Penelope crossed her arms on the desk and leaned toward him. “Is this because I told you not to kiss me again?”

He crossed his own arms, mimicking her posture. “Definitely not. You’ll be relieved to know I’ve found my way to women who actually want to kiss me.”

Penelope tried to ignore a stab of jealousy. Of course he’d found women more willing. That had been her entire point in putting up these boundaries between them.

The reason she had insisted things not become romantic.

For Cole Sharpe, Penelope would have been one out of a million other women in his life.

For Penelope, Cole might have been one in a million. The only one. It’s how she rolled, throwing herself all the way over the ledge without looking.

No way was she setting herself up for that kind of pain again.

“Are you going somewhere with this?” she asked wearily.

“I am,” he said with a wide smile. “I’ve decided to make you my pet project.”

She groaned. “No way. Pass.”

“Come on. A woman who hates flowers? That’s just wrong.”

“Plenty of women don’t get off on flowers,” she said testily.

“Fair enough,” he said, standing. “You’re more the box-of-chocolates type. I can work with that. My point is, I’m going to show you that a little romance can be nice—fun. Casual.”

No doubt it could.

For him.

“Actually, I’m not really much of a chocolate fan either,” she admitted, picking up an onion ring. “Not much of a sweet tooth.”

“Well, what would make you swoon, Pope?” he asked, pausing in the doorway. “There’s got to be some shortcut to your heart.”

Without realizing she was doing it, Penelope glanced at the onion ring in her hand. Thought about the way he’d ordered them separately rather than just throwing some leftovers in a box. Thought about the way he’d tried to time it so they were as hot and nonsoggy as possible.

Lord help her.

Onion rings for Penelope were what roses and chocolate truffles were to other women.

And when she glanced up and caught Cole’s cocky departing wink, she saw that he knew it.

He’d known it all along.

Chapter 12

If anyone asked, Cole would swear up and down that meeting professional athletes had become old hat.

That he was so accustomed to meeting his sports heroes that he barely batted an eye when he got to shake hands with someone most people would only ever see on a TV screen.

But the truth was, it never got old.

He’d never grown out of the giddy shock of how awesome his job was.

Today was no exception.

Adam Bailey wasn’t Cole’s favorite athlete. Nor was golf his favorite sport. Still, the man was well on his way to becoming a legend, and the sports fanatic in Cole couldn’t help but feel a little starstruck.

Still, at least he was holding it together.

It was more than he could say for his co-editor.

Cole shook his head as he watched Penelope giggle like a schoolgirl over whatever it was the golf pro was telling her.

For all her protesting about Adam Bailey’s being a womanizing pig, or whatever, she looked pretty damn willing to be one of his women.

Cole studied her. She was wearing her usual clothes. Dark flats, dark pants, button-down shirt.

Cole wasn’t exactly a woman’s fashion expert, but he dated often enough to know that her attire, while perfectly respectable, wasn’t particularly stylish. His eyes narrowed slightly. But was she wearing…makeup?

He didn’t think it was his imagination that her lips had more color than usual. Her big eyes stood out even more than they usually did. What the hell?

Surely she hadn’t done that for Bailey. She’d spent all of yesterday reminding Cole the ways in which the golfer was the human equivalent of scabies.

His eyes narrowed as she laughed again, even louder this time, and then hit Adam playfully on the shoulder in the most awkwardly obvious flirting move of all time.

“Sharpe.”

Cole finally registered someone trying to get his attention, and pulled his eyes away from Penelope to find his boss standing beside him. From the irritated look on Cassidy’s face, it wasn’t the first time his boss had said his name.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Cassidy lifted an eyebrow and shifted his gaze toward Penelope and Adam. “Problem?”

“Why would there be a problem?”

“You were glaring,” Cassidy said.

“Yeah, well. The guy’s a dick,” Cole said, grabbing a water bottle from the buffet table and twisting off the cap.

“Well, really glad he’s on our cover, then,” Cassidy said drily. “Which, as I remember, was your idea.”

Cole took a drink of water and continued to glare at the golfer.

Cassidy looked like he wanted to smile. “You want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what? Adam Bailey?”

Cassidy lifted a knowing eyebrow, and Cole shook his head. “Dude. Just because you and Jake decided to overlap your professional and personal lives doesn’t mean the rest of us have any intention of following in your footsteps.”

“Absolutely,” Cassidy said with a quick nod. “Better that way. Plus, Jake and I aren’t dating co-workers—not technically. Just women who happen to work in the same building.”

Cole said nothing.

“Sharpe.”

“Yeah?”

Cassidy’s gaze was shrewd. “Penelope’s damn good for Oxford.”

“Agreed,” Cole said slowly.

“I’d hate if she decided it didn’t work out.”

Cole didn’t play dumb. He knew what his boss was getting at. “I’m not going to mess with her.”

Cassidy nodded. “Good.”

“If you’re so anti me and Penelope together, why did you okay both of us coming to the same dinner party?” Cole asked, hoping Cassidy wouldn’t notice the irritated note in his tone.

Cassidy blew out a breath. “Emma can be…persuasive. Still, she doesn’t have to deal with the two of you on a daily basis if there’s a messy fallout,” Cassidy said.

“Nothing to worry about,” Cole said. “We’re just friends.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” Cassidy muttered before walking away to talk to Adam Bailey’s agent.

Cole snuck another look at Penelope, who gave a nerdy wave to the golfer as the photographer’s assistant led him away.

She glanced over at Cole, and he was slightly mollified when her smile bloomed wider as she met his eyes.

Penelope headed his way, and when she got closer, he realized he was spot-on about the makeup.

“This is new,” he said, letting his eyes roam over her features.

She sighed. “I know. Do I look like a clown?”

Cole grimaced. There was no easy way to answer this. It was just like the old Does this make me look fat? trap.

You say no, they assume you’re just saying what they want to hear, and start lecturing you about the importance of honesty.

You say yes, you’re a dead man.

“Uh—”

“The makeup girl did it,” she said, touching her fingers to her pinker-than-usual cheek. He wasn’t sure if it was from blush, or from embarrassment, and in case it was the latter, he nudged her shoulder with his, even though he had to stoop to do so.

“Hey. It looks good.”

It was the right thing to say.

She smiled up at him, and he had an odd sense of triumph that he’d been able to sneak beneath her walls, at least for a moment. And Cole was damn sure he was right about her having walls.

The over-the-top friendliness, however genuine, was also deliberate. It was her way of ensuring that guys knew to keep her in the friend zone.

“So, Adam asked if I wanted to grab a drink after this,” Penelope said, biting her lip.

His head whipped around. What the…

Maybe he was wrong about the friend-zone thing, because apparently Adam Bailey hadn’t gotten the Let’s just be friends pep talk.