The upside of her misery was that suddenly the expressions she saw in all the people around her started to make sense. Her medication had kicked in by the time the holidays hit, so she could ignore the compulsive need to map-map-map everything, even as her eyes still saw it all.
The plastic, insincere smile of a woman on the arm of a man she purposefully avoided contact with even as her eyes sought out another man across the room?
Claire got it now.
She had always seen the deceit in expressions like that, she just hadn’t understood the motive. A little bit of experience and a whole lot of heartache had changed that. Claire saw a lot these days.
Yet through it all, she’d never used the phone number Jack had given her. Knowing Jack had definitely made her bolder, but it had not made her fearless enough to pick up the phone.
If a satellite came crashing down on her right then, would she have wished she called him? Definitely. But the dull ache in her chest always stopped her fingers from doing the walking they needed to do to get the phone to ring on Jack’s side.
He’d played his part in her life. He’d come and he’d gone, just like he had in all the stories people whispered to Claire at the holiday parties. There was no happily ever after in any of those tales…not with the Pimpernel, at least. He came, he dabbled, he left. Sometimes the Pimpernel stole something, sometimes he gave something, but he never stayed. That was how the cookie crumbled.
So why call Jack? Why draw it out? Why create false hope in herself?
Jack was gone.
But letting Jack go hadn’t stopped Claire from accepting Margot’s offer when January came around. The woman was terrifying, yes, but also crazy amazing. Who wouldn’t want her as a mentor?
If a satellite crashed down on Claire one day, she would definitely want to die knowing everything Margot knew.
Margot hadn’t let Claire in on anything she did for Jack after hours yet, but for the first six weeks of her internship, Claire had been busy having her mind blown with Margot’s legitimate business offerings.
Basically, Margot was in the business of creating win-win business negotiations between the rich. The really, really rich. Margot and her staff were on hand and on location throughout the negotiations—catering, advising, researching, and arranging anything else the client needed to make a decision. Margot didn’t pick a side and lobby for lopsided deals. She showed power players how they could help each other then took a cut when they made a deal.
The woman made more in a month than Claire’s father had made in his life, and Claire was pretty sure Margot was a billionaire…with a b. Her assets and investments were global, and she owned over 400 properties, including the building Claire was currently working in.
All the properties were insanely profitable. Margot liked anything she invested in to pay her back five-times her investment annually. This was why she had taken the top floor of her building and leased out the rest at above-market rates by providing amenities most commercial properties didn’t dream of providing—an onsite gym, massage parlor, a virtual golfing range, an at-cost cafeteria with organic options, and smart screens in all the conference rooms in the building. None of the smart screens took up a full wall like Margot’s did, but they were still enough to get most leasers panting and agreeing that being in Margot Harbour’s building was worth the premium price she asked. Margot hadn’t had turnover in a tenant for five years, and her employees were just as loyal…even though they were never in the office.
Margot didn’t want them to be.
In Margot’s mind, employees on the clock should be out serving a client or out scouting the next client. That meant parties. That meant networking. That meant taking potential clients out to eat, golfing, or doing whatever it took to get people to talk about what roadblocks they were currently facing in business.
Only then could Margot step in to offer a fix.
Based on Claire’s experience with Jack, she’d assumed that Margot lived in her office. But with Jack gone, Margot was out of the office as often as her employees. Being her intern basically meant showing up at an assigned time, having Margot spend five minutes introducing something Claire had never dealt with before, and having Margot tell her what the end result Claire should aim for—not the process. Margot didn’t believe there was one right way to do anything; she only cared about what people could accomplish. She would give Claire access to the tools she needed and tell her what time she would be back.
Most of the time, Claire worked on an empty office floor that held only her and an armed guard until Margot got back.
The current countdown to Margot’s imminent return: fifteen minutes.
The day’s assignment: tracking down assets.
A man named Gabriel Weisz had used his wealth of assets to secure a bank loan for $2.3 million. His boat, six cars, two houses, and recreational vehicles had all been used as collateral against the loan. He now claimed they are all gone and was declaring bankruptcy to clear himself of the loan.
So what happened to all the assets?
Margot’s business didn’t work cases like these, but Margot told Claire that it was important to know how to follow trails people try to hide. This was practice. Using cameras, credit card statements, call logs, social media, and any other tools she could think of, Claire was to find as many of the assets as possible in four hours.
Claire had figured out what happened with the houses, the boat, and three of the cars, but the rest was still in the wind. She had fourteen minutes left and was pretty sure she wasn’t going to hit the deadline unless a miracle landed in her lap.
She was searching the credit card charges of Gabriel’s drinking buddy for any reoccurring rental charges when the door to her office pushed open.
Panicking that Margot was early, Claire glanced at the clock on her computer screen. She still had twelve minutes. “I’m still worki—”
The words died on her lips when she looked up and saw Jack standing in the doorway. She was pretty sure her heart stopped in her chest, but thanks to six weeks of working with Margot, her face stayed composed. “Jack?”
