Wrong Time. Wrong Place. A Liz Crowe Serialized Novel Project
Welcome fans and yes, even you foes.
I want to share a free novel with you via this blog, in installments, the old-fashioned way!
No blurbs. No excerpts. No cover (yet--I will solicit ideas for this down the road!)
Without further ado…..
Wrong Time.
Wrong Place.
by Liz Crowe
Lucas Cameron, recently demoted FBI junior grade, didn't know which was worse: finding out that his target was an "Alexa" not an "Alex" or laying eyes on her for the first time. As she rose from behind her huge art-deco desk to greet him, his mouth dried and his body tensed. Her steely grey eyes revealed nothing. He tried to match her nonchalance but had to resist the sudden urge to wipe his palms on his suited legs before taking her hand. Forbidden images rose: her, bent over this desk, his hands in her hair, her back arched to...oh shit Luke, reign in the porn loop before it gets you in trouble yet again. He had no one but himself to thank for this latest exile to BFE. No need to revisit that particular near-career ending lapse in judgment. "Hello," her voice curled in his ear like a fog. He gulped. "I'm Alex. Looking forward to having you on board as my assistant." He had to shake himself to ensure he said nothing stupid like, “will you marry me?” or “I’m not here to be your assistant.” Forcing a smile from his cracked lips he touched her palm. “Thanks, uh, Alex. Or should I call you Miz Trillium?” He kept his grip firm, but not too strong. He just prayed his hands didn’t feel as sweaty as he felt. Her throaty laughter sounded utterly sexy to his addled, jet-lagged brain. “No, no, don’t be silly.” She waved him to a seat and he took it before he collapsed or ran out of her office to beg for a different assignment. Lucas stared at the aggressively tidy desk top, took in all the details he’d been trained to: lack of photos other than one of Alexa with President Obama on his recent trip to Istanbul, tasteful yet understated fresh flower arrangements and a giant computer monitor. It could be any office of any high level executive in any multi-national company. He’d been sent here to prove the company had traded aviation technology secrets to a questionable source.Boring. Scut work. The “questionable source” wasn’t even anyone that dangerous. Just “questionable.” Lucas sighed and leaned forward, playing the part of eager new assistant and tried not to notice how perfectly his new boss’ silky blouse highlighted her breasts. Smiling without any real reason to, he turned on his portable computer and started taking notes on her upcoming week. If what he’d been told was true, Alex chewed through PA’s like the antacids she kept in a bowl on the table under the window. He needed to last a little longer than the various carcasses strewn between her office and the no-doubt luxurious, Bosporus view penthouse suite where she ate and slept. Hopefully all this would take would be a few months of gaining her trust and getting her passwords and nailing the CEO’s and perhaps his lovely new boss’ ass to the wall.He gulped when that very luscious ass rose from its leather seat and made its way towards him. She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned on her desk right smack in his personal space bubble and glared at him. He let his gaze travel up from black patent high heeled shoes that were the stuff of any man’s sex fantasy, along the exquisite expanse of leg revealed by her above-the-knee pencil skirt, rested a while on her no-nonsense manicure then finished the pleasant journey taking a round trip along the tops of her breasts exposed between the buttons of her shirt. Resisting the compulsion to lick his lips as he watched a pulse beating in her throat, he allowed himself a brief glimpse of full, lightly glossed mouth before…“You done fucking me with your eyes, or should I sit here quietly a bit longer?” She demanded, jolting Lucas out of his growing haze. “Well? Do you need a refractory nap, or can we get to work now?” He nodded, still trying to form words. “Jesus,” the woman spit out, and stomped back around to her seat. “Where’d they find you anyway? The horny teenager posing as a man placement service?” Lucas sensed blood pounding between his ears and struggled to let fury and not lust win the fight for dominance in his head. “At least you have the manners to blush.” Her lip lifted in a half smile. Dear god but she was gorgeous. And, apparently, a bitch. Lucas choked back a retort. Just a few months, get the evidence and get out, he reminded himself once again.Smiling, he noted a few appointments he would suggest streamlining and the steady stream of email already filling his new email Lcam@TateLincoln.com inbox with requests for her opinion, her presence and her time. “Yes I'm done, and no, I don’t need a nap and didn’t come from the horny man service. So, let’s get to it.” Lucas kept his eyes trained downward. Anger still pounded in his chest. She snorted. He heard her chair creak as she must have leaned back. When he chanced a glance he saw the red on the soles of her shoes, propped on the desk, her odd, silvery-blue eyes right on him. He raised an eyebrow. This might be tougher than he thought.After an hour of work he had not gotten anywhere near her passwords but had at least re-organized her schedule for the coming four weeks to include a trip to one of their far-flung production facilities in China. A nice long ten-day stretch he’d have to poke around in her computer loomed pleasantly. She’d been all business, but the sharp edge of her personality was never far from the surface, and he felt more than a little bloodied by the time he’d escaped and leaned on the men’s room sinks, observing