Not Matt. If it was possible to sit and stalk at the same time, he managed it. His hands rested on his lap but an air of attack hovered around him.
She slipped into the seat next to him, careful to shift the chair a few inches from his. No need to test temptation. He knew the rules and getting all gooey in the middle of a sexual harassment seminar broke them. But he wouldn't stop staring. She focused on the screen, pretending to watch the video, while he looked at her profile.
When his fingertips brushed over the back of her hand she nearly jumped out of her seat. His fake cough covered the scrape of her chair against the hardwood floor.
"What are you doing?" She whispered without moving her lips. Keeping the shake of anger out of her voice proved harder.
"You started this."
"In private."
"That's not how I remember it." He rested an arm on the back of her chair as his other hand passed in front of his mouth to cover his words.
To anyone watching, the move probably came off as casual. Just a boss leaning and listening. But the way his warmth wrapped around her, the way his scent filled her head, amounted to a seduction. With every breath against her cheek her heart thumped louder. She couldn’t believe the man in front of her didn’t turn around to check out the noise.
"We can't." Her words came out as little more than an exhale.
"My office in ten minutes."
"No."
His fingers trailed up the back of her neck to play with the clasp of her necklace. "Are you sure?"
A shiver shook her hard enough to rattle her teeth. "Later. My hotel."
"Five-fifteen."
This time she didn’t argue about the hour. The earlier the better.
With a quick nod, she stood up and walked to the front of the room. The video played on and a few people glanced in her direction, but she ignored everything except the strength it took not to slump against the wall. Sweaty palms, liquid knees and a jumpy heartbeat, she had it all. Control, well, that was in short supply.
###
Energy buzzed through Matt as he walked down the hall to his office. He rarely took a vacation and never lost an afternoon to drinking or playing golf, but writing off the rest of the day to think about all the things he planned to do to Kari tonight tempted him. Concentrating on work instead of the woman sitting a few doors down struck him as impossible.
He had no one else to blame for his state. He had pushed his control to the edge by touching her during the video presentation. While his gaze had roamed around the room making sure no one picked up on the flirting, his hands had gone wandering. A dumb choice but he still couldn't regret it. At least he had a date for tonight.
He stepped through the doorway and ran right into someone's back. "What the hell?"
"Interesting greeting for your boss." Rob Coleman smiled as he walked over and sat down on the edge of Matt's desk.
"Who also happens to be related to me by blood." They shared the same dark hair and athletic build. Rob inherited his green eyes from his father, but the ambition came from the women in the family.
Their mothers were sisters and they'd built a dessert delivery company from scratch and ran it until a company offered huge money for their interest. Seeing their mothers work so hard with a drive born out of family ties and talent inspired Matt to throw in with Rob when he made the offer five years ago.
"You earned your job." Rob smiled. "I never handed you anything."
That was one insecurity Matt never let fester. "My mom will be thrilled to hear that."
"How is Aunt Sue?"
Examining the family tree didn’t interest Matt right now. "Fine. Now tell me what you’re doing here and why you didn’t call before you flew across the country."
Rob let silence settle through the room for a few seconds before answering. "Kari Reynolds."
"Excuse me?"
"The human resources expert."
"Yeah, Rob. I know who she is. She's been in the office for weeks." And he'd been all over her for hours the night before, but Matt wasn't ready to share that fact. He and Rob had been raised more like brothers, but Matt was not the kiss-and-tell type.
"You still upset about the workshops?" Rob asked.
Matt had been pissed…but that was before he met Kari. "No."
Rob's head tilted to the side. Those eyes assessed and analyzed. "What do you think of her?"
Matt sensed a trap and refused to wade in and get caught. "Rob, what are you talking about?"
"I sent her here to get your thoughts on her."
Matt closed the door behind him, shutting out the steady rumble of the office. "Thoughts?"
"Are you always this slow?"
"Apparently."
"I want to hire her, bring her in as our specialist. I wanted you to get to know her and give some feedback."
Matt's mind refused to jumpstart. Just hearing Kari's name threw him off. His personal and professional lives collided and he couldn’t figure out how to pull them apart. "You're saying this whole exercise was some sort of informal job tryout?"
"She didn’t tell you?"
Anger flooded through his head, crashing through the confusion and wiping it out. "She knew?"
Rob's eyebrow lifted. "Am I missing something here?"
The pounding started in Matt's head then spread through his entire body. If he understood Rob, this had all been some sort of set-up. The seduction, the sex, it was all her way of snagging a fucking job.
Thought made Matt's stomach flip. "Enough with the questions. Just tell me what's going on."
"I interviewed Kari and told her, since she's in California and would be in this office, she needed to meet with you about the job before I could hire her." Rob crossed one ankle over the other in a relaxed stance that showed how clueless he was about the walls crumbling down around them. "She was out here to impress you."
Matt shook his head but the reality remained. None of it had been about him. About them.
"Did she?" Rob asked.
