He turned his head toward her, and she dragged her gaze up past the dusting of hair on his chest to meet his heavy-lidded eyes. He’d caught her looking at more than his closet. She brazened it out. “How do you have time to stay in such good shape?”
“I exercise at night.” His voice was deep and seductive. He moved his hands to the waistband of his pajama pants.
Chloe’s curiosity had its limits. She scurried backward far enough to have no possible view of the interior of Trainor’s closet. She thought she heard a satisfied chuckle, but it was so low it might have been her imagination.
Deciding to make it clear she wasn’t looking, she walked farther away to examine two paintings hanging on the same wall. Painted in bold colors and strokes, they looked as though they were of the same landscape but interpreted by different artists. Intrigued, she leaned in to read the signatures and gasped. One was signed “P Gauguin,” and the other signature read simply “Vincent.” She knew enough about art to recognize that meant Vincent van Gogh.
Having a Van Gogh was mind-boggling enough, but having a matching Gauguin must make the two paintings nearly priceless as a pair. She stared at the two masterpieces. If this was what Trainor kept in his bedroom, she needed to look more closely at the art in his living room.
“I bought those when I took Trainor Electronics public. They were my first significant purchases of art. I should donate them to a museum, but when I see them I remember ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Heady stuff for a computer nerd.”
Chloe jumped as Trainor’s voice came from directly beside her. The thick carpeting had muffled his footsteps. “It’s amazing to see them side by side,” she said.
She sneaked a glance sideways. He stood with his hands in the pockets of a pair of pressed khaki trousers, his eyes fixed on the artwork. His messy bedhead had been tamed into tidy waves that touched the collar of a blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt, open at the neck. Letting her gaze slide down to his feet, she felt a sense of loss at seeing them encased in shiny burgundy loafers. He was back in his version of a uniform.
“Like a high school essay,” he said. “Compare and contrast. Which one do you like better?”
“I don’t know enough about art to choose,” Chloe said, dragging her attention back to the paintings.
“What? No opinion from the strong-minded Ms. Russell?” There was a teasing note in his voice that made her insides go soft.
“Sometimes beauty should be appreciated, not judged,” Chloe said. “Besides, the two pictures belong together. Choose one and you lose all that extra resonance.”
He ran his index finger along the carved gilt frame of the Gauguin as his expression turned serious. “You make a good point. I’ll strongly suggest that whoever acquires them next hangs these together permanently.”
“And I guess they’ll listen to you.”
“Until I’m dead.”
“According to Dr. Cavill, that could be any day now.”
Trainor gave a little snort of disgust and turned away from the paintings. “Let’s prove him wrong.”
For a moment Chloe thought he was heading toward the bed, and her heart gave a leap of anxiety and excitement. However, his path took him to the door, and she realized that Trainor’s way of warding off death was not to make love but to work.
Nathan pressed his palm against a touch pad, and a section of the wood paneling slid aside. The lights glowed to life automatically, illuminating sleek desks and banks of cutting-edge computer equipment. At the same time, the window wall went from shaded to translucent, offering a view of Manhattan’s towers. This room was all his; he’d designed it and equipped it, mostly with electronics of his own personal design.
“Holy Batcave!” Chloe said as she stepped into the room and turned slowly.
“Two superheroes in one morning,” Nathan said. “I’m flattered.” But he enjoyed watching the mixture of wide-eyed admiration and cynical amusement in her expression. She’d looked at his favorite paintings the same way, although there had been some extra element then, a cautiousness. She didn’t trust him.
And with good reason. He’d brought her to his office via the internal elevator that served only the three floors of his home. Being in that enclosed space with her had tested every ounce of his self-control. The faint floral hint of what must be her shampoo entered his lungs with every breath he drew in. He could see the rise and fall of her breasts under the white blouse she wore. He imagined pushing her against the wall of the elevator, shoving her skirt up to her waist, and burying himself in her while she wrapped her legs around his hips—those spike heels digging into him as she moaned the way she had last night.
Instead he’d put his hand at the small of her back as the elevator doors opened, a gesture that could be attributed to courtesy rather than an overwhelming desire to touch her somewhere. Anywhere.
It was a mistake. The warmth and movement of her body went straight from his palm to his groin.
He scanned the room along with her until his gaze settled on the back of a leather armchair while he pictured bending her over it and sliding his hands up her thighs before he . . .
She walked away from him to touch a swivel-mounted computer screen, making it pivot diagonally. “That’s cool, but I don’t see what the purpose is.”
“There’s a built-in projector so you can display the screen image on a wall or a ceiling or any other flat surface.” He came up behind her and reached around to flick on the device, throwing the twirling screen-saver image onto a corner of the room. As she tilted her head to look at it, the angle of her body shifted so that her behind brushed against the front of his trousers. He barely swallowed a groan.
She sidestepped away from him, and he couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or to seize her wrist and spin her in hard against him.