the high color in his cheeks from the two-hour long exposure to her. He’d been so pissed about getting this shit assignment he’d more or less ignored the dossier on her, obviously, since he’d walked in today expecting to meet a Mr. Alex Trillium. But a few things he’d read floated through his lizard brain as he willed himself to stop obsessing over her long legs in those fuck-me pumps. Nearly fifteen years with Tate Lincoln, first as systems analyst, then director, then VP and now CIO for a company that built electrical components for the aviation industry. And whose biggest contract was with the United States Air Force. Alexa Trillium was unmarried, had no children, made nearly seven hundred thousand dollars a year before bonuses and stock options, was a strict vegetarian, exercise fanatic and spoke three languages fluently. She was a driven, Type-A, forty-something, wealthy, stereotypical executive, who maintained strict control over herself and her environment. He splashed cold water on his face and neck, dried himself off and frowned at his reflection. You got this crap job because you fucked around with your last, one, literally, compromising a witness in a large tax evasion case causing her to recant and go into hiding because of his bullshit behavior. Lucas was a very self-aware man. He knew his natural tendency to see a tough woman as a challenge and rise to it, so to speak.But this Alex—Alexa, he reminded himself to call her next time, just to mess with her—she was something else entirely. Almost ten years his senior, she exuded a sort of raw emotional vulnerability his radar had somehow picked up on within minutes. And he’d let it rattle him, but it had brought out her inner bitch—the façade she used to hide the real her. And somehow, he though if got to that, he’d be in like Flynn, likely in her silky panties but also in on the con she and her CEO were suspected of perpetrating. He grinned and awarded himself two points with a perfect paper towel arc into the waste bin before whistling his way back to his office, the smell of Alexa’s spicy perfume still up his nose.
Chapter Two
Alex tried not to grind her teeth in frustration. Sipping perfect French roast coffee as she gazed out over the already teeming Bosporus from the balcony, she forced herself to relax. But nearly jumped out of her skin when he touched her shoulders and tried not to jerk away and tell him to get the hell out, that she needed her space. Forcing a smile to her lips when he dropped into the lounge chair next to her, she took in the long, lean frame of Jason Reynolds, CEO of Tate Lincoln, clad only in soft flannel pants. The man was not hard on the eyes for certain—tall, sinewy, wound tight like herself. He held out a hand and she let him thread his long fingers through hers, although her skin was crawling with a need for him to just leave. His deep blue eyes shone as he put her hand to his lips. “Why?” He asked, for the millionth time in the last month since they’d consummated a year-long flirtation by falling on each other like starving animals. Since then, they had kept it strictly business at work, although he’d tried to cop various feels and lure her into the sort of tawdry sex over the desk thing that she’d never consider. “Because you are on your third wife already Jay,” she insisted, tugging her fingers from his grip. “As in you are still technically married. And I told you, I’m not ever getting married.” Her jaw had started to ache. “Look, I’ve got a personal training appointment in an hour and….” He held up a hand.“Okay, I get it. You had your fun, now I have to leave and get your of your hair.” But his smile belied his words. She tried to smile back but knew it must look lame. She didn’t care. It had taken her nearly forty-one years to get her life in order after a series of early disasters that would have made a weaker woman turn into something much less than she’d managed for herself. She was not about to let a lovesick, alpha male, serial philanderer derail her now—force her into a role of someone’s wife. No way, no how. Not matter how much of a perfect specimen he was.She watched him rise to his feet, stretch his six foot four inch frame, run his hands through his thick, salt and pepper hair then dawn his square stubbled jaw. Biting her lip against the urge to jump his bones again, make him work her body into a frenzy like he knew how to do, she crossed her feet at the ankles and turned her face up for his kiss. She watched him amble back inside, admired the span on his shoulders once more then berated herself for being weak and even half considering his plea to marry him. No, she had it just the way she wanted. Him in her bed, but not in her life. Her mind drifted to her original reason for frustration, mentally flipping through the various annoyances and distractions this week and settled firmly in the deep brown gaze of her new assistant. “I’ll be in Prague this week,” Jay called, interrupting her brief imaginary foray into cougar-town with young Lucas. “So, you know, in case you wanted to kiss me goodbye like you mean it, I’m not gonna say no.” His deep voice settled pleasantly in her brain. She rose, as images of the young man who’d invaded her life this week fluttered across her vision. His tall, lean, cotton and wool covered frame, boyishly handsome face and thick brown hair were also very easy on the eyes. But something about him made her twitchy, nervous, even, in ways she had not felt around a man since…she shook her head, forcing him out and focused on the man in front of her, clad now in just a towel, beckoning her back into the bedroom. She slipped into his arms with a sigh of something like relief, but a little like dread.
