you know this how?”
“Corporate espionage, how else?”
“That’s not right.”
“As if you’ve never done it to me.”
She feigned a sneeze and looked out the window at the California scenery scrolling by. Rolling hills dotted with stucco walled-houses with red roofs and the jewel bright sea beyond. Even after seven years of living on the coast, the view took her breath away. It had been her new start to her brand-new life. A true reboot.
Thankfully it never got old since she needed a nice breathtaking view to distract her from Ferro and all of his questions and smiles and that spicy, masculine way he smelled.
Which was hard to ignore in the enclosed space of the limo. A lot of tech guys had a smell a bit like they’d been living in a cave. And some of them even had a permanent hunch from bending over the keyboard. Had she not hired an image consultant, she very well might have ended up that way herself. Because frankly, in her life, she’d become much more concerned with coding than how she looked to the world. When she’d tried on her own, she’d always come out looking ridiculous. Without a consultant, she was hopeless.
But Ferro wasn’t like that. He exuded a kind of easy charm and sex appeal that most people with his level of intelligence, including her, rarely bothered with.
Not that she could achieve sex appeal, even with professional help, even if she did bother, but it was a nice thought.
“I’ll take your silence as affirmation and move on,” he said, his tone dry. “I don’t want Hamlin to get the account, mainly because I want it. I’m sure you feel the same way about both of us.”
“Yes,” she said, still scanning the shoreline, keeping herself distracted. The limo wound up the side of a hill and she whipped around to look at Ferro. “I thought we were going to your office?”
“My home office.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“I’m not advertising any kind of alliance with you until I’ve had time to figure out how I want it to look.”
“For a man proposing a partnership of some kind you used the word I a lot.”
“Problem?” he asked, one dark eyebrow arched.
“There’s no I in team, Ferro, which you may have heard.”
“I hate clichés.”
“They’re cliché for a reason. Because they’re true.”
“Not necessarily,” he said.
The limo pulled around a corner and up to a security box with a facade in the same white stucco that was on the houses. It was shrouded by palm fronds and large, flowering plants so that it almost faded into the lush background.
Ferro leaned out the window of the limo and placed his thumb on a scanner. His driver did the same. “You, too,” he said.
“It won’t recognize me.”
“I know,” he said, “and you won’t be given clearance to use your print to open the gate. But I keep records.”
“Fingerprint records! Talk about paranoid.”
“Don’t I need to be?” he asked.
She shrugged and nodded in grudging agreement. Especially since she was one reason he should be paranoid. She wasn’t above snooping for secrets. But he did it to her, too, dammit. Fair was fair. Or two unfairs made it fair…or something.
“Now, you. Print,” he said.
She looked across the seat, across him and out the window. “You want me to just…lean over and do it?”
A flicker of amusement sparked in his eyes. “Yeah. Just lean over and do it.”
Her cheeks heated and she did her best not to make eye contact or show him that he’d disturbed her in any way. She was used to men. She worked with a lot of men, and she’d gotten to the point where their innuendos didn’t really bother her. Especially not when she had her armor on. The face she showed the world. The leather clad, boot-wearing, tough chick who took no prisoners in the boardroom.
That’s just who she would be now. Who she would remember she was now. He was trying to unnerve her. And she didn’t back down. Ever. Not for any man.
She took a breath and leaned over, reaching past him. And came up short of the reader. She cleared her throat and edged a little closer, her arm skimming his chest. Her heart tripped and fell, sending a pang of something deeply disturbing through her body. Something that left her feeling a little breathless and shaky.
And there was the way he smelled again. Closer, she could identify the nuances to it. Spice from aftershave. Soap over skin. Clean, musky, masculine skin…
At least, that was her assumption of what the smell was. She wasn’t overly familiar with the scent of men’s skin, but that was not anything she should be thinking about. And she way shouldn’t be thinking about the way Ferro Calvaresi’s skin smelled.
Scan your thumb and run, you’re regressing!
Regressing to that sad, longing teenage girl she’d once been. Failing to fit in until she’d stopped trying. And then her parents had started trying for her and things had gotten really bad. And then she’d found out what could happen when you tried. When you were vulnerable and soft and trusting.
She shook off the memory, leaned in a bit more and tried to ignore it when the edge of her breast touched his biceps. She tried, also, to ignore the fact that her breath was jammed in her throat and she couldn’t inhale or exhale anymore.
She extended her hand and placed her thumb over the scanner, the trapped breath exiting in a gust when it beeped and she could get herself back over to her side of the limo, with a bit of healthy distance between Ferro and herself.
They continued up the driveway and another gate barred the way. The limo stopped and her heart fluttered against her breastbone like a caged bird. “Are you kidding me?”
He shrugged. “This one just uses a code.”
He keyed it in on the screen of his phone, a phone that she noticed wasn’t as sleek or fast as the one her company had just released, and the gate opened.
“Neat,” she said.
“Does your phone link up to home security?”
“No. But it has really cool gaming apps.”
“How is it that your phones are outselling mine?” he asked, dark brows locked together.
“Did you not just hear me say the words really cool and games? That’s how.”
“There is no practical use in that.”
“Right, and practicality is fine, but the vast majority of people do not have security that screams ‘I’m paranoid.’”
