The Job Offer (5 page)

She looked at the line of the man's
tanned throat and his brown chest hairs that peeked out from above the open
collar of his red polo shirt.  Looking down, she could see the muscle
definition of a powerful chest, lean hips, and long legs encased in faded blue
jeans.  This man had the body to go with the voice.  Realizing that she was ogling
the man’s body, she quickly looked up into his face and hoped that he would not
realize what she had been doing.  She almost groaned when she saw his face.  He
was possibly the most handsome man she had ever seen.  He did not have the
pretty boy sophisticated metro sexual look that some men cultivated but instead
looked like a man’s man.  He looked like he took life on and bent it to his
will.  He had just the look that never failed to appeal to her.

The man’s hair was a thick medium brown color;
his eyes were like milk chocolate.  His nose was strong and slightly crooked,
and his lips were positively sensuous, looking both hard and soft at the same
time.  He also looked familiar.  With a jolt, she realized that he was Ben,
Lily Carlson's brother.  She was ogling Ben!  Feeling suddenly too warm and breathless
to continue standing that close to him, she stepped away even further so that
he was forced to let go of her arms.

"Anne?  Is that you?"  He went
from looking at her with the awareness of a man who knew that he had just been
checked out by a woman he found equally attractive to amused surprise.  "Well,
what do you know?  Little Anne Petrovic is all grown up.  Nicely too, I might
add."

"Hello.  Do I know you?"

"Liar," her mind screamed at
her.  She tried to assume a look of confusion.  A line suddenly appeared
between his brows, and he looked slightly disappointed that she did not
remember him.  He remembered her.  Oh God!  Did he remember her crush, too?  He
called her Anne Petrovic.  She was so flustered by his remembering her that she
did not correct the use of her name.  When he was here, he knew her as Anne
Petrovic, the daughter of Jim and Jane Petrovic.

"I used to come here with my family
when my sister and I were kids.  You remember Lily Carlson, don't you?"

"Of course I remember Lily.  She's
getting married this weekend."

"Yes, she is."  He nodded his
head then looked over his shoulder to where Lily stood talking to another man
whom Anne assumed correctly was her fiancé.

"Good for her.  That would make you
Brent."

"Ben," he corrected her.  Then
he gave her that charming smile that she remembered.  It lit up his eyes with
brown fire, and his lips curved up until a small dimple appeared in his left
cheek.  A slight breeze blew a lock of hair onto his forehead and Anne became
transfixed at the sight.  She forgot what she was going to say for several
seconds before it came to her that she was trying to pretend that she did not
remember him.

"Of course!  I'm sorry I forgot
your name.  It has been a long time."  Oh, what the hell, she thought,
before dropping the coyness act and giving him a warm smile in return.  He continued
to stare at her now with a strange intensity suddenly entering his eyes.  His gaze
disturbed her, and she felt the heat of his desire.  More disturbing was that her
body began to respond.  She felt her face blush, and the heat move down. 
Needing to break the hold he had on her senses, she moved around him so that he
was forced to either follow her to the main entrance or stay where he was.  He
chose to follow her.

"So, Anne...  Do you still live
here on Orcas?"  He soon caught up to her with his longer strides until he
was walking beside her through the doors and into the main lobby.  She felt her
blood pressure return to normal now that he was no longer staring at her.  His
voice had also become friendly instead of the molten lava tone that she knew
his voice would sometimes take.

"No.  I'm just here visiting."
 She walked behind the front desk to get a key to a bike lock.  Ben stood
waiting by the counter until she was done before talking again.  Looking over
by the door that led to the dining room and lounge, Anne saw that her mother
was busy talking to Lily, her mother, Mrs. Carlson, and another younger woman
about Lily’s age.  Anne’s stepdad, Jim, was busy talking to Lily's father and her
fiancé over by a seating area on the other side of the main doors next to the
entrance to the art gallery-gift shop.

"So you live in Seattle?"  Ben
asked her this when she met him where he was standing by the edge of the
counter.

"No.  I live on the east
coast."  She missed the look of disappointment that crossed his face at
her words when she looked down to sign out a bike in the log.  "You live
in Seattle?"  She finished signing her name then looked back at him.

"Yes, I do.  You must be going for
a ride.  I didn't mean to keep you."  A frown marred the line on his face
for a second before it was gone, and Anne was not sure if it was merely her own
imagination that it was there in the first place.  He suddenly stepped out of
the way to let her pass.  "Have a nice ride.  It was nice seeing you
again, Anne."

"It was nice seeing you too,
Ben."  She paused at the end of the counter, reluctant to end the
conversation.  Suddenly a bike ride did not sound like a good idea.  She had
always liked Ben, even before she developed her teenage crush, and now she was
finding his company rather nice.  She was even getting used to the little hum
along her nerve endings caused by being around him.  He had always had the
ability to make her laugh and to put her at ease while at the same time making
her almost painfully aware of him.

She wanted to keep talking to him and
find out how much he had changed, if any, from the boy he used to be.  "You’re
the best man in the wedding, right?  I suppose that you'll be busy with wedding
things all this week.  That’s too bad.  I remember now that you liked kayaking
and mountain biking."  That definitely sounded like she was hinting at him
joining her.  Did she want him to?  Yes, she did, she decided.

"I still do.  Would..."  He
was cut off from saying more when his sister came over.

"I don't mean to interrupt, Ben,
but I need you for a moment," she said as she touched his arm to get his
attention.  Then looking at Anne with her wide brown eyes, she exclaimed,
"Anne!  It is so nice to see you again.  I didn’t know that you would be
visiting your parents this week.  I'll bring Ben back in a second.  I
promise."

