Tempting the Corporate Spy(11)

“No thanks. I don’t eat lunch.”

No lunch. No neck rubs. He supposed asking about sex was out of the question.

“I’ll get back to my work then.” And she disappeared behind her closed office door again, sort of pissing him off in the process.

It was irritating as hell. This was working out even better than he had planned in terms of getting time alone with her computer programs. But it turned out he was more interested in getting some one-on-one with her.

Shit. He’d better remember what he was here to do.

Resolute, he went back to work.

Since she had a bathroom adjoining her office, she really didn’t come out for hours on end. At least if she had to emerge to pee, it would force her to walk by him once or twice in the afternoon. He wondered if he should email her the article he’d read recently about blood clots forming if a person got too sedentary at their desk.

But finally the door opened to the sight of her stretching as usual. She looked at him in surprise. “Are you still here?”

He stood up to block the screen, tapping on a key to blank it. “I thought I should wait until you go. Get a feel for your hours.”

“Not unless you’re getting paid a lot more than I think you are.”

“I’m pro bono on this first evaluation, remember?”

“Right, then you probably won’t want to work around the clock, which I often end up doing.”

She went over to the sink and dumped the scorched coffee.

“I was going to do that.” He took the empty pot and rinsed it while she leaned back against the sink.

“You don’t have to wait on me.”

He put the pot in the drainer. “Emptying the coffee was your admin’s job, right?”

Her green eyes held his, and he wondered if she really didn’t know that extended eye contact with a guy often gave him ideas. Ones that involved wet tongues and hard cocks. He was pretty sure in Liv’s case she really was that clueless. She studied him, her pale, serious face intent, as she must look when she was figuring out a computer problem.

He was suddenly very aware of what else he had easily learned about Liv as he researched how to get access to her office. She rarely dated. And since he was familiar with the type of man—boy really—she had gone out with in college, he doubted she had much experience in bed.

He thought of his mother, the same sort of smart, beautiful woman who was totally unprepared for a man like his father, who knew his way around women and could use them as he pleased. He thought of his sister, who was learning that lesson from the other end of the spectrum.

The cell in his shirt pocket rang and he glanced at the number.

Speak of the devil.

“Go ahead and get that, Jon. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No, that’s okay. It’s just my father.”

She smiled. “Well, then you should for sure get it.”

The high-pitched ring continued since he’d never set up voice mail on his phone. It would probably be another dozen rings before his dad would give up.

“No, I always screen my father’s first few calls. Sort of like preliminary offers. I know by the third or fourth time he tries me, he’ll have calmed down about whatever it is that’s got him mad.”

“That’s not nice,” she admonished.

Liv’s mom was dead, he knew, but he had gotten the feeling that might not be such a bad thing. From the DUIs on her driving record and the number of times the cops had been called to the home for disturbances of the peace, Marcy Altman sounded like a drunken nightmare. And one who, unlike her own daughter, wasn’t always discriminate about who she took into her bed. There was no documentation of Liv’s dad. Maybe he was just some punk who had been drinking a few bar stools down from Marcy one night and gotten lucky. With an ache, he thought of his sister. Once he got her out of the present danger of having her escapades exposed, he needed to figure out how to get to the root of the issue. And that wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to having with his little sister.

The phone stopped ringing.

“What about you?” he asked, keeping to the pretense of not knowing anything about her family. “Are you close with your parents? Answer their calls on the first ring?”

“No.”

“They must be proud of you,” he persisted, not sure why.

Her laugh made him ashamed of the impulse though. It was low, ironic, and, well, kind of sad. “I doubt that. But they’re dead now anyway.”

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know.”

“And is it just you and your dad?”

He answered honestly, or as honestly as he could, anyway. “My mom died a long time ago. I still miss her. I have a younger sister, who is…finding her way. And my dad…” He slipped the now silent phone out of his pocket and waved it. “…is always bugging me to find a real job.”