When she turned to look at him, he caught it: a quickening of her breathing, a tension in her posture, an awareness in her expression. She claimed she had come back only for the paycheck, but she was not offended by his behavior last night, as he’d feared. She might be wary but she was not indifferent to him.
He contemplated ignoring the mountain of reports on his computer and trying to seduce Chloe instead. Overcoming the barriers she put up would be a pleasurable challenge.
And she was a temp, so there would be no long-term issues as far as the office went. Once Janice was back, Chloe could go on to her next assignment at a different company.
The prospect gave him less relief than he expected. Chloe’s smart observations and snarky asides made the work seem less dreary.
The word brought him up short. When had he begun to consider his job in that light? And how had Chloe become so important to his mood?
“I’ll assume the giant chair behind the giant desk with the giant screens is your workstation.” Her voice derailed the unsettling direction of his thoughts.
“Yes, I use the size of my computer screens to indicate the size of . . . other things,” he said, matching his tone to hers.
That forced a little choke of laughter from her, and he felt a sense of satisfaction out of proportion to her response. It struck him that he could combine the work and the seduction into one package. The idea gave him such a jolt of energy that he wondered that electricity didn’t shoot out from the tips of his fingers.
He pulled a chair away from a workstation and wheeled it over beside his own chair, angling it to face one of the wings of the admittedly huge desk. “Sit here.”
She gave him a look that said she’d rather sit by a spider, and he smiled inwardly. This was going to be fun.
After four hours of perching within two feet of Nathan Trainor, Chloe was in a state of seething physical turmoil and utter mental exhaustion. Keeping up with a mind as lightning fast as his was hard enough, but when she asked a question and he glided his chair over to look at her computer screen, her body compounded the problem.
He would lean in, bringing his cheek so close she had o
nly to turn her head to kiss it. Or they would both reach for the same touch-screen icon and his fingers would brush over the back of her hand, leaving a trail of heat that lingered for minutes. The most exquisite torture was when he would stretch his arm across the desk in front of her to pick up whatever report or contract she was working on. The warm fragrance of starch and man filled her nostrils, making her want to thread her fingers into the heavy waves of his hair, so she could hold him there and simply breathe in.
Even during the midmorning break he finally agreed to take, he lounged on the couch and invited her to sit in one of the leather upholstered chairs beside him while one of his minions served them coffee and various brunch-style snacks. When Trainor stretched out his legs, the fabric of his trousers caught against the nylon covering her calf, and the contact zinged right up to a spot between her thighs.
When Ed appeared in the doorway to inquire where Mr. Trainor would like him to serve lunch, Chloe interjected, “Don’t fix anything for me. I need to run some errands, so I’ll grab a sandwich at a deli.”
She was amazed to see a look of disappointment cross her boss’s face. “I thought we would work through lunch,” he said. “We’ve got some good momentum going.”
So it wasn’t that he wanted to spend some social time with her. He just wanted to keep working. Irritation at her stupid naïveté made her tart. “I’m entitled to thirty minutes of paid lunchtime.”
Annoyance flashed across Trainor’s face. “Take as long as you need. Have Oskar drive you wherever you want to go.”
“Let me make you a sandwich to take with you,” Ed said, his tone conciliatory. “There aren’t many delis in this neighborhood.”
Suddenly she felt stifled. All these offers of so-called help seemed more like attempts to keep her in Trainor’s orbit.
She stood up, sending her chair rolling backward so that Trainor had to catch it to avoid a collision. “Thank you, but I prefer to walk and find my own lunch. I’ll be back in a half hour.”
She stomped out of the room and down the hall, only to stop in front of the elevator with its palm plate. Would the doors open for her, or did her handprint have to be authorized in some way?
Annoyed, she slapped her hand against the black square and dashed away a tear of relief when the doors slid apart. At least she could leave of her own free will while she had the strength to do it.
Nathan tilted back his chair and pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. He’d screwed that up royally.
“If you want to work yourself into a state of collapse, that’s your call. But you need to let Ms. Russell come up for air every now and then,” Ed said.
Nathan dropped his hand and looked at the man who’d been more of a father to him than his own. “It was an excuse.”
“For what?”
“I wanted her to eat lunch with me.”
“Did you consider just asking her?”
Nathan shook his head. “I’m her employer.”
Ed’s look of censure faded. “Not at lunchtime. You’re just a man who’d like some good company.”
CHAPTER 11
There were no delis within a five-block radius of Trainor’s building, so Chloe was forced to spend twice her normal lunch budget for an artsy sandwich at a snooty bistro. At least she’d found a pleasant little park to eat in while she lectured herself about letting her boss get to her. He was bored because he was confined to his house. She was just a temp, which made it safe for him to toy with her. Once he got back to the office, his interest in her would evaporate.
A niggling little voice asked her why she didn’t just give in to the attraction flaring between them. What would she lose? He wouldn’t tell anyone because it wouldn’t look good for a CEO to sleep with his temporary executive assistant. She wouldn’t tell anyone for the reverse reason.
