If You Dare by Jessica Lemmon Read Free Book Online Page A

much to risk it,” she blurted. She did respect him, but that wasn’t the full truth. The truth was she’d never considered that Marcus liked her, let alone liked her liked her. Sure, he’d asked her out when she’d first started working for Joanie and Clive, but she knew a player when she saw one. He’d been all cocky confidence and smooth charm…and yeah, drop-dead gorgeous. But she’d made the mistake before of being bagged by the guy at work who dated any and every female with two legs. And she’d been the brunt of the workplace rumors that’d come with the relationship. One look at Marcus and she knew that the dark-haired, sexy beast asked out every girl within earshot. Lily had guessed they all said yes. Every last one of them.
    She chewed on the side of her lip, wondering if she’d made too many assumptions about him. Assumptions that had stuck despite evidence that refuted them. Like the fact that he hung out with Clive more than a girlfriend, or the fact that the women he’d brought to the RSD dinners didn’t seem like more than casual acquaintances. Huh. She hadn’t really thought about that before.
    “You respect me. That’s a new one.” Marcus’s downturned eyes threw her off. Had she ever seen this man with anything less than 110 percent confidence?

“You don’t need me to get through the dinner anyway,” she said, almost laughing aloud at the idea of him “needing” her for anything at all. The man was talent squared. “Everyone attending knows you’re ten times the designer they are.” That was the truth, and so was the next thing she said. “And you’re twenty times the designer I am on my best day.”

Chapter 7
    Marcus waited for the punch line, but nothing came.
    Lily tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She had cute ears.
    “Like on the London store,” she continued. “I sketched the interior of that building at least eighteen times, and I never once thought to position the POS stations throughout the store.”
    He chuffed. “Yeah, innovative.”
    “Exactly. It was.” She punctuated his knee with one finger.
    The third time she’d touched him tonight. Interesting.
    “I was being sarcastic.” Feeling uncharacteristically humble, he added, “Clive helped.”
    She shook her head. “With the final layout. But he argued for the traditional placement of the cash registers lined up near the exit. You were the one who insisted that the customer would be more likely to make impulse purchases if he or she didn’t have to traipse to the front of the store to check out.”
    He vaguely recalled the conversation she referenced. The discussion with Clive hadn’t been a heated one, and not one Lily should remember so vividly. Which meant she’d been paying attention to him, and he hadn’t even known. How about that? And here he thought all they had in common was that they disagreed on everything.
    “You sound like you agree,” he said, intrigued by the new idea of them on the same side of an argument.
    “I do.” She looked at her hands like she was embarrassed. Or maybe she wasn’t sure how to handle them on even ground. He could relate. Compliments weren’t their usual fare.
    “While I praise you on your good taste,” he said, “I can’t take all the credit. The London account was won in the boardroom.” He could picture her standing there, her royal blue suit skimming over her curves, her hair pinned at the back of her head. She’d addressed Reginald with confidence, while maintaining a smile and including him in the presentation rather than talking at him. “You were amazing in there, Lil.”
    “Oh. Um, thanks.” She tipped her chin and blinked, her long, sloping lashes hiding her light blue eyes ever so briefly. “That’s nice.”
    “It’s true.”
    Her eyes averted to his mouth, and she licked those soft pink lips. The look she pinned him with next absolutely stunned him. He took in her pursed lips, upturned chin, the way she was leaning toward him the