The Boss's Proposal (11 page)

Max shrugged. “I think it depends on when his client yanks his chain.”

“Either way, the chances of anybody finding out in that span of time are minuscule. It's not like he's going to say anything. I don't think you have a problem.”

Max's cell phone rang and she stared at it as though it were a scorpion. “Then what do I do?”

“It comes down to what you want out of it.” Glory hopped down off the fence and stood next to her again. “You've got a gorgeous man who drives you wild in bed and is house trained. The way I see it, you've got three options. Option one, you can keep it going for the rest of the time he's here and store up enough orgasms for the rest of your life. Option two, you can keep it going for a couple of very busy days and cut it off, or option three, put the brakes on right now. You tell him it's over, you're done, that once was enough.” Glory looked at her. “Was once enough?”

Max thought of the feel of his hands, the taste of his mouth, the way his eyes glinted with mischief when he smiled at her. And the bubble of joy she felt when they were finally together. She thought of it all before she slowly, unwillingly shook her head.
“No.” She could feel the smile spread over her face. “Once is oh, so very far from enough.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Glory said. “I think we have a winner.”

“I
'm so glad you could make it.” Susan Harding, the red-haired nurse, bustled up as Max and Dylan walked into the oncology department. “Like I said, we've got the go-ahead from the higher-ups, so as long as the patients agree to talk to you, you can just walk around the ward.”

If he ever had to appoint a goodwill ambassador, he would choose Max, Dylan thought. She had a genuine skill. She didn't just walk up to people and start grilling them, she got to know them. It only took a smile, and she got them to relax and open up. Instead of asking questions, it became a matter of letting them talk.

“I've been in here for a week.” Joanie Benjamin
rolled her eyes. “I am so starved to see something green and growing I can actually touch, I could scream. I mean, it's high summer. It's gorgeous out there but I'm stuck behind these walls. Even with the windows, I might as well be looking at a photograph or something on TV. I'd just like to get outside but…” She gestured to the tubes and machines connected to her. “Can you do anything for someone like me?”

Max glanced at Dylan. “I don't know. We'll do our best.”

Joanie laughed. “That generally means no. After three years of this damn disease, I've gotten very good at detecting nonanswer answers.”

“I'll tell you what,” Max said. “Once we get the design and get it finalized, we'll get you an answer.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

They moved down the hall to the next patient and before Dylan knew it, the woman had opened up her wallet and was showing Max photos of her grandchildren.

“I had my surgery, and my kids were here around the clock,” the woman said.

“What would you have different about the building if you could have anything, Florine?” Max asked.

“Besides a decent waiting room? Easy. A whole host of handsome young men like this one running around.” Florine gave Dylan a lascivious wink.

The atmosphere at the center surprised Dylan. He'd expected it to be somber but, on the contrary,
there was laughter, and a great deal of happiness. Perhaps the people who went there were extra-aware of the need to grab life with both hands.

The way Max was.

Dylan knew he was there to talk to the patients but over and over, he found himself watching Max instead. She moved around the ward, her eyes holding kindness, understanding, sympathy without pity.

They walked along some of the pediatric rooms. Max glanced into one open door and stopped. Inside, a little girl maybe seven years old sat on her bed, watching them with bright eyes. She held a coloring book.

Max knocked on the door. “May I come in?”

“Sure,” the little girl said.

“What's your name?” Max asked.

The girl had a hot-pink scarf wound around her head. Underneath it, Dylan glimpsed the white of a bandage. “I'm Val,” she said.

“Short for Valerie?”

“Short for Valentine,” the little girl informed her.

“Well, I'm Max and this is Dylan.”

Val giggled. “Max is a boy's name.”

“My parents didn't like me very much,” Max said in mock sorrow. “They must have known I was going to be trouble.”

“You don't look like trouble,” Val said.

“Looks can be deceiving,” Dylan put in.

“I like your scarf, Val,” Max said.

Val waggled her head. “I like yours, too. Max,” she added and giggled again.

Max had wound a strip of gossamer blue and green silk around her throat that morning. Dylan remembered lying in bed, watching her dress.

“When's your birthday?”

“February 14,” Val said. “My mom always says I was their Valentine's Day present.”

“I bet that's why you're dressed like a valentine, huh?” Max slipped off her scarf.

“Yep.”

