Accidentally Flirting with the CEO (Whirlwind Romance Series)

after he
greeted Lee and Chase and Alexa was seated.
     
    Alexa couldn’t help blushing as she sat down in the
boardroom. She was usually so in control.  She’d learned to control her
emotions around him…but now? She just couldn’t help herself. It appeared that
he hadn’t seen her e-mail…yet!
    At least she would get through the appraisal. Her confidence
suddenly climbed back up a notch. Slightly.
    Focus, Alexa. One thought at a time. Let it not be those
luscious lips of his.
    Yeah, right. That would be easy. Jess looked impeccable this
morning. Clean shaven, fresh looking. Her eyes caught the delicious masculinity
of his form. Though he wore a gorgeous expensive looking Italian suit, you
could see the physique inside of his suit.
    Jess was four things. Tall. Dark. Lean. Sexy.
    Everything she could physically want in a man. His dark,
almond eyes danced. His chiselled cheekbones and dark, wavy, shiny hair framed
his deeply handsome face perfectly.
    He was hot! No two ways about it.
    But did you have to send him that e-mail, Lex?
    She had felt conscientious when she walked in ahead of him.
She felt his eyes penetrating her from behind. Alexa only thought of Jess. What
his strong hands would feel like on her skin.
    Stop it, Alexa. Focus.
    “Okay, let’s begin…”  Lee cleared her throat as she
peered over at Alexa over her glasses.
    “Relax. You look as if we’re having you for dinner.” Chase
chuckled as he sat swinging his chair slightly. “You’re doing fine. Don’t
worry.”
    “Thanks,” Alexa tried to hide her bungled nerves. They were
there to tell her about her performance. How hard would that be? She already
knew how well she did and how hard she’d worked. It wasn’t as if she’d screwed
up in any way. Except…
     
    “Oh, sorry. I’ve got to take this call. I’ll just be a
second,” Jess excused himself briefly from the table.
    Tortuous seconds later, he reappeared and apologized
explaining he was waiting for an important e-mail for the go-ahead from Hot
Spots—it was important because if they could confirm on the dates of the
shoot and if TLC would be in charge of their new campaign, that would mean
Alexa would be promoted for that account as account manager.  He wanted to
announce it during the appraisal.
    As Jess scrolled down his BlackBerry e-mails searching for
the e-mail, his eyebrows crinkled.
    “Oh, there’s an e-mail from you marked ‘my assignment’.” He
looked up briefly to Alexa then he directed his eyes back to his BlackBerry
screen.
     
    Alexa felt a wave of nausea swoop into her belly. She was
going to be sick.
    “Oh, it’s not important. I’ve already dealt with the
matter.” Alexa gave a nervous chuckle as she struggled to sound as dismissive
as possible. What she really wanted to do was climb over that boardroom table
and grab that cell phone from his grasp and delete that email. But that would
be just so…unprofessional.
    Guilt was a tough thing to hide. So was utter and complete
humiliation.
    Alexa flushed probably a thousand shades of rouge. How could
she possibly explain now, that it was just meant to be a private email sent to
a friend for an assignment on romance writing? But thinking about it now in
hindsight, sending a salacious email about your boss to a third party was
probably high up there on the list of grounds for dismissal.
    Okay, it’s safe to panic, now! Alexa curdled
inside. Now she understood what was meant by ‘die from embarrassment.’
     
    Jess was now into a full blown heat wave. He was both in a
state of shock and rock hard. Heat rose in all places of his body. He chuckled
nervously shaking his head as he opened his eyes wider to see if he were
reading correctly. Uncomfortably, he loosened the tie around his neck as he
tried to hide the look of shock on his face from the other board members.
Another thought penetrated him. Alexa thinks I’m hot? All this time he
thought it was just a one-way sentiment. It took a lot to make him blush. The
flush in his face was evident, he was sure.
    But this was all wrong. As long as Alexa was his employee,
any type of personal relationship was out of the question. This was not going
to happen any time soon. She would be a liability for everything he worked for.
Suddenly, Jess’s mind drew a blank. He couldn’t think of anything else but
Alexa. For a moment he’d forgotten what he was doing sitting in the boardroom
or why he went to check his e-mail in the first place. Oh,