Saturday morning rolled around, and I headed over to Dad's assisted living facility like I did every week. Pushing through those depressing double doors, my heart panged seeing him shuffling down the hallway. Alzheimer's was an absolute monster, cruelly stripping away more of Dad with each passing week.

"Hi Daddy," I Called out in my perkiest tone, going in for a gentle hug. His brow furrowed in confusion before that flicker of recognition finally sparked behind his eyes.

"There's my sweet Lottie," he rumbled with a tired smile, patting my hand.

We spent a couple hours reminiscing about old times - back before this remorseless thief of a disease had started pillaging his memories. But inevitably, that familiar haze would resettle over his gaze, the connection fraying. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I choked out my goodbyes, utterly heartsick from missing him more acutely with every one of these gut-wrenching visits.

The drive home gave me too much time alone with my haunted thoughts, Mom's years-long battle with cancer resurrecting in agonizing detail. By the time I crawled into bed that night, I was an emotional wreck spinning down a dark spiral. I needed to blow off steam, fast - only in my fragile state, I clearly wasn't thinking straight.

Next thing I knew, I was standing outside Max's building in a barely-there red dress, brazenly pressing the button for his penthouse like I'd lost my mind.

As soon as Max opened the door, I could practically see the cloudy haze of reckless impulse blow straight off me at the look of surprise and concern etched across his chiseled features.

"Charlotte?" His voice was a low, rumbly rasp. "What are you doing here?"

I opened my mouth to explain, but all that came out was a garbled cry as the grief came crashing back in full force. Mercifully, Max quickly ushered me inside, wrapping me in a soothing embrace as I completely shattered apart.

We didn't go any further than that scorching moment of tender comfort - me, a broken, sobbing mess, and him, having the presence of mind to put on the brakes despite my reckless behavior. Thank god one of us could think clearly.

Come Monday morning, that whole mortifying episode had me jittering with lingering fallout as I reapplied my professional game face. Strutting into the office, I felt like I'd been put through an emotional meat grinder, every raw nerve still firing in protest.

Crossing paths with Max's inscrutable presence in the hallway damn near made me whiplash in the other direction. His piercing emerald stare hit me with that same restless, molten weight from the other night - only this time, laced with undercurrents that had me squirming internally.

Was the furrow in his chiseled brow creased with concern after witnessing my spectacular unraveling? Or was the banked fire in those turbulent green depths being stoked in challenge by my rattled comportment? I couldn't decipher which - and that made me even more addled.

Somehow, I managed to brush past him and take my usual seat at the long mahogany table for our quarterly status meeting. Using that brief interim, I ruthlessly marshalled what tattered shreds of composure still remained through sheer force of will.

If Max wanted to play it unruffled and above the fray after deconstructing every careful strand of poise right off me, then fine. Two could plaster on an untouchable veneer no matter the raging bonfire smoldering beneath the pristine surface.

Smoothing my features into an impassive mask mirroring his own, I met Max's inscrutable study with a pointed look of cool challenge. His full lips seemed to twitch infinitesimally before that same smoldering spark flashed across his striking features once more.

Then just like that, it was all rigidly businesslike decorum and detached professionalism as he launched into the briefing without preamble - as if the wild, rapacious beast housed in his chiseled frame hadn't clawed its way free just days before, laying utter waste to my vaunted self-restraint.

I wrenched my gaze away, struggling to regain my inner equilibrium as Max's lingering sandalwood cologne and the phantom burn of his searing touch made my senses swirl dizzily. Get it together, Bennett, I sternly reminded myself. This is neither the time nor place for this parade of hormones run amok.

Predictably, my mind swiftly descended into a turbulent undertow of heated recollections from that night...the raw, primal intensity I'd unleashed in Max both thrilling and terrifying me in the same breath. Sure, provoking such an unrestrained, ravenous response from the usually unflappable CEO had been an intoxicating power-rush.

But having that ferocious, indiscriminate possession detonate over me in its full, unchecked fury? Overwhelming didn't even scratch the surface. It had shaken me straight down to my foundations, leaving me honestly rattled in a way I couldn't fully process.

Was Max now regretting losing that iron control in such a spectacular fashion? I wondered, sneaking a sidelong glance at his composed expression. Or was this unruffled display his way of firmly reasserting that dominance I'd managed to dismantle? The smoldering challenge glittering in those emerald depths made my heart stutter uncertainly. One wrong move, and this tenuous detente could erupt in raging desires once more.

"Miss Bennett?" Max's gruff baritone sliced through my drifting thoughts like a whip-crack. "The Henderson files?"