“Hey there,” he said as his eyes did a tour of the room before landing back on her. “You’ve got your own office.”
“Yeah,” she breathed, not sure if she should stay seated, stand, or just keep staring in disbelief like she currently was. She realized she should have invited him in when he stepped in of his own accord.
“I like what you’ve done with the place.”
She’d done nothing with the place, except turn one wall into a dry-erase board. Margot hated it, but it worked for Claire until she could get a wall-sized smart screen of her own.
Jack eyed the corner of Claire’s computer monitor curiously before walking up and tapping a post-it note she’d stuck there. “What’s this?”
Claire looked up to respond but froze when their eyes met.
This. This instant connection and rush of feeling was what she’d spent the last three months trying to tell herself had just been a mix of adrenaline and imagination.
“Post-its,” she somehow remembered to say out loud, before tapping a finger to her temple. “I forget things now that I’m back on my medication. I still see everything real-time, but then it all starts disintegrating. I never know what’s going to stay and what’s going to go, so…” She tapped the paper just like he had. “Post-its.”
He shook his head. “That’s a crazy side effect. Does it bother you?”
She shrugged. “Not as much as the other side of the coin. Being forgetful is better than having my brain yelling at me all the time.”
For a moment, they just looked at each other.
“Margot won’t be back for about another ten minutes,” Claire blurted.
“I know. She told me where to find you.”
“Oh.” Why? That was the obvious question, but Claire said nothing as she watched Jack figure out what he wanted to say next. He was the one who had searched her out. There had to be
a reason. That said, it was best to keep her hopes down and her mouth shut until he explained why he was looking for her.
“How’s your family?” he asked at last.
“Insane,” she said without hesitation. “For years I thought it was me, but nope. It’s them.”
That got a little laugh out of him.
“I heard a lot about your family—or, at least, your ancestors—over the holidays,” she said when the silence lasted about a second past bearable. “Sounds like you have quite a legacy to live up to.”
He smiled and nodded. “That I do.”
“There are a lot of kissing stories,” she said before she could stop herself. “This woman who totally hates my mom told me a story about how her great-great-grandmother demanded a kiss for her silence and was so floored by the kiss that she gave the Pimpernel her ring in hopes she would someday see it again.”
“Ah, yes,” Jack said, his eyes lighting up with recognition. “That ring is a bit of a legend in my own family as well.”
“It is? Why?”
Jack’s grin turned mischievous. “Well, the Pimpernel that was sneaking out the servant girl that night was my great-great-great-grandmother.”
Claire’s mouth fell open. “What? But she said—”
“Oh, it happened just as the Dunai descendants tell it to this day. But Erzsébet Dunai—the woman in the story—didn’t see a man climbing out the window that night. She saw a figure in men’s clothing. And when my great-great-great grandmother had to choose between a kiss and running for her life, she went for the kiss.”
Claire’s hand flew to her mouth, covering it as she laughed. “Oh, my.”
Jack’s smile was broad. “Her family teased her about both the kiss and the ring until she died. Then her little brother turned the jewels from the ring into a signet ring and passed it to his son after he died. My cousin has it today and still uses it to make his calling cards.”
That surprised Claire. “Wait. There is more than one Pimpernel?”
Jack met her eyes and gave one quick nod. “Sometimes we work together, but we usually keep to our own spheres and specialties.”
Specialties? Did that mean that there was something Jack couldn’t do? Claire was about to ask when she realized he shouldn’t be telling her any of this. After learning about him over the holidays, she’d looked up the bounty. The reward was $5 million for an emissary and $50 million for the actual confirmed Pimpernel.
If she told any of what she knew to the people hunting him…
She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. But how did he know that?
“What are you doing here, Jack?”
Her abrupt change in tone didn’t seem to surprise him, and he appeared to weigh his response before replying. “I’m not used to missing people, Claire. I was raised on the road—constantly moving back and forth from my parents to my relatives and other places until I became accustomed to the novelty of a new place with new people. I learned to never get attached and have always been happy to move on when the time came.”
Was there is a “but” in there? Claire held her breath, hoping as much.
“I can’t remember spending a month of my life anywhere—not all at once. And I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve regretted leaving.” He held up one finger. “Once…and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Claire stood and walked around her desk, hoping he was saying what she thought she was hearing. “Wait, are you talking about that month you spent with an OCD chick who spent half that time sliding off her meds so she could remember a bunch of numbers and save her poor, helpless professor?”
A corner of his mouth curved up. “That’s the one.”
“Hmm,” Claire said, pretending to think. “You mean that girl who became obsessed with kissing you once she learned you weren’t gay? That had to be awkward.”
He didn’t smile as his eyes held hers. “I think about that a lot, actually.”
Speak from the diaphragm. Don’t sound breathy. “Yeah?”
He nodded. “And it’s never awkward. Trust me.”
Don’t cave. Not yet. He hasn’t said anything. Not really. “Well, you’d know better than me, so I’ll trust you on that.”
