Jonah was forced back to his office for a teleconference after the closet incident, but he wasn’t about to let that whole thing go. Either she knew about the missing money or she didn’t. She liked him or she hated him. But he was going to find out the truth either way.
The next morning, he found her sitting in her temporary office. Jonah watched her silently for a few minutes as she sat hovering over her paperwork, studying it with unmatched intensity. Her nose wrinkled just slightly, a line of concentration settling in between her brows as she scrutinized every number.
Even at her desk and fully immersed in her work, her posture was not slouched over. She sat quite upright, her shoulders back, her breasts pressing insistently against her pink, silk blouse. Her brunette hair was pulled back again, a stray piece framing the curve of her face.
Without looking up, she tucked the strand behind her ear and started to make notes in a spiral notebook. She had some of the neatest penmanship he’d ever seen. Programmers were not known for their handwriting. He typed nearly everything aside from signing his name to contracts and checks. Her handwriting was precise and delicate with full, curling loops and sweeping letters. It suited her, he thought. Rigid and controlled at first glance, but inherently feminine and open if you took the time to study and understand her better.
Audit or no, Jonah was genuinely interested in Emma and it surprised him. She got under his skin and irritated him, but at the same time, she was a fascinating puzzle to try and solve. Yesterday’s encounter just made it that much more intriguing. Figuring her out and breaking down her defenses would be an achievement on par with the first time he’d beaten Legend of Zelda as a kid.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Flynn? Run out of women to abduct so you thought you’d stop by my office and try again?”
The sound of Emma’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. She was watching him, but he didn’t see the tension in her shoulders that was there before. There was even a touch of amusement in her voice, which surprised him. Giving her some space had been the right thing to do.
“I’m sorry about yesterday. I hadn’t intended—”
“That’s fine,” she interrupted. “It’s not a problem. Let’s just pretend it never happened.”
Jonah didn’t expect this. He expected her to be wound tight and ready for a fight, or at least, a harassment suit. Instead, she was insistent on keeping things professional and putting it behind them. Perhaps she hadn’t found Noah’s indiscretion after all. “Can we talk about it?”
“I’d rather not.”
A blush lit her cheeks and Emma let her gaze drop back to her paperwork. She actually looked embarrassed. Jonah had no idea what that was about. It had been virtually impossible to make most of the women he’d dated blush, much less embarrass them with talk of romantic embraces. He wanted to see her porcelain complexion flush pink again, this time after they kissed. Kissing in the dark had robbed him of that tantalizing visual.
“Let me make it up to you.”
At that, she rolled her eyes and pushed away from her desk. The sweet blush was gone. “Please...”
“...go to dinner with you? Very well, I accept. How about o ya for sushi? I haven’t gotten to try there yet.”
Emma stopped in her tracks, seemingly startled by his turn of the conversation. “What? No.”
“No sushi? You’re right. That’s not everyone’s cup of tea. How about a steak house?”
“No. I mean, no, I don’t want to go to dinner.” Her face blushed a deeper red this time; she was clearly flustered with irritation. She brushed past him into the hallway. He took a moment to admire the tight fit of her black pants as she sauntered away, then jogged a few steps to catch up to her.
“Why not?” he asked, pulling alongside.
“It would be inappropriate,” she said over her shoulder.
“Says who? I’m not your boss. I don’t see anything wrong with taking you to dinner as a friendly welcome to my company. I take clients out to eat all the time.”
“You haven’t built a reputation like yours on simply being friendly to women.”
Her sharp words jabbed at Jonah. It sounded like her concerns were less about it appearing inappropriate to others and more about her less-than-flattering opinion of his love life. “Ah, so you don’t want to be seen in public with a man whore like me, right? Would it damage your sparkling reputation, Emma?”
Emma picked up her pace, quickly turning a corner and heading down an empty hallway, probably to the copier again. “Honestly, yes. I’ve worked very hard to get where I am. I’m not interested in men like you or the kind of ‘friendliness’ you offer.”
They stopped outside the elevator and she pushed the down button, refusing to look him in the eye. It made him wonder why. Those words didn’t jibe with the woman who had kissed him in the dark supply closet. “I don’t know...” he teased, letting a sly smile curve his lips. “You might like sullying your reputation a bit with me. It didn’t seem to bother you so much yesterday.”
Her head snapped around to look at him with a frown pulling down the corners of her pink lips. “Or I might end up in one of those gossip rags and have everyone talking about me.”
Jonah hated those publications. Why anyone was interested in his life, he didn’t know. “Who cares what other people think about what you and I do?”
The doors opened and Emma rushed inside with Jonah in her wake. “I care. You might be a millionaire playboy, but I’m a professional. Something like that could cost me my job.”
“Would your boss really care about the two of us being seen together? Why would you want to work for someone that uptight? Come work here. I could use a new finance officer.”
Emma finally looked up at him, her green eyes widening in surprise, but then shook her head. “That’s a nice offer, Mr. Flynn, but I don’t ever want it to be said that I earned my job on my back.”
