Now that her meeting with his bulldog of a lawyer was over, though, Emma realized the joke was on her. She might not have signed the farcical document that had been presented that morning, but she had signed the contract Max had tossed on her kitchen counter Saturday night. And Emma got the impression that Vivienne had taken an almost sadistic pleasure in laying out the terms that she’d so rashly agreed to with that hastily scrawled signature.
Emma strode out of the elevator before the door was fully open, her heels clicking against the marble tiles as she headed for her desk. Maybe one of her coworkers would loan her a damn sweater before she had to meet with—
“Emma.”
Speak of the devil...
Her name sounded like a curse on Max’s lips, sharp and angry, and though it jacked up her pulse, she was careful not to show it. She stopped and slid him a disdainful glance, vindicated that his deep voice sounded tight when he added, “May I see you in my office?”
It wasn’t really a question, and Emma knew it, so she hesitated just long enough to annoy him. Not that she could tell if it worked. He was already back on lock-down, his handsome features an implacable mask. But it didn’t matter. She was annoyed enough for the both of them.
“Of course. I’m just going to drop my purse and suitcase off at my desk, and I’ll—”
“Now.” Steel edged the word, brooking no opposition.
Pasting an amused smile on her lips, she shot Max’s fascinated executive assistant an eyeroll. “This one’s in a mood,” she said, thumbing in Max’s direction before stepping past him into the glass-walled office.
“See that we’re not disturbed,” he told Sherri, closing the door behind them.
Emma plunked herself in the closest of the visitor’s chairs, bristling with coiled energy. Max, blasé as ever, took his time as he made his way to the other side of the desk. He sat, and with the push of a hidden button on the underside of the black onyx desktop, the entire expanse of glass between them and the rest of the office frosted for privacy. And then they were all alone, her itching for a fight, him cold and unaffected.
“You wanted me?”
Her double entendre landed like a gauntlet, and the scattered haze of sexual tension that was lingering in the room courtesy of their Friday night tryst coalesced into a lightning bolt of awareness arcing between them.
“What I want,” he informed her, the bite in his voice frigid against her heated skin, “is to know what the hell you think you’re doing?”
So, not completely unaffected after all.
Emma crossed her legs, enjoying the tiny victory, and the slit of her skirt parted to midthigh. Max’s sightline dipped to her leg.
“Reporting for duty, Mr. Whitfield. As per your orders.”
He raked his gaze up her body, pausing meaningfully on the peaked outline of her nipples against the black satin of her blouse, a condition made worse by his attention, before continuing up to her throat, her lips and finally meeting her eyes. Max arched an eyebrow, the gesture thick with innuendo.
“And what duty did you think you’d be reporting for, exactly?”
Smug prick.
Her smile was a big ‘screw you’ drenched in high-fructose corn syrup. “Oh, now that I’m back, I’m open to whatever position you had in mind. Sir.”
The slow, feral grin that slid across his face escalated the sexual arms race they were engaged in. “Don’t call me sir unless you mean it, Emma.” He leaned back in his chair. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to make promises you don’t intend to keep?”
“Who says I don’t intend to keep them?”
“Do you? Is that why you’re wearing this delightfully indecent outfit?”
It was Emma’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “It’s the same thing I had on Friday night. You didn’t seem to have a problem with it then.”
He ran his knuckles along his jaw. “As I recall, you were wearing a bra on Friday night. In the future, stick to the dress code.”
The warning made her smile. “Here’s a fun fact: there’s actually no mention of undergarments in the entire policy.”
She stood then, walked over to the window to give him a moment to wonder what else she may or may not be wearing, in case he had the inclination to do so. “But feel free to send me home if you feel like I’m not living up to the hallowed reputation of Whitfield Industries.”
“I get the impression that you’re trying to upset me.”
“And why would I do that?” She tried to sound offhand as he got to his feet and joined her by the window.
“I’m not going to dissolve the contract, Emma.” The words were soft. Matter-of-fact. Final. “I have too much at stake. SecurePay is going to launch next week, on time, and you are going to help me make sure it does. You signed the employment contract. If you don’t want the perks you were offered this morning to go with it, that’s your choice.”
“Because it’s insulting!” Emma whirled to face him, not in the least surprised to discover Vivienne Grant had called up to let him know how the meeting had gone, but angry nonetheless. “A residence? A driver? A clothing allowance? What your lawyer presented to me this morning was basically a mistress contract, minus the sex in return for your generosity.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously at that. “I don’t need to bribe women into my bed. They come when I tell them to.”
The veiled reference to Friday night snapped her spine straight.
“Come for me, Emma. Just like that. I want to feel you squeezing my cock.”
Bastard, she thought, even as heat uncoiled in her belly.
“You told me why you couldn’t work for me. No house. No transportation. No clothes.”