Matt tried to push out the waves of red-hot anger and crippling disappointment and focus on the conversation. "What?"
"Did she do whatever she needed to do to win you over?" Rob lowered his head until he got eye contact from Matt. "Look, I know you like to have control over all the hiring and firing in this branch. I appreciate that, but I was hoping you'd like her. Did you?"
"I thought I did."
Chapter Five
Kari vowed not to look at the clock again. She sat on the edge of the bed in her silk robe and stared at the television. Probably would have worked better if she'd turned it on.
Her gaze wandered to the green glowing numbers. Six-thirty.
Last night Matt basically ran to her hotel from work. He'd showed up on time and ready to go. Tonight he didn’t bother to come over at all. No call. No explanation.
The worst-case scenarios ran through her mind. Car accident or emergency. She pushed them back out, refusing to believe he'd been hurt.
Or maybe the explanation rested on something more mundane, like he got stuck and lost track of time. Office gossip included numerous stories of how he'd stayed at the office only to be found nursing a cup of coffee and huddled over his desk the next morning.
She didn’t like the idea of being forgotten in favor of a work project, but she could live with it. Her work often called for late nights and a lot of traveling. She could be understanding even if it meant wasting the shower and prep work to give her skin a soft glow.
She ran her fingers over her necklace, rubbing the pearls against her collarbone, as her gaze once again moved to her cellphone. Thanks to his employee file, she had all of his numbers. Working in a secure building meant getting locked out loomed as a possibility, so she made sure she could reach him if needed. And once she'd met him she'd wanted to know everything about him. That led to internet searches and listening for snippets of information in the ladies' room. The administrative staff liked to talk about Matt, to guess about his persona
l life, which he protected like a government secret. The office grapevine made her job of collecting data easy.
"This is ridiculous." She mumbled the thought to the quiet room as grabbed the phone and dialed.
He picked up on the third ring. "Matt Bradford."
She couldn't tell anything from his distant tone. "It's Kari."
The resulting silence made her stomach plummet to the floor. When he didn’t say anything else, she tried again. "Matt?"
"I talked with Rob."
She had no idea what that meant. "Okay."
"Goodbye, Kari." He hung up without saying another word.
She stared at the small screen for a few seconds until reality shot through her brain. He'd blown her off.
Icy cold splashed through her. She didn’t realize she was shaking until the headboard slapped against the wall.
She had no idea what happened. One minute he'd risked everything for a simple touch of her hair and now he acted like she didn’t matter. She wrapped her arms around her middle and rocked back and forth, replaying every minute of the day in a vain attempt to find a reasonable explanation.
When that failed, her shock turned to rage. It bubbled and festered until her skin burned with it.
She jumped off the bed and found her briefcase. A few clicks later and she had folders spread out on her comforter. Scanning the documents she found what she wanted. She crumpled the paper with his address in her hand as she reached for her purse. Slipping on her shoes and a short raincoat, she was ready to go.
He thought he could hide? Well, he was wrong.
###
Matt ignored the doorbell the first two times it chimed. Living in a condo near the baseball stadium in the middle of downtown San Diego meant living in a security building. No one should be on his floor or at his door without his permission.
The logical answer was Rob. He was one of three people on the pre-approved visitor list along with his mother and Lydia, for those times when he needed something brought over from the office.
When the ringing turned to knocking, Matt decided he had to face Rob. Explaining how he got taken, how he fell for Kari's convincing act, didn’t appeal to Matt's battered ego at all, but better to get it over with and move on than let the situation sit.
"I'm coming." He opened the door. "Damn, Rob. Can't you tell when someone…"
"It's not Rob." Kari pushed past Matt to stand in the middle of his living room.
"What are you doing here?"
"Fighting with you."
Despite the hollowness in his chest and burning in his throat, his heart jumped at seeing her. Long, bare legs stuck out from beneath a short khaki jacket. The trench belted at her waist and skin peeked out everywhere, making him think she wasn't wearing much, if anything, underneath.
He ignored the tightening of his lower body. "I'm not in the mood."
"I don't care."
He heard the fury in her voice and it ignited his own. "What, you want one last round on the mattress?"
"Don't do that."
"I'm willing." He held her arm under her elbow and guided her toward the bedroom. "Why not?"
She dug her heels into his thick carpet. "Matt, stop."
Emotions, raw and wounded, swirled around him. "Isn't this what this was about? Sleeping your way to a job?"
Her mouth dropped open. "That's what you think?"
"You could have leveled with me." Even now he wanted to wrap his arms around her and carry her to bed.
She stepped closer and put her palms on his cheeks. "Listen to me. I'm not sure what you think you know, but you’re wrong."
God, he wanted to believe. He looked into those sweet eyes, saw that full mouth, and he fell right into a pool of pure male stupidity. It was as if she walked in and his brain cells checked out. No woman had ever had that tight of a hold on him before, certainly not after only a few weeks.