She’d called him by his formal name again. They were regressing, if that was even possible. “I never said anything about you being on your back, Emma. All I suggested was dinner. You filled in the rest based on your biased presumptions about me.”
A chime announced their arrival on the next floor and she shot out the minute she could fit through the doorway. “They aren’t presumptions anymore. Now they’re from personal experience. Yesterday is all the proof I need to know that even something innocent can go astray when you’re involved, Mr. Flynn.”
That was three times now. “Please call me Jonah. Mr. Flynn is my father. And he’s dead. Besides, I already apologized for that. I told you I didn’t know what got into me. I won’t do it again unless you ask me to. Just have dinner with me.”
Emma turned suddenly and planted her hands on her hips. “Why are you dogging me so hard? Why me? Don’t you have some underwear model to keep you entertained?”
Jonah shoved his hands into his pockets in frustration and made a mental note: no more models. They gave him a bad reputation and intimidated other women. He had a universal appreciation of the female body in all its forms. Women rarely understood that, though. They just measured themselves against this perfect ideal and didn’t think he could desire them, as well.
“What if I truly, genuinely, was interested in you, Emma? That I thought you were smart and funny and attractive and wanted to see what could happen between us? Is that so bad?”
“In any other time and any other place, maybe not. But as it stands, no dinner. No dates. Just, no thank you.” Emma turned and marched into the coffee shop.
It was fairly empty at this hour, so Jonah followed her, refusing to end this conversation until he’d won. “Let me at least buy you coffee.”
Emma chuckled and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “It’s free in here.”
Jonah arched a brow in amusement. “Not for me, it isn’t. I pay for it all. As
a matter of fact, I’ve bought you several meals since you’ve been here. What’s the harm in one more? The only difference is that we eat it at the same time at the same table.”
She narrowed her green gaze at him and sighed. “You’re not going away until I at least agree to have coffee with you, are you?”
“Coffee is a good start.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll have a tall hot tea with two sugars, one cream, and a cinnamon roll. I’ll be waiting at a table. And when we’re done, I don’t want to see you for the rest of the day. Got it?”
Jonah grinned wide, the small victory seeming bigger when Emma was involved. “Absolutely.”
He found her seated at a table in the back corner of the coffee shop a few minutes later. Jonah watched silently as she doctored her hot tea and removed the bag. “What got you into accounting?” he asked. This wasn’t the time or place for bold moves or hard questions.
“I dislike ambiguity,” she responded. “In math, there is no gray area, no questionable decisions. Two plus two equals four. I liked having a career based in something I could depend on. It also seemed to be a respectable profession. My parents were both pleased with my decision.”
“And what if you’d wanted to be a fashion model or a rock star?” Jonah asked. “What would they have thought about that?”
Emma only shook her head. “I would never want to do something like that. For one thing, I’m not pretty enough or talented enough. And even if I were, I wouldn’t do it. Those kinds of people end up in the magazines right beside you.”
Jonah frowned. He didn’t like the way she spoke about herself. “It’s not so bad,” he countered. “People read those magazines because they want to live vicariously through people like me. They want to share in the glamour and excitement.”
“My sister was the one destined for the spotlight, not me.”
“And what does your sister do?” Jonah asked.
“Nothing. She’s dead.” Emma put the lid on her cup and picked up her plate. “I’m sorry, Jonah, but I’ve got to get back to work.”
* * *
Emma flopped back into her desk chair and buried her face in her hands. This was not going at all to plan. Before she’d come to FlynnSoft, she’d been confident that its handsome CEO wouldn’t want anything to do with her. Finding out Jonah was the father of her unborn child made it even more critical that she maintain her distance until her audit was complete. There was tiny, living proof that she’d slept with the FlynnSoft CEO at least once, and that was too much. And yet in the last twenty-four hours, she’d made out with him in a dark closet and agreed to have coffee with him.
What the hell was wrong with her? Kissing Jonah? She wished she could say she lost her mind in that dark room, but what was her excuse today? Chatting with him over breakfast pastry and caffeinated drinks seemed harmless, but they both knew it was anything but. If she gave him an inch, he’d take a mile. There was no such thing as harmless where the two of them were concerned.
Despite her accusations to the contrary, she was fairly certain all Jonah had intended to do yesterday was get her somewhere private and force the conversation she was adamant to avoid. But somewhere things just went wildly off course. Again.
It was just like Mardi Gras all over again. Whatever powerful, magnetic force drew them together and lured them into a night of hedonistic pleasure was still in play. Being pressed against Jonah again, his warm, male scent teasing her brain with arousing memories... It was like the last three months without him never happened.
But they had happened. And for a reason.
The minute his hand came near her chest, the cautionary reminder of her tattoo sent a spike of panic through her. He couldn’t see and didn’t know he was inches from completing their tattoo, but she knew. And it was far too close for comfort. All she could do was turn and run. Like that night, she couldn’t change what she’d just done, but she could put a stop to it and make sure it didn’t happen again. He could be a part of her life as the father of her child, but nothing more. And not yet.
