Her Unexpected Admirer (7 page)

She shook her head, trying once again to banish her salacious thoughts about this man.  He was a client!  She had to be professional!  Her father was giving her another chance and she couldn’t let him down.  “Yes, well, that was yesterday.  Today is a different day and a different me. I don’t think…” she stopped, her mouth running dry when she looked up at him, remembering his muscular chest that was less than a foot away from her fingers.  Good grief, she could actually smell everything about him!   His abs were tight and ridged, fascinating to touch because he’d jerked when her fingers had explored those ridges last night. 

She hadn’t dared to go lower, but she licked her lips, thinking about the possibilities. 

“Kate?” he prompted.

Kate blinked, focusing once more on the present.  “What?” she asked, then realized what she’d just been doing and shook her head.  “Right.  Yes.  Um, right…we can’t do that anymore.”

“Why not?”

She took a deep breath and moved away from him, walking over to the conference room table to grab hold of one of the chairs.  It was a very poor excuse for what she really wanted to hold onto, but it was enough.  For the moment.  “Because you’re a client.”

He shrugged.  “Then you’re fired.”

She gasped, swinging around to face him with her mouth hanging open in horror.  “You can’t do that!  Please!”  She didn’t realize that she’d walked back to him and that her hands were on his chest, gripping his shirt.  She glanced behind him at the closed door, her body shivering at the possibility of her father finding out that she’d lost a client because she’d slept with him the night before.  “Oh please!  Don’t fire me.  I promise, I can accomplish any task you hand to this firm.  It will be done professionally and efficiently.”

He looked down at her curiously, his hands cupping her elbows gently as he enjoyed her long fingers on his chest once more.  “What’s going on between you and your father?”

She shivered, terrified that he’d gleaned the truth so quickly.  But she stood up straighter.  “You don’t have anything to worry about.  I’ll make sure your project is done with utmost competence.”

He thought about pushing her more, but he wanted her alone before he figured out what was going on, why she was suddenly so terrified.  His instincts were telling him to get her out of this environment.  He didn’t understand it, but something here was wrong.  He ran his hands up and down her arms, wishing he could trash that polyester suit and drape her in silks and satins. 

“Fine. You’re un-fired.”  He pulled out one of the chairs for her and, when she sat down, he took the chair next to her.  “Okay, here’s the project.  Someone is stealing money from me.”

She blinked at that statement and reared back, shocked.  That seemed extremely unlikely.  Stealing from this man?  Who would be that crazy?  And then she asked the question she knew would drive her father ballistic, but she felt it was the only honest thing to do.  “Davis, don’t you have an entire accounting staff who could investigate this problem?”

He nodded his head, appreciating her question.  “I have hundreds of accounting people on staff.  But I don’t know who is stealing.  It could be someone with a great deal of authority or it could be just someone who has the authority to order supplies.  I don’t know and until I can figure it out, or more accurately, until you figure it out, I don’t want anyone in my company to know that I’ve discovered the embezzlement.  Once you find the source, then I can get my security team on board as well as the lawyers and accountants.  But until that point, you’re my woman.”

Kate listened, more than a little overwhelmed by what he was asking her to do.  But the sound of “my woman” coming from him sounded oh-so-delicious!  Could she do this?  Could she really delve into this man’s accounting data and find a thief? 

She wasn’t sure she was that competent.  And she needed to warn him again because he obviously hadn’t heard her last night when she’d told him about her day.  “Davis, you have to understand…” she started to say but Davis interrupted her yet again.

He knew what she was about to say and he wasn’t going to allow her to put herself down again.  He sensed something inside of her, a strength and intelligence that she refused to acknowledge. 

Standing up, he looked down at her, but took her hands in his and lifted her to her feet.  “You need to gather your things.  We leave for the airport in less than thirty minutes.”  He wasn’t taking no for an answer.  He wanted this woman and he suspected the only way he could have her again was to get her alone, assure her that he believed in her and show her how they could go about having a relationship with each other.  There was simply no way he was going without another night like last night. 

She heard him, but what he was saying didn’t make any sense.  “Airport?”

He walked to the conference room door, keeping her hand in his and leading her towards the exit.  “Yes.  Airport.  We’re flying to my Denver office in,” he glanced at his watch, “twenty-nine minutes.”