After her two-hour workout and massage were complete, Alexa lay on the table, limp as a noodle and allowed her PA back into her thoughts. She’d been such a bitch, but he’d acted like some kind of sex starved co-ed eyeballing the lady professor. It had infuriated her. But his near immediate grasp of the complexities of her daily schedule and seeming ability to find order in chaos, much like herself, had forced her to admit that he knew his stuff. She sighed, and stretched her arms over her head, letting her back arch up off the soft table. A sudden, unbidden and wholly erotic though slammed into her. Lucas’s large hands, sliding up the outside of her leg, his lips starting at her ankle, working his way up to the inside of her knee, tickling her thighs, before settling in against her... She squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her fists, all relaxation forgotten. Damn him. She should get rid of him…soon. Her eyes flew open, sudden irrational and unwelcome tears pressed against them. His direct manner, no-nonsense organization and firm handle of IT operations were one thing. But the way she’d catch him looking at her when she would glance up, as if he knew the depths of her soul, her very reason for the motivation that drove her night and day to be the best, the most fit, the richest and most successful woman in this business was unnerving in the extreme. She sat up, forcing him out of her thoughts once more. Sundays had always been her favorite day of the week. The one time she could not think about work. But a recent breach of their company firewall had her nerves on edge. She might as well head into the office. As they sometimes did, memories tumbled in on her as her driver risked life and limb speeding through the streets of Istanbul to the Eastern European headquarters of Tate Lincoln. It was why she hated anything resembling real down time, those memories. She pulled her wallet from her purse, slipping the small photo she’d received a few weeks ago from between credit cards. A striking young woman in a graduation gown, a huge smile on her lovely face stood between a tall distinguished looking man and a slightly frazzled looking female. Alexa ran a finger over the image of the girl’s face, nearly identical to her own and wondered if she had the same nervous energy Alexa had had at that age, the same drive, the same need to be the best at everything she did. If the girl’s father—and the diploma she held from the University of Michigan Medical School—were to be believed, she did.Alexa looked out the window a moment, back down at the girl’s face, then pulled an earlier photo out. This one of the tall, slim girl in an elegant white prom dress, on the arm of an athletic looking young man in a tuxedo. And another one, of a small, determined looking little girl in a school uniform, feet planted firmly apart and a frog gripped between her hands. This one was Alexa’s favorite of them all. Sighing she wiped her face and tucked everything away again, forcing the day’s trip down a familiar maudlin memory lane of pain and regret into a compartment, sealing it once more and focusing on the present.
