“I’ve been telling you for ages that psychology and marketing shouldn’t be strangers.” Greer shoved her glasses onto her nose and flipped through the last pages of his report.

“And I’ve been trying to tell you exactly the same thing for months, darling.”

“Pardon?” She lifted her head from the neatly typed pages distractedly.

“It’s only a half hour until quitting time. I was about to suggest a drink afterward.”

For a moment, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

For all his constant sexual patter, Ray had never asked her out before. The offer made her oddly nervous. “I really can’t, not tonight. Maybe another time…”

“Why did I know you’d say that?” Ray’s smile was cool. He moved to the door, but then turned suddenly, that practiced smile gone from his face. “You know, I thought we’d made inroads this last week, working together. Obviously, I was mistaken.”

She frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. I thought if we worked together a little more closely, you might just thaw out. Obviously not.”

“Ray!” Greer fumbled for words. “I care very much that we work well together. I always have. But beyond that-”

“Beyond that, if any other man in the place had asked you for a drink, you would have gone.”

Greer clamped her jaws together. “For heaven’s sake. I’ve had a drink after work with Barney once in the five years I’ve worked here-”

He was gone. Bewildered, Greer shook her head. She’d never seen Ray behave so…ridiculously.

For the next half hour, she pored over the regional statistics he’d brought her, and fretted over the confrontation. She’d always regarded him as an insensitive, chauvinistic SOB. Well, he was. But perhaps she herself had shown a lack of sensitivity toward his feelings. Had her dislike of him shown through?

The thought upset her. Simply because she didn’t like the man didn’t mean she wanted to hurt him. And she knew she hadn’t made any serious efforts to understand Ray, as she had with the others at Love Lace. She hadn’t cared enough to try.

Besides, one short drink after work wouldn’t have hurt you, she scolded herself. For the first time since you’ve been here, he’s actually trying to get along. You blew it.

Bodies were moving past her door. Greer glanced at the clock and gathered up the report and her purse. Feeling utterly low, she made her way down the hall, anxious simply to be home where she could mope in peace. She was fumbling with sunglasses at the back door when she heard a sneeze.

Normally, a sneeze was hardly enough to make her turn around, but this one sounded out of place. Grant’s office was behind her; she backed up three steps to where she could see through the windowed partition.

The office hadn’t changed; it still had a teak desk so well polished you could use it for a mirror to put on lipstick, a neat array of bookshelves and a wall collage of photographs-models in various styles of lingerie-that Greer could never fathom why Marie tolerated. The office was the same, and Grant was the same, his blue suit impeccable on his square, lean form, his mustache meticulously trimmed, his posture, as always, erect. The only thing out of place was Ryan.

Work boots, jeans, hard hat, sun-weathered skin… Ryan was a shout of sheer sexy machismo next to Grant’s overmanicured smallness. The difference between the men was more than physical, Greer mused for a second and a half. Grant was the kind of man who would make lingerie. Ryan was the kind women wore it for.

That second and a half passed quickly, during which she was quickly striding the five steps necessary to walk inside Grant’s door, where she stood, her jaws clamped into a counterfeit smile.

“Greer!” Grant leaned back on his desk, motioning her in. “I told Mr. McCullough you’d be passing by here any minute. I was just filling your friend in on the industry.”

“Done for the day?” Ryan queried lightly.

She nodded. Ryan offered a hand to Grant, and the two men exchanged a few more pleasant words before Greer found herself escorted from the office into the hot sunlight of the parking lot. Just as Ryan’s stride was lithe and easy, Greer’s was stilted and clipped.

“You’d better be good for a ride home, honey. I was dropped off here.”

“And just miraculously ran into my boss in the farthest office in the back?”

“Once I had the receptionist call him, yes.”

“Why?” Greer asked, bewildered, as she climbed into the driver’s seat and hurriedly rolled down the windows against the sweltering oven inside. Ryan folded up his knees next to her, tossed his hard hat in the back and grinned. “McCullough, what are you up to?”

“Infiltrating the enemy lines.”

“Fine. Where’s the war?”

“Don’t get nervous. I was swarmed the minute I walked in the back door. I never asked for all the attention.”

“Most people use the front door.”

“And face all that stuff in the window?”

Greer chuckled. “You mean underpants?”

He shoved down his visor against the relentless late afternoon sun. “Looked like a pretty decent group of people you work with.”

