Pulling his eyes away, he stacked both helmets back up on the shelf. “Come on inside. Let’s figure out the problem you ran into this morning.”
He didn’t glance back at Gianna, knowing that if he did, he’d pull her into his arms and kiss her. He’d rip that damn sweater off of her and find out how heavy her breasts were, how perfectly they fit into his hands.
Mystery first, fun later, he told himself.
When he opened the garage door that led into his house, he realized that Gianna was lingering by his bike, her fingers sliding longingly over the chrome.
“I’ll take you for another ride soon, if you’d like.”
Those dark eyes lit up and he swore under his breath. Now why the hell had he promised her that? He’d come back to the house to get their relationship back on a business footing. Promising another ride on his bike did the exact opposite!
But the bright smile that lit up her features was all the pleasure he needed.
Damn, she was breathtakingly gorgeous!
“Fantastico!”
His body already ached from the bike ride and now she started in with her sexy Italian? Was she doing it on purpose? Did she have any idea how much her lilting voice turned him on?
Turning away, he led the way into his home office and focused on booting up his computer. His fingers flew over the keyboard, logging into the secure system at the company headquarters.
“Yes,” Gianna murmured, stepping into the room and nodding her head in satisfaction as she looked around.
“Yes?” he prompted, still focused on the screen.
“This is exactly what I pictured when I thought of your home office.”
Brant looked around, noting the bare grey walls and dark trim. There was a desk and his computer with built in shelves behind him that included hidden filing cabinets. A big leather chair sat behind the desk and an upholstered chair, for guests, was tucked back in a corner because he rarely had guests. Other than that, there wasn’t much to the room.
“What’s wrong with my office?” he asked, dropping into the leather chair.
She shrugged and dumped her leather tote on the upholstered chair. “Nothing at all,” she replied. “This office is exactly what I thought it would be like.”
For some reason, Brant was certain her comment should be insulting, but for the life of him, he had no idea why. The room was functional.
“What would you change about the room?” he demanded, standing up and crossing his arms across his chest.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied, spinning slowly as she took in the room. “Color, perhaps?”
He looked at the grey walls again, confused. “Why would I add color?”
She smiled and his muscles tightened. He wanted her to smile at him like that when she was naked, he thought. Yeah, naked and….
“Color makes things interesting.” She perched a hip on the edge of his desk. “Color brightens one’s perspective.”
“And my perspective needs brightening?” he teased.
“Absolutely! If there is anyone in this world who needs a brighter perspective, it is you!”
He had no idea what she meant by that, so he pulled up the data she’d mentioned, which was still in a report format on the server and printed it out. Better to face problems he could fix rather than the ones he didn’t even understand.
“What was the issue?” he asked.
“Here,” she pointed. “I can’t figure this out. It isn’t right, but I don’t know what I did wrong when putting in that data.”
Brant nodded when she explained the supply orders that had already arrived at the manufacturing facility compared to the number of bottles and packaging ordered. “See? This is no matching,” she explained, pointing to the various numbers she’d calculated.
He nodded, his concern increasing. “You’re right.” Standing up, he pulled back because Gianna smelled…incredible. Did other women smell that good? He tried to think, but it had been too long since he’d actually been with a woman.
“Okay, let me look into this. Calculate the other issues and I’ll get back to you, okay?”
Gianna nodded. “Good. I’m no crazy, then,” she laughed and leaned over to…
Gianna froze. Reaching to grab the printouts caused her breast to brush up against his arm. His strong, muscular arm, she thought silently. Tilting her head, she looked up into his dark eyes. He felt it too, she realized.
Pull back! Get away from him! Her mind ordered her to pull away, but her body didn’t move, her heart racing even as she told herself to step away. She felt his breath, the warmth of him. Had the room become hotter in the past few moments? Impossible! But yes, she felt the heat increase. Perhaps it was caused by her own awareness of him as a man.
He pulled back and Gianna felt surprisingly rejected. She knew that he’d felt the same pull she did. It was there in the way he pressed his lips together and the burning in his eyes. Glancing down, she noticed that his body looked just as alive as hers felt.
Brant stood up abruptly and nodded, moving toward the window and away from her. “I’ll have Gerome take a look at the factory site tomorrow. Get me the data on the marketing plan by tomorrow afternoon, okay? I want to talk with the people over at the site by Tuesday morning.”
Gianna frowned, wondering what had just happened. She felt dismissed. His gaze seemed shuttered now. Closed off. Anything he might have felt a moment ago was gone, suppressed underneath the layers of control he was known for.
“Right,” she muttered, leaving the report on his desk and grabbing her tote. “Tuesday. I’ll have the data for you by Monday.”
With as much dignity as she could muster, Gianna left the dull office. As soon as she’d rounded the corner where he could no longer see her, she increased her pace, wanting to get away from him and the complicated, swirling feelings he brought out in her. She’d made a fool of herself with a fuddy duddy. What was she thinking?