Lucas extracted himself from the beneath the sprawled, naked woman and crept to the bathroom. After a quick clean up, he pulled his jeans back on and fired up her small desktop computer, glancing over his shoulder to make sure she stayed asleep. He had his fed laptop but since the security breach at Tate Lincoln he’d been extra cautious, not trusting the wifi anywhere but off site for his communications back to D.C. Luckily, the flirtation he’d begun with the Turkish girl down the hall in marketing had born fruit. He could knock his edge off and use her building’s network, safely several miles from the Tate Lincoln building. After logging in he checked his web-based email, all innocuous mildly personal stuff, not that he had much of a life outside his job. His phone dinged. Alexa, in battle mode on a Sunday afternoon no less. He sighed, and debated not answering her. But after the week they’d had, her in full throated roar with the entire department over the fairly egregious breach of their complex firewall security by some still unknown source, he figured that would be bad form. The thought of her still gave him no small amount of thrill down his spine. But they had settled into a somewhat comfortable working relationship after he’d proven that he knew that the hell he was doing. And he had those important passwords now. The ones giving him her direct access to all company documents and information.After answering her question about next week’s meeting with the Japanese company Tate Lincoln was purchasing, he switched browsers, then, and resumed his surreptitious examination of the company’s books. After about an hour, the light had dimmed in the girl’s small living room. Lucas’ eyes burned from staring at the backlit screen, trying to make heads or tales of all the money transfers that seemed to be coming from none other than his own boss’ personal bank and brokerage accounts, at least lately. Thanks to the hacker helpers back stateside they’d gained access to both her US and Turkish based data and they supported the odd series of money transfers he’d tracked from the company's Luxemburg based accounts. The girl’s hands on his shoulders startled him, but as they traveled down his bare torso, he smiled, took one of them and pressed it to his lips. She was a perfectly delightful diversion. He let himself be led back to her tiny bedroom, forced all thoughts of his sexy and high strung target from his head. But later, lying awake and trying to figure out what in God’s name would have made her think she could simply siphon money from one of the most highly encrypted bank account systems in the universe to her own personal funds, he gave up trying to sleep. Putting a kiss on the girl’s forehead, mumbling something about “see you tomorrow” he quashed a small finger of guilt tickling his brain over the ease at which he’d seduced her. As he slipped into his car and headed towards the glass and metal edifice that represented his current assignment, he contemplated the new and colossally annoying erotic albatross around his neck. As he pulled into the underground parking Lucas had a sudden burst of self awareness, the sort of whole-body-shuddering enlightenment moment that would make a weaker man turn tail and get as far from the current situation as possible. But he had not choice. He had to face this particular music.It would appear that the whole espionage issue was a dead end at Tate Lincoln. However, the woman he’d been assigned to befriend, who might hold the key to whole mess was not a spy, but a thief. Not only that, she was literally in bed with one Jason “Jay” Reynolds, thrice married, nearly re-divorced CEO. Nothing like a little adultery to keep things even more interesting. By all accounts, Alexa was smart, savvy, laser focused. Her recent apparent major lapses in judgment simply did not box. Lucas’ brain fairly buzzed with all the information spinning through it. The security breach itself was suspect and part of him believed she might have engineered it as a decoy. The elevator sped its silent way upward, disgorging him onto the thirty-seventh floor, where the giant servers were housed. He needed to poke around a little in its innards. Because he refused to believe that the woman he was slowly becoming infatuated with was capable of such overt, stupid robbery. A sudden flash of idea made him gulp and grip the elevator’s railing. One of the accounts he’d been monitoring, her local, Turkish bank account, had been full to bursting a week ago, then emptied out just as quickly. While she’d been in China at some high level, stressful meetings. And he’d caught Jay Reynolds at her desk fooling around on her computer. The two things suddenly clicked into place along with a shit ton of general uneasiness about the man at the helm of the large conglomerate. When the doors slid opened he started out, still looking down at his smart phone, his brain going a million miles a minute at the potential twist in the tale. “Oh, shit, sorry,” he grunted as he ran straight into someone, whose now familiar scent filled his nose and made him wince with realization. He kept his hands on Alex’s arms, holding them both up. She glared at him. “Watch where you’re going. What are you doing up here anyway?” Her silver-blue eyes narrowed with suspicion. Lucas’s scalp prickled at her proximity. She was a blue-jean, polo shirted example of female perfection. He let go of her, stepped back. “I, um, well, I had this idea…”She crossed her arms and he realized how odd this must look. No one ever darkened the door of this place on the weekends. The ex-pats who worked here learned to do their American workaholic thing from their flats, so they wouldn’t look like freaks to the natives. “Really.” She stood her ground, blocking his access to the banks of flat screens and buzzing computers. Something about her look, a combination of frustration and strength, of determination and vulnerability at that moment made him gulp in some air and speak. “Why are you stealing from the company?” She dropped her arms and gaped at him. At that moment he knew he’d been right.
