Readers: I apologize for taking so long with this chapter but work/school must come first--at times. As always, thanks for the feedback and interest. Happy reading!
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"This is a bad idea."
Gray sunlight trickled through the blinds on the window behind Lyn Viglio's desk, making a bar-pattern against Aidan's blue t-shirt. He stared hard at Lyn as she took in his reaction to her request—an unbelievably unreasonable request in Aidan's opinion.
Lyn, despite her diminutive size, had a backbone of steel and she returned Aidan's dark gaze with a steady one of her own. "Aidan, I really don't see what the problem is," she said, tapping the end of a black ballpoint pen against the stack of photos he'd handed her when he came in.
Aidan sighed, running a hand over his face. He felt like hell and was sure he looked it. He hadn't slept the night before. He'd been too busy listing all of the reasons why he couldn't be attracted to Rainey. When his alarm finally went off at 7am, he'd gotten to nine—she was too young, he was too old, they worked together...sort of—before he realized that it wasn't doing him any good. The attraction was there; it was like something haunting him, an addiction that he couldn't shake.
The hell of it was that he couldn't figure out *why.* What was it about her? He'd known women who were much more beautiful, ten times more outgoing and just all around more sexually appealing in every sense of the term.
Rainey was nothing like them. And that's what intrigued him; her purity was what made him want her.
'You're a sicko,' he told himself. She was just a kid. It was no wonder she was so innocent and pure. The world hadn't had the chance to tear her down. She'd never been in love, never known the depths of passion—that much he could tell from the frightened look in her eyes when he'd touched her.
God, when he'd touched her...
When she'd left him alone in his car on Saturday night he was sure that she had no idea how close to pulling her down beneath him he'd been or how much he'd wanted to palm those full breasts. Feel her nipples harden to taut little beads beneath his touch.
Swallowing the knot of frustration forming in his throat he shifted in his chair. This desire he had for her, it was just carnal and lust-driven. There was nothing behind it. There couldn't be. He didn't even know her.
Just wanted her so damn much that he hadn't stopped aching for her since Saturday. It was Monday now and when he'd gotten into his car to drive to work this morning he'd sworn that her smell still floated in the air. He'd driven with the windows down even though it was raining.
That was when he made the decision to stay away from her. He knew he couldn't control himself when he was around her, so it'd be better if he just didn't see her for a while. He could email most of his work to Lyn and have a courier drop off his photos. When it was absolutely necessary that he come to the office he'd make morning visits since Rainey usually worked in the afternoons.
It could work, he told himself. He could get over this drugging, frightening need he'd seemed to develop overnight. It would just take some time.
"Aidan are you even listening to me," Lyn's voice cut into his thoughts, and the favor, the hideously ironic favor, she'd just asked of him slammed back into his face. His plan *would* have worked if it wasn't for what Lyn was proposing.
He started shaking his head in denial. "No, I haven't been listening at all. I've been thinking about what a bad idea this is."
Lyn stopped tapping the pen and steepled her hands on the table, regarding him over the point made by her short fingers. "All I'm asking is for you to tutor Rainey. Show her the ins and outs of what it is to be a freelancer. I want her to get an idea of what goes into putting a whole story together from beginning to end." She pursed her lips. "Give me one good reason why it's such a bad idea and I'll drop it."
Aidan swore silently. He could give her half a dozen reasons why it was a terrible idea as well as a dangerous one. For him as well as Rainey. But they were reasons that didn't really fit into the confines of the workplace. All he could come up with was, "It'll interfere with her classes. You know how my schedule is, Lyn. I can't drag her around with me when she has school all day." He breathed a sigh of relief at the valid argument, but the smile Lyn gave him made him wary.
"Have you really been out of college that long, Aidan?" The dumbfounded look he gave her was proof enough that he was confused. Lyn sighed and rolled her eyes skyward as if Aidan were a child to whom things had to be explained slowly and simply. "Her spring break starts today. She's out of school for two weeks so you can, as you put it, feel free to drag her to as many remote locations as you want. Unless," she looked at him with a smug smile, "you have any more *good* objections."
'Damn,' Aidan thought.
He could just flat out refuse to do it but Lyn would want to know why and there really wasn't a valid answer that he could give her. So he sat in silence.
Lyn, taking his stillness for anger at his being thwarted said, "Okay, if you don't want her in your hair all of the time then..." she waved a hand vaguely in the air, several silver bangle bracelets sparkled in the sunlight. "...just have her transcribe the tapes of your notes from any interviews you do. You're always talking about how you have trouble meeting deadlines because you can barely read your notes. Or, have her help you with developing some of your photos for the next issue. Just make sure she gets an idea of what it's like to work on a story this size."
He felt a twinge of hope spark to life at Lyn's suggestion. If that's all she wanted, he could pass a few words of advice on to Rainey, as quickly as possible, when he was in the office and drop off a few tapes for her to transcribe. It could work. Relieved at the prospect that his plans hadn't been completely destroyed, he rose to leave. "Alright, I'll do it," he said quickly before he could change his mind.