Brant Jones wasn’t the man she wanted for her life. And she wasn’t here in the United States to fool around. She was here to learn. She wanted the experience of working in the United States and then she’d go back to Italy to start her own business. She didn’t have huge ambitions, just a small shop all her own. Or maybe a chain of small, boutique stores. She’d sell…well, she didn’t know what she’d sell, but something. Something colorful and beautiful! Something that would…
A shop that she owned where stupid, boring men with too many muscles couldn’t reject her!
She wiped furious tears from her eyes. It shouldn’t matter. He was nothing. She had plans and a life that she wanted to build. Brant Jones was just a stepping-stone on the path to her dream!
Gianna repeated that thought all the way home. But as soon as she stepped into her tiny, cheap apartment, which she’d rented but hadn’t bothered to decorate, because she hadn’t planned to stay long, she burst into tears. Sitting down on the sofa, she curled into a ball, wondering why she had to be attracted to a man that didn’t want her! Why Brant Jones? Of all the men in Denver, why did he have to be the one that set her senses on fire?!
No more, she promised herself. She was here for one thing, and one thing only! If she learned more about this confusing but fascinating American culture, great. If not…
She looked around at her bare apartment and sighed in disgust. “Enough!” she announced to the cold walls. “Non piu!”
Grabbing her purse, she headed out. Three hours later, she felt better as she unfolded a cheerful, bright comforter for her bed, added colorful pillows to the sofa, and spread around a few sparkling knick-knacks. Curtains were a bit of a problem, since she couldn’t figure out how to hang them, but she’d pick up tools later this week and learn how to hang the brackets. Draping the curtains across the club chair, she hefted the box of yellow, red, and green plates and bowls into the kitchen. Stacking the dishes that had come with the furnished apartment, she stored them in one of the cabinets she wasn’t using and put he
r new dishes onto the shelves. Then she began pulling ingredients from the fridge. Cooking! She would cook something delicious and spectacular! Cooking always made her feel better, more alive!
Chapter 4
Gianna frowned at the data, then at the other numbers. “Well, I’ll…!” she stopped, not remembering the English word. She’d been slipping into Italian a lot lately. She hurriedly printed out the data in question before rushing down the long hallway.
“Is he free?” she asked Todd, pausing outside of Brant’s office.
Todd opened his mouth to respond, but a deep voice echoed from the open office door. “Come in, Gianna!” he bellowed.
Gianna cringed, wondering what she’d done wrong this time.
“Someone is stealing from you,” she announced, slapping the report down on the desk in front of him. She moved around to the side where he was sitting, leaning over so that she could explain. “I figured out why the data was wrong this past weekend. See these numbers? And these show someone is buying extra ingredients, only to sell them a few days later. This,” she continued, pointing to a delivery truck entry, “is when the ingredients leave the warehouse. And this…” she pointed to a list of employees, “is everyone who was working on these particular days.”
Gianna stopped, looking down at him to see if he understood what she was saying. But he wasn’t looking at the data. He was looking up at her. And was that…she swallowed, thinking that perhaps it was admiration in his eyes. Admiration and…something more. That sizzling, powerful sensation hit her and she wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Pulling back, she stepped out of his way, not sure how to handle Brant Jones. He was too confusing. Italian men, she understood. Most American men, they looked at her breasts and she understood them. But Brant…he didn’t and she didn’t. And that scared her and thrilled her at the same time.
Retreat!
Stepping further back, she waved at the report. “Anyway, do with that information what you will,” she announced and walked towards the door to his office. “If you need more evidence, I will cross check the list of names and come up with more.”
“That’s okay,” he stood up. His hands slid into his pockets and he nodded down towards the reports. “This is excellent work, Gianna. I’m impressed.”
She’d almost made it to the door of his office. Had she heard him correctly? Had he just complimented her?
Back in her office, she packed up for the night, wondering if she could…if maybe…
Still confused, Gianna closed her laptop and…just before she left, she remembered the secret papers she’d printed out. Turning left instead of right, she pulled the potentially embarrassing papers off of the printer. Even as her eyes moved down the page, she didn’t understand what was on them. The words made absolutely no sense and the statistics…what did they mean? They were absolute gibberish!
Brant would know what they meant. But there was no way she would go to him. He would…she shuddered, thinking about the man. Nope. He could never know about this information.
She rushed down the hallway. But just before she was about to turn the corner, she stopped and looked towards Brant’s office. There he was! The man stood in his doorway, his hands still in his pockets, watching her. She wondered briefly if he’d been talking to Todd. But Todd came out of another office, heading in the opposite direction.
Why was Brant just standing there? Why…why did he have to be so handsome?! And so enigmatic!
Yeah, that was one of the words she’d learned last night and as soon as she’d read the word, Gianna realized it suited Brant perfectly.
Breaking free from his gaze, Gianna realized that she was still holding the papers with the odd data in her hands and quickly stuffed them into her tote so that he wouldn’t suspect what she was doing. With a guilty glance in his direction, she hurried towards the elevators. As she reached out, Gianna noticed that her finger shook and she pulled her hand back, glancing around to make sure no one else had noticed. There were several other staff members around her, but they were focused on their phones or their conversations. Several of them smiled at her and two of the ladies included her in their conversation while everyone waited for the elevator to arrive. But as Gianna unlocked her car, she had absolutely no recollection of the conversation at all. She might have agreed to sell her first born child or just a lunch date.
