Chapter 3

Reid

Mid-November

I was distracted.

Evan was distracting me.

And the level of distraction was irritating.

We crowded around the small conference room table. Kerry, my events co-ordinator, my sales and marketing team, and George, my general manager.

At my side, of course, was Evan, my personal assistant.

That alone made Evan off limits.

The fact that she was my best friend’s wee sister and thirteen years my junior made her forbidden.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

It was the forbidden thing, I told myself.

That’s what was making me hot.

Not the way her skirt molded to an arse that was surprisingly round and luscious. Or the way her curvy hips accentuated how tiny her waist was. I could probably span it with my hands. I’d watched her sashay ahead of me into the conference room, mesmerized by the exaggerated feminine shape of her. I’d heard Evan complain to her mum about her hips and thighs as if they were a bad thing.

“If God was going to give me curves, why couldn’t he give me boobs?” I’d overheard her moan to Jen, Pat and Evan’s mother.

The memory had me flicking a quick look at my PA’s chest before glancing quickly away. Small but surely perfectly formed breasts strained against the tight fit of her black shirt.

Why had I never noticed how fucking gorgeously made Evan Munro was until last month?

Okay, not gonna lie, I’m a man—I noticed her arse around the year she turned eighteen.

But only in passing, as a man is wont to notice an exceptional arse.

Now her arse was an obsession.

Ever since we’d had that drink in my office, something had changed between us. This tension that needed to evaporate because it was playing havoc with me.

“Haven’t you ever met a woman who made you lose your common sense? Who made your skin hot and your blood pump and everything else but kissing her, touching her, ceased to matter?”

Not until now.

It was like her question had created a monster between us.

Evan took a sip of coffee from the mug she’d brought in from home. It had arrows pointing upward and beneath it the words, ‘This is what an Awesome Employee Looks Like.’

Fuck, she was adorable.

My eyes drifted to her mouth as she licked the coffee off her lips.

Everything about Evan, other than her hips and spectacular arse, was delicate and stunning. She had Jen’s doll-like features, large, beautiful, thickly lashed dark eyes, a button nose and a small but very kissable mouth. Evan’s chin was a little pointed, giving her a mischievous quality that only made me think very bad thoughts.

“… Mr. Shaw?”

Realizing my name had been said, I looked blankly over at Kerry. “Sorry?”

She flicked Evan a strange look before turning back to me.

I tried not to squirm over my event co-ordinator’s suspicious gaze.

“I asked if you were happy for us to post a competition on Instagram for locals to enter to win a chance to watch the Christmas tree being piped in?”

The Christmas tree at Shaw’s was an event in itself. We had to remove the side door to the building, and a crew of men carried the forty-foot tree into the atrium of the store. It was then erected by the use of pulleys, while people rappelled from the ceiling to decorate it in fairy lights. We had a bagpiper pipe in the tree and I invited staff to watch.

“Aye, that’s fine,” I replied. “Only two winners and their plus ones.”

Kerry opened her mouth to protest. I cut her off. “Part of the magic is customers asking how we get the tree into the store. They prefer the staff’s tall tales to reality.”

“Reality is pretty impressive too, Mr. Shaw,” she argued.

“I said no.”

“Okay. Two winners and their plus ones.”

“Now the sale,” I said, determined to focus on anything but the petite woman at my side who smelled bloody amazing. Three weeks ago, I’d caught Evan in the perfume department mooning over a perfume called Black Opium by YSL. It was one of the more expensive ones and she was bemoaning its price. It irritated me that Evan wouldn’t buy herself the perfume, even with her staff discount. I’d picked up a box and told Greta, one of the staff in the perfume department, to add it to my tab.

Evan had looked dumbfounded by the gift.

Not wanting her to read too much into it, I casually called it a bonus and walked away before she could question me.

Now she wore the perfume every day. It had a heady, musky scent to it that made a man want to chase it with his tongue.

Fuck.

Patrick would kill me if he ever guessed what ran through my mind when I thought about his wee sister.

And I’d deserve to die.

Slowly. Painfully.

Suddenly the door to the conference room flew open and a red-faced boy in the store’s uniform stood panting in the doorway. I tried to remember his name and failed.

