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He nodded, and his smile grew a little more. “Well, thanks for the save. And… Eva…” he gave her a wink, “maybe you could pack a two piece swimsuit, that is if you’re planning on swimming.”

She laughed and nodded. “I’ll see what I can find. What are you going to be wearing?” she asked in return, raising one eyebrow and letting herself picture him on the beach. Her body warmed to the thought.

He shook his head and smiled. “Not much…” he answered with a chuckle.

Eva left him and went back to her desk, her mind filled with thoughts of the two of them in the Bahamas. Nothing had made her so excited and so happy in a

ges. When he called out to her desk a while later, she had good news for him.

“Would you please reschedule that meeting with Hendricks?” he asked.

“Yes, I’ll do that right now. By the way, the Bahamas trip is booked.” She grinned in utter delight.

He was quiet a moment. “The whole trip? Everything is booked?” he asked in absolute wonder.

“Yes. I found out where Parker is staying, and I rented a beach house very near his. I have your private jet ready to go, and there will be a car there for us. It’s all done. I emailed you the details.” She tried not to sound as giddy as she felt.

He laughed softly into the phone. “My god, you’re a wonder. What on earth did I ever do before you got here? Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Truly, I do.”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a velvet soft voice, and they hung up their phones.

Eva had never packed as thoughtfully as she did when she packed her bags to go to the Bahamas with her incredibly sexy boss. Every slinky dress she had had been laid out on her bed, every piece of clothing was carefully considered, and most of them were tossed back into her closet and drawers.

His limo picked her up from her home, and together they rode to the airport, where his private jet was waiting to fly them away. She had to wear a coat in the car because a spring rain shower was washing the city that morning, but when they got into the airplane, she didn’t waste much time in pulling her coat off and handing it to the flight attendant.

She didn’t miss it when Derrick’s eyes swept slowly over her light blue dress. The thin material moved around her like angel’s wings on a thin pillow of air, molding itself to her in many places, while seeming to float above her skin in other places. It was cut in a V shape at the neckline, and an inverted V at the center of the hem, which fell across her legs mid-thigh. She knew that she looked good in it, but it was pleasing to her to see that he could barely take his eyes off of her as she moved to the chair to sit across from him, facing him.

Eva had decided to leave whatever might happen on the island to the fates. She wasn’t going to try too hard to make anything happen between them, he was her boss after all, but the sparks that had been getting stronger in her had diminished her inhibitions, and she had opted to let whatever might happen between them, happen. It was a faraway trip, it was a tropical island, and she wasn’t going to say no if he wanted to explore anything beyond their business relationship, though he had given her no clear indication that that would ever happen.

He cleared his throat and made himself look from her body to her eyes. He told himself over and over that she was his secretary and it didn’t matter what she looked like, she was his employee and he had to remember that if he expected to keep her as his employee. She had more than proven her worth to him, and the last thing he wanted to do was replace her, but he had been doing his level best to push back all of the growing desire that he felt rising up in him for her. The light blue silky looking dress she was wearing only made him want to look without limits and touch what he was looking at, but when she had sat down before him, he lifted his eyes to meet hers and promised himself that he would keep them there.

The flight attendant came to them and asked them what she could bring them, and he answered breakfast and she answered champagne, and then looked at him with that sweet smile of hers that made his stomach do a flip, and asked if champagne was alright.

He waved his hand and nodded, asking the attendant to bring it. She said she would. He thought to himself that maybe the champagne would calm his nerves. It was one thing to appreciate a beautiful woman, but it was another thing altogether to feel such an attraction to one day in and day out and have it go unfulfilled. He had thought that she was beautiful at first, and he liked that, but then he had gotten to know her and he had discovered that she was as smart and as sweet as she was beautiful, and seeds of desire had begun to grow in him.

He’d found himself flirting with her here and there at the beginning, afterwards chastising himself a little about flirting with an employee, but she flirted back, and then it became a game. Then the game began to heat up, and the fun had begun to slowly turn to need. There was something changing between them, and he couldn’t pinpoint it, but he knew that they would need to be a lot more careful about their flirting. Part of him wanted to hold back and ease up on it, and the other part of him wanted to rush headlong into it and lose himself in the sweet warmth of her beauty and her body. He had a feeling that he could get lost in her, and the idea of getting lost in anything so delicious and so beautiful was enormously enticing to him. It would take him away from the world where he was alone, where his father had died, where he was having to take on all of the responsibilities of the business, and he would have nothing but pleasure and peace, and he was certain, incredible satisfaction.

The champagne arrived, and they both finished off their glasses in no more than a few minutes. He poured more for them, and his nerves began to settle as she talked softly and laughed. She made him feel at ease just as much as she created heated tension in him.

Derrick couldn’t take his eyes from her, and he didn’t want to. He finally took the plunge and asked her something that had been on his mind since he had interviewed her for her job.

“So, I hope you don’t mind if I get a little personal. You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but I am curious. What does your love life look like?” he took a big swallow of the champagne and held his champagne flute in his fingertips firmly.

She bit at her lower lip and lowered her thick eyelashes bashfully for a moment before looking back up at him with her dark brown eyes. Seeing her teeth pressed against her soft full lower lip made him wish that it was his teeth biting at her lower lip, and he had to take a deep breath and make himself think of anything else.

“Oh, no, that’s okay. I don’t mind.” She grinned at him and reached her fingers up to tuck her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “I am newly single. I was in a relationship with a really nice guy, but he got a job on the west coast in San Francisco, and I didn’t want to move. I had just started with you, and I love this job. I wanted to stay here and he had to leave, so we broke up, but we’re still friends. He’s a really good guy. If he was here, we’d still be together, but we knew it wouldn’t work out to try for a long distance thing, so he left and we broke up and that’s it. So, I guess I’m single.” She uncrossed her legs slowly and crossed them in the other direction, making the material of her dress shift and revealing a little more of the skin on her thigh.

He felt his groin tighten and his heart begin to beat faster. She was one of the sexiest women he had ever known, and having her so close to him so often, trying not to stare at her when she dressed so beautifully, trying not to pay too much attention to the way she moved and spoke and laughed, had been difficult. It seemed that trying to ignore it all only made it stand out more.

“Well, that’s refreshing to hear,” he answered, keeping his voice level. “It’s nice to hear someone talk about their ex in a positive way. It’s not often I hear anyone talk about their ex without hating them. That says a lot about not only your choice in a partner, but about you as a person. It’s refreshing.” He gave her a nod and then chuckled and leaned forward. He couldn’t help one flirtatious little comment. She was too damn delicious.

“I’m glad to hear that you’re single,” he added with a wink and a smile.