Three

By late afternoon, Dylan was back in his office, staring out the window at the LA skyline. He had achieved what he’d set out to that morning—a detailed understanding of how the Santa Monica store was operating. He’d managed to sit down with all four employees during the day and chat about their perceptions and ideas, and had seen for himself that the customers were pleased with the floral arrangements being produced.

He’d also discovered one other thing—this fledgling attraction for Faith Crawford wasn’t going to fade away. From the moment he arrived, he’d fought to stop his gaze traveling to her. Wherever she was in the store, he could feel her. And occasionally he’d caught her watching him with more than an employee’s interest. His heart picked up speed now just thinking about it.

He’d cursed the Fates that he’d had to meet her while she worked for him.

He’d also noticed she was far from an average employee. He’d been taking orders over the phone and in person all day from people who wanted only an arrangement made by Faith. When he’d tried to suggest that another florist serve them, they’d said they’d wait. And he could see why. Her arrangements were spectacular. Why had she made such a conservative design the night she’d tried to impress him? When she was in her element, her work was original and beautiful. They were designs he wanted in the catalog so florists in the other stores were reproducing them.

And the bouquet she’d made using mint and crab apples for the man to give his blind wife had been the most cutting-edge design Dylan had seen in a long time. He liked it when staff went the extra mile for customers, adding that personal touch, and her customers seemed to appreciate it. In fact, just about everything about Faith impressed him. On every level, from the professional to the personal to the physical...

His skin heated.

Shaking his head, he focused back on the professional.

Faith Crawford was someone with a lot of potential. And he wanted to help her reach that potential for the benefit of Hawke’s Blooms, and because he really wanted to see Faith get her just rewards. That manager of hers wasn’t going to recognize her talents anytime soon, despite the overwhelming evidence under her nose.

He grabbed the phone on his desk and dialed Human Resources. “Anne, do you have a minute?” he asked when the head of HR picked up.

“Sure. What do you need, Dylan?”

“I did an impromptu inspection at the Santa Monica store today.”

“Great,” she said brightly. “You always bring back good feedback when you do one of those. What do you have for me?”

He dug one hand in his trouser pocket and looked out over the skyline. “One of the florists there has a lot of potential, and I want to do something about that.”

“What was her name?”

“Faith Crawford,” he said, ensuring his voice was even and didn’t give away his reaction to her.

There was a pause, and he could hear fingers tapping on a keyboard as Anne brought up Faith’s file. “What do you have in mind?”

“Her work is good. Really good. Original and creative. But in the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know that Faith is the person who bought the dates with me at the trust’s bachelor auction.”

“I was sorry to miss that night, it sounded like a lot of fun,” Anne said, chuckling. “So how do you want to handle this from here?”

He rubbed a hand through his hair. “She’s got a lot of potential, and I want to see Hawke’s Blooms benefit from that, but I don’t want any suggestion that she bought her way into a promotion. How about you get someone else to go out and assess her? Don’t tell them that the idea came from me, just let them go to the Santa Monica store without any preconceptions and see her work.”

“I’ll see what I can arrange and let you know.”

“Thanks, Anne.”

He hung up the phone, feeling very satisfied with his day’s work. The only thing that could make it better was to be the one who actually gave Faith the promotion, so he could be there when she found out about it. But he didn’t want her to think this had anything to do with their kiss, so it was better that she had a fair and independent assessment first. He had no doubt that whoever did that would see what he’d seen and recommend her for something more senior.

But still, a good day’s work indeed. He smiled, thinking about Faith’s reaction. She was going to be over the moon.

As Faith picked out a long-stemmed apricot rose from the bucket at her feet, Mary appeared across the bench from her with a folded piece of paper in her hand.

“I’ve just had a call from head office about you,” she said, her voice accusing.

Faith stopped what she was doing and looked up. “About me personally?”

Besides the initial paperwork when she’d started at the store, she hadn’t had any direct dealings with the head office other than the impersonal pay slips. She wiped her hands on her apron and waited.

Mary planted her hands on her hips. “Have you been talking to the head office without my knowledge?”

“Of course not,” Faith said, and then realized she’d been talking to Dylan on the weekend without her manager knowing. And would be talking to him again about their next two dates. But he had her phone number—he wouldn’t be contacting her via her manager.

Hands still on her hips, Mary lifted her chin as she spoke. “It was Anne in Human Resources. They’re offering you a promotion.”

Faith’s breath caught. Hang on...

“A promotion?” she repeated, trying to make sense of it.

“To the head office.” Mary thrust the piece of paper at her. “They emailed the details.”

Faith took the paper but didn’t want to open it in front of the entire store. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said and went out the back door to the lane. Then she opened the folded email printout.

It was a formal letter of promotion to the head office. To a desk job. She scanned the list of duties and found they were all things that didn’t involve customers. Or flowers.

Frustration started simmering in her belly. She’d spent most of her life being told what would happen to her. Announcements would come that she’d be moving to another family member’s house the next week, that she’d have to change schools, that her father would be visiting and taking her to a theme park, that he would be returning her to yet another relative afterward. The best thing about being an adult was that she was in charge of her own life.