This was all her girlfriends’ faults. They’d sown the seeds of doubt and discontent in her mind when they came over for dinner. Emma lay awake for hours thinking about the night she’d spent with Jonah and the lonely, miserable ones that had followed since.
She’d convinced herself that a man like Jonah would never be satisfied with a woman like her. The woman who fell into his arms that night didn’t really exist. Keeping their romance anonymous was what kept it special, what made it into the fantasy she couldn’t forget. It could never be ruined by the reality of who they really were, come daylight. And yet, the child they’d created that night would make destroying that fantasy a necessity.
After the last few days working with Jonah, she was beginning to wonder if ruining the fantasy would matter to him. Inexplicably, there was a draw between them that had nothing to do with masks and secrets. He had no idea who she really was and yet Jonah Flynn seemed genuinely interested in her. He was going out of his way to get her attention and she couldn’t understand why. He couldn’t possibly want her as she was. She seemed to do nothing but irritate him, based on the crease that was constantly present between his eyebrows.
Was he simply trying to woo his way into a favorable audit finding? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried to bribe or coerce an auditor. It had never happened to Emma before, so maybe she was being naive about his attentions. Perhaps a man like Jonah preferred the more pleasurable option of seducing them over laying out cash. The spark between them might simply make his job easier.
Of course, if he was going to that much trouble, it meant he had something to hide...
A deep feeling of unease pooled in Emma’s stomach. This was a huge and very important contract for FlynnSoft. If he was afraid she might uncover something that could risk it, she had no doubt he’d go out of his way to distract her. He didn’t necessarily have to think she was smart or pretty to pull it off. How could he, when he was used to dating fashion models and pop stars? Emma was just the rich daughter of someone far more important than she was. If all he really cared about was nailing the deal with Game Town, he would be willing to do it by any means necessary. Suspecting his motives would make it easier to ignore his advances, right?
At least for now. He’d certainly wanted her back in February when there were no audits, no accounts and no contracts. But then she wasn’t herself that night.
Emma tried to push that thought aside and focus on the numbers the rest of the afternoon. While her work might seem boring to some, what she’d said to Jonah about math was true. It never lied. It was a constant, and she found working with numbers to be soothing. She could lose herself for hours in the books, and today was no different. When she looked up, it was after six. Jonah had thankfully kept his promise to stay away for the rest of the day and she’d managed to get a lot done.
She considered packing up and going home, but restlessness still plagued her. She decided she’d been sitting for too long and headed straight down to the FlynnSoft gym. She’d packed a bag of workout clothes and brought them in after the guilty tiramisu consumption.
Tonight wasn’t about calories, though. She needed an outlet for the frustration and nervous energy threatening to bubble out of her, and some pounding on the elliptical machine was just the thing since pounding Jonah was not an option. She honestly wasn’t sure how much of this she could take. He was relentless, absolutely aggravating and refusing to take no for an answer. Her afternoon of peace would be the exception, not the rule, she was certain. Especially now that he knew he could wear her down after a while and get his way.
It made her wonder if he knew who she really was. Maybe it wasn’t about the audit at all. She hadn’t found a single questionable thing in the books to warrant a distraction. And yet, it would be impossible for Jonah to recognize her from that night. Not
a bit of her tattoo had seen the light of day. Their conversations offered no clues to her identity or their past. And yet he was constantly in pursuit of her.
Before she headed down to the gym, she stopped at the desk of Jonah’s assistant, Pam. “Is Mr. Flynn gone for the day?” she asked.
“Yes, he had a five-thirty dinner engagement.”
Perfect. “Thank you.”
Emma made her way down the hall, thankful that she would be able to work out in peace. In the locker room, Emma changed quickly into her standard gym clothes, which consisted of a tank top over a sports bra and a pair of jogging shorts. The top left the tattoo partially exposed and clung to the barely rounding belly of her pregnancy, making her frown in the mirror. She hadn’t thought about that when she packed her bag, but the time of baggy clothes and maternity outfits was right around the corner.
She considered changing back into her regular clothes and just heading home for the night, but she was actually looking forward to the workout. Emma glanced into the still-empty workout room and decided it was safe enough since Jonah wouldn’t be around to see it. No one else would understand the significance of either the tattoo or the belly.
The coast was clear. Harper was right. Apparently, software programmers were more likely to make use of the coffee bar and pinball machine than the exercise facilities. She jumped onto the closest elliptical machine, putting her water bottle into the cup holder and plugging her earbuds into her phone to listen to her favorite workout music.
Emma selected an upbeat seventies playlist and started moving to the disco beat that thrummed through her body. She closed her eyes and gave in to it. The sweat running down her spine and the ache of her muscles were welcome distractions from the confusion and arousal that had been her constant companions the last few days. She hoped that if she worked out long enough, her attraction to Jonah would seep out her pores and she would be better prepared to deal with him.
At least that was the idea.
Emma had always been a fan of exercise. You wouldn’t think it to look at her, but she recognized it as an outlet for her body’s impulses. The all-girls private school she attended for high school had encouraged them to be as active as possible. The nuns insisted that sweat was purifying and there was no desire that couldn’t be suppressed with a good workout.
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