“You’d figured them for flakes. Because of the lingerie,” Greer said wryly.

“I hadn’t figured them for anything at all. Don’t jump to conclusions, sassy.” He paused. “I must have met at least five of your colleagues.” And there was no need to mention that he’d engineered all of those meetings. “There’s no question they’re fond of you.”

“And I love them back,” Greer said mildly.

“The first one I ran into was a man named Ray. The one you mentioned you’d be going to that trade show with.”

“Hmm.” Traffic was thick, less because of rush hour, since Greenville really didn’t have that much of a rush hour, than because of a muggy day when drivers were crabby.

“You trust him, Greer?”

“Ray?” She chuckled, darting around a poky Chevy. “No woman in her right mind would trust Ray.” She flashed Ryan a glance. “I can land a mean right hook, if that’s what you were thinking. And you work in an office yourself, so don’t tell me there isn’t a woman around who makes the men occasionally nervous. It comes with the business. You can’t like everyone you work with, and some people are more aggressive than others.”

“Yes.” He wanted to pursue it, but didn’t. Greer’s voice held a defensive pride. I can handle my own problems. I always have. Ryan watched her steadily maneuver in and around the other cars. “Are you going to feed me tonight?” he asked casually.

“No.” But she was. She had known the minute she saw him that she was doomed again. It wasn’t wise, getting involved with McCullough; she had been foolish to sleep with him, and the best thing she could possibly do now was tactfully ease herself out of any further intimate contact. Besides that, she was hot, tired and irritable; she had to call her mother…and blood was dancing up and down her veins just from being this close to Ryan again.

“Greer? It’s a red light.”

Obviously. She turned to him quizzically as she stopped the car, unsure why he was stating the obvious. His face loomed closer, much closer. So swiftly, so softly, his lips touched hers. And again. And then sank in the way a pillow sank in, a soft crash of weight, leaving the molded indentation of his mouth afterward. She was staring at him, dark eyes bemused, confused and warm with longing, when the car behind her honked.

She jammed her foot on the accelerator. The car stalled. Ryan chuckled.

“Listen,” she began abruptly as she started the engine and drove through the intersection.

“I’m listening.”

But Greer didn’t have anything to say. Ryan sneezed again, and she frowned.

“Are you catching something?”

“I never catch anything.”

“What’s wrong with your car?”

“Nothing. Just needed an oil change. And I used the excuse to get dropped off where you’d be stuck taking me home.”

“Didn’t it once occur to you to call? I might have been working late.”

“I considered that, rationally. Except that rational decisions haven’t always worked out too well lately.”

“Pardon?”

At her apartment, a tall, towheaded boy was ambling out of their building with a sack of newspapers slung over his shoulder. He brightened at the sight of Greer. “Hi.” His voice sounded cracked and wistful.

“Hi, Johnny,” she returned warmly. “Life treating you okay?”

The boy spread his fingers and wagged his hand back and forth, and Greer chuckled. “You’re not alone,” she assured him as she waved goodbye and fumbled for her apartment key.

Ryan glanced back, to see the boy staring at Greer-at least until he caught Ryan’s deadpan stare. Johnny turned in a hurry, flipped up the kickstand of his bike and sped off. Ryan climbed the stairs at a more sedate pace, noting that Greer’s newspaper had been neatly tucked behind her doorknob. His own had been haphazardly tossed near the mailbox.

“Known him long?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The kid.”

Greer looked up. “Sure. Johnny and his mom have lived across the street for as long as I’ve been here.”

“He’s got a crush on you.”

“Yes. Painful. On both sides. I wouldn’t hurt him for anything; he’s a sweetheart.” She glanced up when Ryan stole the key from her hand and motioned her toward his place. “I thought you wanted me to cook?”

What he wanted her to be was safe, and away from every damn male but him.

Prepared for a touchy exercise in tact, Ryan had found her boss more than willing to listen. Grant clearly appreciated Greer’s talents and was personally fond of her. Ryan had liked him instantly. The man had been disturbed that Greer hadn’t mentioned her crank calls to him, and not all that quick to discount any of his employees as possible culprits. He wasn’t in a hurry to malign any of his staff, but Grant admitted that several men would have done more than look at Greer if she’d ever given them the first encouragement. If Ryan was implying that those calls could mean a threat of a sexual nature…