she was feeling. Along with terrified, furious and worried. But she’d be damned if she’d let Carol know that.
“No,” she managed to answer, “I’m fine. Just a little warm. But thanks for your concern.” Which was, Kyra knew, as much a lie as the answer she’d just given the woman.
Sucking in a gulp of air, she tried to steady the nerves jumping in the pit of her stomach. Then she forced a smile she didn’t feel, and headed past Carol’s desk. No way was she going to let the woman know just how shaken she really was.
The office door behind her opened abruptly, and Kyra spun around to face Garrett again.
“Still here, Ms. Fortune?” he inquired wryly, one eyebrow lifted into a high arch.
“Just leaving,” she assured him.
“Good.” Dismissing her, he turned to his assistant. “Carol, come inside and bring your pad.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, leaping to her feet like a dolphin breaching the surface of a pool to grab at a tasty fish.
The woman had absolutely no dignity, Kyra thought as she watched Garrett disappear back into the inner sanctum. She ground her teeth as Carol paused, gave her a slow smile and shut herself in their boss’s office.
Kyra glared at the closed door and did the only thing she could in that situation. She stuck out her tongue, then left as quickly as possible.
The building was quiet, most of the employees having left for home long before. From down the hall came the soft drone of a vacuum cleaner, and outside the bank of windows behind Kyra’s desk, rain spattered against the glass.
Oblivious to the faint background sounds, Kyra bent over the open file on her cluttered desktop. Frowning in concentration, she flipped through the pages of the Hartsfield report, making notations on the pad at her right. With no distractions, no interruptions, she’d have the presentation ready by morning.
If Garrett Wolff was really going to fire her, it wouldn’t be because he’d found fault with her work. A voice in the back of her mind muttered darkly about men with too much power. About the unfairness of it all. About how, despite how hard she tried, she would never really be good enough.
She swallowed and gripped her pen tightly in her fist. Whispers of self-doubt fluttered through her brain, but that was nothing new. Most of her life she’d covered up her fears with bravado. To the outside world, Kyra was a woman who knew exactly where she was going and just how to get there.
But inside, she was still the youngest child of a drunk. Unsure whom to trust. Unsure of her own abilities. Unsure of every damn thing.
“Okay,” she said softly, as she mentally smoothed the knot of nerves in the pit of her stomach. “That’s enough of that.”
“Talking to yourself is not a good sign, you know.”
Kyra jumped in her chair, slapped one hand to her chest and took a deep breath in an effort to nudge her heart down out of her throat. Her pulse beat wildly as her gaze shot to the man in the open doorway of her office.
Garrett Wolff stood there watching her. Well, he was leaning more than standing. One shoulder was braced against the doorjamb, one foot crossed over the other. His arms were folded across his chest and his sharp gaze was fixed on her. God knew how long he’d been there.
“Let me guess,” she snapped, covering her own embarrassment with the familiar snarl of anger. “Instead of firing me, you decided to just scare me to death and save on the paperwork.”
He grinned, and the solid punch of it raced across the room and hit Kyra like a bolt of something hot and dangerous.
Oh, so not good.
She’d known the man for eight years, during which time he’d irritated her, annoyed her and just plain pissed her off. But she’d never, ever felt a flash of desire for him. Okay, sure, she’d noticed how gorgeous he was.
Heck, she’d have had to be blind to have missed that.
But noticing and noticing were two different things.
Shaking his head, he unfolded his arms and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “It’s eleven o’clock at night, Ms. Fortune. Why are you still here?”
Uncomfortable under that cool, steady stare, she shifted a little in her seat. She’d thought she was alone in the building. Well, except for the cleaning crew and the security guards.
She often stayed late at night, to catch up on work, to get a jump on the next day’s tasks. She liked the quiet. Probably a holdover from living in a too-crowded house when she was a kid. Just remembering her father’s sudden, unpredictable shouting rages could make her long for peace and quiet. But it was even more than that.
She liked knowing that she was alone and for a few hours could drop the pretense of always being in charge. Kyra knew darn well that most of her co-workers considered her an arrogant know-it-all.
Which would have been funny if it didn’t bother her so much. God, she wished she were a know-it-all. School had never come easy to her. She’d always had to study twice as hard as anyone else to get the grades that had assured her of four years at Texas A&M.
And she’d worked even harder here at Voltage. Staring at Garrett now, though, Kyra wondered if all of her hard work had been for nothing. Frustrating to know that no matter how good her job performance, she could lose everything she’d been working toward because one man didn’t like her.
Well, she wouldn’t make it easy on him.
He was watching her now, still waiting for an answer to his question. “I’m just working out a few details in the Hartsfield plan.”
One of his brows lifted. “Then you’ve managed to sign them on with Voltage?”
“Not yet,” she admitted, wishing she could say yes. “But soon.”
He nodded and straightened up, taking one or two steps into her office. “Good. But you don’t have to work twenty-four hours a day, you know. Voltage really doesn’t expect that of its employees.”
It was strange, having him here in her office. As far as she could remember, this was his first visit. And since she knew full well that her career was currently dangling by a thread, she didn’t count this as a social call.
Which meant he had another reason altogether for dropping by in the middle of the night.
She only wished she knew what it was.
“Really?” she countered, tilting her head to one side and studying him as he walked the perimeter of her office. “Then why are you still here?”
“Touché.” He walked slowly around the room, examining the paintings on the wall, checking out the crystal vase of yellow roses on the credenza, and then finally stopping beside her desk.
He was too close for comfort. Kyra pushed her chair back from her desk so that she could give herself an extra foot or so of space and have an unobstructed view of the man.
His gaze locked on the night beyond the rain-spattered windows. Kyra
