“Hi.” She straightened, and her tummy fluttered.

“How are you?”

“Good. I’m good.”

“You’re at work?”

“Yes. You?”

“Yup. Monday mornings. Hate ’em.”

She laughed softly and leaned back in her chair. “I know. Me too.”

“How’s Andrew this morning? Did we pull it off?”

“Um, yeah. He’s…well, let’s just say our first meeting this morning was very businesslike.”

“Good.” His voice deepened.

“What happened between you and him?” The question popped right out.

“Uh.” A heavy beat of silence, then another. “He didn’t tell you?”

“He said I should ask you.”

“Well. It’s a long story. Why don’t I tell you over dinner one evening?”

Dinner? Was he asking her out? What was this?

This wasn’t a normal situation. This wasn’t your usual post-first-date phone call. Because they hadn’t really dated. They’d just been pretending.

But they sure as hell hadn’t been pretending to have scorching hot sex.

“Are you asking me out?” she said, throwing all the usual dating rules out the window. “Like, for real? Because you don’t have to, you know. You offered to come to the picnic…” She suddenly became aware that although her cubicle had walls on three sides, it wasn’t exactly private and anyone nearby could hear her conversation. “Er, maybe this isn’t a good time to talk about this.”

“How about over dinner?” he said again, amusement shading his voice and making her instantly wet.

Oh, this was crazy.

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“Tomorrow night. What time do you get home?”

That all depended on how long she wanted to stay at the office. With nothing but Lean Cuisines and her television to lure her away, she often worked late into the evening. “By about six.”

“Pick you up at six thirty, then. Did you get your car yesterday?”

“Oh. Yeah. Myra took me there. We went antiquing yesterday afternoon.”

“Find anything good?”

“I’ll tell you over dinner.” She smiled, all warm and tingly inside, leaning back in her chair.

He laughed softly. “Okay. Good. See you tomorrow.”

She clicked her phone shut and leaned her head back, staring up at the white acoustic tiles of the office ceiling. Well. What was this? Maybe the sex had meant more to him than just getting turned on by pretending to be in lust. Did that even make sense? She shook her head.

Myra, with her usual logic and reason, had been most helpful in convincing her that she hadn’t made a mistake by having sex with him, pointing out that Shelby had had a number of extremely satisfying orgasms—okay that didn’t even begin to describe how hot they’d been—and she’d definitely gotten something out of the night too. So she’d managed to come to terms with the fact that she’d had a hot one-night stand and she was okay with it, but she couldn’t help the deep-down little wish that it could happen again.

Because even though it had all been an act, or was supposed to have been an act, the truth was she’d had a lot of fun with Jake, both Friday night when they’d talked over drinks, then at the picnic and even in bed. Well, fun might not be the best word to describe the sex—how about off-the-freakin’-charts hot? Whatever. She liked him. And though she really didn’t want to admit she harbored secret feelings like this—she kinda wanted to see him again.

“Are you okay, Shelby?”

She jerked upright and blinked at Andrew standing at the entrance to her cubicle, his wide shoulders in the expensive suit jacket taking up much of the opening.

“Oh.” Heat washed into her cheeks. “Yes. Sorry. I was just thinking about…uh…the project charter.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “Sure. Listen, I need to reschedule the status update meeting tomorrow. I’m going to be in other meetings with Carl all day.” He named the CEO of Gold Shield Insurance. “I’ll be done by five, so I thought maybe we could grab dinner and do the update while we eat.”

“Tomorrow?” She stared back at him. “I can’t. I’m having dinner with Jake tomorrow night.”

“But this is important, Shelby.”

“It’s just a status update. We can do it Wednesday morning.”

“My schedule is full Wednesday.”

Shit, shit, shit. Would this never end? She did not want to have dinner with him! “Well, then I’ll email you the status reports and you can look them over.”

Andrew’s mouth tightened but he nodded. “Okay. But I need them for my meetings Wednesday afternoon with the project business units.”

She gazed after him as he walked away, rolling her lips in. Oh hell. A string of curses ran through her mind. This tension between them wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted.

Jake pulled up in front of Shelby’s apartment building and parked on the street. He’d hardly even noticed what the building looked like the other night—it had been dark, and besides that, he’d been in a total fog of lust. He grinned, remembering their frantic entrance that night.

He studied the white stucco building with its arched windows and red tiled roof as he walked up the brick sidewalk. Only three stories high, there were probably only about twelve apartments in the Spanish-style edifice. Palm trees lined the front of the building, their fronds swaying gently in the soft evening breeze.

A moment later he knocked on Shelby’s door and waited for her to open it. When she did so, he swept his gaze from the top of her shiny blonde hair down over a loose, drapey top that slipped low on one shoulder, a short denim skirt sitting low on her hips, and all the way down her bare legs to her pink-polished toes in a pair of sandals. Oh yeah. She had it going on.

He smiled at her and her answering smile warmed him.

“Hey.”

“Come on in. I’m ready to go. I’ll just get a sweater and my purse.”

He followed her into the small entrance, once again taking in the details he’d completely missed the other night—shiny hardwood floors, the potted palm next to the chocolate brown leather sofa sitting in front of the arched window, a floor lamp at the other end creating a soft illumination in the room. A glass and wrought iron coffee table sat on a rug patterned in shades of brown and moss green and gold.

Shelby disappeared down the short hall to the bedroom they’d headed directly to last time.

“So what did you find on your antiquing trip?” he called to her.

“Oh.” Her voice drifted down the hall. “I’ll show you. Hang on a sec.”

He wandered across the living room and paused in front of an old bookcase filled with white dishes, all different shapes and sizes. He turned as he heard Shelby’s flip flops on the wood floor. “That’s my ironstone collection,” she told him with a smile. “I found two new pieces—this pitcher and this soup tureen.”

“Uh-huh.” Didn’t do much for him, but she seemed happy.

“And I got this chandelier.” She turned and lifted a metal chandelier that had been painted shiny white. “We found this great little shop up the coast in Seaview. The woman who owns it fixes things up and sells them. Usually I like to fix things myself, but she does such a nice job! Look at this.”

Again, he nodded. “Where are you going to put it?”

“Above my table.” She pointed to the ordinary fixture on the ceiling that no doubt came with the apartment. “I’ll have to get an electrician in, I guess.”

“I could do it.” The words just popped out.

“Really? You know how to do that? Without electrocuting yourself?”

She looked so impressed he couldn’t help the masculine pride that expanded in his chest. “Yeah. Of course.”

“That would be awesome!” She set the fixture back on the floor. “And I got this little table. It’s already refinished just how I would do it.” She stroked her hand across the surface of the golden oak table. “Isn’t it nice?”

“Yeah.” Her entire apartment was furnished with those kinds of pieces, he realized, scanning the room and noticing more details—the old floor lamp with a new-looking shade, the antique pedestal-style dining table with six chairs, none of which matched. At all. “Looks like you’re really into antiques.”