He let the last reason hang meaningfully for a moment, as though he knew her mind would conjure visions of naked skin, shifting muscles, sweaty bodies, her imaginings made all the more visceral now she knew how it felt to have Max thrusting inside her.
“I was merely trying to rectify those concerns. That’s how negotiation works.” He stepped closer, his nearness muddling her senses. Making her want things she shouldn’t. “In order to reach an accord, sometimes one party submits to the demands of the other party.”
She glared up at him, resenting the innuendo. “What happened between us wasn’t a negotiation. It was a hostile takeover.”
“You seemed to enjoy yourself.” His voice was pure sex, and she hated him for it in that moment.
“You know what, Max? Fuck you.”
“You already did,” he said darkly.
And that, she realized as she turned back to the window, was exactly the problem. He just didn’t know how right he was.
If her time here was just about waiting for him to discover she wasn’t the one who installed the spyware on her computer, she would have gladly stayed while Max’s cybersecurity team did whatever they needed to do to prove her innocence.
The problem, however, was that the longer she stuck around waiting to be cleared for the corporate espionage she’d had nothing to do with, the more opportunity they’d have to figure out that she had, in fact, been espionaging in what could be construed as a corporate-esque manner...
When Max found out she’d been feeding carefully curated bits of information to his own father—a man he openly despised—for the entirety of her tenure at Whitfield Industries, well, it was almost enough to make a girl wish she’d been the one who’d installed the spyware on her computer.
Emma squared her shoulders, crushed the flare of guilt. She’d had her reasons for accepting Charles Whitfield’s bargain, and if she had it to do over, she’d make the deal again.
Max was a big boy. With millions of dollars and an army of lawyers. He’d figure a way out of this unscathed. Her fate, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so certain. She needed to take care of herself.
To that end, she injected some stee
l in her spine and her voice as she faced him. “You seemed to enjoy yourself,” she taunted, throwing his earlier words back in his face, as though no time had elapsed since he’d spoken.
“You outrageous little—”
His hands manacled her upper arms, hauling her against him as his mouth crashed down on hers.
Emma meant to resist, truly she did, but her lips parted under the siege of angry lust, and when she raised her arms to push him away, they ended up twining around his neck and pulling him closer.
Stupid arms.
Max grabbed her ass and hauled her up his body before executing a quarter turn and shoving her back against the window. They both grunted at the rough pleasure of their bodies colliding. Emma wrapped her legs around his waist, vaguely aware that the ripping sound that accompanied the grind of his hips against hers meant the slit in her skirt was probably up to her navel now, but she was too lost in the taste and feel of Max to care.
A loud beep echoed through the room, intruding before things got really interesting, and he cursed against her mouth, letting her go so fast that she almost stumbled.
The beep sounded again, and Max stalked toward the desk, running his hands through his hair and tugging his tie straight as he reached out and hit a button on his phone, leaving Emma breathless and frustrated, and a little lust-drunk, if she were being honest. With a frown, she glanced down at her skirt.
“What?” he snapped.
The slit wasn’t quite to her navel, but the frayed material made her think its fate lay with a trash can, not a seamstress. As it stood, she was going to need a couple of safety pins to finish off the workday without getting charged with indecent exposure.
Sherri’s voice flooded the room. “Kaylee’s here to see you. She says it’s urgent. And I have Jesse Hastings on the line for your ten o’clock.”
“Tell them both to wait. We’re almost done here.”
He hit the disconnect button and put his hands on his hips, but he didn’t say anything.
“So...” Emma glanced over at the opaque glass wall. “What do you suppose Sherri thinks is happening in here right now?”
“I pay her not to speculate.” And just like that, Max was all business again. “Who knows that you quit?”
Emma sighed and pushed away from the window, walking toward the front of Max’s desk. By the time she’d secured her position at Whitfield Industries, the need for overtime pay and her mother’s worsening condition had taken up any time she’d have used to cultivate coworkers into friends. Somehow, it had seemed easier not to bother. “If that’s all you’re worried about, then we’re done here. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving except for you.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way. If we’re going to catch whoever is behind this, discretion is key.”
The words snapped her like a rubber band. “What? I thought I was your suspect.”
Max’s amber eyes roved her face, looking for something, some answer. It felt...personal. Not like business at all.
She swallowed against the buzz of attraction that charged the air.
After what felt like an eternity, Max turned his attention to the files on his desk. “You’ve been cleared.”
The gruff announcement blindsided her.
“What are you talking about? If you’re not investigating me, why did you come to my place with that contract? Why am I here?”
When Max looked at her again, his impassive mask was back in place. “As I said, the SecurePay launch needs to go off without a hitch. And in order to unearth the mole before the release date, we need our traitor to feel confident that we are still unaware of the leak.”
Hope crept through her veins. Maybe there was still a chance for her to get out of this mess with minimal damage. To Max. To herself. She just needed to keep a cool head. “So, I’m supposed to jump back into my job like nothing happened this weekend?”