So getting notice out of the blue saying she was being moved to a desk job that she hadn’t applied for and certainly didn’t want was particularly unwelcome.

She was ambitious, yes, but not for just any promotion. She had a very clear vision of what she wanted in her career, and this job—being stuck in a boring office, away from customers and the daily joy of working with flowers—wasn’t it.

Besides, was this really out of the blue?

She’d kissed the CEO, and in less than a week he’d come to the store for a full-day inspection—something the others said he used to do, but hadn’t done since she’d been working there. And now a promotion.

What was Dylan Hawke really up to?

The thought made her uneasy, so she went back through the door and told Mary that she was declining the offer.

Dylan drove into the parking lot of the Santa Monica store for the third time in a week, still not sure what to make of the call he’d had from Anne telling him Faith had turned down the promotion. With all her ambition, he’d expected her to leap at the opportunity. So, surprised and intrigued, he’d jumped into his car to talk to her face-to-face.

As he walked through the door, Mary dropped what she was doing and headed for him, her face covered in a fawning smile. Faith wasn’t in sight, and he was more disappointed than he should have been at not seeing an employee.

Then she walked in from the cold room, carrying a bucket full of flowers. She was wearing black biker boots that almost reached her knees and a bright purple dress that peeked out around the yellow Hawke’s Blooms apron. Her wild hair was caught up on top of her head and sprang out in all directions. He only barely resisted a smile—this woman was a force of nature.

Her step faltered when she saw him.

“Mr. Hawke!” Mary said when she reached him, darting suspicious glances at Faith. “Twice in one week. We’re honored.”

He paused before answering. He hadn’t planned what he should say here—how had the offer of the promotion gone down at the store level? Should he mention it now, or play it cool for the moment? He glanced across at her as she pulled stems one by one from the bucket. His gut was telling him not to mention it until he’d at least spoken to Faith.

He smiled at Mary. “I just have a few follow-up questions from the other day.”

“Well, I’m at your service,” she said, untying the apron strings at her back. “Would you like to talk here, or perhaps at the café next door?”

“Actually, I’d like to talk to Faith if she has a few minutes.”

Faith’s hands stilled and her face grew pale. He was torn between wanting to reassure her and wanting to demand an explanation. Instead, he turned an expectant expression to Mary.

“Of course, Mr. Hawke. If that’s what you want.” But her face was sour. She really didn’t like Faith getting more attention than her.

“Excellent.” He smiled and rocked back on his heels. “You mentioned a café next door?”

Mary’s mouth opened and closed again. “Er, yes. Courtney can finish that order. Faith. Can you come and talk to Mr. Hawke, please?”

“Certainly,” Faith said, wiping her hands on her apron and removing it. The entire time, she kept her gaze down.

“Thank you,” he said to Mary, and then opened the door for Faith and followed her out onto the pavement.

“Have I just made things difficult for you in there?” he asked.

She lifted her chin. “Nothing I can’t deal with.”

He was beginning to see how true that was. Faith Crawford was most definitely her own woman. From bidding on the CEO of her company at a charity auction to get his attention for her work, to turning down a promotion most of his staff would jump at and not bowing to the head office... The more he got to know this woman, the more he liked her.

They found a secluded booth at the café and ordered coffees.

“I heard you were offered a promotion.” He leaned back and rested his arm along the top of the padded vinyl booth. “You turned it down.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “You heard I was offered the job? Are you sure you don’t mean you arranged for me to be offered the job?”

He grinned. The fact that she spoke her mind was a very attractive feature. “Okay, I might have had a hand in it. After watching you in the store for a day, I realized your potential was being underutilized, and I implemented a plan to rectify that.”

“Is that all it was?” She arched an eyebrow and waited.

“You think it’s about more?” His gaze dropped to her mouth, and his pulse picked up speed. “You think you were being promoted because I’d kissed you?”

“Maybe it wasn’t that straightforward, but we kissed, and suddenly the store has an all-day inspection and I get offered a job in the head office. Tell me that’s not a coincidence.” Her gaze didn’t waver, challenging him to be honest.

“It’s not a coincidence, but it’s not direct cause and effect, either—there were steps in between. When you talked about your store and your designs not being submitted for the catalog, it made me wonder what was going on here, and I came to check it out. That’s when I realized your potential.”

She tapped her nails on the table, but the rest of her barely moved. “So it wasn’t payback of some kind? Or a way to assuage your guilt about kissing an employee?”

“I don’t work that way.” He tried not to be insulted, given that she didn’t know him very well, but it was good at least to have her concerns addressed now, before they had their other two dates. “I passed your name to HR with a suggestion that they check you out. They arranged a couple of people to come in as customers and ask for you so they could see your skills and how you interact with customers, and then one of the staff from the head office dropped in to see Mary and watched you while she was there. Her name was Alison—she chatted to you for a while on your break, apparently. You earned this completely on your own merits.”

She looked into his eyes for a long moment and then nodded. “I believe you.”