Reminder! I am just a few short weeks from the GOOD FAITH release! Read about that project here.Join the fun in the Liz Crowe Fan Group here.
I want to share a free novel with you via this blog, in installments, the old-fashioned way!
No blurbs. No excerpts. No cover (yet--I will solicit ideas for this down the road!)
Without further ado…..
Wrong Time.
Wrong Place.
by Liz Crowe
Lucas Cameron, recently demoted FBI junior grade, didn't know which was worse: finding out that his target was an "Alexa" not an "Alex" or laying eyes on her for the first time. As she rose from behind her huge art-deco desk to greet him, his mouth dried and his body tensed. Her steely grey eyes revealed nothing. He tried to match her nonchalance but had to resist the sudden urge to wipe his palms on his suited legs before taking her hand. Forbidden images rose: her, bent over this desk, his hands in her hair, her back arched to...oh shit Luke, reign in the porn loop before it gets you in trouble yet again. He had no one but himself to thank for this latest exile to BFE. No need to revisit that particular near-career ending lapse in judgment. "Hello," her voice curled in his ear like a fog. He gulped. "I'm Alex. Looking forward to having you on board as my assistant." He had to shake himself to ensure he said nothing stupid like, “will you marry me?” or “I’m not here to be your assistant.” Forcing a smile from his cracked lips he touched her palm. “Thanks, uh, Alex. Or should I call you Miz Trillium?” He kept his grip firm, but not too strong. He just prayed his hands didn’t feel as sweaty as he felt. Her throaty laughter sounded utterly sexy to his addled, jet-lagged brain. “No, no, don’t be silly.” She waved him to a seat and he took it before he collapsed or ran out of her office to beg for a different assignment. Lucas stared at the aggressively tidy desk top, took in all the details he’d been trained to: lack of photos other than one of Alexa with President Obama on his recent trip to Istanbul, tasteful yet understated fresh flower arrangements and a giant computer monitor. It could be any office of any high level executive in any multi-national company. He’d been sent here to prove the company had traded aviation technology secrets to a questionable source.Boring. Scut work. The “questionable source” wasn’t even anyone that dangerous. Just “questionable.” Lucas sighed and leaned forward, playing the part of eager new assistant and tried not to notice how perfectly his new boss’ silky blouse highlighted her breasts. Smiling without any real reason to, he turned on his portable computer and started taking notes on her upcoming week. If what he’d been told was true, Alex chewed through PA’s like the antacids she kept in a bowl on the table under the window. He needed to last a little longer than the various carcasses strewn between her office and the no-doubt luxurious, Bosporus view penthouse suite where she ate and slept. Hopefully all this would take would be a few months of gaining her trust and getting her passwords and nailing the CEO’s and perhaps his lovely new boss’ ass to the wall.He gulped when that very luscious ass rose from its leather seat and made its way towards him. She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned on her desk right smack in his personal space bubble and glared at him. He let his gaze travel up from black patent high heeled shoes that were the stuff of any man’s sex fantasy, along the exquisite expanse of leg revealed by her above-the-knee pencil skirt, rested a while on her no-nonsense manicure then finished the pleasant journey taking a round trip along the tops of her breasts exposed between the buttons of her shirt. Resisting the compulsion to lick his lips as he watched a pulse beating in her throat, he allowed himself a brief glimpse of full, lightly glossed mouth before…“You done fucking me with your eyes, or should I sit here quietly a bit longer?” She demanded, jolting Lucas out of his growing haze. “Well? Do you need a refractory nap, or can we get to work now?” He nodded, still trying to form words. “Jesus,” the woman spit out, and stomped back around to her seat. “Where’d they find you anyway? The horny teenager posing as a man placement service?” Lucas sensed blood pounding between his ears and struggled to let fury and not lust win the fight for dominance in his head. “At least you have the manners to blush.” Her lip lifted in a half smile. Dear god but she was gorgeous. And, apparently, a bitch. Lucas choked back a retort. Just a few months, get the evidence and get out, he reminded himself once again.Smiling, he noted a few appointments he would suggest streamlining and the steady stream of email already filling his new email Lcam@TateLincoln.com inbox with requests for her opinion, her presence and her time. “Yes I'm done, and no, I don’t need a nap and didn’t come from the horny man service. So, let’s get to it.” Lucas kept his eyes trained downward. Anger still pounded in his chest. She snorted. He heard her chair creak as she must have leaned back. When he chanced a glance he saw the red on the soles of her shoes, propped on the desk, her odd, silvery-blue eyes right on him. He raised an eyebrow. This might be tougher than he thought.After an hour of work he had not gotten anywhere near her passwords but had at least re-organized her schedule for the coming four weeks to include a trip to one of their far-flung production facilities in China. A nice long ten-day stretch he’d have to poke around in her computer loomed pleasantly. She’d been all business, but the sharp edge of her personality was never far from the surface, and he felt more than a little bloodied by the time he’d escaped and leaned on the men’s