Tonight his deep-brown hair was mussed, and his eyes flashed with fury.
“What girl?” she asked, genuinely confused.
“The one in the corner office.”
Monique blinked. “The corner office? His office?”
“Yes,” Rufus spat.
His disapproval caused her to clench her hands into fists she kept hidden below the camera’s view. “I-I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
The he to whom Rufus referred was his contact within Steel Hawk. Most of their encounters weren’t premeditated, so Monique spent her days behind a laptop, waiting for him at a café located just across from the renovated warehouse that served as the company’s headquarters. At their last meeting—a casual encounter to even the most watchful eye—he hinted he would see her again that afternoon. “He didn’t show. Something—something must have come up.”
Rufus’s eyes snapped with fury. “Find out.”
“I will,” she said. She didn’t know how—Rufus had strictly forbidden her to initiate communication with the contact—but it was the only answer he’d tolerate.
It was the only one she could give.
He’d turned his back to the webcam, his angry pacing sweeping her monitor. In the background, moonlight glinted off the stark white beauty of Zarrenburg’s rugged, snowcapped mountains. An ache settled in her chest. She missed home—even more so after a recent return visit. She missed Rufus. But more and more, she missed the way he used to be. In the beginning, she’d understood his desire for revenge—justice, he’d called it—but it had become an obsession. And that obsession had become his mistress.
His back was turned, so she took advantage of the time she’d missed due to his early call to unbutton her blouse—just a couple of buttons for now. Just the way he liked it. When he returned his attention to her, she’d be ready for his next command. It would never be enough for her—she craved the touch of his hands, not her own—but it would do. It had to do.
Rufus’s eyes were on her now, drifting from her face to her cleavage. Her heart raced, her body primed for his orders. Needing them.
She was ready. Wet.
His face filled the screen. Handsome. Twisted. “That will be all,” he said.
Then he was gone.
She sat for a long time, too stunned to move. He’d never let her go without asking her to perform. Demanding it. Was there someone else? The thought of him touching another woman sent dark, crumbling rage through her body, even as she ached with unrequited need. She thought of the pinot, of the way he didn’t approve. But he wasn’t there. The wine was the wrong kind of satisfaction, but it would have to do.
She closed the laptop, leaving it on the table. From the kitchen, she retrieved her glass of wine and downed the remaining contents in one gulp.
Then she poured another.
* * * * *
Jalapeno chicken had never looked so good.
Edward watched one morsel after another disappear between Sophie’s lips, cursing his stirring desire a little more each time her mouth closed on the chopsticks. What was wrong with him? There was nothing sexy about a couple of wooden sticks, but in Sophie’s experienced grasp, they turned into tools of seduction. Seduction. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d given sex a second thought, but it was before he found out he was illegally adopted. Before he’d been accused of betraying the company to which he’d devoted most of his waking hours for the past seven years. Before a certain investigator had crashed right through his personal boundaries and reminded him his blood ran hot and red.
He’d spent the afternoon digging into Sophie’s story, finding it ironclad. Still, something about Adam’s decision to bring her in seemed off, and despite what Edward led Sophie to believe, he wasn’t going to go out of his way to talk to Adam until he had answers.
She cleared her throat.
He blinked, and the first thing that came into focus was her mouth. When his attention drifted upward, her eyes glimmered with amusement.
“Something on your mind?” she asked.
“You had a productive afternoon,” he said, watching her lips close on a water bottle. The distance across the gleaming conference table wasn’t enough.
The look she returned was wry. Almost condescending. “I expect you know all about that.”
He popped a bite of chicken in his mouth—using a fork—and watched her unapologetically as he chewed. The dim lighting suited her every bit as well as had the brilliant sun from earlier in the day, though not to his advantage. The private setting with a sweeping view of the San Francisco nightscape was unintentionally romantic, and that wasn’t a word that had found its way into his vocabulary for a long time.
“Did anyone on our roster capture your interest?” he asked.
Her gaze flickered over him. “You tend to refer to the company as your own.”
He leaned back against his chair, unsure where she was going with her question. “I do.”
The glossy mahogany table reflected perfectly the hint of red in her hair. Her eyes sparkled despite the dim lighting. Her lips glimmered. Edward studied her mouth, deciding she must wear gloss or a natural shade of lipstick. It was a nice change from the glaring color so many women seemed to favor.
“Steel Hawk is not yours.”
He was so focused on her mouth, a moment ticked by before her tone registered, then he realized she was staring at him—watching him watch her. He adjusted his attention to the pale green of her eyes, to the determination there. She sounded strangely protective of Steel Hawk, but why? She’d been hired for a job—of course she’d want to do it right, but this was one referral she wouldn’t be adding to her résumé. There was no way Adam or his business partner, Max, would let her broadcast a security breach at the headquarters of the world leader in keeping things safe. Maybe it was Edward’s imagination—or the distraction—that skewed his perception, but he didn’t entirely buy that either. Something was definitely off with her.
“No,” he said. “Steel Hawk is not mine.”
