She gave her assistant a puzzled look. “I gave it to you last week.”
Shane ran a hand through his long, tousled hair. “You did?”
Vanessa sat down and dropped her handbag into the lower drawer of the desk. “Yes, I did. See if you can locate it before I have to print out another hard copy.”
“I’ve looked everywhere, Vanessa, and I can’t find it. Why don’t you give me the disk, and I’ll print out another copy. It’ll save valuable time for both of us.”
She hesitated, then nodded, saying, “Okay.” Unlocking the file cabinet under the workstation, she ran her fingertips over the indexed computer disks and withdrew the one containing all of the financial data on the Kroff subcontract account.
Handing it to him, she ordered, “Make a copy for yourself, then return it to me.”
“Thanks, Vanessa. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Don’t forget to return the original to me.”
“You’re beginning to sound like Preston,” Shane teased.
“As long as we don’t begin to look alike, you’ll be okay.”
Shane laughed and walked out of her office, waving the disk above his head. Vanessa was amazed that everyone in her unit was able to maintain a normal, easygoing manner in spite of their additional work assignments. She would complete entering all of the data from Preston’s spreadsheets within hours. Then she could begin work on the budget projections for Joshua.
She did not think of Joshua again as she became totally engrossed in her work, stopping only to order her lunch from the building cafeteria.
A shiver of delight raced up her spine when she did hear his sonorous voice as he said, “Are you planning to work all night?”
Swiveling on her chair, she turned and stared at him. He stood in the doorway with a mysterious smile on his lips. She glanced at the clock and groaned. It was seven-forty.
Threading her fingers through her hair, she rose to her feet. “I suppose I lost track of time.”
His luminous gaze lingered briefly on the vase of flowers on a side table before sweeping back to admire the woman who managed to look enchantingly fresh despite the late hour.
He made his way into the office and stood less than a foot from her. “I picked up a message from my voice-mail that you wanted me to call you.”
“And you came instead of calling,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t like communicating by telephone,” he confessed. “It’s too impersonal.”
Vanessa stared at him, mesmerized. He was standing close to her, too close, and his closeness was like a powerful narcotic, drawing her, lulling her into a state of gluttonous euphoria where she never wanted to surface.
It was as if she were seeing Joshua Kirkland for the very first time. He was as stunningly virile as he was when she first saw him. A rush of heat swept over her body, settling in her breasts and inching lower like a slow-moving stream of molten lava.
He watched her like a falcon, unmoving, only his eyes betraying his lust. They darkened to a deep, rich green, examining her every reaction as her breasts swelled, the nipples tightening against the lace of her bra and silk of her blouse.
Every pleasure point in her body tingled as if he’d touched her, and Vanessa realized that Joshua knew what he was doing to her. Without touching, without speaking, he was seducing her, and she did not protest or resist.
She’d stopped asking herself what it was that drew her to him and made her love him the way she had never loved another man, refusing to acknowledge that their attraction was only physical, because she knew now that it wasn’t.
There was something profound, unspoken, that communicated itself and told her that she would always be protected with Joshua Kirkland. A silent voice shouted, He will always take care of you!
He had protected her when her hotel room was ransacked in Mexico City, but she hadn’t been able to protect him when someone assaulted him and left him to die—alone in a foreign country. She had judged him unfairly. She had no right to judge anyone, especially not the man with whom she had exchanged vows.
He hadn’t deserted her. He still loved her, she still loved him, and she didn’t want their marriage to end.
“I wanted to thank you for the flowers.” Her voice was a throaty whisper, the underlying sensuality caressing Joshua like a gentle brush of silk on bare skin.
“You’re quite welcome,” he said just as quietly.
The sound of his voice broke the spell, and Vanessa turned back to the columns of numbers on her computer screen. Pressing a key, she saved her work.
“How’s it going?” Joshua asked behind her.
“I’ve completed the long-term capital expenditure budget, allowing for segment expenditures by years.”
Moving around the desk, he picked up a page of printed numbers. “Why did you decide to do it that way?”
She gathered all of the pages from the printer and stacked them neatly. “This segmentation is required for coordination with the annual, or short-term, capital expenditure budget. Inclusion of a project in the annual capital project does not necessarily provide automatic authorization to spend funds or incur financial obligations with respect to that budget.”
A slight smile touched his firm mouth as he crossed his arms over his crisp white shirt. “What about controls?”
“Controls are generally exercised at three stages,” she continued as she cleaned up her workstation. “Usually inclusion in the budget, approval of appropriation of funds, and finally, the authorization of the expenditures.”
“Why?”
Her head came up quickly and she stared at him. “I’ve done it that way to allow and maintain flexibility in changing the annual capital budget if unforeseen circumstances arise.” She tapped the page in his hand. “The starred projects are classified as priority groups.”
“You’re almost finished, aren’t you?”
She took the single sheet of paper from his loose grip. “I should have everything done by Thursday.”
She wouldn’t need the extension. The budget projections would be submitted two weeks before the original deadline of July tenth.
