Out of Hours...Office Affairs: Can't Get Enough / Wild Nights with her Wicked Boss / Bound to the Greek

“Why did you park in my spot this morning?”

She nearly bit her tongue off as she spoke her thought out loud. Now it was out there, however, and there was nothing for it but to pretend she’d meant to challenge him all along.

“I wasn’t aware that we’d been assigned parking spaces. Was there a memo sent around? I must have missed it,” he said, and she felt her buttocks clench with annoyance.

A memo. Very funny. Any sexual thoughts she’d had about Mr. Annoying receded at a rapid pace.

“You know exactly what I mean. You usually park over near the pillar in the middle. And I always park near the stairwell. It’s a system, a habit. And it works. So why did you take my spot this morning? And don’t tell me you didn’t know it was mine, because you gave yourself away when you wagged your keys at me this morning.”

“You’re not serious? You’re really all bunged up over a stupid parking spot?”

She sat up straighter at the disbelieving scorn in his voice.

“It’s not the spot, it’s the principle. Tell me you didn’t do it just to annoy me and I’ll drop it. But first you have to look me in the eye and say that pissing me off was not on your agenda when you filched my spot this morning.”

He rolled his eyes. “Do you know how juvenile you sound? Let me guess—only child, not used to sharing, right?”

She felt a small, familiar stab of regret, and she pushed it down, back into the place where it belonged.

“Look me in the eye and I’ll never mention it again,” she dared him.

Jack shook his head as though she’d just suggested he pull his underpants over his head and run around making chicken noises.

She simply raised an eyebrow and waited. Finally he got sick of rolling his eyes and telling her she was unbelievable.

“All right. When I parked my car in that spot this morning, pissing you off did not in any way inform my decision,” he said, but at the last minute he broke eye contact and his gaze wandered somewhere over her shoulder.

“Huh! You liar! You big fat liar! You did do it to piss me off!” she gasped.

“Okay, you want the truth? You’re right—I did do it on purpose. You’ve parked in that spot every single day for the past year. I thought it was time you had a change.”

She nearly swallowed her tongue.

He thought it was time she had a change?

“You thought it was time I had a change? You—a man who hasn’t yet grasped the basics of ironing—thought it was time for me to have a change?”

She realized her mouth was hanging open and she shut it with an audible click.

“Yeah. I did.”

His earlier words came flooding back, something about her stitching herself back up nice and tight. Added to his original assessment of her as prissy, it made a pretty unattractive picture. Suddenly she got it—he thought she was some repressed, neurotic career woman. The type of person who had to have routine, made sure she ate all the five major food groups and was never late paying her bills. The idea so outraged her that she couldn’t stop the challenge popping out her mouth.

“You think I’m uptight, don’t you?”

Her temper increased another few degrees when he simply raised an eyebrow at her.

“Answer me!” she demanded, and even to her own ears she sounded shrill and shrewish. He waited until the echo from her screech had died before spreading his hands as though presenting a fait accompli.

“I rest my case.”

She stared at him, very aware of the pulse beating madly at the base of her neck. She hated that she was behaving this way, hated that he could crank her up so easily. Most of all she hated that just five minutes ago she’d been imagining his bare chest, while he was sitting there thinking she was uptight and repressed.

Across the elevator car, Jack yawned ostentatiously, making a show of checking his watch, all of it meant to imply he was waiting for her next “snappy” comeback. Her temper boiled over and without thinking, she slid off one of her imported Italian leather pumps and slung it across the room at him. Unfortunately, hand-eye coordination had never been her strong suit and it simply bounced harmlessly off the wall next to his head.

It did shock him though, which gave her great satisfaction.

“There’s another one where that came from, so keep your stupid male chauvinist generalizations to yourself,” she warned him.

She started as her shoe landed in her lap with just enough force behind it to make her realize he was much better at ball sports than her.

“That’s how much of a male chauvinist I am. I respect you as an equal so much I know you can take what you dish out,” he said, and the complaint about him nearly hurting her died on her lips.

Sneaky bastard.