“Then why do you refer to it as such?”
He shifted in his chair, straightening his spine. He leaned closer, though the distance across the massive table was still six feet or better, and spoke clearly. “I’m in it. You’re not.”
If she was put off by his posturing, she didn’t show it. “Nice try,” she said. “Most employees maintain distance—especially from trouble. You, on the other hand, are emphasizing an attachment.”
The woman was rock solid. Unflappable. He wanted nothing more than to bear witness to the moment something finally got under her skin. In fact, he had every intention of being that something, but for now, he’d just enjoy the show. “Astute observation. Do you count psychology among your many talents?”
“You’re evading my question.”
“Not unlike you, Ms. Garza,” he said coolly. “If you’ll recall, I asked if your research turned up anything interesting.”
“No, Edward. You asked if anyone captured my interest.”
“Semantics,” he said, watching her expertly maneuver another piece of chicken to her mouth. The morsel disappeared between her lips, and he stared with rapt fascination as her tongue chased a speck of sauce from her lip.
Her lips tilted humorlessly. “Yes, semantics. I would expect you to speak it fluently.”
“It’s not a language.”
“You’re an attorney. Rumor has it you might even be a good one. The concept—if not the practice—should be firmly engrained in your vernacular.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he managed to stop himself from smiling. He wasn’t sure if her words were a backhanded compliment or a thinly veiled insult, but either way, he could listen to her all night. Engaging in conversation with her had quickly become his favorite pastime. “What bearing does that have on your unwillingness to answer my question?”
She smiled sweetly. “None.”
The woman was maddening, but he didn’t hate
it. Hell, he kind of liked it. She challenged him, but more than that, she didn’t seem the least bit concerned with the implications of doing so. Either his reputation hadn’t preceded him, or he’d met his match…and he wasn’t entirely sure how the thought of that made him feel.
She polished off the last two bites of her chicken and chased them with the remaining contents of her water bottle before she spoke. “I’d like to follow up on a couple of your employees.”
His lighthearted mood vanished. He’d dug through the list of employees multiple times, finding nothing. Had he really missed something she’d managed to find in a single afternoon? “Who?”
“Sam Johnson. Eight months ago, there was a judgment filed against him in circuit court. The plaintiff was a medical collection agency, and the sum was tidy. Over twenty thousand dollars.”
Edward relaxed a notch, grateful she hadn’t dug up anything monumental after all. “He’s in R & D—research and development. He runs early production tests. He and his wife had twins last year, born premature. The bills were astronomical, and insurance didn’t cover everything.”
“Was Steel Hawk required to garnish his wages after the judgment was filed?”
“That, I don’t know. He didn’t volunteer the information. I try not to pry into private matters, and payroll is definitely off my beaten path. You’d probably need to check with Adam—unless, of course, you’ve been granted access to the company’s financial information as well.”
She ignored the prod, instead jotting a brief note on a small pad. “Has his behavior changed? Attitude? Productivity?”
Had she been granted access to the finances? Her lack of denial riled him. “Sam was understandably worried about the twins until they were released from the hospital. After that, he dragged for a few months, but I would too without any sleep. He’s a good guy. His work hasn’t suffered. He’s always been open and friendly, and that hasn’t changed.”
“Willie Bishop,” she said, switching gears without pause. “He was a top man with a competitor until he joined Steel Hawk a year ago as an entry-level developer. Interesting switch.”
“Layoffs got him. He and I actually went to undergrad together. When he lost his job, I got him signed on here.”
One of her eyebrows lifted. “I’m sure his former employer loved that.”
“He signed a confidentiality clause with them, which he’s honored to the best of my knowledge. Of course, they can’t strip the ideas from his head, but if they’d found them of any value, they wouldn’t have fired him.”
The arch of her brow increased. “Steel Hawk saw value where the other company did not?”
“He’s worth it. He excels at his job.”
“Then why is he on the ground floor?”
“I can get a man hired. He’s got to get himself the rest of the way.”
She made a few more notes. “Why hasn’t he progressed?”
He shrugged. “Adam has a hell of a team. No one’s dropping out, and there are only so many six-figure salaries to go around.”
She leaned back in her chair and worked her pen through the fingers of one hand. “Sounds like there’s room for frustration. Was there any correlation between the company for which Willie previously worked and the firms that took the contracts Steel Hawk was favored to win?”
Edward’s grudging respect for Sophie grew. She knew how to hit all the angles—he’d give her that. “Not that we’ve found—not to any employee. All the firms involved are big and well established, not drawing the kind of suspicion a tiny startup might. Even still, we’ve checked foreign subsidiaries and other parent company associations. If there’s a connection, it’s buried deep.”
“What about the rest of the team in general?” she asked, scrawling notes as she spoke. “Could a disgruntled employee sell enough information to a competitor for that competitor to take the idea and run with it? Maybe make it to the patent office before you?”
He nodded, his begrudging respect for her growing. “In theory, I suppose they could grow the same idea from a given point of development. But the competitor would still have quite a bit of work to do on his own, and it’s unlikely anyone could catch up, so to speak. Each employee in R & D works on one or more parts of the project, but no one has access to all the pieces until after the patent is filed.”