“Well, February 14th is a long time away, isn't it? I always hated waiting for my birthdays, so I'm going to break the rules.” Max leaned in next to the little girl. “You can't tell anyone, but I'm going to give you your birthday present today,” she whispered, and wrapped the scarf around Val's neck. “What do you think?” she asked Dylan.

“I'd say you look pretty glam, kiddo.”

Val's eyes squinched up and she giggled.

“Here.” Max dug in her handbag and pulled out a little pocket mirror. “You can admire yourself. Now that's beauty.”

Val posed in the mirror, for all the world like a fashion model. Then she handed it back. “Thanks,” she said, stroking the scarf. “But I don't have any thing to give to you.”

“You don't need to give me anything,” Max said.

“Yes, ma'am,” Val argued indignantly. She looked around her bed table and then her eyes brightened. “Here, you can have this.” It was a little angel with its skirt formed of a seashell. A tiny face had been glued on top, complete with a gold cord halo. Val pressed it into Max's hand. “You should put it up somewhere so it can watch over you,” she said earnestly, “because everybody needs an angel on their shoulder. That's what my mom says.”

“I guess your mom knows a thing or two,” Max said lightly, but Dylan could hear the faint strains in her voice that matched the sudden tightness in his own throat.

“Picture time,” someone sang out from the door, breaking the spell. They turned to see Susan Harding come in with a digital camera. “On my right, everybody lean in close together.” Max put her arm around Val, and Dylan leaned in close to Max.

“Everybody say cheese.”

The camera flashed and Harding came over to the bed. “Here we go, this is a nice shot. Look at you guys.”

Dylan looked at the image on the camera display and blinked. It didn't look like people visiting a kid in the hospital. They looked like a family. Something twisted then in his chest, a tug that he'd never felt before.

Max walked over to Susan Harding before they left. “Can I have you e-mail me a copy of that pic
ture we took with Val?” she asked, handing Susan a business card. “She's a great kid.”

“Yeah, isn't she? She's doing really well. She's supposed to go home early next week.”

“I can't thank you enough for setting this up.”

“Did it help you?”

Harding had lovely eyes, Max noticed. “Yes, and we'll do our very best to get the patients what they need.” She leaned in and gave the nurse a hug, then turned to Dylan. “We should go.”

Outside, the air had turned a little cool. Max walked out the front steps but instead of heading toward the parking lot, she turned down the sidewalk, following it out to the end and staring toward the sea. Dylan came up behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder.

“You know sailors used to be able to see the hospital from the open sea,” Max said quietly. “She was the tallest building in Portland. When they saw the spire, they knew they were home.”

“Home is a good place to be.”

“We have to do something for them.” She turned and looked up at him.

“You already did something for them. You did something for Val.”

“I didn't do anything.”

“Sure you did. You made her smile. You're good with her. You were good with all of them.”

Max moved her shoulders. “I can't do anything to help them. I felt like a fraud in there, listening
to them, going through the motions when I know we're not going to use any of their input.” She walked out on the grass, the wind blowing her hair around. “Remember Carl the janitor? He gave me the idea for the family suites. His grandson was very sick with spinal meningitis. They watched over him for days, camping out in the waiting room.” She swallowed. “This is personal with me, Dylan. I want to help these people and I don't know how.”

She stared into space for a moment, then shook her head. “Don't pay any attention to me. I'm just in a funk. Let's go.”

“Where?” he asked.

She reached out to touch his cheek. “It's the end of the day. Let's go back to my place.”

 

The afternoon shadows stretched across her bedroom as they stood beside the bed. Always before, they'd come together in fire and passion and impatience. This time the flash had turned into radiant heat that warmed without flaming. They'd seen much that day, joy and sadness. And somehow what they needed in this moment was to draw from each other, draw strength, affirm life.

He wanted to show her that she was treasured. He wanted to make her feel the tenderness he'd felt watching her that day. This time wouldn't be about speed and urgency. He wanted this time to be different. Unbuttoning her blouse, he drew it off her shoulders. Slowly, he ran his hands up the satiny
smooth skin of her sides, feeling her tremble at the touch.

She was so sensitive, he thought as he finished undressing them both. He was so accustomed to the strong, confident woman that he had ignored this part of her. He laid her back on the cool sheets, then moved on the bed to lie beside her, pressing kisses on her forehead, her eyelids, trailing his fingertips over the length of her body.

He gave her sweetness, he gave her gentleness, as though she were fragile enough to break. Max was used to feeling female but rarely feminine. He brought that to her.

