Temp

Found what I’m looking for.

But a relationship between us is not to be. It’s not happening.

I can’t let my bond with her become more important than the one I lost. The one that was stolen from me and my family. When I look into Kaylee’s eyes, I need to see the girl for what she is. Someone who agreed to spy on me. Infiltrate the company I built from the ground up in my agony over the loss of my parents. The company I made successful. She wants to help her bastard father take that away from me.

It’s not going to happen.

I won’t allow it.

No matter how much I want to get inside this apartment, sink my cock between her slick thighs and immerse myself in her, I have to remain focused on what I’m doing.

I’m ruining Kaylee before she ruins me.

Watching the play of her delicate shoulder muscles as she unlocks the apartment door, my guilt tries to bleed in and drown me. Maybe she’s under duress. Maybe she doesn’t want to fuck me over. I want to make a million excuses, but the fact is, she came to my office with the express intention of being a spy. That much I know to be true.

And because of my underhanded plan for this afternoon…

It’s easier to believe that she addicted me on purpose, intrigued me with her wit and her taste…knowing full well I’d come running. She’s a master manipulator.

It’s just simpler to believe that, as hard as it is when she turns and blinks at me over her shoulder, visibly self-conscious and still flushed from my touch. “Be prepared for weird, okay?”

“Weird?”

“Oh yeah.” Briefly, she covers her face with her hands, dropping them away and leaving her face even redder than before. “I live upstairs, but this…this is my design studio.”

Design studio.

I know nothing about this.

What does she…

I step into the quiet space, lit only by lamplight. And there is wood everywhere. Tables covered in tiny little parts that I can’t make out. Small figurines of people and…is that furniture?

“When I’m not…” She looks down at her feet. “When I’m not studying finance, I design dollhouses. I would call it a hobby, but I think you can see it has become a little more than that.”

She just lied to me about studying finance. That’s good.

I needed that reminder that she’s a liar, because I’m rapidly losing my determination to do what I came to do. I can’t. The company is all I’ve got to show for the destruction of my past. My family. Everything. It’s my whole life—and she’s threatening it.

When Kaylee turns away to hang up her tote bag on a coat rack, I take my phone out of my pocket and hit record, quickly before I can stop myself, positioning it on a shelf, tucked back into the shadows. The contents of my stomach swell over what I’m doing, but I take a deep breath and force it to recede. Calm. This is the ultimate chance to bite back at her father.

You have to take it.

Not easy to do when I’m literally surrounded by the fact that she’s fucking fascinating. I want to know more. Everything. I want to soak her up before we’re exposed as known enemies.

“How long have you been doing this?”

She turns, pushing back a hunk of soaked hair from her face. My God, she’s gorgeous. Her makeup, if she wore any to begin with, has been washed off by the rain. Her skirt is molded to her hips, thighs flexing invitingly as she toes off her drenched Vans. My body is screaming at me to hold her, but with my phone recording behind me, I can’t seem to approach her like I need to. I’ll get there. “I got a dollhouse for my birthday when I was twelve. My mother said I was too old for it, but I loved it so much. And one day…” She tries to force a smile. “My father lost a major deal and my dollhouse just happened to be within reach.” A beat passes. “It turned out to be a blessing that he destroyed it, though, because when I put it back together with glue and nails, I found out what I love. Making these little worlds. Do you think it’s weird?”

No.

I want to. I want to be callous and dismissive of her passion, the way I am with everything else. But I can’t. The same man has destroyed something we both loved. If anything, that only gives me more in common with her. “No, I don’t think it’s weird,” I say, moving toward one of the half-finished projects in the middle of the floor. “I think it’s admirable that you took an ugly incident and made it…beautiful.” That word sounds foreign on my lips. “Most people would hide from the memory or chalk it up to a tragedy and walk away, feeling only the pain. You didn’t do that. That takes a lot of strength.”