Great Exploitations (Crisis in Cali) (2 page)

Max grinned at me, a blend of genuine and goofiness in his smile. “Then what’s the perk to being your number one?”

When Max held out his hand, I stood and shook it. I liked that Max looked me in the eye when he shook my hand and that he didn’t try to break my hand or treat it like it was fragile.

Henry let out a single-noted laugh. “There aren’t any perks. We went over this.”

Max fired off another wink at me before glancing back at Henry. “Excuse me for disagreeing, but this, old friend, is a very big,
beautiful
”—Max nudged me as he made Henry’s stance more rigid with each word—“perk.”

I worked my tongue into my cheek to keep from smiling.

Henry, however, wasn’t in a smiling mood. “So introductions have been made. You can get out of here now, Max. I’m sure Eve’s got better things to do than tolerate your pathetic attempts at ingratiating yourself to her.”

“Actually . . .” I shrugged.

Max’s grin stretched. Henry rolled his eyes.

“So you’re Henry’s number one, second in command, which would also make you—”

Max adjusted the collar on his polo shirt. “Vice President of Callahan Industries.”

He couldn’t have been any older than Henry or me, but he appeared to have the self-importance of a man twice his age.

“I was going for The Guy Who Came in Second Place to Running Callahan Industries, but I suppose your answer works too.”

Max stuck out his lower lip. Henry laughed.

“I know a hopeless ingratiating case when I see one.” Max pouted a bit more before shrugging it off as he headed for the doorway. “Besides, I’ve only got a few hundred more reports to pull out of my ass before the big meeting in the morning.”

Henry patted Max’s shoulder as he passed by. “I suppose that explains why it always seems like your reports are full of shit.”

“On to me, yes, you are,” Max replied in a Yoda voice as he elbowed Henry in the ribs. “Nice to meet you, Eve. Sorry to greet and run, but the slave driver only lets me out of my cell for a few minutes every day. Just email the date and time, and I’ll be waiting at the altar a minute early. Okay?”

My tongue went farther into my cheek when I witnessed the shadow fall over Henry’s face again. “Nice to meet you too?” I replied, but Max had already disappeared behind the lab door.

“Max, meet Eve. Eve, meet Max.” Henry shook his head as he made the one-sided introductions. “Sorry about that. Max is a bit of an acquired taste.”

“The exact same thing could be said of me, so I can’t fault him for being the same way.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed infinitesimally. “I think you’ve got that wrong. I’m quite positive you’re everybody’s taste.”

The fact that I was alone in a quiet room with Henry became very obvious as he stared at me. I’d dimmed the lights earlier because the relentless glare of overhead fluorescents became too much every day around four o’clock, and I wished I’d left them at full strength. The fact that Henry was stepping closer, purpose sketched across his brow, made me think and feel things I had no right to claim.

I cleared my throat. “So that’s the guy who would run Callahan Industries if you were assassinated, keeled over from a stress-induced stroke, fell off the grid in that private jet of yours, or had an unfortunate encounter with a blow dryer tumbling into your bathtub?”

The skin between Henry’s brows wrinkled. “That, or when and if I choose to step down.”

“The day you step down will be the day you die, Henry.” I gave him a knowing look. He hadn’t committed his life to creating his company to just up and quit it. Entrepreneur titans didn’t just walk away from multi-billion dollar businesses.

“Or it won’t be,” he replied with a shrug.

His suit was slightly rumpled, indicating he’d had just as long a day as I’d had. His five o’clock shadow had set in a few hours earlier, and though the rest of him looked tired, his eyes didn’t. They looked alert and alive.

I was nervous being so close to him with his eyes looking like that. We were alone and both so deep into our days that strength and willpower were in short supply. To G, he was an Errand, our Ten, the most important case of both of our careers, but to me, Henry Callahan had ceased to be just another Errand weeks ago and had morphed into something far more. When I looked at him while he was looking at me like that, I was a college girl again, falling for the college boy who was so out of her league, they weren’t even playing the same game.

“I was just getting ready to head out when you and Max came in.” I eyed my purse and jacket hanging on the hook. “I’ve really got to leave now, or I’ll be late—”

“You just said you didn’t have anything better to do than have Max try to ingratiate himself to you.” Henry raised a brow as he stepped closer. “Has that changed now that it’s me trying to do the ingratiating?”

He wore a half-smile, but I knew enough of our on-and-off game to accept that he was only jesting. “That’s because I didn’t have anything to do when it was Max doing the ingratiating, but I definitely have something to do if it’s you trying to do the same.” I wished I hadn’t worn a long-sleeved blouse with a black pencil skirt. The air-conditioning had seemed cool earlier, but I felt like someone had cranked on the furnace.

“Why?” Henry continued. “What makes me the exception?”

When he took another step closer, I backed into my desk. Other than crawling onto it, I had no place left to escape. “Because you and I have history.”

“Which means?” He tilted his head, eyeing the few feet between us like he couldn’t decide if it was crossable.

“Which means it’s complicated.”

He thought about that for a moment. “It doesn’t have to be.”

When he took another step closer, only one more keeping us apart, I eyed the door. It was still open. It meant escape. It meant giving me another day to try to work out the feelings I had or didn’t have for him. It meant repeating again and again in front of the mirror that this was an Errand, Henry was a Target, that it was business and nothing else. It meant beating the image of him with another woman into my head until the only thing I saw when I looked at Henry Callahan was a cheating bastard who needed to be brought to his knees.

That door seemed so far away.

When he took that final step, his hand dropping to the bend of my waist, I knew it was too late. His touch made me feel the exact same way it had years ago. When his other hand curved around the side of my neck, its warmth seeping into my skin, I sucked in a breath and grabbed the edge of my desk. Him touching me was bad enough; I wouldn’t allow myself to return the favor.