Chapter 5
By the time she’d cooked a healthy dinner of chicken and vegetables sautéed in a delicious red wine sauce, Gianna decided that she wasn’t hungry for dinner. So instead of sitting down to eat, she shoved everything into the fridge and focused on the issues she’d discovered today. Was there more to the stolen items than what she’d found? And why had Brant looked at her like that last night? That confusion caused her stomach to rebel so badly that she’d convinced herself that it hadn’t been admiration in his eyes. It had been amusement. Brant Jones thought she was silly! He thought that she’d misunderstood the data that she’d brought to him!
After a restless night, she woke up and glared at the blank ceiling, her mind whirling with ideas. In the early morning light, Gianna’s determination settled in and she pressed her lips together.
“I’ll prove it to him,” she vowed and threw the pretty, yellow sheets off, stomping into the bathroom. Showering and dressing in a bright red dress then adding a pair of killer black heels, she fluffed her curls and let them air dry while adding a touch of makeup.
Picking up her phone, she sent a text message to Brant. “Have an appointment. Will be in late today.” She smiled, thinking that he’d assume that meant a lady doctor appointment. Oh, it was glorious to be vague!
With that done, she grabbed her bag and computer and headed out. She’d prove to Brant that someone was stealing from the company and then he’d have to take her seriously!
GPS was a splendid invention, she thought as she pulled into the warehouse facility an hour later. Since she’d been heading out of town and away from downtown Denver, the drive had actually been relatively nice. Perhaps it had been the anticipation of seeing the look in Brant’s eyes that he couldn’t deny her evidence, which had made the drive so much more pleasant, but Gianna didn’t analyze her feelings too closely.
“Good morning,” she cheerfully greeted the man standing at the front desk. He was a relatively big man with a blue uniform shirt and matching pants, carrying an official looking clipboard.
“How can I help you, little lady?” he drawled, smiling down at her.
Ignoring his patronizing tone and belittling words, she smiled tightly. Oh, how she wished she was tall and intimidating! “I work at the headquarters building for Brant Jones,” she explained, lifting her badge so he could see her picture. “I was working over the weekend, and noticed a discrepancy in the numbers, but he didn’t agree with me. So, I thought I’d prove it.” She tilted her head, playing on his belief in women being inferior. If it proved he was a thief, she’d laugh as he was hauled away in handcuffs. It would teach him not to underestimate women! “You don’t mind, do you? I mean,” she leaned forward slightly, as if telling him a secret, “he’s such an old stick in the mud, wouldn’t it be nice to prove him wrong? Just once?”
The man laughed and nodded. “Hell yes! Thankfully, I like Mr. Brant. He’s a great boss, but so far, he’s never been wrong.” He gestured toward her file filled tote bag. “What’s this about? Maybe I can help you.”
She sighed. “I told him there are…” she paused and pulled the reports out of her bag, pretending to look at her numbers even though she knew exactly what she was looking for and where the ingredients were stored. Tapping her pencil against the list, she nodded before continuing. “I said there are forty-five of the glycerin bottles that have broken over the past month. He says that only thirty were broken.”
The man’s eyebrows drew closer. “Glycerin bottles? We haven’t broken any of them.”
She blinked, her eyes wide as she pretended to be start
led. “Really? Then we’re both wrong?”
He laughed, waving his clipboard towards the door. “Come on back, honey. I’ll let you count them yourself.”
Exactly what she’d been hoping for, Gianna thought in satisfaction, practically dancing as she followed the man down the long lines of stacked ingredients and products ready to be shipped out. Everything came through this facility, then went back out to be mixed in the production rooms, then back here as a final product and sent out to retail sites. So if anything was happening, it was happening here.
As the big guy walked her through the aisles lined with the tall, metal shelves, several other workers called out to each other, laughing or joking as they went about their business. “It’s very different here than at the headquarters office,” she commented, looking around, her eyes wide and filled with wonder.
“Yeah, I think this is a better place to work than the stuffy offices where you go every day.” He looked down at her and winked. “Any time you want to come out here, I’ll find a place for ya, honey.”
Gianna smiled, but inside, she cringed, horrified at the thought of working with this man. Then something else occurred to her. There were no women out here. None! There were women all over at the headquarters offices. What was going on with the hiring process out here? Did women just not want to work in a warehouse? Interesting mystery and a conundrum she’d bring up with Brant once she got back to the office.
“Hey Joe! Those go over on aisle fifty. Not here!”
Joe was working a forklift, which was carrying what looked like heavy boxes, but could be packed with cotton balls for all she knew. In fact, everyone around here seemed to be working hard.
Joe called out something else and Gianna knew that this was her opportunity. “Why don’t you go tell Joe where he should put that? I know I’m a burden, but I just want to prove Mr. Jones wrong and my information right.” She pointed to her report where she’d circled the aisle that contained glycerin. It wasn’t the aisle she would be going to, but it looked accurate enough.
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