He put his hands over hers thinking to push her away, but they covered her soft skin instead. "Rob told me."
"You think I tricked you with sex."
"You did."
"Then why haven’t you kicked me out of here?" She leaned in closer.
"No idea."
"I think it's because part of you knows this is bullshit."
Or because he was a stupid jackass with no sense of self-preservation. "You should have been honest with me."
Her big eyes pleaded with him. Her hands warmed him. The coat opened just enough to entice him with the tops of her breasts.
"I did," she said.
He was lost. "Shit, forget it. I don’t even care what you did right now."
He kissed her. Long and slow, hot and demanding, his mouth pressed over hers as his fingers slipped through her hair. With her body pulled tight against his, nothing else mattered except getting her naked and under him.
"God, how I want you." His hands went to the belt on her coat while his lips pressed against the base of her neck.
She ran her palms over his shoulders as her head fell to the side, giving him more access. "Tell me you believe me."
"Later." He peeled the coat to the side and felt something silky underneath. Then he touched soft skin. Dipping low, he pressed his mouth against her exposed nipple and sucked until her shoulders shook.
Her hand held his head close to her. "Matt, tell me."
"You’re beautiful." He mumbled the praise into the deep valley between her breasts as his hand cupped her fullness.
"I didn't lie to you."
He blocked out her words as he opened the trench and the robe, unveiling every inch of her bare body to his eyes and his hands. Her stomach dipped beneath his touch. Fingertips brushed lower until she trapped his hands in hers.
"Matt, look at me."
The sensual haze threatened to drag him down but her voice brought him screaming to the surface. "What?"
"Tell me you know this – us – was never about a job."
He finally looked at her, saw the fire building under her skin and the dark anger in her eyes. "I don’t care."
"I do."
She slowly released his hand, letting it drop in front of him. With extreme care and without ever looking away from his face, she re-tied the belt. "It was real."
"Kari, look-"
"Now I know." She crossed her arms in front of her, blocking her body to his gaze and throwing up a wall between them without taking a step.
"What?"
"This is why you don’t date people at work." She gave him a sad smile. "It never ends well."
Chapter Six
He'd been an ass.
Matt stepped through the office doors and rushed past Lydia at the front desk. He limited his greeting to a short wave. He didn't trust his voice and didn't have time for the usual rounds of non-work chatter. He didn't care about last night's television shows of even who had called looking for him this morning. He had a bigger job: operation apology.
He wished he could claim he realized his mistake immediately after Kari left his condo, but no. When it came to Kari, he apparently wasn't that smart. The deadly combination of an aching sense of hurt and wounded ego had blinded him. It had taken him three sleepless hours to come to his senses. He had wallowed in his rage, letting it boil in his stomach and blind his brain, until it all burned off, leaving behind only the sharp stab of loss.
In the lonely hours of darkness, he turned over each moment with Kari, examining her actions for clues so he'd be smarter with the next woman, only to have the nefarious scheme he invented for her dissolve under the scrutiny. A woman eager to use a bedroom to win a job wouldn't have turned him down last night. And he refused to believe she was so cold-hearted as to act interested, to lose her mind beneath him as she chanted his name into his bare shoulder, all while plotting for a corner office. There were easier ways to jumpstart a career and he knew from investigating her life before she came to the office that she didn’t need him for a paycheck.
He should have listened. Shouldn't have assumed.
> He turned down the main hallway and walked past his office on his way to hers. This, her last morning here, would require endless begging. He had to grovel, possibly hit his knees to do it, and then actually listen to what she had to say this time. She tried to talk last night but he was too busy working out his disappointment through a bout of angry foreplay to notice.
Opening the door to the small conference room Kari had been using as a makeshift office, he vowed to use his brain this time around. "We need to talk."
Rob leaned back in the chair with his arms folded behind his head. "I take it you were expecting someone else."
Matt took in the empty desktop and the closed blinds. The place looked abandoned except for Rob and his stupid grin. "Where the hell is Kari?"
"Los Angeles."
"Why?"
"She had an emergency. Said her workshops were done here and that she could finish the manual from her regular office." Rob leaned back far enough to topple over, but somehow managed to stay upright. "Also turned down my job offer."
"She did?"
"Apparently, she never intended to take the position and thought she had made that clear. She said something about how she wants to start her own firm. Guess that means we either keep using her as an independent contractor or we try to hire someone else for this position."
Matt held up his hands. The big speech he'd practiced in the car on the way over kept playing in his head, but his intended audience had left the building. "Shut up for a second."
"Problem?"
He finally focused on his cousin. The relaxed shoulders and I've-got-a-secret smugness struck Matt as over-the-top for eight in the morning. "Why are you smiling?"
"Because you're a dumbass."
Yeah, tell him something he didn’t know. "Care to be more specific?"
The front legs of Rob's chair hit the floor with a thunk. "Do you honestly think no one noticed you were hot for Kari?"
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