs, making her throat constrict. Holy shit. This man did crazy things to her.
“What exactly are we mixing here, Little Violet?” The way he asked the question, as though he were the big bad wolf and she Little Red Riding Hood, made her knees tremble and her breath kick up a notch.
Her eyes searched his, scanning for what she didn’t know—maybe the real Alec beneath his veneer of danger and angst and a whole lot of anger. And while she couldn’t see anything through his enigmatic mask, she didn’t feel threatened. There was something about him that made her feel safe and alive. Tattoos, lip ring, and scars be damned.
She shook her head and looked down at their feet nearly touching. “I don’t know…maybe nothing.”
“Hm.” His hands cupped her face and then his lips skimmed across hers, igniting all kinds of internal fireworks and alarms as her life turned upside down and inside out. “Maybe something.”
He was so close to her she could see every little detail of his face—the small crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the dark blue rim around his irises, the dark stubble forming at his jaw line. And then her eyes dropped to his mouth, cataloguing every dip, curve and yes…his lip ring. She barely felt it before, and she felt a little bereft, like she’d missed out on the full experience.