He was looking deep into my eyes as he said all these things… and that scent, that masculine, intoxicating cologne, was making my head swim…
“It’s also a little sad,” he finished up, which jolted me out of my reverie.
“What is?” I asked, taken aback.
“That a woman like you is working for an idiot like Klaus. The situation should be reversed – and if it were, I would hope you’d fire his ass.”
I grinned. “In a New York second.”
He leaned in a little bit. My grin faded as my vision went woozy again.
“I see so much potential in you, Lily… a huge future. Somebody who could really go out there and kick some ass. Smart, capable, funny, charming…”
He paused, and the barest hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth.
“…beautiful, if it’s not inappropriate to say that again…”
My heart skipped three beats this time.
He leaned in closer.
“It’s too bad you’re such a doofus.” And with that, he broke into a huge grin.
I snapped up straight, totally jerked out of the spell. “What?! I am not!”
And then, because I didn’t really know what he meant, I asked, “…what exactly do you mean by ‘doofus’?”
“Somebody who, either out of a lack of intelligence – which isn’t your problem – or a deficit of self-esteem, sells herself short and puts up with crap she shouldn’t. Only doofuses work for douchebags,” he said, with an expression like I hate to break it to you, kid, but the truth hurts.
Okay, by that definition, I actually am kind of a doofus, but I wasn’t about to admit that to him.
I crossed my arms. “I have to pay rent, I have to eat, and if the only way to do that is to work for an asshole, sorry, Mr. Bigshot ‘Gonna Buy The Company Someday,’ but I like having a roof over my head and dinner every night. It’s not going to be that way forever. It’s only temporary. Haven’t you ever had to put up with crap, ever, or is your life so charmed that you never had to overcome any setbacks?”
He laughed as he headed towards Klaus’s office. “Alright, alright… so you’re just a little doofus. Come on, let’s go dig up some more evidence of your boss’s douchebaggery.”
13
Connor spent another hour intently examining file after file. He asked for the companies by name, and he seemed to know exactly what he was looking for.
I didn’t do much except look for folders as he sat in Klaus’s designer office chair, his rock ‘n roll boots propped up on Klaus’s desk, and read and read and read.
At the end, he tossed the last file on Klaus’s desk and leaned back, his fingers steepled in front of his face as he thought.
I looked at him. He looked at me.
“I feel like a cappuccino. You feel like a cappuccino?” he asked.
“Uh… I guess I could go get some Starbucks if you want,” I agreed, feeling a little let down. I’d spent the first ten minutes of our acquaintance fielding passes from him, and the last thirty minutes playing Susie Secretary. Now I was demoted to Gidget Gopher.
“Screw that,” he said. “Last time I was here, there was a pretty nice machine up in the boardroom. Want to check it out?”
My heart caught in my chest.
Everton rented the penthouse of the building, on the 27th floor. That was where the Executive VP’s had their offices, and where they held all their meetings with multi-million-dollar clients.
Rather than answer the question, I tried to avoid it. “When were you here?”
“Oh, long before your august tenure at Everton began,” he teased. “So, what do you say?”
“I don’t have access to that.”
He held up a badge. Klaus’s badge. “I found this on your boss’s desk. I’m pretty sure he has access, doesn’t he?”
“I… I don’t think we should do that…”
“Oh, come on, live a little. Besides, you’re supposed to give me anything I want, remember? And right now, I want a cappuccino, and I want your company.”
My heart was thudding against the sides of my ribs.
A cappuccino in the company penthouse with the man of my dreams…
I just knew this was going to come back to bite me in the ass.
“Okay,” I agreed with a tremble in my voice.
14
I felt like we were two kids sneaking out of a slumber party. Or – even better – he was the hot high school jock who convinced me to climb out of my bedroom window so we could go TP somebody’s house.
Sure enough, Klaus’s badge got us through the Italian marble receptionist area and into the board room – a giant open space with sumptuous leather chairs, plush carpet that was so thick it was hard to walk in my heels, and a thirty-foot-long mahogany table. The cappuccino machine was in an anteroom with an expensive refrigerator.