LITMIR.BIZ

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just another step in their plan to be successful. Was that any way to go through life, especially when he had a woman like Kate on his hands? What was he doing?

      Kate couldn’t believe she’d lost her head and let Lance kiss her. It was wonderful… incredible, really, but so stupid. She was here to get over him. She was supposed to be using these two weeks to put him in her past.

      She wanted to go out looking her best and she supposed she could count herself successful on that item. Lance hadn’t even recognized her.

      The sad part about that was she hadn’t done anything except wear clothes that fit her. What a difference new clothes made. She would never have believed it. Mainly because her mother had been the one to say clothes made the man, and that woman had been wrong about so many things.

      She glanced down at the phone and saw that Lance was still on the line with Lexi Cavanaugh. She knew next to nothing about the woman. But at the end of the day, Kate felt she’d owe Lexi a word of thanks.

      If it hadn’t been for that woman’s engagement to Lance, Kate might have stayed stuck in her frumpy rut until she died an old lady spinster.

      A wolf-whistle brought her head up as Marcus Wall walked into the office. He was one of the petroleum geologists who worked for them, one of the men who helped decide where Brody Oil and Gas drilled and he was an expert at picking the right location for their wells. “Dang, Kate, you look good today.”

      She smiled at him. “Thanks.”

      “I never noticed how big your eyes were before,” he said, coming into her office and leaning on her desk. He must have come into the office at least a hundred times before and he’d never sat close or really even talked to her.

      She wanted to be flattered but instead she was uncomfortable. She didn’t want a lot of male attention. She had wanted one male’s attention, and now that she had it she didn’t want to let it go.

      That was her problem. Lance had moved forward and she was supposed to be, too, but if her reaction to Marcus’s friendly flirting was any indication, her plan was a failure. She only had eyes for Lance.

      “Kate?”

      “Hmm?”

      He shook his head. “Is there a man behind this change?”

      “How’d you guess?”

      He shrugged. “I know women.”

      “Do you?”

      “Yes, three sisters. I was raised by wolves.”

      “I don’t think women like to be called wolves.”

      “True enough, but I know that when a girl—I don’t mean any offense calling you a girl—gets dolled up like you are, there’s a reason for it.”

      “Maybe I just want a change,” she said, surprised that Marcus was actually helping her to understand herself. There was something hollow about the changes she’d made.

      When Lance had kissed her and held her in his arms she’d felt like a queen. But now she was back to just feeling like Old Kate, the same way she’d felt for the last few years as Lance treated her like some kind of favored pet.

      “Well, this change looks very good on you. Is the big man in?”

      Kate glanced down at the phone. Lance was off of his line. And it was probably way past time for Marcus to leave her office. She hoped that she didn’t have guys talking to her all day. “Yes, he is.”

      “I’ll announce myself,” Marcus said.

      She nodded. Marcus usually did just that. “Thanks, Marcus.”

      “For what?”

      “For being you,” she said.

      “I can be so much more if you let me,” Marcus said.

      “For a few weeks, right?” she asked, knowing that Marcus would be the right man for a fling but nothing more. Even if she was leaving the company, she didn’t want to have an affair with someone who worked with Lance.

      This plan—which had been concocted when she’d had two glasses of wine—now seemed… silly. She needed to just keep doing her job, find a replacement for herself and get out of Brody Oil and Gas before she hurt herself any further.

      “Definitely. I’m not a forever kind of man.”

      “Marcus, are you here to see me?”

      “Sure thing, boss man. I’ve got good news on the new mineral rights we purchased.”

      “I was hoping you’d say that,” Lance said. “Go on in my office. I need a word with Kate.”

      Marcus winked at her and then left. Lance reached over and closed the door leading to his office.

      “What do you need?” she asked. She was trying to come off cool and sophisticated, but it was really hard when she felt like she was twelve. Why had she given this man so much power over her?

      “I wanted to apologize for my behavior earlier.”

      “I think we already covered that,” Kate said. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash that kiss. For her, it had been incredible and the answer to many long fantasies about this man.

      She turned away from him, but he put his hand on her chair and turned her back to face him. “I don’t know why this is happening to us, Kate, but I am not going to be able to ignore it. You are—”

      “Don’t say anything else. You have a fiancée and I’m leaving this job.”

      “Why are you leaving?”

      Kate looked up at him and thought about blasting him with the truth. But somehow she didn’t think he’d react well if she said she was leaving because she loved him and watching him get married would be about the same as ripping her heart out of her body.

      “I’m leaving because I can’t work for you anymore.”

      That was as close to the truth as she could get. Lucky for her he seemed to accept that answer.

      She spent the rest of the day doing her job and realizing that all of the men in the office were starting to notice her as a woman. It should have given her hope that she’d find another man and fall in love, but instead it just made her sad because the one man she’d changed for still seemed to be oblivious—even after he’d finally kissed her.

      The Fourth of July barbecue was held at Lance’s home in Somerset. He lived on acreage and had set up the party out near the lake on his property. There was an area for beach volleyball, which Lance had started playing when he was in college. Later on they would play the annual management-versus-workers match.

      The caterers had been cooking since before dawn and mouthwatering smells filled the air. There was a deejay playing music under a tent near the caterers and everything had been decorated in red, white and blue.

      He spotted Kate first thing as he approached the party area. “Happy Fourth of July.”

      “You, too. Where do you need me?”

      “Well, Mitch is running late, so if you want to work here with me handing out name tags and welcoming everyone, that’d be great.”

      The first year they’d held the barbecue they’d started the tradition of personally welcoming everyone to the event. He, Mitch and Kate. It had been the first function where they’d really needed her.

      “I can’t believe this is your last year doing this,” he said.

      He’d given up on trying to convince her not to quit. She’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to change her mind, and given that he was trying to make a go at being a decent fiancé to Lexi, he thought he should probably stop trying to con-vince the woman who he was having nightly fantasies about to stay on.

      “Me, neither. I’m

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