If her first throw had connected, she could have hurt him, and they both knew it. By giving her back some of what she’d dished out, he was forcing her to acknowledge her own double standards—that it was okay for a woman to hit a man, but not vice versa.

A taut silence stretched between them. She bit her lip to contain the hundred and one explanations, justifications and motivations for the way she lived her life, to prove to him he’d got it wrong, got her wrong. She wanted to tell him that her bedroom at home looked as if a bomb hit it, that she laughed at dirty jokes and that sometimes she even drank her beer straight from the bottle. She wasn’t uptight or prissy, she was just very professional at work. And very committed to her training schedule.

Thinking all this through helped take the edge off his words. He was just using some pathetic playboy measuring stick to assess her, and because she didn’t match his idea of what a woman should be, he labeled her repressed and uptight. Just because she didn’t wear tight miniskirts to work and fall all over herself to giggle at his jokes and wear her cleavage like the latest fashion accessory. Just because she was an achiever, and hardworking, and focused.

The truth was, he was probably scared of her. Threatened. It was typical, really—putting her down so he could build himself up. Almost, she felt better. Almost.

Unbidden, a memory popped up: the dinner she’d had with her old college friends last month. There had been lots of excited chatter as they caught up on the four years since they’d all last hooked up. Sue had been full of her kids’ antics, her husband’s achievements and her own dream of selling her handmade quilts on the Internet. Georgia had been excited about her upcoming wedding to the fabulous Greg, as well as being quietly proud of achieving partner in the law firm where she worked. And Claire had shared her achievements with the magazine, and talked about her chances of winning the upcoming statewide triathlon semifinal. She’d gone home that night feeling contented and replete after a good catch-up with her old friends. Now she remembered a look she’d caught Georgia and Sue exchanging. Was it possible they’d felt sorry for “poor Claire” and her empty life? When she’d apologetically left the table to take a quick cell phone call from someone at Hillcrest Hardware, had they talked in hushed tones about her being uptight and dronelike? About how alone she was—still single—and how she was filling her empty hours with meaningless exercise?

Suddenly Georgia’s suggestion that Claire should meet her friend Tony—a really amazing, laid-back guy—took on a whole new light.

Hell, maybe everyone thought she was uptight. Miserable, she hunched down against the wall.

She racked her brain, trying to think of the last time she’d done something spontaneous and impulsive. There’d been that time when she’d snuck in the back way at the movies with her boyfriend…but that was when she’d been sixteen, and didn’t really count anyway as she’d practically wet her pants with terror she was so worried about getting caught.

What about that time she and some triathlete friends had gone skinny-dipping after a late night beach party? Except that she had been one of only a few who’d chosen to swim in their underwear instead of going the full skinny….

Okay, all right. What about that crazy hat she’d worn to her best friend Jo’s party last year? She’d found it in an old magic shop, a top hat with a bunny jumping out of it. She’d won best prize at Jo’s party with that hat.

She suppressed a groan and rested her head in her hands. A hat. She was trying to pin her personality on a stupid novelty hat.

She glared across at the man who’d started all this, focusing all her self-doubt and insecurity on him and his big mouth and insensitive comments. What did he know, anyway? Who was he, sitting there with those stupid sandals and his perfect hair and his designer stubble? Just because all of life’s doors had swung open for him as he approached, he wrote her off at a glance. So she wasn’t one of the beautiful people, and she wasn’t gifted with the sort of charm that had eased his way through life.

She’d always thought those things didn’t matter—no, she knew they didn’t matter. It was who you really were, inside and outside, that counted.

But then she blinked, and she felt a tear run down her cheek. God, she hated Jack Brook.

4 (#u27c57533-21bc-5fe2-a350-f0355e48fd35)

JACK STRETCHED his neck to one side and resisted the urge to check his watch, knowing it would only read five minutes past the last time he’d checked. Time dragged as only time could when you were bored out of your mind and stuck in a small, enclosed space with someone who was obviously thirsting for your blood.

He didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that Claire Mars-den was mentally sticking pins in his voodoo doll doppelganger right now. He’d intercepted one glance from her that was practically dripping with animosity and got the message straight off. Well, she could stew in it, for all he cared. It wasn’t his problem.