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She felt it, too. The pull to kiss her delectable lips, to taste her, was almost overwhelming. His skin tightened and his lungs labored, but he couldn’t get carried away. Couldn’t count his chickens before they hatched.
    He needed to marry her, not entice her into his bed.
    Hauling himself back, he cleared his throat. “What if I promise our date won’t affect your promotion, that no one else will know, and that it will just be one drink?”
    Her skin was so soft he couldn’t help but run a thumb across the back of the hand he still held, then over her palm. He watched as her pupils dilated. She was wavering.
    â€œOne drink, Macy. No torture involved.” He gave her a half smile. Damn, she was beautiful.
    Then she withdrew her hand and nodded, back to beingcool and businesslike. “I’ll meet you at the bar. Seven o’clock.”
    â€œLooking forward to it,” he said before she turned and strode from his office. “More than you know,” he murmured to the empty room.
    He tapped a thumb to his bottom lip, still prickling with awareness of her. If he could get her to agree to his plan, if he could convince her, then it’d be full steam ahead.
    And he had a gut feeling that it would be. That he’d just made a date with his future wife.

Two
    A t seven o’clock, Macy stood outside The Jazz Room, taking in the scene—an upmarket cocktail bar with live jazz, and a deep room full of beautiful people in their glamorous best. Muted red walls surrounded the almost-capacity crowd who sat on tall stools at the gleaming bar or at polished silver tables.
    She spotted Ryder sitting at the bar, and was un-characteristically nervous for the second time in one day. She was on a date with Ryder Bramson. She’d always been so careful about keeping her work and private life separate, yet she’d agreed to meet her boss socially.
    It wasn’t the first time she’d been hit on by a colleague or employer, but it never got any easier to rebuff. Ryder had quickly moved past her first line of defense—her aloof exterior—and now she had to play very carefully.
    Rejecting the boss was just as bad a career move as sleeping with him.
    In effect, she was cornered.
    Ryder saw her and unfurled his long frame from the stool and strode toward her, purposeful intent oozing from his whole body. Her knees felt weak and she locked them to keep from swaying.
    He stopped near enough for her to smell his clean woodsy scent, to feel the heat from his body, to see the shiny-smooth skin of his jaw where he’d recently shaved.
    Ryder bent to kiss her cheek and she was surprised he’d do something so familiar. Surprised at the tingling on the side of her face where his lips had touched.
    â€œYou look beautiful,” he murmured.
    His voice was a note deeper than it’d been in his office, and she felt it reverberate through her body. And there was something reassuring about his American accent. She was used to being the only American in the room, surrounded by Australian accents. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth, wanting him to say something else just to hear him speak again.
    Oh, who was she kidding? This was nothing like when she’d been hit on before. Which only meant she had to tread with even more caution—the danger of forgetting her self-imposed boundaries was greater.
    She’d been burned far too many times by people ready to sell her out, or walk away when times got tough, to trust again. Everyone had an angle, or they were only looking out for themselves. Even her own father, the person she should be able to depend on utterly, had distanced himself from her when she’d needed him the most—as a thirteen-year-old girl who’d just lost her mother.
    So she’d accept Ryder’s compliment but not read anything much into it.
    She ran her tongue over dry lips. “Thank you.”
    She saw him watch the action, then move his gaze