“Mr. Shaw.” His were eyes round with panic. “We’ve had to call for an ambulance. Customer down in the men’s department.”

Shit.

I stood up, pushing my chair away with force. “George, Evan, with me,” I demanded, hurrying out of the room with my manager and Evan at my back.

The whole time we stood in the elevator waiting for it to reach the men’s department floor, I wondered what the hell I was going to do. We’d had fainting spells in the store before, but never someone who required an ambulance.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to do anything.

Evan pushed past us, striding after the junior staff member who’d alerted us to the situation.

By the time George and I caught up, Evan was kneeling beside a man in perhaps in his late fifties who was sitting on the ground, grey-faced and clammy. A woman of similar age stood to the side with Alan, the men’s department manager, looking ready to pass out with worry.

Evan placed a reassuring hand on the man’s chest. “What’s your name, sir?” she asked softly.

“Gerald,” he wheezed out.

“Hi, Gerald, I’m Evan. Are you experiencing chest pain?”

He nodded.

“And breathlessness?”

He nodded again, wincing.

“Are you allergic to aspirin?”

Gerald shook his head.

“Good.” Evan turned toward George. “Run to the pharmacy as quickly as you can and grab a packet of aspirin and some water. And make sure the side entrance isn’t blocked for the ambulance.”

My general manager didn’t even question her authoritative tone.

“Are you a medic?” asked the worried woman I suspected was Gerald’s wife.

“I’m a qualified first aider,” Evan replied.

How did I not know that? Surely that was something I should know about her. Especially as her employer. My entire staff should know who the first aiders in the building were.

The wife looked near tears. “Will my husband be okay?”

“He’s doing fine,” Evan evaded, patting Gerald’s arm. “The ambulance will be here soon.”

“Is he having a heart attack?” The wife began to cry.

Gerald shot her a concerned, pained look.

Evan rubbed her hand down Gerald’s arm to soothe him. “I don’t know for sure. But some aspirin should help until the paramedics get here.”

For a few more minutes Evan spoke quietly and calmly to the man and he stared into her eyes, seeming to relax. Not long later George appeared, breathless and sweating with the goods in hand.

I watched on from the side as Evan helped Gerald take the aspirin with some water. She did it with that same mature calm and a small, reassuring smile on her face she’d worn since we’d arrived on the scene.

Minutes later, the paramedics made their way through the department to Gerald. I was completely focused on Evan, who quickly and efficiently relayed the man’s symptoms to the paramedics and told them she’d given him aspirin.

“Are you a doctor?” one paramedic asked in a tone I didn’t like.

I stepped forward. “She’s one of my first aiders.”

The paramedic nodded. “Fine, fine, good. Can you make sure everyone’s out of the way, Sir?”

Evan and I did just that, cutting a way through the store for the paramedics to get out with no fuss. Customers watched on as we passed through, the store brought to a standstill in some departments because of it. It barely registered with me.

I was completely and fully aware of the small, incredibly capable woman at my side.

Once the ambulance departed I turned to Evan, staring into her gorgeous dark eyes and said gruffly, “You were wonderful.”

She beamed, her smile causing this ache in my chest I didn’t fully understand. “Thanks. Happy to help him. He should be okay.”

“You were so calm and in control.”

It was bloody impressive.

George appeared, and then Alan and the young boy who’d come running to alert us to the situation. They surrounded Evan, marveling at her handling of the situation and congratulating her.

The overwhelming urge to snatch her up from the lot of them came over me.

“Haven’t you ever been infatuated with a woman?” Her question from weeks ago came back to me.

My answer was ‘no’ then.

But it had changed.

Evan with her sunny disposition, her kindness, her surprising maturity, the ease with which I could talk to her, had become an obsession. I wanted to possess every inch of her, like a fucking territorial caveman, and I’d never felt that way about a woman.

It had taken me fifteen years to finally find a woman who filled my thoughts and drove me to distraction.

And it would have to be my best friend’s little sister.

It wasn’t the forbidden thing that got me hot.

She did.

It was the forbidden thing that made it hurt.

Because I couldn’t have her.