The heat built, but slowly. Instead of hunger, she felt longing. There was desire, but not as she'd known before. It wasn't a craving for physical pleasure, it was desire for this particular man, this particular moment.

Once, it had been a question of control, for her, for him. Now, control became irrelevant as they came together. In some way they became one, their bodies moving, flowing, the sensation that began in her body flowing into him. When they quickened, it was with grace and gentleness. And some part of her that was hers alone became his.

Dylan gave, and he discovered that in giving there was a greater arousal than in taking. When he heard that soft catch of her breath, when he felt the shiver run through her, it ran through him, too.

He moved up over her and slowly into her. And she
was beautiful, luminous, lovely in the fading light. And he felt that twist within him, that breathless moment when something let go inside. For just a moment, when they were joined, he stilled, staring down at her, his hands cradling her head, locked in this moment and its meaning. And then he began to move slowly, gently within her.

And she was around him, under him, within him. When he bent down to kiss her, open mouth to open mouth, they breathed one another's air. Together, their systems quickened. It was as though they were rising up as one, suspended by some emotion neither could name. He felt her tighten around him even as he felt need begin its slow build. And when they rose to a peak, they did it together.

He wanted to hold her, just hold her, Dylan thought, and absorb what had just happened. Because he knew right down to the fiber of his being that something essential had changed within him and that some part of him would now always be hers.

Max rolled over against him, draping her arm across his chest and resting her head on his shoulder. “'Night,” she mumbled sleepily. He pressed his lips to her hair while her breathing deepened and she slid into sleep. For long moments he simply held her, listening to the sound of her breath, watching her face in the moonlight and thinking, wow; he thought about what to do next.

While he absorbed the fact that he was in love.

When she rolled over onto her back, he slid out of
bed and pulled on his trousers. Padding downstairs, he pulled a couple of sheets out of the printer in her office. And he sat down at the kitchen table and began to draw.

T
he morning sun streamed through the windows as Max walked down the stairs, yawning. Dylan sat shirtless at her dining room table, a coffee mug by his hand. She paused a moment just to look. Seeing him in her house was still new to her, and strange. It felt good in a way that she wasn't at all comfortable with. She could get comfortable with this, Max thought suddenly.

Dylan turned around. “Did you sleep well?”

God, he was gorgeous, she thought. “Like the dead. You should have woken me when you got up.”

“You looked like you needed to sleep. I kept myself busy.”

She walked up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. “What are you doing?” she asked.

A ruler and compass lay to one side, along with pens and pencils. Before him lay sheets of printer paper taped together and covered with confident pencil lines. And then she realized she was looking at drawings of the addition. Frowning, she pulled them toward herself and studied them for a moment—and then she realized what she was looking at.

“Oh, Dylan,” she breathed.

Somehow, he'd done it. The drawings showed the lobby atrium and the concourse that ran along the addition. But through some magic, some flash of brilliance, some “pow,” he'd figured out a way to bring back the family suites and the balcony gardens. He'd figured out a way to make it work. Something tightened in her chest.

“Like it?”

She bent over him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Like it? I love it. You must have been up all night to do this,” she said lightly, then took a closer look at his face. “My God, you really were, weren't you?”

He shrugged. “That's what coffee's for. Besides, I wanted to get the ideas down while they were fresh in my mind. There's a lot more work to do, and we don't have a lot of time to do it in,” he warned her. “And Eli's going to have a fit because we're going to make him redo the animation.”

“I don't care.” Max bent down and fused her
mouth to his. The moment stretched out and she sank down into his lap, twining her arms around his neck, a bubble of something very like joy growing in her. Finally, with a sigh, she broke away, resting her forehead against his. “I don't want to say it—”

“Then don't.” He took her mouth again with his, his hands warming her skin through the thin silk of her robe.

Gathering her resolve, Max broke away again, this time rising to her feet. “But we should really get over to the office if we're going to get this all done.”

“After all that hard work and I don't even get a thank-you gesture?” Dylan asked aggrievedly.

“Well…” Max caught the sash of her belt in her hands and unfastened it. “Come on up to the shower and I'll see what I can do to demonstrate my appreciation.” Turning toward the stairs, she let the robe slide off her shoulders and whisper down to pool around her feet. Dylan rose and she raced for the stairs, giggling, as he gave chase.

“I'm going to get you.”

“Promises, promises,” she said.

 

He'd been out of his mind, plain and simple, Dylan told himself as he sat at the computer the next night, rubbing his eyes. “Nobody in their right mind completely redesigns a project two days before the proposal deadline, you idiot,” he muttered aloud.

