“Morning, boss.”
His head pops up at my voice. “Well, hello there.” His smile makes Monday the best day of the week again. He stands, coming my way. “How was your weekend? I wanted to come by, but—”
“No, I get it. We’re undercover—”
“I don’t want to be.”
“I know, me either.” He stops in front of me, unsure what to do with his hands, so he shoves them into his pockets. “God, I want to kiss you right now.”
Monday sucks again.
I’ve wanted his lips back on mine since Saturday. I fiddle with my necklace, turning to the door, wondering if we could get away with shutting and locking it. Technically, it is still early and—
“I know what you’re thinking, and trust me, it’s already crossed my mind too. But I have a meeting in five minutes with your dad. I don’t think closing that door and eating you for breakfast is the best idea.”
Go to hell, Monday!
Geez Louise. As Monday rains down and soaks my mood even more, a tap on the door has us turning and directing our attention to my dad.
“Morning, you two. Hannah, proud to see you up and in the office bright and early. Glad you’re here too. I wanted to talk to you both.” My dad’s face is serious, not his normal, carefree self.
Which means…
Holy Toledo! Is this it? Did he find out? Do both of our faces say we were about to shut the door and do naughty things under this roof? I knew I shouldn’t have pretended I had friends! “Um, what is it, Daddy?” Maybe if I use the sweet five-year-old daddy lingo, he won’t ground me for life and kill Levi in front of me.
“I’ve been watching you two…” oh crap, “…and how hard you’ve been working my daughter.” The end. Bye-bye, Levi. “I think it’s time we bring you fully onboard to help with the Miller case.” Wait, what? “From what I gather, Levi’s had you working on small stuff, but this is the perfect case to get your toes wet. We already have it practically sealed, so Levi, use Hannah as your apprentice on this. I believe she would learn a lot from you and this case.”
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until he stops talking.
“Well? What do you say? You both look like I just fed you bad news.” Actually, spectacular news since you don’t know our dirty little secret or plan to ship me off and kill my man.
I giggle on the inside. My man…
“Wow, Jim, that’s great. I think Hannah would be great for this case. From what I’ve seen, she’s very observant and takes a lot of pride in her work. I have no doubt she’ll do fantastic. And I’ll make sure to watch her like a hawk.”
My dad smiles and hands Levi a huge stack of files. “I knew I could count on you two. Here are the key witness statements. They are not to be shared at this time. Very important we keep these between us.”
“Why?” I ask.
“It’s to safeguard the client. Without these, the case is dead. It’s protocol in huge trials like this. You tend to keep the big stuff to a small staff. These files go missing, so do our chances of winning.”
I nod, sensing the importance. “All right, you two, get on with what you were doing. I have an offsite meeting all day.” With that, he says his goodbyes and is gone.
We both stand there silent, until the air around us is so electric, anyone who enters is in for quite a zapping. “Well…” Levi faces me, “looks like we should shut that door after all. I have a lot of prepping to do with you.”
My panties just melted right off me. “Yes, boss.”
And like a good little apprentice, I shut and lock the door.
I’m on my way back from the bathroom, reminiscing how fantastic my Monday morning has been. Catching the clock on the wall, I see it’s already past noon. Levi had to leave and meet Dad at another meeting, so this leaves me the afternoon to catch up on filing and data entry. When I turn the corner, I spot someone in my chair.
“Braydon?”
“Hey, you!” Jumping up, he pushes in my keyboard tray and steps away from my desk to give me a hug.
“What are you doing up here?” A lot has changed since last week, especially any attraction I had toward him. Now, it seems awkward and forced.
“I wanted to come say hi. See how you were doing and take you to lunch.”
The last thing I want to do is go to lunch, especially knowing Levi would not be happy about it. “Um, thanks, but I’m still not feeling one hundred percent. I’m just gonna work through lunch.” My eyes land on the pile of confidential folders on my desk—the ones Dad handed us this morning. The manila folders aren’t aligned in the perfect stack I left them in, a few sheets of paper are sticking out from the top folder. I raise a brow. “Were…uh, you looking at my files?”