The idea of dumping all of her other projects and just going with Davis was too tempting.  But the idea was also ludicrous!  “I can’t leave.  I have other things that I need to be doing.”

He shook his head and opened the door.  “Your father has taken over all of your other assignments.  He told me that before you walked in.  So your schedule is cleared.”

She was still confused as to why he needed her on the plane.  The thought of being with him, night and day, was too much of a temptation.  She couldn’t withstand being near him and not acting inappropriately.  “Why don’t you just e-mail me the information?  I can go over it and figure out what is going on.”  And she could send her information to her dad so he could verify whatever she’d found.  She couldn’t do this on her own!  She wasn’t competent enough.  Maybe in time…

Dylan saw the fear in her eyes and reacted to it, not liking that he’d put it there.  “Your father has agreed to oversee your work, but you’ll be the primary contact.  Just go through the accounting information and if you don’t find anything wrong with the numbers, then we move on.  If you do, then we stop and look at things more closely.  It’s pretty simple.”

She shook her head.  “Forensic accounting isn’t that simple,” she countered.  “There are invoices that need to match up with the data. Someone needs to validate those invoices, to ensure that the materials were received, that the numbers make sense.”

He almost laughed at her adorable expression.  Those crystal blue eyes were now sharp and bright, as if her mind was thinking a mile a minute.  She’d said she wasn’t a good accountant last night but after talking with her for a couple of hours, he’d thought she was very intelligent. Why she didn’t believe in herself was a mystery he was eager to solve.  “You can do all of that with my accounting team in each office.  You’ll go in as just an outside accountant who is running an analysis of my accounting procedures.  No one will know your true goal.  And if you find procedures that need to be fixed, then even better.”

She stared at him helplessly, trying to figure out a way to get out of this project.  The man seemed determined.  As she looked through the open door of the conference room, she saw her father watching her very intently, as if he didn’t trust her not to mess this up.

The thought of getting a new job popped into her mind and she instantly realized that this was a perfect opportunity.  If she could get a recommendation from Davis, she might not need any reference from her father.  She could be out from underneath his domineering thumb and perhaps find an accounting firm that wasn’t so…stressful. 

“Fine,” she said, straightening up and nodding her head with a sharp snap.  “I’ll rush home and pack some clothes.  How long will we be gone?”

Damn, when she looked confident, she was even more beautiful, he thought, stunned by the sudden transformation.  That conference room table probably wasn’t sturdy enough for what he had in mind for her. 

“Twenty-eight minutes,” he said, keeping his hands in his pockets.  “I’ll pick you up at your apartment.”

A moment later, he was out the door.  As Kate packed up her computer and a few office supplies she might need while on the road, it occurred to her to wonder how Davis knew where she lived.  Shrugging that thought off, she walked out of the office, eager to get started on her new project.  She would do an outstanding job for Davis, find the person who was embezzling his money and, when she handed him the name and the details, she would be brave and ask for a reference.  She could fix this!  Kate refused to live this life any longer. 

And she absolutely would not muck this up by sleeping with the client!  Her father would definitely fire her if she did that and then her reference would be out the window so fast she wouldn’t be able to blink! 

Kate tried to relax and enjoy the trip, but she was sitting on a private jet being served freshly squeezed orange juice, feeling like a fraud.  Davis was across from her on the phone speaking in a language she didn’t understand.  She looked around, stunned by the luxury surrounding her.  This wasn’t the commercial aircraft she’d been anticipating.  In fact, it wasn’t like any other kind of plane she’d heard about with the cramped seats, a person stealing the elbow room next to her and the odd, don’t-want-to-identify-it smells. 

Nope.  This was a living room.  A very luxurious living room that looked like it should be in a movie set or something.  The leather seats were wide and comfortable with plenty of room to stretch out one’s legs and the chairs even swiveled around so a traveler could speak to anyone in the plane.  There were small tables where she could put her laptop and even china plates with warm croissants.  She felt like she was in a parallel universe. 

She tried to focus on the information Davis had given her earlier today, but she was just too nervous.  Her father’s words kept ringing in her ears.  As soon as Davis had left the office, her father had cornered her in her office, letting her know how important Davis Alfieri was and how, if she messed up on any of the reports Kate gave to Davis, she would be out the door, never to work in the accounting field again. 