That was what love did to a man, he thought, but he knew that wasn't it. No matter how much he cared
for Max and wanted her happy, he would never have made the changes if the concept had been unsound. He'd redesigned the plans because she'd been right, because she'd understood what people needed, and that ability to understand—that caring—was one of the many things he loved about her.

The thought ambushed him, the same way it had all day. Dylan shook his head. It wasn't what he'd planned for his life, not yet and certainly not now. He hadn't expected to find himself in so deep. And yet in some ways, hadn't he? Hadn't he known almost from the beginning that things with her wouldn't be ordinary? Hadn't he realized that what was between them went beyond chemistry?

So he was in love; he'd spent the night thinking about it as he worked on the drawings. And over the hours, he'd come to accept it, even embrace it. The question was, what the hell was he to do about it?

Dylan crossed to his worktable where the model sat. He and Max had put together the main elements of the structure. What remained now was the time-consuming process of adding surface finish, detail work and landscaping. He picked up a plastic bag of little fake trees, weighing them in his hand.

Max walked in, lovely and golden, and he felt as though someone had just filled the room with oxygen. “Hey, you,” he said.

She pinkened. “Hey.”

“Eleven-thirty and still going strong. Who says we don't know how to have a good time.” He grinned.

“Well, at this point we're the only ones who do. Eli and Grant headed out a little while ago. It looks like they're about done with the animations. Eli said he might do a little bit more on it at home.”

“Does that mean I can kiss you?” Dylan asked.

She glanced out the door. “Only if you're quick.”

He stepped in toward her, settling his hands on her hips. “Well, I don't know if I can guarantee quick.” He nipped at her lower lip. “In fact, I'm pretty sure that I can't.” He licked at her earlobe. “But if you want long and slow, I can definitely oblige you.”

He pulled her to him and pressed his mouth on hers, taking his time, savoring her flavor, her softness, the curves he'd come to know, marveling at the fact that they somehow felt different now. Now that they were his.

“Not here,” Max scolded.

“Why not? There's no one around. You said yourself, they're gone.” He drew her over to his chair. “You can surely spare a little bit of time and affection for someone who slaved away last night…oh, and also redesigned the entire project.”

Max laughed and let him pull him pull her onto his lap. “So you're telling me it's a labor to make love with me?”

“Oh, it is, but I'm a man who loves my work,” he said. “And I'm dedicated to perfection.”

There was magic in his mouth. For a few endless moments, Max let herself sink into the warmth of his
kiss, feeling those lips trail over her cheek to her ear, where he started doing delicious things. Every part of her wanted to simply relax back and enjoy it, but she forced herself to break loose. “Much as I admire your dedication, we are still in the office.” She resisted the urge to lean into him again and instead made herself rise and turn toward the door.

“Not so fast.” Dylan caught her up against him and walked her backward toward the frosted glass wall. “I think we need to do something about this habit you have of always saying no,” he said against her lips. “I thought I'd taken care of it already.” He ran the tip of his tongue down her throat, pressing her arms up against the wall so that her bracelets clinked against the glass. “I guess I'm just going to have to see what I can do to convince you.” He dropped his head down, licking his way over her collarbones and down to the tops of her breasts.

Max groaned. She needed to stop him, and she would in just another moment, but it felt so good and the tension was curling up deep in her belly and he was stroking her with his marvelous strong hands.

“If we were somewhere else, I know exactly what I'd do right now,” he mused, “but since we're in the office, maybe I should just stop with this.”

He ran his hand along her thigh, sliding it up under her skirt, trailing the tips of his fingers up to sensitive inner skin to find her where she was already slick and ready. “Did you say quick?” he murmured against her lips.

And he was touching her with his fingers, those wonderful, clever fingers, until she couldn't even think of stopping him, she could only move against him and concentrate on the feeling, stifling the urge to cry out. And the next moment, she was stiffening and gasping against him with the flood of pleasure, quaking until her leg muscles became liquid, able to stand only because Dylan held her up.

“Was that quick enough?” he asked. With a wink, he walked over to the worktable and begin putting trees onto the model. After a moment, on jelly legs, Max followed.

 

Making a model was exacting work, but somehow with Dylan it became fun. But then again, most things with Dylan were fun. She'd grown used to the teasing, the laughter, the sweetness. She hardly noticed the time passing until they were gluing on the last two trees.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that,” Dylan said.