Flustered, I fumbled with my notes before thrusting the requested folder over as nonchalantly as I could muster. But the brief collision of our fingertips in the hand-off instantly resurrected every strand of that same incendiary chemistry arcing between us.

The air fairly crackled with the implacable tension electrifying the space between our bodies. Max's gaze seemed to darken fractionally with unmistakable heat before he smoothly refocused his attention, not missing a single beat.

But I could still feel it too - that smoldering connection steadily raising the stakes of our escalating game to fever pitch.

As the team trickled out post-briefing, I fell into step beside Max without a conscious thought, the two of us striding in loaded silence toward the elevators banks. But rather than parting ways after reaching the lift vestibule, he turned that piercing emerald regards on me once more.

"We should discuss finalizing the Carmichael proposal," he murmured in that low, rumbling rasp that had me suppressing a full-body shiver. His lips were perilously close to my ear, his earthy cologne undoing the last vestiges of my restraint. "Perhaps over dinner tonight?"

The unmistakable invitation in that silken tone sent tingles of delicious heat ricocheting through me in warning flashes. Max was overtly testing the bounds of our resilience this time, brazenly goading me into the flames once more.

Defiantly raising my chin a notch, I met that searing gaze without flinching away this time. "You're the boss," I allowed, permitting just a whisper of sauciness to lace my tone.

The barest ghost of a smile tugged at one corner of Max's sensual lips - though his emerald eyes remained lushly, disturbingly heated. "Indeed I am, Miss Bennett," he intoned with that same velvety promise of challenge burning beneath. "Indeed I am."

I spent the rest of the excruciating afternoon shifts utterly distracted, Max's sultry dinner invitation replaying on a dizzying loop in my mind's eye. By the time the clock finally inched toward the 5 o'clock witching hour, I still hadn't managed to resolve my burgeoning internal crisis.

Part of me thrilled at the delicious tension continuing to simmer between us at a low, banked smolder. After the explosive events from the other night, accepting Max's dinner proposal felt like tossing a fresh bundle of kindling onto those glowing embers - ones that could potentially flare into a raging bonfire blaze at any provocative moment. The thought had my pulse fluttering with a dangerous, tantalizing mixture of trepidation and curiosity.

But the more rational side of me sternly cautioned that indulging any further fanning of this particular flame bordered on wildly irresponsible. Given our precarious positions within Pemberton Financial, risking that kind of personal and professional conflagration could potentially jeopardize everything - our reputations, the company itself. Was satisfying my own whimsical impulses really worth immolating it all?

I was still wrestling with that burgeoning internal crisis when Max's imposing frame suddenly filled the doorway to my office. Catching sight of his hands stuffed casually into the pockets of those obscenely well-cut trousers, my treacherous thoughts began veering in an entirely different - and infinitely more dangerous - direction.

"Burning the midnight oil, I see?" His deep voice rolled over me in a heated rasp, those piercing emerald eyes glittering with undisguised masculine appreciation as they slowly traveled the length of me.

Cheeks flushing hotly despite my best efforts, I tore my gaze away and toyed distractedly with my pen. "I, uh...just got caught up in some work," I hedged lamely. Even to my own ears, the excuse sounded brittle and utterly unpersuasive.

One of Max's artfully groomed brows arched in a silent rebuke. "I see. Then I can only assume that means you'll need to take a raincheck on dinner?"

The spark of challenge banked in his tone instantly snapped me to attention, my backbone stiffening defensively. Whatever this freighted game Max seemed insistent on playing between us, I'd be damned if I was the first one to blink away from the rising stakes.

"Don't be ridiculous," I scoffed, feigning an airy nonchalance I was nowhere near feeling as I rose from my desk. Refusing to shrink from his piercing stare, I boldly met that emerald regard and lifted my chin in subtle defiance. "I'm starving. Just let me grab my things."

The barest ghost of a smile curved those ridiculously sensual lips as Max's eyes followed my movements in a molten sweep. He knew precisely what I was doing - accepting his unspoken dare to keep charging ahead into this thickening ether of accelerating tension between us. Two could goad the other with reckless provocation.

The air was practically vibrating with smoldering turbulence by the time we exited the office building into the crisp spring evening. Falling into step beside me, Max steered us toward a trendy new bistro just a couple blocks away, our strides falling into an unconscious sync. We walked in loaded silence, the undercurrent of heated awareness practically visible in a lush, shimmering haze around us.

By the time we were shown to a quiet corner table, something sleek and predatory had taken up silent residence in Max's watchful stare. He looked like a panther getting ready to strike - though what exactly he intended as his final prize, I couldn't be certain.