room sinks, observing the high color in his cheeks from the two-hour long exposure to her. He’d been so pissed about getting this shit assignment he’d more or less ignored the dossier on her, obviously, since he’d walked in today expecting to meet a Mr. Alex Trillium. But a few things he’d read floated through his lizard brain as he willed himself to stop obsessing over her long legs in those fuck-me pumps. Nearly fifteen years with Tate Lincoln, first as systems analyst, then director, then VP and now CIO for a company that built electrical components for the aviation industry. And whose biggest contract was with the United States Air Force. Alexa Trillium was unmarried, had no children, made nearly seven hundred thousand dollars a year before bonuses and stock options, was a strict vegetarian, exercise fanatic and spoke three languages fluently. She was a driven, Type-A, forty-something, wealthy, stereotypical executive, who maintained strict control over herself and her environment. He splashed cold water on his face and neck, dried himself off and frowned at his reflection. You got this crap job because you fucked around with your last, one, literally, compromising a witness in a large tax evasion case causing her to recant and go into hiding because of his bullshit behavior. Lucas was a very self-aware man. He knew his natural tendency to see a tough woman as a challenge and rise to it, so to speak.But this Alex—Alexa, he reminded himself to call her next time, just to mess with her—she was something else entirely. Almost ten years his senior, she exuded a sort of raw emotional vulnerability his radar had somehow picked up on within minutes. And he’d let it rattle him, but it had brought out her inner bitch—the façade she used to hide the real her. And somehow, he though if got to that, he’d be in like Flynn, likely in her silky panties but also in on the con she and her CEO were suspected of perpetrating. He grinned and awarded himself two points with a perfect paper towel arc into the waste bin before whistling his way back to his office, the smell of Alexa’s spicy perfume still up his nose.
Chapter Two
Alex tried not to grind her teeth in frustration. Sipping perfect French roast coffee as she gazed out over the already teeming Bosporus from the balcony, she forced herself to relax. But nearly jumped out of her skin when he touched her shoulders and tried not to jerk away and tell him to get the hell out, that she needed her space. Forcing a smile to her lips when he dropped into the lounge chair next to her, she took in the long, lean frame of Jason Reynolds, CEO of Tate Lincoln, clad only in soft flannel pants. The man was not hard on the eyes for certain—tall, sinewy, wound tight like herself. He held out a hand and she let him thread his long fingers through hers, although her skin was crawling with a need for him to just leave. His deep blue eyes shone as he put her hand to his lips. “Why?” He asked, for the millionth time in the last month since they’d consummated a year-long flirtation by falling on each other like starving animals. Since then, they had kept it strictly business at work, although he’d tried to cop various feels and lure her into the sort of tawdry sex over the desk thing that she’d never consider. “Because you are on your third wife already Jay,” she insisted, tugging her fingers from his grip. “As in you are still technically married. And I told you, I’m not ever getting married.” Her jaw had started to ache. “Look, I’ve got a personal training appointment in an hour and….” He held up a hand.“Okay, I get it. You had your fun, now I have to leave and get your of your hair.” But his smile belied his words. She tried to smile back but knew it must look lame. She didn’t care. It had taken her nearly forty-one years to get her life in order after a series of early disasters that would have made a weaker woman turn into something much less than she’d managed for herself. She was not about to let a lovesick, alpha male, serial philanderer derail her now—force her into a role of someone’s wife. No way, no how. Not matter how much of a perfect specimen he was.She watched him rise to his feet, stretch his six foot four inch frame, run his hands through his thick, salt and pepper hair then dawn his square stubbled jaw. Biting her lip against the urge to jump his bones again, make him work her body into a frenzy like he knew how to do, she crossed her feet at the ankles and turned her face up for his kiss. She watched him amble back inside, admired the span on his shoulders once more then berated herself for being weak and even half considering his plea to marry him. No, she had it just the way she wanted. Him in her bed, but not in her life. Her mind drifted to her original reason for frustration, mentally flipping through the various annoyances and distractions this week and settled firmly in the deep brown gaze of her new assistant. “I’ll be in Prague this week,” Jay called, interrupting her brief imaginary foray into cougar-town with young Lucas. “So, you know, in case you wanted to kiss me goodbye like you mean it, I’m not gonna say no.” His deep voice settled pleasantly in her brain. She rose, as images of the young man who’d invaded her life this week fluttered across her vision. His tall, lean, cotton and wool covered frame, boyishly handsome face and thick brown hair were also very easy on the eyes. But something about him made her twitchy, nervous, even, in ways she had not felt around a man since…she shook her head, forcing him out and focused on the man in front of her, clad now in just a towel, beckoning her back into the bedroom. She slipped into his arms with a sigh of something like relief, but a little like dread.