His left eyebrow rose a fraction. “You’re very good, Vanessa.” There was no mistaking the pride and surprise in his voice.
“And you doubted I could do it.” There was a hint of laughter in her accusation.
“I didn’t doubt you, Miss Blanchard. I just had my doubts whether you would submit your projections on time. I know—” Whatever he intended to say died on his lips when he noticed the direction of Vanessa’s gaze. Turning around slowly, he found Shane Sumners standing in the doorway watching them.
“I—I didn’t mean to interrupt, Vanessa,” Shane stammered. “I just came back to give you your disk.”
Vanessa beckoned to him. “You’re not interrupting. Please come in.”
Shane’s normally pale face was flushed with high color as he entered the room and nodded to Joshua. “Mr. Kirkland.”
Joshua inclined his head. “Sumners.”
Shane handed her the disk. “I’ve closed out Kroff, so that’s one less you’ll have to do.”
She gave him an appreciative smile. “Thanks, partner. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Anytime, partner.” Returning her smile, he backpedaled out of the office. “Good night, folks.”
“Good night,” Vanessa and Joshua replied in unison.
Joshua turned his attention back to Vanessa. He watched as she put away the disk and the pages of the budget in the file cabinet and locked it.
“Do you always lock up your work?”
She glanced at him before she dropped the key in her handbag. “Always. I left a disk on my desk once and it disappeared. I made myself a promise that it would never happen again.” She gave him a half-smile. “I don’t know about you, Mr. Kirkland, but I’m calling it a day.” Reaching over, she picked up her handbag, secured the strap over her shoulder, and walked to the closet for the matching jacke
t to her slim, lime green, linen skirt.
“Have you eaten dinner?”
Her hand stilled on the doorjamb. “No, I haven’t.”
“Are you hungry?”
She arched an eyebrow, not turning around. “A little.”
“How much is a little, Miss Blanchard? A steak little, or a salad little?”
“Neither—tonight.”
He crossed the room and stood behind her. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
He leaned close enough for her to feel his breath on the nape of her neck. “What time should I come by your place and pick you up for our business meeting?”
“Seven.”
His expression softened with a satisfied smile. “Thank you, Miss Blanchard.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Kirkland. Good night.”
“Good night, Angel.”
Vanessa waited until he walked out of her office before she let out her breath, astonished at the sense of fulfillment flowing through her. Before she made the decision to end her marriage, she had to give it a chance; she had to give them a chance.
Chapter 23
Vanessa knew the day was going to be unique when she woke to the fury of a violent thunderstorm. A flash of lightning lit up the bedroom as a roll of thunder shook the earth with an angry rumble.
Rolling over, she peered at the clock and groaned. It was only four-seventeen, and she had spent a restless night dreaming of Joshua. When would she ever stop dreaming about him? When would she ever purge him from her mind?
Never, a silent voice whispered. Never, because she knew Joshua would never give her up, and more importantly she did not want him to. He was her husband, they had consummated their marriage, and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, a stranger who seemed to know her and her body better than she knew herself.
She had mulled over the possibility that the arcane marriage clause would not apply because Joshua wasn’t a GEA employee, and they could live openly as husband and wife. But after hearing the grumblings from her coworkers about Joshua interrogating them—he referred to it as “interviewing”—she decided not to broach the subject with him. He would be at GEA for two months, and that would give them both enough time to resolve their matrimonial status.
Rolling over onto her stomach, she folded her arms over her head and did what she hadn’t done in weeks—she went back to sleep and waited for the clock alarm to go off.
Vanessa raised eyebrows when she strode through the reception area fifteen minutes before nine. She had made it a practice to always come in before eight-thirty, and with Preston out on medical leave her day now usually began at seven-thirty. She smiled at two secretaries standing around the receptionist’s desk, whispering and giggling to each other.
“Good morning, ladies.”
The two women returned her smile. Anne looked up from the compact mirror in which she was dutifully outlining her lips with a lip liner before applying a layer of her celebrated, dragon red color. “Good morning, Vanessa,” the three chorused.
Before she had taken three steps she heard Joshua’s name whispered. Shaking her head, Vanessa knew why the administrative offices of GEA had been dubbed Peyton Place by the workers at their manufacturing plant in a suburb ten miles northeast of the city. Gossip was rampant, and everyone had stopped counting the number of ill-fated office romances. Even without lingering in the employee lounge, she knew Joshua’s name was being slowly and finely ground through the rumor mill.
She walked into her office and opened the vertical blinds. The rain had stopped, but the sun had yet to put in an appearance. Moving behind her desk, she sat down to check her voice-mail. Finding none, she retrieved the key from her handbag and opened the file cabinet beneath her workstation.
Frowning, she stared at the lower shelf. The pages of the budget she’d printed out the night before were scattered about. She remembered stacking everything neatly; she knew she hadn’t thrown the papers in haphazardly. She never did!