"Hello, Lily," Anne said
warmly.  Lily did not look like she had changed much in the past eleven years
except for gaining a mature look about her.  She still had that same unaffected
way about her that instantly put people at ease.  "It has been a long
time.  Congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you, Anne.  I wish I had
more time to catch up right now, but I need to steal Ben away."  Lily
looked at Ben face.  He flashed Lily a look of annoyance before he smiled back
at the knowing look in her eyes.  Anne missed this because she was still
looking at Lily.

"No, that's quite all right, Lily.  Steal
away.  I was just heading out anyway."  Anne motioned with her hand to the
front door then waited politely for Lily and Ben to move away.

"We'll catch up later then."  Lily
smiled again before pulling Ben's arm.

"That we will, I promise you."
 This comment came from Ben who spoke softly in Anne’s ear.  His comment was
accompanied by a private look that caused her stomach to flutter and her
breasts to tighten in awareness.  He saw her nipples harden underneath her tee
shirt and gave her a knowing grin before following in Lily's wake.  Anne was shocked
by his frank perusal of her breasts and embarrassed by her body’s response to the
seductive ogling of her body.  She turned her head away to hide the red face
she knew she now sported.  He did not even try to hide his interest in her, and
her body responded instantly, physically to that knowledge.  She swore under
her breath then quickly walked to the front door and out onto the veranda to take
the path to the bike shed. 
Oh my,
she thought as she walked down the
steps.  Ben Carlson was more attractive then he was when they were younger, and
it appeared that she was still attracted to him.

Benjamin Stanford III, known as Ben for
short, followed his step-sister back to their group, but his mind remained on
Anne.  Ignoring the talk around him, he watched Anne through the window as she
climbed onto a bike and took off pedaling down the long drive.  She turned out
nicely, he thought, admiring the lean muscles of her long legs and the swell of
her full breasts as she rode away.  That wild mane of dark hair and those light
blue eyes only added to the beautiful package that was Anne Petrovic.  He could
not help being attracted to her.  Any man would.

She apparently felt the same way about
him if her physical response to his comment and look a minute earlier was any
indication.  She certainly had no trouble checking him out earlier, too, he
reminded himself.  He felt his body respond now when he remembered the feel of
her lush body next to his when they bumped into each other and the sight of her
breasts reacting under his gaze a few minutes ago.  He had wanted to reach out
to touch them just as he dreamed of doing when he and Anne were younger.  She
had been the subject of many of his erotic fantasies as a teenager and, no
doubt, would be again.  He wondered if she would let him pursue her for a
little vacation romance this week.  He intended to find out.

Not that he was interested in anything
long term, he told himself.  He had ended a relationship last month with yet
another woman who was more interested in his money than she was in him.  The
last thing he needed was another relationship.  He ignored the prick to his
memory at the disappointment he felt earlier when he learned that Anne did not
live in the Seattle area.  He tried to reason away his interest in only a short
term relationship, telling himself that if she learned who he really was, she
would be like all of the other women.  He thanked his luck that people only
knew him on the island as Ben Carlson.

Ben's mother had always called him Ben
as a nickname because his father was called by the more formal name of
Benjamin.  Then when his father died from a car accident when Ben was only
nine, people started calling him by his formal name out of respect for his
father.  But, by that time, everyone was so used to the nickname that it did
not seem right to call him anything else.  Now, he only used his formal name
when he signed business documents, but everyone called him Ben.  When his
mother married Scott Carlson three years after his father died, people outside
of their circle assumed that Ben's last name was Carlson as well.  This mistake
became a benefit when Ben became an adult because it gave him a certain level
of anonymity that he used when he travelled.

Turning his attention back to the
business at hand, he checked in along with the rest of the party using his
assumed last name and handed over a company credit card.  Over the years he
discovered that to check into hotels using his real name usually led to
trouble.  Benjamin Stanford III was quickly becoming something of a local
celebrity in the Seattle area and most of the West Coast even though he tried
to keep a low profile.  Ever since he took over the helm of the family business
from his mother, who ran it after his father died, he had invested heavily into
researching and developing cleaner solutions for the waterways, as well as,
expanding the other areas of biochemical uses in manufacturing for which the
company was originally known.  These investments paid off, and the once small
company grew to become a world leader in research, making him an even richer
man than he was when he took over.

That also led to him being named one of
Seattle's most eligible bachelors by
Seattle Magazine
three years ago. 
Before that his personal life was relatively uneventful.  After the article women
began throwing themselves at him, sometimes blatantly, which he could ignore,
and sometimes subtly, which required him taking the time to find out their real
motivations.  Some even had the gall to follow him to hotels or try contacting
him at his home.  After that, he always made sure to use the Carlson name when
he traveled.  At first he was flattered by the attention, but now he was just
sick of the whole thing.  At thirty-three, he was tired of dating women who
only wanted one thing from him.  He wanted a family of his own like his mother
had with his stepfather and with Ben's father before him.  He thought of Anne
again, and throughout the remainder of the afternoon he found himself looking
for her whenever he went downstairs or outside.

His suite was at the back corner of the
building and overlooked the pool below and the dock and President Channel down
the hill.  The Petrovic's little house sat behind the main building off to the
right mostly hidden in the shadow of several large trees.  Long ago, he learned
that their home was once the caretaker's cottage.  Now sitting on the back
balcony, he looked over at the little house while he sat at his balcony table
and answered emails.  Interviews for the new biochemical scientist were going
well his HR director, Bernie Tomlinson, wrote.  That day, Dr. Jane Conner and
another scientist were interviewed, and two more would be interviewed tomorrow.
 There was also one more interview planned for Wednesday morning.  Bernie gave
her impressions so far, and Ben smiled in agreement.  Ben had reviewed the
candidates resumes a few months ago, and after following up with a few phone
calls to colleagues, he was leaning toward Dr. Conner, too.