After her two-hour workout and massage were complete, Alexa lay on the table, limp as a noodle and allowed her PA back into her thoughts. She’d been such a bitch, but he’d acted like some kind of sex starved co-ed eyeballing the lady professor. It had infuriated her. But his near immediate grasp of the complexities of her daily schedule and seeming ability to find order in chaos, much like herself, had forced her to admit that he knew his stuff. She sighed, and stretched her arms over her head, letting her back arch up off the soft table. A sudden, unbidden and wholly erotic though slammed into her. Lucas’s large hands, sliding up the outside of her leg, his lips starting at her ankle, working his way up to the inside of her knee, tickling her thighs, before settling in against her... She squeezed her eyes shut, clenched her fists, all relaxation forgotten. Damn him. She should get rid of him…soon. Her eyes flew open, sudden irrational and unwelcome tears pressed against them. His direct manner, no-nonsense organization and firm handle of IT operations were one thing. But the way she’d catch him looking at her when she would glance up, as if he knew the depths of her soul, her very reason for the motivation that drove her night and day to be the best, the most fit, the richest and most successful woman in this business was unnerving in the extreme. She sat up, forcing him out of her thoughts once more. Sundays had always been her favorite day of the week. The one time she could not think about work. But a recent breach of their company firewall had her nerves on edge. She might as well head into the office. As they sometimes did, memories tumbled in on her as her driver risked life and limb speeding through the streets of Istanbul to the Eastern European headquarters of Tate Lincoln. It was why she hated anything resembling real down time, those memories. She pulled her wallet from her purse, slipping the small photo she’d received a few weeks ago from between credit cards. A striking young woman in a graduation gown, a huge smile on her lovely face stood between a tall distinguished looking man and a slightly frazzled looking female. Alexa ran a finger over the image of the girl’s face, nearly identical to her own and wondered if she had the same nervous energy Alexa had had at that age, the same drive, the same need to be the best at everything she did. If the girl’s father—and the diploma she held from the University of Michigan Medical School—were to be believed, she did.Alexa looked out the window a moment, back down at the girl’s face, then pulled an earlier photo out. This one of the tall, slim girl in an elegant white prom dress, on the arm of an athletic looking young man in a tuxedo. And another one, of a small, determined looking little girl in a school uniform, feet planted firmly apart and a frog gripped between her hands. This one was Alexa’s favorite of them all. Sighing she wiped her face and tucked everything away again, forcing the day’s trip down a familiar maudlin memory lane of pain and regret into a compartment, sealing it once more and focusing on the present.