“Henry, don’t,” I warned, my voice too low, too labored. His eyes locked on mine, but I diverted my gaze.

“Give me one good reason why not, and I won’t.” His voice was lower than normal, tight where mine was shallow. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t do what both of us have been tiptoeing around for weeks, and I’ll leave and won’t say a word to you again unless it’s Callahan Industries related.” His thumb stroked the curve of my neck, pausing on my pulse-point. A smile curved into place when he felt the pace of it. “Put the past behind us for long enough to see if we could have a future.”

Without another word, Henry lowered his mouth to mine, pausing when they were barely brushing mine—allowing me a chance to slap his face before shoving him away. But I didn’t slap him, and I didn’t shove him away. I tore my grip from the desk and lifted my hands to his chest. When I dropped them against him and pressed my body hard into his, it felt like he trembled. Before I could be sure, his lips touched mine, and the whole world outside of us froze.

Henry’s mouth moved against mine slowly, so purposefully it was like he’d planned and waited for that moment for decades. His hands stayed on my waist and neck, but his fingers curled deeper into me, almost like he was trying to find a grip. He was controlled, patient, and so careful it was as if he was trying to hold onto a wild animal.

But nothing felt controlled or careful inside me—I felt the opposite. I wanted to pull him hard against me and kiss him until I was breathless and all my energy had been spent. Instead of our lips being the only parts connected, I wanted every other part to join in.

I’d known from the beginning that if I let him kiss me, I’d be in trouble. I knew I’d feel the same kinds of things I had when we’d first been together, but I hadn’t expected to feel other things. Different kinds of emotions and desires. As Henry kissed me, very little of the college boy I remembered making out with was still around. Instead, he was a man who exuded confidence and made no qualms about his desire.

The first few times Henry and I’d “made out” in college, he tried to keep me from feeling or noticing his arousal, almost like he was ashamed . . . but the man making out with me now wasn’t trying to hide or disguise anything. He wanted me to know what he felt and what he was ready for.

I didn’t know how my hand wound up at his zipper, but my hand was lowering it before I’d given it the okay to do so. I didn’t feel Henry’s hand on the hem of my skirt until he was rolling it up my thighs. I didn’t know what was happening until it had already happened, and even though something inside me knew I should make it stop, I didn’t. It all felt too damn good and right to stop. As my fingers worked his belt free and he slipped my skirt higher, his mouth paused.

“Eve?” His voice was low and rough but still able to inflect his question. All of the unsaid ones in my name.

His belt was undone and my skirt could go no higher when I gave him my answer. “Henry,” I whispered, pulling him back to me as I pressed the rest of the world a little further away.

He was just laying me back against my desk and leaning over me, his thumb hooking through the lace of my panties, when a phone rang. It took the second ring before I realized it was one of my phones and the third before I realized which phone. My hands had stilled on the first ring, but Henry’s didn’t stop until a sigh slipped from my lips.

We’d held off the world for a few minutes, but it was a fool’s hope to wish we could hold it at bay forever. There was, as I’d tried to explain to him earlier, too much history between us. Not only that, but we had too much history on our own to allow us the kind of future we’d just been trying to claim. It wasn’t just Henry’s indiscretion keeping us apart—it was also how I’d made my living for years and the reason why I’d magically appeared in his life again.

When I’d told Henry there was too much history between us, he assumed I meant one thing. In fact, I’d meant so many more things as well.

“Henry?” None of the same assuredness was in my voice as my hands, which had been working his shirt free seconds ago, pressed him away.

This time when he trembled, it wasn’t from anticipation. With a long exhale, Henry lifted off me and took a few steps away from the desk. “Eve.” He was already moving for the door as he refastened his belt.

I wanted to call to him as he left my office—I wanted to call him back to me and prove to us both that nothing could or was keeping us apart—but that was when my phone rang again. After three days of radio silence, G would be pissed if I didn’t answer.

Sighing, I tore my eyes from Henry as he wove through the lab. Fairy tales were for girls. Reality was for women. Duty was for me.

THERE WAS NO rest for the weary. Obviously. G’s call last night, when I’d been entangled with Henry Callahan on my desk, had not been for the sole purpose of checking in on her coveted Ten. There’d been plenty of that of course, and I’d assured her things were progressing at a satisfactory pace and that I estimated I was within weeks of closing the deal. I left out the part about me being a couple pieces of clothing away from having closed the deal last night. Since none of it had been planned and a Contact hadn’t been called and all those other small details like not letting it get personal were missing, I kept that secret to myself. G didn’t need to know I’d almost had sex with Henry because the Eve she knew hadn’t been about to do that. It was the Eve she didn’t know who had been about to make love to the man she’d once loved.

So after ten minutes of Callahan Errand edited play-by-play, G dropped another Errand on me. Not because she was worried the Callahan one was taking too long, she assured me—we both knew this wouldn’t be one I could close in a week—but because she didn’t want me getting bored, aka rusty. She didn’t want her top Eve getting out of practice working a single Errand for months. She wanted to make sure that once we’d closed the Callahan Errand, I’d be ready to spring right into the next one she had waiting at the top of her never-ending stack.

I’d never mentioned to G that when and if I closed a Ten, I’d take my earnings, add them to what I’d already saved, and buy a one-way ticket far away from this life. She clearly assumed I would keep going until the first loss of elasticity in my boobs made her force retirement on me. She really didn’t have a clue . . .

So another Errand it was. This one, she assured me, would be so simple, I’d snap my fingers and it would be done. It was such an easy, breezy Errand she could have handed it to a rookie Eve as her very first assignment. So I already knew the breed of Target before she dropped the details on me.