Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76232 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
And yet . . .
Kate followed Kennedy to his office and stopped in the doorway. “What’s the catch?”
He was already removing the containers from the bag, placing them on his desk. “No catch.”
“But . . .”
He looked up. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just that in the many years we’ve worked together, you’ve never once suggested we eat together.” She walked into his office and accepted the packet of plastic silverware that he held out. “Is this because I’m dating your brother? Is that why you’re being nice to me?”
He winced. “Are you dating my brother?”
She tilted her head. “Shooooot. Was that not you at the double date last night? I could have sworn it was.”
Kennedy merely rolled his eyes and went back to unpacking the food. “How was the gelato?”
“Good,” she answered cautiously as she accepted the container he handed her and sat down.
“Pistachio?”
She looked up. “How’d you know I like pistachio?”
Instead of answering, he sat across from her behind his desk and met her gaze. “I owe you an apology for last night.”
That caught her by surprise. Kennedy Dawson wasn’t the apologizing type.
“I was a jerk.”
She laughed and picked up her sandwich. “Kennedy, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re often a jerk.”
He gave her a sharp look. “Is that your word?”
“What word?”
“Your word to describe me. It’s not adorable, obviously. Is it jerk?”
She paused midchew, then resumed, even as she dropped her sandwich and pointed at him. “Aha! That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“This,” she said, gesturing at the food on the desk. “Your buying me dinner and then suggesting we eat together when you’ve never done that before.”
“Maybe I’m just a nice guy,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes she wasn’t accustomed to seeing.
“Oh please,” she said with a laugh. “Save it for someone who hasn’t spent, like, ten thousand hours with you.”
He gave a quick grin, as though her response pleased him. “You want a water?”
She rolled her eyes. “Nice subject change. But yes, please.”
He went to the small fridge in the corner of his office. She’d had one installed in all of the guys’ offices last year. Her official stance was that it was so they could give drinks to their clients on hot summer days without having to wait for her to bring something in from the kitchen. Really, though, she figured the refrigerators were a better use of her time. The guys themselves weren’t the problem, but their clients were divas. Beyond making sure she got ice-cold Fiji to Ian’s clients and room-temp Sanpellegrino to Kennedy’s, plus remembering that Matt’s clients liked electrolyte water, always from a glass never a bottle . . .
Well, let’s just say the fridges saved the company time and the cost of anger management classes for Kate.
“Still or sparkling?” Kennedy asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Kate said, pulling the lid off a container of sauce and sniffing it.
“It’s spicy mayo,” he said, setting two bottles of water on the desk. “It comes with the fries.”
She tentatively dipped a fry in, assessed that it was more mayo than spice, and dunked her next fry more enthusiastically. “So what’s the deal here? Why are you being so nice? Bringing me fries and smiling?”
“I smile.”
“Nope. Not at me. Whoa, where’d you get that?” she asked, noting the wine bottle in his hand. “I thought you only kept scotch in here. And bourbon. The brown liquors.”
“Bigsby Black brought this in today. He just got back from Napa, and this is apparently some absurdly overpriced Cabernet.”
“I love that name, Bigsby Black. Don’t you wish you had a name like that? You know, instead of sharing the name of a president?”
“Did I wish that my first name wasn’t a last name when I was a kid? Sure. Sometimes. Did I ever wish my name was Bigsby? Never.”
“I used to wish I had a more glamorous name than Katherine.”
“Katharine Hepburn was glamorous.”
“I guess. But I used to think that if my name was Regina, or Giselle, or Theodora, I’d be a little less plain.” She felt like an idiot as soon as the words were out. The last thing she wanted to do was remind him, of all people, how unglamorous she was. Not that he needed reminding.
“Plain,” he said thoughtfully, pulling the cork out of the bottle. “Not the word I’d use to describe you.”
Kate bit her tongue to keep from saying bullshit. “What word would you use?” Certainly not irresistible.
He gave her a gotcha wiggle of his eyebrows, and she shook her head, realizing she walked right into his trap.
“I’ll tell you mine . . . ,” he said with a playful taunt as he retrieved two wineglasses from the sideboard.
“Nice try, but no thank you,” she said, taking another bite of her sandwich as he poured them each a glass of wine and sat down.