Lucas extracted himself from the beneath the sprawled, naked woman and crept to the bathroom. After a quick clean up, he pulled his jeans back on and fired up her small desktop computer, glancing over his shoulder to make sure she stayed asleep. He had his fed laptop but since the security breach at Tate Lincoln he’d been extra cautious, not trusting the wifi anywhere but off site for his communications back to D.C. Luckily, the flirtation he’d begun with the Turkish girl down the hall in marketing had born fruit. He could knock his edge off and use her building’s network, safely several miles from the Tate Lincoln building. After logging in he checked his web-based email, all innocuous mildly personal stuff, not that he had much of a life outside his job. His phone dinged. Alexa, in battle mode on a Sunday afternoon no less. He sighed, and debated not answering her. But after the week they’d had, her in full throated roar with the entire department over the fairly egregious breach of their complex firewall security by some still unknown source, he figured that would be bad form. The thought of her still gave him no small amount of thrill down his spine. But they had settled into a somewhat comfortable working relationship after he’d proven that he knew that the hell he was doing. And he had those important passwords now. The ones giving him her direct access to all company documents and information.After answering her question about next week’s meeting with the Japanese company Tate Lincoln was purchasing, he switched browsers, then, and resumed his surreptitious examination of the company’s books. After about an hour, the light had dimmed in the girl’s small living room. Lucas’ eyes burned from staring at the backlit screen, trying to make heads or tales of all the money transfers that seemed to be coming from none other than his own boss’ personal bank and brokerage accounts, at least lately. Thanks to the hacker helpers back stateside they’d gained access to both her US and Turkish based data and they supported the odd series of money transfers he’d tracked from the company's Luxemburg based accounts. The girl’s hands on his shoulders startled him, but as they traveled down his bare torso, he smiled, took one of them and pressed it to his lips. She was a perfectly delightful diversion. He let himself be led back to her tiny bedroom, forced all thoughts of his sexy and high strung target from his head. But later, lying awake and trying to figure out what in God’s name would have made her think she could simply siphon money from one of the most highly encrypted bank account systems in the universe to her own personal funds, he gave up trying to sleep. Putting a kiss on the girl’s forehead, mumbling something about “see you tomorrow” he quashed a small finger of guilt tickling his brain over the ease at which he’d seduced her. As he slipped into his car and headed towards the glass and metal edifice that represented his current assignment, he contemplated the new and colossally annoying erotic albatross around his neck. As he pulled into the underground parking Lucas had a sudden burst of self awareness, the sort of whole-body-shuddering enlightenment moment that would make a weaker man turn tail and get as far from the current situation as possible. But he had not choice. He had to face this particular music.It would appear that the whole espionage issue was a dead end at Tate Lincoln. However, the woman he’d been assigned to befriend, who might hold the key to whole mess was not a spy, but a thief. Not only that, she was literally in bed with one Jason “Jay” Reynolds, thrice married, nearly re-divorced CEO. Nothing like a little adultery to keep things even more interesting. By all accounts, Alexa was smart, savvy, laser focused. Her recent apparent major lapses in judgment simply did not box. Lucas’ brain fairly buzzed with all the information spinning through it. The security breach itself was suspect and part of him believed she might have engineered it as a decoy. The elevator sped its silent way upward, disgorging him onto the thirty-seventh floor, where the giant servers were housed. He needed to poke around a little in its innards. Because he refused to believe that the woman he was slowly becoming infatuated with was capable of such overt, stupid robbery. A sudden flash of idea made him gulp and grip the elevator’s railing. One of the accounts he’d been monitoring, her local, Turkish bank account, had been full to bursting a week ago, then emptied out just as quickly. While she’d been in China at some high level, stressful meetings. And he’d caught Jay Reynolds at her desk fooling around on her computer. The two things suddenly clicked into place along with a shit ton of general uneasiness about the man at the helm of the large conglomerate. When the doors slid opened he started out, still looking down at his smart phone, his brain going a million miles a minute at the potential twist in the tale. “Oh, shit, sorry,” he grunted as he ran straight into someone, whose now familiar scent filled his nose and made him wince with realization. He kept his hands on Alex’s arms, holding them both up. She glared at him. “Watch where you’re going. What are you doing up here anyway?” Her silver-blue eyes narrowed with suspicion. Lucas’s scalp prickled at her proximity. She was a blue-jean, polo shirted example of female perfection. He let go of her, stepped back. “I, um, well, I had this idea…”She crossed her arms and he realized how odd this must look. No one ever darkened the door of this place on the weekends. The ex-pats who worked here learned to do their American workaholic thing from their flats, so they wouldn’t look like freaks to the natives. “Really.” She stood her ground, blocking his access to the banks of flat screens and buzzing computers. Something about her look, a combination of frustration and strength, of determination and vulnerability at that moment made him gulp in some air and speak. “Why are you stealing from the company?” She dropped her arms and gaped at him. At that moment he knew he’d been right.
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