Tempting the Corporate Spy(6)

She didn’t have a lot of practice around hot guys. That was Jen’s thing. Liv had always gone for the geeky guys who could speak computer with her.

“You didn’t know I was coming, I take it.”

“Uh, no. Afraid not.” She laughed. “I didn’t even know my secretary was leaving.”

He was dressed casually in a plain white oxford and khakis, but so cool looking it made her glance down at her own clothes. She wasn’t in her usual “I’m a responsible adult” outfit because it was the once-a-week Jeans Day at the company. So she was wearing the standard t-shirt and comfortable jeans she always wore when the nine-to-fivers cleared out of the building. My Morning Jacket blazed out from the front of her shirt.

He gestured at it. “I like that group.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Like duh? Why else would she be wearing their name on her chest?

Jon looked around at the suite, complete with leather couch, coffee table, and fiftieth story view of the city. “Nice.”

“I’ve got a connection in HR. They assign the offices. I hope you’re not going to recommend me out of here and into a cube.”

He grinned, a lopsided, not-quite-full smile that made him even better looking. “I like cubes. They’re cost efficient.”

Uh oh.

“Do you mind if I sit right outside your office to start with?”

She nodded at the cube that Cecily had vacated without her noticing. She got so wrapped up in her work most of the time that she didn’t pay attention to anything going on around her. She would have liked the chance to say goodbye to Cecily, the woman she’d worked with for over a year. Thank her. Maybe she’d pop up to Peterson’s. “Yeah. Sure. There’s a phone. Computer. The works.”

He sat at the now-empty desk and turned on the computer, a ridiculously easy task but one her former secretary rarely managed. It didn’t matter. Whatever Liv needed on the computer she, of course, did for herself.

“Kind of lonely around here,” he said.

Her office was on one of the floors that had been fully occupied before the latest round of layoffs. The corporate guys at the top were always trying to “cut the fat”—only below them of course—or operate “lean” or whatever the hell they called it. The last attempt had left the floor relatively deserted and her with a lavish office, thanks to Jen’s pull.

“I have to admit, I still don’t understand what it is you’ll be doing here…er, consulting on, I mean.”

“It’s a micro-approach to corporate mechanics. That’s why we start with one employee at a time, usually a high potential one like you. It’s a period of observation at first. I tend to sit in for the admin in order to check the organizational skeleton, if you will, with no buffers, and then I work outwards.”

Sounded like corporate-speak to her. She looked at him blankly and he laughed. “For now, I’ll just sit out here, go through your secretary’s files, and observe the pace of the office. I have those benefit numbers to crunch for Miss Sealy as well, sort of a freebie for the opportunity.”

“I still don’t think I’m a good place to start,” Liv objected. “I work by myself in my office and I’m not sure Cecily had any files.”

“Well, let’s take it one step at a time. You’d be amazed what I can glean from this approach.”

“If you say so.” Liv leaned over him and flicked a few keys to delete Cecily as the user and add him. “Let me help you get set up on the network, then. You’ll need a password.”

“Uh, let’s use—”

“Don’t tell me!” she warned automatically. God, for whatever kind of corporate management guru he was, he must be an absolute neophyte at computers. “Type it in yourself.”

“Oh, right. I always forget about that part. I put yellow stickies with my password all over the place.”

She nodded, appalled at the thought. Good thing she never let any document of consequence go any farther than her own laptop. Corporate policy required it be on the network as well, but she had her work so tightly secured no one was getting to it but her. No one in this company, certainly, and though it was kind of bragging to admit it, no one at all, anywhere.

“Just kidding,” he added. “I’m not quite that bad. Almost, but not quite.”

He typed something, then retyped it at the cue as she watched. He wasn’t anything like the kind of guys she usually hung out with, computer programmers at heart, all of them. He had longish hair—not too long, but enough to fall over his eyes and force him to brush it away casually. Black and sort of curly, it dusted the top of his collar. She wondered how it would feel to run her fingers through it. Despite the wave, she didn’t think it would be all bristly, since it looked shiny and sort of silky. His skin didn’t look bristly either but tanned and smooth, though with his coloring he would probably have a five o’clock shadow by the end of the day, like James Franco.