She’d been expecting access restrictions, at the very least.
“Exactly like nothing happened this weekend,” he confirmed.
Despite the absolution, something kept her senses on high alert, like her body was reacting to the distant clang of a warning bell that was just beyond her hearing. Something about this didn’t feel right.
Emma tempered her frown at this new development and grabbed her bag from the visitor’s chair. She hooked it over her forearm, positioning it strategically in front of her ruined skirt so she didn’t flash anyone on the way out, pulling her suitcase with her other hand.
She was almost at the door when Max’s voice stopped her.
“And Emma?”
She glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in question.
“Wear a fucking bra tomorrow.”
He needn’t have worried. She wouldn’t make that mistake again, but she kept her voice tart when she answered. “I’ll wear whatever I want.”
Max scrubbed a hand down his face and hit the button that summoned Sherri’s voice like a high-tech genie.
“Yes, sir?”
“Tell Kaylee I don’t have time to see her right now. And find out who I need to talk to about getting the dress code amended before tomorrow.”
“The dress code?”
“That’s what I said. Let Hastings know I’ll be with him in five minutes.”
Emma made sure to flash him a victorious smile as she walked out of his office, but it faded long before she reached her desk. The flare of hope she’d experienced in his office sputtered and died.
The whole point of seducing Max had been that she’d never see him again. And the whole point of quitting her job was to escape the reckoning that seemed almost inevitable now. Whitfield Industries had one of the top cyber security firms in the nation on retainer. It was only a matter of time before Max discovered what she had done.
* * *
Max dropped into the chair behind his desk, legs spread wide to accommodate the results of his earlier lack of willpower with Emma. He hit the button beneath his desk that unfrosted the wall of his office with more force than was necessary.
He was drowning in a security breach that could derail SecurePay, and here he was, acting like a horny teenager with the top suspect, about to conduct a meeting with raging erection.
“What was that all about?”
The sudden intrusion snapped his head up, and Max didn’t bother to smooth the annoyance from his features as his unwanted visitor stormed in without knocking. Not that he expected such civilities from her. He might be known for his poker face, but no one taxed it quite as much as his sister.
He shot a raised eyebrow at his assistant through the glass wall, but Sherri just shrugged and turned back to her computer. Nobody stopped Kaylee when she put her mind to something. Except for their mother. Sylvia Whitfield alone held the key to deflating his impetuous little sister.
“I don’t have time for this right now. I’m late for a conference call.”
“Then maybe next time you have a massive security leak, you’ll remember to invite your head of PR to the meeting everyone else was at. That way you won’t have to make time in your busy schedule for impromptu meetings like this one.”
Max settled back in his chair, accepting the inevitable.
“Jesse Hastings had some talking points delivered in case any of this gets leaked and we need to clean it up.” She tossed the file in her hand onto the desk. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of it?”
“Because the first I heard about it was Saturday morning, and as you know, reaching my head of PR before noon on a Saturday is impossible. And since it seems that whatever it is that keeps you out until all hours on Friday nights continues to be more important than your job, I took care of things myself.”
Kaylee’s frown pissed him off. He wouldn’t have to lecture her all the time if she’d just put some goddamn effort into doing her part to help drag Whitfiel
d Industries into the twenty-first century.
“Just because some of us have lives,” she mumbled, reminding him of her sullen younger self.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Apparently teenage regression was rampant today.
“Some of us,” Max countered, his voice deadly calm, “are working our asses off to make a future for this company.”
Instead of a retort, Kaylee gave a heavy sigh. “Believe it or not, I didn’t come here to fight with you.” She dropped into one of the chairs that faced Max’s desk. “So, level with me. How bad is this?”
Max raked a hand through his hair. “As bad as it gets, considering we’re launching in a week. If this gets out, it will tank consumer confidence. And considering how brazen and sophisticated this one is...”
“You don’t think the attack is over,” Kaylee finished.
Max kept his face carefully expressionless, despite his growing ire. He had the best security firm in the business working for him, and still they were floundering for answers. But Kaylee didn’t need to worry about that. He’d deal with it. “Brennan and Hastings are doing everything they can to keep you from having to use that spin degree of yours. Still, it never hurts to be prepared.”
Kaylee nodded. “I agree. So don’t cut me out again.” She might have the power to drive him crazy, but his little sister was smart and capable. He would never have kept her on after he’d ousted their father if she couldn’t hack the job. But he wasn’t about to let her get the last word, either.
“Answer your phone and I won’t have to. Now, get out.”
Max hit the intercom button before Kaylee could argue. “Sherri, patch Hastings through.”
The phone beeped a second later, and he ignored Kaylee’s glare as he brought the receiver to his ear. “Hastings, Max Whitfield here. I apologize for the delay. What have you got for me?”
Forbidden Pleasure Page 4