She tried slowing down the runaway beating of her heart, telling herself that she was imagining things. Maybe she hadn’t stacked them, or they had been unsettled by the motion when she closed the drawer. The same eerie feeling she had experienced when her hotel room in Mexico City had been ransacked came back. No one had touched her, yet she felt personally violated.
Get a grip, Vanessa.
Swallowing painfully, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, utilizing the breathing exercises she had learned in the Tai Chi classes she had taken at the health spa. Within sixty seconds she was calm enough to review her actions of the night before.
Joshua had come to her office and his presence and nearness had unsettled her. A knowing smile touched her mouth. He had kept his promise not to physically touch her at GEA, yet he had.
In his own way he managed to emit an invisible sensual stroking that she was powerless to resist. He was maddeningly arrogant and self-assured at the same time; and he knew if he persisted he could break through any wall of defense she set up to thwart him.
In his role as consultant she had found him to be willful, relentless, tenacious, inflexible and recalcitrant. But as her lover and husband he was tender, protective, passionate, and generous.
She knew little or nothing about the very private Joshua Kirkland. She knew him to be thirty-nine, and that he spoke fluent Spanish. He’d revealed that his mother was dead, he was estranged from his father, and that he had half-brothers and sisters. She knew nothing of his education or childhood. The realization that had plagued her for months was more evident now than when she first married him. He truly was a stranger, a stranger she would love forever.
The chiming of the telephone broke into her musings and she reached over and picked it up. “Good morning. Vanessa Blanchard.”
“You sound quite chipper this morning. That must mean you’re handling everything that’s being thrown at you.”
“How are you, Preston?”
“Wonderful,” came his reply. “I’m being discharged this morning. The good news is that I won’t have to go to the rehab center.”
She leaned forward on her chair. “Does this mean you’re going home?”
“Yes. I’ll have an aide come in and help me for a few hours a day until the casts come off.”
“That’s wonderful, Preston. I’m going to give you a few days to settle in. Then I’ll be out to see you.”
There was a lengthy pause before Preston’s voice came through the wire. “I want to thank you for everything—for carrying on beyond the call of duty.”
“Get well, and get your butt back here as soon as you can,” she teased good-naturedly.
“Labor Day will be here before you know it, and then you can take a nice long vacation like you did last year.”
She winced at the mention of vacation. “I’m going to take long weekends in July and August, and when you come back I’m going to put in for several weeks, go somewhere exotic and romantic, and never come back.”
“Bite your tongue, Vanessa. You keep talking like that, and I won’t approve a vacation for you.”
“Now, you know Warren has final say on vacation approvals.”
“What I do know is that everyone at GEA says that Warren McDonald is your magic genie. You rub him the right way and he grants your every wish.”
She was momentarily speechless, in shock. Preston had just verbalized the rumors circulated by the people they worked with. “Do you believe that, Preston?” she questioned breathlessly.
“No, I don’t. But I do know that he likes you. He likes you a lot.”
She ended her conversation with Preston, sat back on her chair, stared out across the room, and thought about the two men in her life: Warren McDonald, who pursued her indirectly, and Joshua Kirkland, who wanted to keep their marriage a secret.
Mentally switching gears, she threw herself into her work, completing all of the three-month and half of the six-month projections. She ordered lunch in, eating lightly because she
was to share dinner with Joshua.
It was five-thirty when she cleaned up her desk, this time making certain that her reports were neatly stacked on the lower shelf of the file cabinet and that the computer disks were filed correctly. All of the disks were labeled and color-coded, so she knew at a glance how to identify each sub-contract budget.
She walked past George Fender’s office on her way out and saw him engaged in a heated discussion with Shane. The tension and hostility between the two men was unmistakable.
A large vein throbbed in George’s forehead as he waved a sheaf of papers. “I told you before that I won’t accept this format. All of next year’s budgets will use deficit funding.”
“I bust my hump for two days, and now you tell me that we’re using deficit funding?” Shane shouted.
“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” Both men turned at the sound of her voice.
George’s angry glare swept from Vanessa and back to Shane. “There won’t be, if he does what he’s told to do.”
Shane’s fingers curled into fists, the muscles in his forearms tightening, while his face was flushed a bright red. Never had she seen Shane this enraged.
“Shane, go home. Now!” she ordered in a stern tone. “You and I will talk tomorrow.”
“I can’t go home,” he mumbled through clenched teeth. “I have something I have to finish tonight.”
“Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to wait.”
Vanessa went still, her mood varying from annoyance to anger, and she reacted quickly to Shane’s defiant behavior. “You will not work on anything tonight. And from here on out you will check with me personally on a daily basis for approval of overtime.”
The blood drained from the younger man’s face as his normally gentle hazel eyes hardened with contempt. “I hear you, boss.”
He stalked out of the office, his shoulder brushing Vanessa’s, and she fell against a wall to keep her balance. She looked up and saw Joshua standing less than five feet away at the end of the corridor. There was no doubt he had seen Shane deliberately shove against her.
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