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.
Chapter Eight
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.”
“A little. I’m not obsessed or anything.” She grinned. “I started collecting things when I moved into my first apartment, mostly because it was all I could afford, but I’ve kind of fallen in love with the way it looks. I used to like things all matchy-matchy but now, I like this.”
He had to admit, her place did look good. Despite the mismatched furniture and accessories, it was almost excruciatingly neat and tidy, unlike her bathroom which was an explosion of girl stuff. How could a person be so neat and tidy in every room of the home but one? Of course, thinking of his own messy house, he wasn’t exactly one to talk. But even orderly and spotless as her apartment was, it felt comfortable. “I like it.”
“Thanks. Should we go?”
“Sure.”
They walked out to his car parked on the street. “I thought we could go to Ambrosia.”
“That sounds great.”
A short time later they were seated in a booth in the casual restaurant drinking margaritas on the rocks. And then she asked the question he’d been stewing about all day.
“So now are you going to tell me what happened between you and Andrew?”
He kept his face in a careful, casual smile. “It’s not that big a deal. We met in college. About a year ago we were talking about going into business together. It didn’t work out.”
A small crease appeared between her sexy bedroom eyes. “Oh. What kind of business?”
“Consulting. Project management, business process renewal.”
“What happened? Why didn’t it work out?”
“We both decided with the economy the way it’s been, we were safer to stay employed than trying to start a business. That’s risky at the best of times, never mind in a recession.”
“That’s true.” She gave a vigorous nod. “Probably worked out for the best. Will you still do it when the economy picks up?”
“Maybe.” Although not with Andrew. He made a face. “I’m not exactly happy with my job right now, but it’s a regular paycheck anyway. Our company is coming through the recession okay, so I’m pretty safe.”
“Why aren’t you happy there?”
Now he could be more open with her and he relaxed a little, having moved on from talking about him and Andrew. “Ha. Where should I start? The company I work for has out-of-date processes and they’re completely resistant to change. Even when upper management agrees they need to make changes, they don’t want to commit enough resources to the project and the staff are all so resistant to change, it’s hard to get anything moving. I got promoted to Senior Business Analyst a while back, and I feel like all I do is sit in an office and analyze shit and check the work my team is doing.”
She laughed. “Analyze shit?”
He smiled back at her. “Yeah. I like solving problems, thinking up new ideas. I like to be doing new things all the time, otherwise I get bored.”
She nodded, her lips pursed. “I guess I can relate to that. I like project management because it’s always something new.”
“Yeah.” He hitched a shoulder. “That’s why I wanted to start my own business. Be my own boss. My boss is a clock-watching, by-the-books paper pusher, and that is so not me.”