Sharing Sunrise Read Online Free

Gathering up her scattered pins from Jeanie’s desk, she let them trickle from her hand into her purse.
    “No kidding,” he agreed, his green eyes fixed on her profile. “I trust her judgment about you, too, Marian. I want you to come and work with me.”
    Slowly, she turned. Just as slowly, she lifted her gaze to his face. After several silent moments, she said again with utterly no expression, “No kidding.”
    His mouth twisted up at one corner. “Oh, hell,” he said. “You told me you’d forgiven me.”
    She snapped her purse closed. “I lied.”
    “Marian …”
    She walked to the door, opened it, stepped through and closed it behind her, very, very quietly.
    He caught her just as the elevator opened and stepped in after her, pushing the Close Door button, then the one for ground floor, his finger still on the first one.
    “What do I have to do?” he said. “Grovel?”
    She considered that. “It might help.”
    “I’m groveling. I’m abject. Forgive me.”
    She continued to ponder, her chin on her fist, her elbow resting on her other hand. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll try. You’ll buy me lunch?”
    He grinned. “I’ll buy you lunch every day for the rest of the month.”
    “If what?”
    “If you forgive me.”
    “And?” Her eyes sparkled as she met his gaze.
    His mouth twisted to one side again. There was, it seemed, no way out of it at all. “And come to work at the marina.”
    Her smile was radiant. For an instant, he felt its impact deep inside where he was most a man. Briefly, he recalled the sharp stab of desire that had clenched his innards this morning, watching her walk toward him along the wharf. Of course, the second he recognized Marian with her new hairstyle and color, it had died. But in those first moments, he, like every other man who’d watched her passage, had felt desire for a beautiful, enchanting woman. Dammit, the first time he’d experienced this response to Marian had been at Max and Jeanie’s wedding. It had happened again at Jeanie’s sister’s wedding. Like a tide-rip it rattled his rigging and he didn’t like it. Now, as he had the other times, he clamped down on it. This was Marian, for heaven’s sake. He couldn’t go responding to her the way he did to a datable woman.
    It just wouldn’t be right.
    “For a three-month trial period,” he added.
    “Okay,” she said. “It’s a deal.”
    “Shake,” he said, reaching out to enfold her hand in his, surprised to discover that she was trembling slightly. Hell, the poor kid really had wanted the stupid job. Oh, well, what were three months out of the whole scope of his life? He’d let her stay that long. At the end of that time, maybe even before, she’d be tired of it. Of course she would. She never stuck with anything. Look at her, the last time he’d seen her, her hair had been red and her eyes blue. Now, she was a green-eyed blonde. Next week, she’d probably be a brown-eyed brunette and the month after that, who knows? All he knew was she’d probably be gone, and then he could get on with finding the right man for the job. And get over this extraordinary response his body persisted in having to her subtle yet unforgettable scent.
    He sighed and let the elevator door button go. Max might think it was his phone-call that had gotten Marian the job. He might believe that it was his veiled threat to withdraw his investment capital out of the marina if Rolph didn’t hire Marian—or someone—to take up some of the slack and hence protect Max’s investment. He didn’t need to know, nobody needed to know that Rolph’s mind had been made up before Max’s call.
    It had been that little sheen of tears in Marian’s eyes just before she stormed out of his office that had done him in. That, and an indelible memory of a moment of forbidden enchantment.
    Curling an arm over her shoulders, he led her out to where he had parked his car.
    “Now,” he said, “where does my new assistant want to go for