She came back to herself as he turned, feeling herself blush. Really, everything about having him in this office was Not Good.
He had the pizza box open and had served it onto paper plates, the ones with "It's a Celebration!" printed on them that his mother had used to serve cake two weeks ago.
"Just one slice?" he asked.
She was about to refuse, but was distracted by the way he surveyed her as he held out the plate, like he was charting points on a map, blazing a trail of heat as his gaze moved all the way to her toes then back up her revealed calves, into her lap, then conquering the elevation of her breasts.
Finally he got around to looking her in the eye.
She ignored the inferno churning inside her, and raised her brows. "Finished?"
He held her gaze, no apology, no averting in an attempt to deny.
Feeling as though he'd just claimed her in the name of Sterling Roy, she realized he figured he had a right to look at her like that.
She might have cried sexual harassment if she hadn't just done the same to him.
Drawing a stuttering breath, she took the pizza and swung to set it on her desk.
With two slices for himself, he circled the desk and took the opposite chair. "This is nice, Sterling. Thank you," he prompted.
Abashed, she murmured, "It is. Thank you. But it wasn't necessary."
"Yes, it was."
Something in his tone made her bring her head up. Their gazes collided and she felt an immediate electric connection. Memory assaulted her, complete with a fluttering echo of physical pleasure. Forget versions. No edits necessary. It had been perfect.
He froze, pizza barely lifted from his plate, his tongue touching his bottom lip. "We're not going to get much work done if we start thinking like that."
"W-work?"
"I thought if I'm the reason you're working late, I should help you." He took a hearty bite. No messy trail of stringy cheese for him; he was perfect at everything, including blindsiding her.
She set down her plate. "You're not- I don't- Damn it, there's always a catch when you're nice."
"What's wrong with my helping?"
"You won't do it right." It was lame, but it was all she had. She moved her plate to the left, making a workspace for herself, unable to resist picking off an olive and nipping it from between her finger and thumb, savoring the salt. "When I work with anyone, it's generally a third-year accounting student."
"And when I work with accountants, they're usually of your caliber, so I think we'll be okay. I'm qualified for grunt work like checking invoice numbers, Paige. What's the real problem? You're not comfortable spending time together?"
"Are you asking if I'm afraid of you? No. I'm not," she grumbled and searched for a ‘but' that she could voice. Instead, her stupid brain began inventing advantages to letting him stay: clerical support, for one. There was a lot to do, not to mention it got pretty lonely plugging numbers in this office all by herself. Since it was after hours, for safety reasons she ought to have someone with her-
Oh, please. Listen to yourself.
She wanted to spend time with him. That was the problem. But she didn't want him anywhere near her audit. What should she do?
Go home with him.
She couldn't. She needed to get to the bottom of this first.
"Where do I start?" He leaned forward, trying to see what she had in front of her.
She redirected him with cross-checking for inventory variances, grunt work as he called it.
"Pretty low on the mentally stimulating scale," he complained, after she explained the nature of the exercise. "Don't you trust me with something more challenging?"
He had no idea. But he settled to work without further argument.
Reassured he wouldn't stumble into an area of the audit where a real problem might show up-like, say, the possibility that her brother was robbing the company blind-she went back to the petty cash records she'd been checking.
It probably wasn't true, she told herself, glancing up when she'd finished her pizza, making sure Sterling was engrossed in his reports before she uncovered the crumpled invoices she'd wanted to discuss with Lyle this morning. Stupid brother.
Not for the first time, she tried to imagine a use for a fuel pump when all the machinery in the building, including the battery-driven forklifts, were powered by electricity. Ironic that growing up listening to Lyle rattle on about carburetors and torque converters was the reason she had caught the fact he was creating purchase orders for parts that were not intended for company use.
They had to be for one of the car repair jobs he did on the side. Which wasn't a problem on the surface. Many employees took advantage of the discounts offered to the company. Except all of them had paid for their purchases through petty cash.
Payroll deduction would make more sense. Paige made a note to ask Olinda to process them that way in the future then searched the petty cash records for Lyle's payment. Again.
Nothing had turned up this afternoon, but maybe she'd been too busy dwelling on Sterling's well-fueled pumps to pay proper attention.
God, he had nice hands. Long-fingered, smooth and capable, thorough in the way he marked a figure, then followed it across the page. He was so well-built for a desk jockey. The rolled up sleeves on his white shirt were snug enough on his upper arms to reveal the kind of bicep she wanted to feel flexing against her palm. The hollow of his wide shoulder looked just right for nuzzling the side of her face against. They'd been too frantic on Saturday for her to appreciate these finer details, but she-
"You've stopped working. Are you bored?" He didn't look up.
"No." It was tough to sound indignant with her voice all low and husky.
He lifted his head so she could read the memory in his hungry stare.
She swallowed and ducked her head, resisting the urge to press a regulating hand against her chest to slow her jumping heart.
"What are you working on?"
For the life of her, she couldn't remember. Oh, yeah. Same thing she'd been working on all day: searching for any sign that indicated Lyle had paid for this pump.
"Nothing exciting," she answered, annoyed with herself for letting him distract her. "Just confirming some things." She began adding up the invoices. The first was small change, but it was the tip of the iceberg if the other dozen she'd pulled were just like it. She wouldn't know until she'd confirmed the function of the other parts, but regardless of how much the theft amounted to, Sterling was going to fire Lyle.
If it was true.
She probably should have waited to work on it later, but she was compelled to dig for the truth so she would know what to tell Sterling before she slept with him again.
Her hand froze, suspended above the number pad on her keyboard.
"What kinds of things?" Sterling asked.
"Hmm?"
"What kinds of things are you confirming?"
The fact that she was going to sleep with him again. She was so stupid. Did he even want to?
Her insides clenched with an agonized fear of rejection.
He met her stare for three pulsing heartbeats, not moving, then said, "Do you have any idea how transparent you are? If that's what you want, why are we here?"
Self-conscious shyness hit along with a rush of liquid honey feelings. "You have to quit interrupting me." She dipped her head so she could scan her desktop, lost again, trying to remember where she was at.
He laughed, but it was a hoarse, tortured sound.
They were quiet for several minutes, in which she did nothing but stare at the pages in front of her. There was silence on his side of the desk too, until he muttered something about not being able to concentrate. Shifting, he slid the inventory records off his lap and onto the floor.
"Tell me how things are going. Last time we talked you'd found some errors. Anything new I should know about?"
Enough. Lyle's invoices could wait. She tucked them into a file folder. "Not really," she mumbled, realizing she'd taken too long to answer.
His thumb made a scraping sound as he rubbed the side of it against his jaw. "Sure about that?"
"Yes." She couldn't look at him, though.
He stood and she thought he was walking out on her, wasn't sure if she was relieved or sorry. Then he checked the hall and closed the door. She decided she was sorry. This was impossible.
"Is Olinda still giving you trouble?"
Paige shrugged and straightened the file folder so its edge lined up with the edge of the desk. "Olinda has her own agenda. When she divorced Dad, she calculated a figure she thinks she's entitled to receive from him. He makes monthly payments, but she thinks that once he cashes out his partnership, she'll get a lump sum. This audit is a delay she can't tolerate. I can't do anything about that, though. I'm not about to compromise the audit to please her."
"No?" He skitch-skitched his thumb against his shadowed jaw again. "What about for Lyle?"