He was just a man. He put his pants on one leg at a time, although she hadn’t actually seen him do it. So why did she feel out of her depth with Nathan Trainor? Maybe she was afraid he would ruin her for a lesser mortal. After all, it was hard to compete with helicopters, Jimmy Choo sandals, and a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. In bed, all those would be stripped away. He wouldn’t be wearing a custom-tailored suit, and she wouldn’t be wearing a bargain-basement scarf.
He’d made love to movie stars and supermodels. She would be a minor diversion compared to those, possibly a disappointment.
What she had to lose was her self-respect.
She hung on to that thought as she walked back into Trainor’s office twenty-nine minutes after she’d left. It was empty. She sat down at her workstation and picked up where she’d left off on the report she’d been editing, becoming so absorbed in the task that she was shocked to find twenty minutes had passed before Trainor sauntered in.
He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt so she could see the ridge of muscle along his forearms. The sight sent a thrill of heat up her spine. Self-respect, she reminded herself.
“Got all your errands done?” he asked, coming around the desk to seat himself. The scent of the expensive soap he must have just washed his hands with wafted past her, making the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck prickle.
“Errands?” She’d nearly forgotten her spur-of-the moment excuse. “A couple of them.”
“I told you to take as long as you needed.”
She decided it was better not to argue with him. “Yes, you did.”
He gave her a long look before swiveling his chair toward his computer. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and returned to her report.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the motion of his hand as he swiped documents and e-mails on and off his screen at high speed. Then all movement ceased and he cursed under his breath.
She waited but he made no further comment. She heard his chair creak and sneaked a glance to see him leaning back with his fingers steepled in front of a ferocious frown.
“Problem?” she asked.
“The same problem. The Prometheus project has hit another wall.”
Chloe discarded her newly instituted policy of not disagreeing with her boss. It had been a lost cause from the start. She couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself when someone refused to see the obvious. “Who invented the original Trainor Electronics battery?”
He lowered his hands and looked at her. “What’s your point?”
“You’re trying to develop a better battery, but you’re depriving your research-and-development department of the most brilliant mind in the company. Yours.”
“I have a multinational corporation to run. I can’t take time off to do R and D.”
“You have a whole bunch of vice presidents. Let them run it for a while.”
Astonishment froze him for a moment. It was still in his voice when he spoke. “You’re telling me how to manage Trainor Electronics.”
Chloe wasn’t backing down. “All I know is you have a key project floundering, and you’re the person best qualified to rescue it.”
Longing crossed his face before he looked away. “I was young. I had no responsibilities and I didn’t know what was impossible.”
“So you’re afraid you’ve lost your ability to innovate?”
His gaze snapped back to her. “Thousands of people depend on Trainor Electronics to pay their mortgages, fund their health insurance, and feed their families. I can’t walk away from that.”
She began to understand that he felt the weight of all his employees’ lives on his shoulders. Trainor was more his father’s son than he wanted to acknowledge. Something made her keep prodding him. “Look at it this way. Trainor Electronics can provide livelihoods for even more people if the Prometheus project succeeds because you pitched in.”
“Why are you so interested in the well-being of Trainor Electronics?”
“I’m not. I just see the obvious solution to your problem.” He needed some joy in his life, and she got the feeling that working on the new battery would bring it to him. “But I’
m just a temp, so you don’t have to pay any attention to me.”
The tense muscles in his jaw relaxed, and an undercurrent of amusement ran through his voice. “You are downright impossible to ignore.”
“Because I have a valid point.” Chloe basked in the glow of Trainor’s compliment. At least, she decided to take it as such.
“Because you are an unusual person.”
That was definitely a compliment.
He continued. “Opinionated, outspoken, insubordinate, manipulative, mercenary . . .”
Or not.
“. . . and Machiavellian—all qualities I admire.”
Chloe couldn’t stop her pleased grin. “You do?”
“Yes, I admire them so much that I want to do something inappropriate.” He took her hands and stood, drawing her to her feet with him.
Her heart stuttered as he released her hands to slide one of his under her hair to the nape of her neck. He cradled her head and tilted it so he could bring his lips down on hers at a better angle. There was plenty of time for her to armor herself in self-respect and step away from him, but she didn’t.
Because last night she’d been dying for him to kiss her and he hadn’t. Now she wanted to know how his lips would feel against hers. That was all. Then she would bring this to a halt.
She kept her eyes open as he came closer, appreciating the gray-and-silver striations in his eyes, the grit of dark stubble along his jaw, the bold strokes of his eyebrows. Then the first brush of his mouth sent her eyelids drifting down so she could savor the firm warmth of the lips she’d been so curious about. His fingers wove themselves into her hair while he slipped his other hand to the small of her back to bring her whole body against his.
He traced the line between her lips with the tip of his tongue, not invading, just stroking lightly. Then he shifted his weight so his thigh pressed between hers, her slim skirt pulling tight around her hips to accommodate him. It was the lightest of friction, but it sent a ripple of tiny detonations through her body, making her breasts ache and desire pool inside her.
The CEO Buys in (Wager of Hearts #1) Page 12