A single eyebrow raised. “Really? Because I hear your kissing expertise is not to be underestimated—not according to a half a dozen men who went to the same Christmas parties as you this last season.”
Stalker, her mind thought with more of a purr than an accusation. “You gave me the impression me our chemistry wasn’t special, so I was doing some field research to gather evidence.”
He stepped forward, not looking happy. “And what were your findings?”
Her snarky answer melted as she took in the vision of a jealous Jack—the tight fists…the clenched jaw…the vein popping at his temple…the unflattering flare of his nostrils. All because she’d kissed some boys under the mistletoe and one of them in a private study.
Jack was jealous. Truly jealous. It was so hard not to do a victory dance then and there, but Claire held herself together.
“I hear Aaron Micheals is excited to invite you on a yacht trip this May,” he bit out.
Claire knew that tone. It was the same one she used when she thought about all the women Jack was romancing on his other jobs. “Jack?”
“Yeah.”
She stepped forward. “Why are you here?”
The question deflated him for a moment before his eyes dropped to her lips and locked on. “Because you took part of me and kept it with you somehow.” His hazel eyes looked up to meet her gaze. “I’m still trying to figure it out. All I know is that part of me feels lost not knowing when we’ll be in the same room again, and I had to fly out here and see you so I could concentrate again.”
The foot of distance between them suddenly felt wrong. Claire’s skin felt like feathers were being dragged all over it as her throat dried out and her heart triple-timed.
“I missed you too,” she managed.
He smiled. “Is that what this feels like?” he asked, pressing the heel of his hand to his chest. “Missing someone? I thought it might be something else.”
“It might be,” Claire agreed, leaning forward against her will. “We didn’t have much time to figure out if it’s more than that, but—”
With one step, Jack’s lips were on hers. Claire met him more than halfway, closing her eyes and letting the thrill she’d tried to tell herself was nothing more than adrenaline wash over her. The invisible bruise in her chest disappeared, allowing her heart to painlessly beat as hard and as fast as it liked until she felt a little lightheaded.
Jack pulled away, bracing his hands on his shoulders as he looked at her with a bit of a star-struck look in his eyes. “I think we might be talking about ‘something else.’”
“Me, too.” She forgot to speak from her diaphragm this time, but she was past caring. If she sounded smitten, it was because she was smitten. Why hide it?
He bit his bottom lip, looking a bit anxious again. “This is new territory for me, Claire. I don’t know what to do.”
And he thought she did? For once they were both novices at the same game.
They both studied each other in silence for a moment before Claire asked the question itching in the corner of her mind. “When’s your flight out of here?”
“I don’t have one.” He smiled as if shocked by the answer, and Claire smiled back.
“Well, that’s a good start.” She stepped away, knowing that if she didn’t she would kiss him again and that’s how Margot would find them—like teenagers making out in a classroom. Not that Claire minded. Not really. But she had bigger plans for this man. “I’ll be done here in about thirty minutes, so how about you plan something for us to do? We’ll start there.”
Jack nodded. “I can do that.”
“Okay,” Claire said, impulsively moving to him again and pressing a light kiss to his lips. It felt like one of those fireworks that exploded high then shimmered all the
way down to the ground. The sensation was almost enough to tempt her to do it again, but she forced herself to step away again.
He cleared his throat and stepped away, gesturing to his face. “I’ve got to go get in costume. Any requests?”
This was how it would be with him. She knew that without him saying a word. With all the cameras in Vegas and all the people getting paid to catalog who was who, Jack couldn’t give them a real shot of his face…ever.
She reached up and traced his bottom lip with her thumb. “So long as your lips and your eyes are your own, I don’t care about the rest. Surprise me.”
“Okay.” They stared at each other for another beat before he laughed. “I don’t want leave.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
Right then, the door swung open and Margot marched in. “For heaven’s sake, I’ll help. Get out, Jack. I need to speak to my intern.”
Jack grabbed Margot’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you.”
“I said get out,” she growled.
Jack pointed at Claire. “Thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes,” Claire repeated, knowing she had a stupid grin on her face. Then Jack was gone and she was left with a resigned-looking Margot who looked her over like she was a lost cause.
“Seriously, what am I going to do with you two?”
Claire shrugged, feeling a little giddy.
Margot sighed, moving toward the door. “Follow me.”
Claire was confused. “But my assignment—”
“You did fine,” Margot said, sounding bored. “But if you think I’m letting you go out on a date looking like that, then you don’t know me very well. We have thirty minutes to take you from cardigan to cocktails, so keep up.”
“Yes, boss,” Claire said, hiding a smile as she followed her mentor down the hall.
Margot might be rough around the edges…she might even be rough around the middle. Heck, Margot might be rough as burlap through and through, but Claire could read between the lines on what she was saying.
She approved. When it came to Claire and Jack getting together, Margot approved. Claire couldn’t imagine a better omen to start the evening off with as Margot led her into the corporate closet all employees had access to.
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