Sweet Submission ✓

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 3

Kate whirled around. Tyler King approached her desk, shaking his head in apparent dismay. Her cheeks burned.

“It’s very rude to eavesdrop,” she muttered.

“Hey, you made a move in a public place.” He came to a stop beside the desk. “Couldn’t help overhearing. You have chocolate on your mouth.”

She shot him a startled look. “What?”

“Here.”

He flicked his finger over her lips, the touch inappropriately intimate in the middle of the office. Kate ignored a sudden rush of awareness, a memory of the way she’d felt locked in his arms. He held up his finger to display the large flake of chocolate that had apparently been clinging to her lip the whole time she’d been talking to Miles.

Perfect. She groaned and reached for a tissue to pat her mouth.

“Hey, if Norwood were the kind of guy who grabbed a chance when he saw one,” Tyler remarked, “he’d have said, ‘Chocolate on your lips? That means your kisses are extra sweet.’”

Kate restrained herself from smiling. She didn’t want to encourage his flirty attitude in the workplace, but she appreciated his attempt to make her feel better. She further consoled herself with the fact that Miles hadn’t even really looked at her, so he probably hadn’t noticed she couldn’t eat a piece of chocolate neatly.

Tyler leaned his hip against the side of her desk, knocking over her leather pen holder with his arm. Kate threw him a look and straightened the pens.

“May I help you?” she asked, infusing the question with her executive assistant to the CEO tone.

“Yeah.” Amusement rose to his eyes. “You can direct me to the best fruit smoothie combination at the Gumdrop Bistro.”

Kate flushed with new embarrassment. Now she was the girl with chocolate on her lips who couldn’t ask a guy out without looking like a bumbling fool.

A teasing smile tugged at Tyler’s mouth, lighting his brown eyes to the color of roasted chestnuts.

“I’m partial to the Tropical Twist myself,” Kate admitted, her embarrassment shifting to the conspiratorial feeling of sharing a secret. “Though the Peachy Keen runs a close second.”

“Old Miles doesn’t seem like much of a smoothie guy.” Tyler leaned closer to her. “Try asking him to dinner. You can gaze at each other over the candlelight and whisper sweet nothings about data analysis.”

Had he read her mind? She recalled her daydream about having lunch with Miles in the courtyard. She’d imagined him leaning toward her exactly the way Tyler was doing right now, except that Tyler was quite a bit bigger than Miles and smelled like spice and peppermint rather than the floral-yet-masculine aftershave Miles wore. His body was also effectively boxing her into the L-shape of her desk, making her nervously claustrophobic rather than warm and cozy.

“What is it you need, Mr. King?” She pushed her chair as far away from him as she could get. “If you want to see your brother, he’s on the phone with Switzerland.”

“Poor Switzerland. But actually, I’m here for you.” Tyler pulled a crumpled newspaper clipping from the pocket of his jeans. “Here’s something I found in the library for the website.”

Faintly surprised that he’d actually made an effort, Kate took the clipping from him. Dating to 1926, it was an ad featuring a new lollipop from King Confectioners, the name of the company before Josh changed it to Candy King twelve years ago in a corporate overhaul and rebranding.

“This is an incredible piece of history.” She gestured to the photo on the ad, which showed a man standing beside a truck labeled King Confectioners: San Francisco. “That’s an old Ford Model T pickup, too. Classic vehicle.”