Max glanced at her watch. “My God, it's nearly two in the morning. We're going to be wrecks tomorrow if we don't get to sleep. I'm going to—”

The ring of Dylan's cell phone interrupted her. He drew it from his pocket with a frown. “What the—” And then glanced at the display, annoyed. Letting out a breath, he answered the call. “Hello.”

“Good afternoon, Dylan.” The voice brayed out of the phone loud enough for Max to hear. “The prince
sends his regards and his best wishes for your continued health.”

“Please extend my best wishes to the prince,” Dylan said. “Nabil, are you aware that it's two in the morning here?”

“But I see that you have answered the phone,” Nabil responded.

“Only because I happen to be working late.”

“If you were living here in Dubai where you belong, it would be two o'clock in the afternoon. You would be wide-awake.”

At the mention of Dubai, Max felt herself tense. Dylan paced across the office. “But I'm not in Dubai,” he pointed out.

Yet.

“You should be. And how is your unfinished business?” Nabil asked. “Is it now finished?”

“Not completely.”

“You must finish it soon, my friend. The prince has completed his refinancing and the project is on a sound footing. We begin construction operations on Monday. The prince expects you back.”

Her stomach twisted. Of course, it was time for him to go. She'd known it was coming, it wasn't like it was any sort of surprise.

What was a surprise was the way it felt.

“The prince will get me back when I am ready.” There was an edge in Dylan's voice. “My business is not quite complete.”

“If the business cannot be completed in the time
you have been there, perhaps you are better off abandoning it,” Nabil said sharply.

“I'm not prepared to do that,” Dylan said.

“Nevertheless, the prince expects you here in one week.”

“What if I am not able to return?”

“Then the prince may find himself forced to make a change. If you wish to retain the project, I would advise you to do the prince's bidding.”

“I don't respond well to threats, Nabil.”

“What is the saying? It is not a threat, my friend, it is a promise.”

Dylan stared at the phone in his hand. Nabil, apparently, had hung up.

A week. Max felt the words shiver through her. One week. Seven days and Dylan would be gone. And suddenly it was as though a chasm had opened within her.

She'd tried so hard to be careful, she'd tried so hard to be smart. She'd kept her distance, kept her guard up. The problem was that she'd kept it up so high that Dylan had sneaked right underneath.

And she'd fallen in love with him.

 

“Okay, it takes fifteen minutes to get to Portland General,” Mindy said to the team at the end of the dry run the next day. “Allow ten minutes for traffic and five for parking and you need to leave here no later than ten-thirty. Dylan, Henry will have your car idling out front. Jason's got a van. He'll drive the
model over separately and carry it in for you. I want you guys in the elevator and heading downstairs at ten-fifteen,” she added briskly. “Any questions?”

The meeting adjourned. Max rose mechanically and left the conference room with the rest of them.

“You look like you could use some coffee, Max,” Eli said, winking at her as he passed.

It would take more than coffee to fix what ailed her.

She'd known from the beginning that Dylan was going back, Max reminded herself. It wasn't as though it was news. On the contrary, she had depended on it. The time limitation had given her the confidence to take the involvement deeper, sure in the knowledge that he would be gone before she could really get in trouble.

Except that she'd been in trouble from the moment they'd met.

And now she—strong, independent, capable Max McBain—had to figure out how the hell she was going to live without him.

Dylan walked quickly by with the box of briefing books. “Meet you at the elevator in fifteen minutes,” he said.

The ache she felt as he headed away was nearly physical. She gave her head a brisk shake. She couldn't do this, she couldn't let herself fall apart. The proposal presentation was an hour away. She had to focus. She couldn't let this consume her, not yet.

The thing to do was focus on what she had to do
next. If she did that, she could get through the next minute, and the next, and the next until he was gone. And then the days would pass without the reminder of his presence, and they'd turn into weeks, and the weeks would become months, and eventually it would stop hurting so damned much.

Resisting the urge to rub her chest, she headed toward the break room. She had to get some coffee or she wasn't going to make it. Maybe if she were more awake, it wouldn't all seem so impossible. Then, as she came around the corner, she heard voices. She froze. “Dude, I am not lying. I'm telling you, he had her up against the wall.”

It was like having ice thrown down her back. Eli, Max thought numbly, it was Eli's voice.

“Man, it was late. It was just them. The only reason I was there was because I forgot one of my files.”

There was a buzzing of a whisper that Max couldn't make out.