As she turned to leave the back room, I stepped closer and put my hand on her lower back. The contact was brief, just a gentle pressure through her cardigan.
“For the record,” I rumbled into her ear. “You’rewayhotter than her.”
She gasped and her lips twitched, fighting a smile. Another light flush spread across her cheeks as she ducked her head and hurried toward the front of the store.
I followed behind her, watching the sway of her hips in that flowy skirt, while I wondered what the hell I was getting myself into.
Chapter 5
Avery
The afternoon interviews blurred together in a flurry of questions and answers.
The entire time I dealt with the constant, distracting awareness of Flint sitting beside me at the small folding table.
Every time he leaned forward to ask a question, he brushed against me, sending a shockwave through me.
While we interviewed the final applicant, I found myself glancing at the way Flint’s arms filled out his flannel shirt. He had the sleeves rolled up again today, showing off his strong forearms, tan and weathered despite the fact that we were just coming out of winter.
Flint even had manly wrists. They were brawny, just like him.
I hated how much I noticed him.
And I hated even more that I couldn’t seem to stop.
By the time we finished with the last applicant, a nervous high school student who admitted he’d never actually finished a book in his life, I was exhausted from the effort of keeping my eyes where they belonged.
As soon as the kid walked out the front door, Flint stood and stretched, his arms reaching toward the ceiling.
His shirt rode up just enough to reveal a strip of tanned skin above his belt and a thick happy trail that I assumed led straight to Nirvana. I looked away quickly, my face heating.
“So,” he said, dropping back into his chair and pulling out the stack of resumes. “Final decision time. Who do you want?”
“Shelly Anderson.” I didn’t hesitate. “She’s been coming into the store for years. She’s chipper, reliable, and there’sneverany drama with her. And she’s part of the Billionaire Romance Book Club.”
Flint joked, “But what about the Monster Fucker Book Club?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “We don’thaveone of those. We just carry a few titles. It’s a tiny subgenre.”
He flipped through the papers until he found Shelly’s resume, then frowned. “She’s got less experience than Mallory Carpenter. Mallory worked as a corporate marketing strategist. She could help us modernize the store’s approach. She’s wildly overqualified for this position.”
My stomach tightened at the wordmodernize.
“Why not both? I thought we were hiring two people.”
“Naw. I’m only getting one until Marlene comes back. Save some bucks.”
“But we need to hiretwo.”
“AndIsay we’re getting one,” he told me with steel in his voice.
The man was frustrating me, but underneath it all, I knew he was right. He was the boss right now. And I would never talk this way to Marlene. The best I could hope for was to steer him toward Shelly.
So I gave it my best shot.
“Mallory just moved back to town, and she told us herself that she’s only looking for something temporary.” I kept my voice steady even as anxiety clawed at my chest. “She’ll be gone in afew months, and she’ll want to changeeverythingwhile she’s here.”
Flint’s hazel eyes studied me intently. “Change isn’t always bad, Avery.”
