“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I was late this morning.”
Max grimaced at her polite tone. “You probably weren’t late, just on time and I’m used to you being in the office when I get here in the morning around seven.”
She smiled tentatively at his sincerity. “Well, either way. I’m sorry.”
“Me too. So tell me about your date last night? Did you have fun?”
Tara smiled wryly, trying to hide her reaction to his smile which caused the normal butterflies to flit inside her tummy. Max had a devastatingly handsome smile and used it to charm even the most sophisticated women. She had to concentrate hard in order to answer his simple question. “We went to the opera,” she said finally, thankful her mind started working again after his smile.
Max raised an eyebrow at her answer. “You hate the opera.”
“I know,” she laughed but it came out tense even to her own ears. “It was a Chinese opera.”
“Uh oh,” Max’s mouth twisted at the thought. “Even I don’t like those. I need more movement. I guess it’s our impatient western personalities, huh?”
“I guess so.”
“So where did you go to eat?”
Tara laughed again but it turned into more of a grimace in the end as she remembered her horrible night of hunger and fatigue. “I had a package of jelly beans during intermission.”
Max’s face showed his concerned thoughts. “When did you have dinner? I know you didn’t eat before you left.”
Tara felt a warm glow inside with the realization that he was actually concerned about her. In her smile-weakened mind, she pretended that it was because he felt something more for her than just an employee. “How did you know?” she asked, curious.
“There’s very little you do that I don’t know about,” he chuckled, thinking about her filing of a few minutes ago. He wasn’t about to reveal his voyeurism though. Especially not to her. Or any of his other thoughts that revolved around her legs, or her lips…his eyes dropped slightly and only for a moment as they rested on her breasts before he stopped himself from having more unprofessional thoughts about those perfectly pert, hidden treasures.
“Oh,” she said, unsure of what that meant. She blinked and smiled a little unsteadily before continuing, “Well, anyway. I haven’t had breakfast either, so I’m going to load up on cream in my coffee,” she said and stood up to do just that.
His next words stopped her from leaving his office which was exactly what he’d intended. “Why don’t you order something from the kitchen to be brought to you?”
Tara was horrified at the suggestion. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she said, shaking her head.
“Why not? You do it all the time for meetings.”
Still shaking her head, she said, “But that’s for meetings and your guests. I can’t do it for my own personal needs. Besides, its just laziness.”
Max disregarded her contradictions. “Don’t be silly. You missed breakfast and dinner last night. There’s a perfectly good chef down the hallway just waiting to create something delicious. I’ll order for you if you’re not going to do it.” He picked up the phone and raised an eyebrow at her, silently asking her what the kitchen’s extension was.
Tara was horribly embarrassed to have the Crown Prince of Cordova ordering breakfast for her. “Please, Your Highness, it isn’t important. I’ll get something later.”
He put down the phone and typed something up on his computer. He got the phone number and dialed. While he was waiting for someone to answer, he said, “You’ve been working for me for over two years. Isn’t it time you started calling me Max?”
“Goodness, no!” she said, horrified by the familiarity.
“Why not?” but he held up a finger asking her to wait.
“I’d like a full breakfast delivered to my office immediately,” he said. It only took a moment for him to nod and hang up the phone. “If I order you to do it, would that work?”
“To use your first name? No,” Tara laughed, surprised by the charming eagerness in his usually formidable expression.
Max chuckled. “Fair enough.” They worked on several issues and were interrupted a half hour later by a palace waiter delivering delicious smelling food. Since Tara hadn’t eaten since yesterday at lunch, she was famished and took the waffles with syrup to her desk.
Chapter 4
At midday, things were back to normal and the staff was working through a large project. Tara picked up her phone mid afternoon and answered it as she normally would. Tara was glad to have things back on track between her and Max but she thought about the way his hands felt when he’d steadied her. It had been wonderful. Her traitorous body kept thinking about what it would be like to feel his hands against her skin instead of just her blouse.
She realized she was just staring into space and jumped. “Good afternoon. Tara Jacobs speaking, how can I help you?” she hurriedly said to whoever was waiting on the other end of the phone line.
A feminine voice laughed after a pregnant pause. “Tara? Were you going to call me and tell me how things went last night?”
Tara was relieved that it was her friend and not some ambassador needing to speak to Max, or worse, the king or queen. “Cindy? Hi.” Tara looked around to make sure she was alone before talking. “No. I wasn’t. I was going to pretend like the whole thing just never happened.”
“Oooh. That bad, huh?”
“Worse. Thank everyone for the effort but don’t in the future,” she said, referring to her close friends who seemed to be on a mission to help her find a husband.
“But I thought you were trying to get out there and get over this thing you have with our hunky future leader. This is a huge change since yesterday when you were excited about the possibility of finding someone else.”
“I was and I still need to get over him,” she whispered, afraid Max would hear her and understand that she was talking about him and her feelings for him. “But after last night, I’m not trusting you or the others anymore,” she laughed. “I’ll find my own dates somehow.”
Cindy was relentless, knowing that Tara would never get out and find eligible men on her own. “That was just one bad night. You can’t judge all men because of one bad night. Give us another chance. We only knew that guy through a friend. There’s bound to be others out there that are better.”