Their coffees arrived, and she tipped a packet of sugar into her cappuccino. He watched her hands as they worked—as efficient and graceful with a sugar packet as they were with flowers. What would they be like on his body? Fluttering over his neck and collarbone. Trailing a path down his chest, his abdomen.

He tore his gaze away and stirred cream into his own coffee. “Did you turn the job down because you thought you hadn’t earned it?”

That fitted the emerging profile of this woman, but she shook her head.

“I don’t want a desk job.”

“But you want your career to go places,” he pointed out.

“The places I want to go are filled with flowers and customers.”

He took a sip of his coffee and replaced the cup on its saucer, giving himself a moment to think the situation through. “I honestly thought you’d want this job.”

She frowned, her head tilted to the side. “If you’d wanted to do something nice for me, instead of doing something you thought I’d like, you could have done what I asked for in the first place.”

“Put one of your designs in the catalog of standard arrangements.” It seemed obvious now, but hindsight was twenty-twenty.

“Bingo.” She lifted her coffee cup to her lips, smiling over the rim, her dimples peeking out.

He regarded her as she took a sip and then ran her tongue over her bottom lip to catch a droplet. In her vivid purple dress and with the smattering of pale freckles over her nose, she was the brightest thing in the whole café, as if her own personal beam of sunshine followed her around and shone down on her wherever she was. Yet the arrangement she’d made for him to consider had been as conservative as they came. It was a contradiction he wanted to understand.

He leaned back in the booth and interlaced his fingers on the table. “Why did you show me such a conservative design that night? It’s not who you are.”

For a brief second, her eyes widened. “Who am I?”

He thought back to the first time he’d met her, near the stage at the auction, to the night he’d kissed her, to the day he’d watched her work in his store. “You’re crab apple, carnation and mint bouquets. You’re mixing wild colors with flair that’s uncommon. You’re edgy and fresh.” And so much more. “Why didn’t you show me any of that?”

Her eyes lit from within. “I didn’t think you’d want to see that. I thought you’d prefer more conservative designs, like the ones already in the catalog.”

“But that’s the point.” He leaned forward, wanting her to understand this if nothing else. “We already have designs like that. We don’t have your designs. Hawke’s Blooms needs your vision.”

An adorable pink flush stole over her face, from her neck up to her cheekbones. “So, you’re not mad I turned the job down?”

“Mad? No.” He rubbed two fingers across his forehead. “It was my fault—I leapt ahead without talking to you. With any other employee, I would have researched first, found out what they wanted before making a decision.”

“So, why didn’t you?” she asked, her voice soft.

Good question—one he’d been asking himself. And she deserved the real answer. “To be honest, you’ve had me off center from the start.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “I know how that feels.”

He smiled back, and their gazes held for one heartbeat, two. Part of him was glad he wasn’t the only one off kilter—that it was the result of some inconvenient mutual chemistry—but another part of him wished it had been more one-sided. That he could justify to himself that reaching across the table for her now would be an unwelcome advance, and reinforce that he had to keep his hands to himself.

What they needed was a new start. He drew in a deep breath and pushed his cup to the side. “How about we forget the promotion and you continue working in this store for now. I know the customers here will be glad to keep you.”

“I’d like that,” she said with a quick nod.

She glanced in the direction of her store, and a thought suddenly occurred to him. This wouldn’t be a new start for her—he already suspected Faith’s manager might resent her, and now she’d be heading back into that same environment after turning down a promotion. That could get awkward fast. He’d made a complete mess of this from start to finish.

“You know,” he said, thinking on his feet, “another option is to move to a different store. I can think of a few managers who’d welcome someone with your skills and ability to form rapport with customers.”

“Thank you, I appreciate the offer but I’m happy here.” She turned her wrist over and checked her watch. “Speaking of which, I’d better get back.”

He resisted a chuckle. Many of his employees would try to drag out their one-on-one time with him, especially if they’d already spent money on an opportunity to impress him. Not Faith. “You realize you’re out with the person in charge of the entire chain of stores, right? You’re not playing hooky.”

She shook her head, unmoved by his reasoning. “We have a lot of orders to fill before I clock off.”

“What time do you finish today?” he asked, an idea forming in his head as he said the words.

“Three o’clock.”

“That’s in two hours. How about I pick you up then and we go on our second date?” Since she wouldn’t let him buy the dates back from her, it was probably better to get them out of the way as soon as was practical.

“Sure,” she said as she stood. “But do me a favor and don’t come back to the store. It won’t help my popularity in there.”

It was a reasonable point. He liked that she thought that way. She could have used the opportunity to gain points against her manager, perhaps engage in a game of one-upmanship, but he’d come to see that wasn’t the way Faith operated.

He pushed a paper napkin across the table and took a pen from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Give me your address and I’ll drop by your place at about three-thirty.”

She leaned over and wrote her address on the napkin before pushing it back to him and leaving.

He watched her walk out, taking in the sway of her hips as she moved, and then looked down at the napkin in his hand. After her address, she’d written four words. I like the beach.

A grin spread across his face. He was already looking forward to this afternoon way too much.