She couldn’t screw this up.  She had to be very careful, very conscientious and send everything through her father. 

She was looking down but still not absorbing anything when she realized that Davis was no longer talking on his cell phone.  She instantly knew that he was watching her. 

Still keeping her head down, she tried to sound teasing and light-hearted, but still focused on the information she was pretending to read.  “Do I have something on my nose?” she asked, afraid to look up into those intense blue eyes.  He would know, she thought.  He was soon going to discover that she was a fraud.  He knew her better now, last night’s intimacies still fresh in her mind.  Surely he could see through all of her pretenses. 

“You’re an extremely beautiful woman,” he said, putting his papers on the table beside him.  Davis leaned back and looked at her, trying to understand her.  He knew she wasn’t reading anything since she’d been staring at the same paper for about ten minutes.  What was going through her mind, he wondered?  Why did she look like she was about to lose her best friend? 

Kate knew he was just trying to flatter her but she had no idea why.  “And you’re a very wealthy man,” she came back.  Biting her lip, she took a deep breath and decided to just dive into the big question.  “Why are you hiring me?”

He’d known this question was coming.  “Because you’re an accountant and I need to find out who is embezzling money from me.”

She shook her head again.  “No.  Why me specifically?”

He paused ever so slightly before giving her the brutal truth.  “Because you left my bed this morning and I want to know why.”

Woah!  Kate had wanted the truth but she hadn’t thought he would be so blatant about it.  “That’s it?”

He shrugged one of those massive shoulders.  “Well, and I want to figure out how to get you back into my bed.”

She laughed, appreciating his honesty.  “Okay, so what if I don’t ever fall back into your arms?”

His smile was filled with amusement and confidence.  “Do you honestly think that we can keep our hands off of each other?”  He leaned forward, his eyes lighting up with a strange heat that had her stomach muscles tightening in anticipation instantly.  “Right now, you’re thinking about what we did last night, about all the different ways I had you screaming, aren’t you?”

Kate looked over at the door where the flight attendant had disappeared, worried that she could hear and worried that she might just throw herself into his arms, beg him for more of the same.  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the needy ache deep down inside of her.  “Stop it,” she whispered frantically.  “I’m not that kind of woman.  Last night was…it was an aberration.”

“A nice aberration,” he countered.

She shook her head, irritated when a lock of dark hair floated down out of the pins she’d haphazardly stuck in this morning before rushing out the door again.  “An aberration that cannot happen again.”

He leaned back in his leather chair again, but the heat in his eyes was still there.  “Why not?”

She sighed and looked down at her hands.  “Because this is important to me, Davis.  I…” she stammered, not sure what to say.  “I can’t really explain it, nor can I convince you but I’m asking you to respect that we can’t sleep together.”

He thought about her statement for a long moment.  “Fine, we won’t sleep.  We didn’t do much of that last night anyway.”

Kate held her breath, trying hard not to react but she could feel her cheeks turning pink once more.  “I’m going to start looking into the files you sent me.  I’ll be able to understand your accounting processes better once I’ve gone through all of them carefully.”

Davis watched and listened.  He heard her rapid breathing and understood that she didn’t want to talk about last night.  Even though it was obviously on both of their minds.  But that was okay, he thought.  There was always tonight.  And the next night.  And many more nights to come.  He wasn’t going to be put off by her nervousness about a physical relationship with him.  But he would eventually understand why she was hesitant so he could overcome or fix her concerns.  He knew that getting to know her was the best way to find out why she was resistant. 

She needed space, he thought.  But he wasn’t going to give her too much space.  She was simply too fascinating to ignore. 

He picked up his papers again and reviewed all the information with one part of his brain.  The other half was working through what he knew about her from their conversation last night as well as the report his security team had given him.  There were several important gaps that they were trying to investigate and he would be most interested when they finally discovered what those gaps were filled with.  He suspected that his beautiful Kate was a much more complex woman than he’d originally suspected. 

He didn’t completely understand it, but he accepted that Kate was different.  He wanted her in a deeper, more insistent way than the other women he’d been with.  It was more than just incredible sex, but that was definitely part of it.  No, there was more.  And until he figured it out, until he understood why Kate was so important, he would make sure that she stayed close.