“So we’re right back where we started. You’re the only one who could have sold the whole idea.”
Damn that one fact. It had wrecked him, over and over. He sighed, though found himself surprised having her point it out so bluntly didn’t irk the hell out of him. “That’s right.”
“Do you have any theories you’d like to share?” She asked so sweetly, as if he wasn’t supposed to see it for the bait it was. As if he was a damned fool, though for his inability to stop watching her mouth form words, he was exactly that.
He steepled his hands in front of him, trying desperately to keep the cool he so seldom lost. “Do you think Adam would have brought in an outsider if we’d been able to pull together a credible lead? Keep in mind, Ms. Garza, that involving you represents a huge risk on our part. This company stands on over a hundred and fifty years of security. What’s happening now…well, we’re not going to stage a comeback on what we accomplished in the eighteen hundreds. Or those from last year, for that matter. Not when we’re failing today.”
“Point taken, but I think you’re being a little hard on yourself.”
“How so?”
“Steel Hawk isn’t failing,” she said, surprisingly firm in her assertion. “You didn’t even lose two contracts. They were just awarded elsewhere, and that happens to successful companies every day.”
Her defiance set him back a notch. “You seem to be overlooking the fact that the Pasha Star was stolen while under Steel Hawk’s protection. When the royal jewels go missing, word gets around.”
“Not the best turn of events,” she admitted, “but the security was a prototype and the jewel was recovered.” From your suite. But she hadn’t said it—hadn’t laid the blame on his doorstep.
The dull ache of the accusations against him sharpened, but he pushed away the pain. “Still,” he said. “Not exactly a scenario for the brochure.”
“Careful there.” She smiled, stirring something inside him. “That almost sounded like an attempt at humor.”
“Yeah, well, don’t let it get out. I kind of like the wide berth most people give me.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Whatever she thought about saying was lost, and it was probably just as well. He didn’t need the sociability lecture. He consulted his cell phone. “It’s after ten. The basement should be clear if you want to check it out.”
A flicker of unease edged across her face, but it passed so quickly, he wondered if he’d seen it at all. “Should be clear?”
“Adam tends to stay late, sometimes to the tune of an all-nighter. He’s in Europe, though, so there’s really no reason for anyone to be in the lab at this hour.”
Edward thought he offered reassurance, but if anything, the hint of discontent in her expression deepened. Watching him closely, she asked, “Do the employees come and go as they please?”
He hesitated, and that bothered him. He wasn’t one to second-guess himself, but he had a hard time getting a read on her. “When he’s here and they’re working on something, he won’t run them out. It’s not a playground, though. He expects the time to be well spent.”
“Understandable.” She unwrapped her fortune cookie and freed the slip of paper from inside. She looked from the fortune to him, then back to the paper. One of her eyebrows lifted, and she slapped him with a haphazard grin.
“What?”
“Apparently there’s a new man in my life.” She stood and gathered the remains of their meal.
“I can get that,” he said of the cartons.
“You paid. I think I can handle this part. Do you have a refrigerator on this floor?”
“Out the door to your left. Second door down i
s a break room.”
He stood but didn’t go anywhere, instead watching through the glass until she disappeared from sight. When she was gone, he reached for his own fortune cookie. He tore through the cellophane and broke open the shell. He popped one half in his mouth, then unfolded the fortune.
You are entering a time of great romance & overdue happiness.
He glanced from the slip of paper to the empty hallway, his mind seeing what his eyes couldn’t. Gorgeous green eyes. A smile he craved. Curves that begged to be sweat slicked and a body that would be dynamite sprawled over an unmade bed. A woman some damned traitorous part of him wanted.
One hell of a complication he didn’t need.
He tossed the other half of the stale cookie in the trash, and the fortune went in after it.
Chapter Four
Steel Hawk had been headquartered in the brick warehouse on Mission Street since the mid-eighteen hundreds. Much of the building, while modernized, held on to its historic roots. As such, it was a study in contrasts. Exposed brick interior walls framed gleaming hardwood floors and rustic overhead beams. Vast windows poured in light, in particular on the third floor, where the loft ceiling soared. The elevator was of the old cage variety with all the inner workings exposed, and though Sophie only needed to tolerate the small space long enough to get from the third floor to the basement, she thought the ride interminable.
Edward was close. Too close.
“The top floor,” he was saying, “is occupied by the boardroom and several offices. Middle floor is the main level of research and development. The same thing happens in the basement, only it’s Adam’s turf. If anyone goes down there, they’d better have a good reason. Ground floor consists of reception and meeting rooms. Relative to the rest of the building, there’s less security there—in other words, fewer locked doors and we don’t require our guests to provide fingerprints. We want our clients—whether potential or established—to feel welcome, and we want them to realize they can enjoy top-notch security without creating a prison atmosphere.”
Dangerous Illusions (Steel Hawk Book 3) Page 3
