Play to Win (27 page)

“What?” I asked. “What's wrong?”

But the detective just shook his head. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

“Listen,” I said, rounding the desk to approach him. “Why don't you come with me for a few minutes? I can get you a cup of coffee or some tea perhaps, while you wait.” Yeah, because this guy looked like he'd cool his heels in the lobby sipping hot tea, but whatever. I used the tone I always adopted when placating an irate or obstinate—usually at the same time—Parker, adding a soft smile. It nearly always worked on him.

However, it seemed the cop was a tougher nut to crack.

“Nice try, but I think I'll wait.” Turning, he settled himself onto the black leather sofa in the corner.

I stared in dismay. He seemed wholly at ease, one ankle resting on the opposite knee while his arms were spread wide on the back of the couch. It was obvious he wasn't going anywhere until he was darn good and ready.

Parker was going to kill me.

“Please wait in the lobby,” I urged, starting to panic. “It's really nice. There's a television, and magazines…”

He just looked at me.

I went for blunt honesty. “He'll get mad at me,” I blurted. “Please wait in the lobby.”

Honestly, I didn't know if Parker would be upset or not, though I did know he'd prefer some warning before finding a police officer waiting in his office. I'd rather err on the side of caution because nothing was as devastating as when Parker was angry with me.

“He'll get mad at you?” Detective Ryker asked in disbelief, his eyebrows climbing. “What a fucking prick,” he added under his breath.

I winced at the name-calling and wondered what in the world the police thought Parker had done for this guy to say such things about a man he'd never met.

I didn't know if the detective would've done what I asked or not because that's when Parker walked through the door. If he was surprised to see a strange man sitting in his office, he didn't show it.

“Ryker,” he said, barely glancing at the man as he passed me and rounded his desk. “Isn't there a murder to investigate or somebody you should be arresting?” His voice was cold. To anyone who didn't know him as well as I did, he appeared unfazed, but I could see the tension in his body.

“Aw, you've kept tabs. I'm touched,” Ryker sneered.

Parker didn't even glance up from his plate. He spoke around a bite of salmon. “Don't flatter yourself. Only a cop could get in this building armed, and only homicide gets away with dressing like shit.”

I'd never heard Parker speak to someone like that. Ruthless and cutting? Yes. But deliberately insulting cops usually wasn't high on his To Do list.

“I'd rather dress like shit than treat people like shit. You make your secretary serve you lunch without even a thank you? Color me surprised to see you're still a narcissistic dick.”

My face grew so hot my ears burned as Parker's eyes flicked my way, as though he were just now noticing me in the room.

“Was there something else, Sage?” he asked stiffly.

“O-of course not, sir,” I stammered, hurriedly retreating. “Excuse me.” I couldn't get out of there quick enough.

My desk was a haven after the tension in Parker's office and I eyed them covertly, pretending to work, though likely neither would have noticed even if I'd pressed my nose to the glass.

Parker seemed to be barely paying attention to Ryker, though I'd seen him do that before and it was always a fake out. Nothing slipped by him.

For his part, Ryker had abandoned his earlier relaxed pose and was now bent forward, his elbows braced on his knees as he talked.

Neither of them smiled.

They knew each other, and apparently hated each other—or at least Ryker hated Parker. “Narcissistic dick” and “fucking prick” usually weren't terms reserved for a good buddy. It was an engrossing mystery and I did nothing but speculate, my imagination running rampant for the ten minutes Ryker was there.

Finally, he stood and walked to the door. He didn't appear to say good-bye and Parker was seemingly already absorbed in a file before Ryker even left his office.

I expected him to head straight for the elevators, but he caught sight of me watching him. A look I couldn't read flashed across his face and he changed direction, stopping in front of the raised counter that served as two walls of my “cubicle.”

“So…Sage, was it?” he asked.

I eyed him suspiciously, tapping the nameplate that sat on the counter rather than answering him.

“Sage Reese,” he read. “Executive Administrative Assistant.”

“You can read,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I was worried you'd have trouble with the big words.” If Parker didn't like Ryker, and it seemed pretty clear he didn't, chances were I wasn't going to like him either.

He grinned at me despite my sass and he had an honest-to-God dimple in his cheek. His teeth were perfectly straight and white, and his smile drastically altered the hard expression on his face to one of sexy mischief. I momentarily lost my train of thought.

Ryker leaned down like he was going to tell me a secret. The aroma of leather and something musky drifted in the air and I caught myself taking a deep whiff of it.

“I know what you're doing after work,” he said. I looked at him in confusion. “What?”

“You're having dinner with me.”

That was the absolute last thing I expected him to say. I gaped at him.

Ryker reached toward me and my breath caught. His fingers brushed the fabric of the scarf tied around my throat. I was frozen in place, my eyes wide as I looked up at him and my pulse racing. I felt the softest touch of the back of his knuckles against my jaw; then he was reaching past me to snag a couple of peanut M&Ms from the little candy dish on my desk for when I absolutely had to have a bite of chocolate. Tossing them in his mouth, he grinned again, the knowing look in his eyes telling me he knew exactly how he was affecting me.

“Pick you up at six,” he said with a wink, and then he was gone, striding toward the elevators, his jeans and leather jacket utterly out of place in the sea of suits and business attire. But you would have thought he was a model wearing the latest from Armani by the way he walked.

When he got to the elevator, it dinged as though it already knew he was coming. He'd slid his sunglasses back on and he turned before he stepped inside. I was still staring at him and he caught me at it, another knowing grin spreading across his face before he disappeared from my view.

“Wow. Who was that?”

I turned around to see Megan, my friend and fellow secretary. She worked for a group of analysts who reported to Parker.

Sliding her glasses up her nose, she turned to me. “Seriously. Please tell me he was interviewing and starts work tomorrow.”

I laughed. Megan was an incongruous package. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, with curly blond hair and a heart-shaped face—a stereotypical sweet, shy type. She was sweet, that much was true, but she had a biting wit and an irreverent humor that made her a favorite with nearly everyone at KLP.

“Sorry,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. “He already has a job.”

“As a movie star, right?”

“He's a detective,” I said with a grin. “And I think I have a date with him tonight.”

“Get out!”

I shrugged. “He asked me out.” I thought for a second. “Actually, he didn't ask. He just told me I was going to dinner with him.” Which should have ticked me off, but instead I found it to be kind of…sexy.

“If I didn't like you so much, I'd hate you right now,” Megan sighed. “As if it's not bad enough you work for the hottest guy in the building. Now you have a date with a sexy detective.”

“There are some days I'd gladly trade you bosses,” I said dryly. “You know that.”

“I know Parker can be a total pain in the ass,” she said. “But don't give me that. We both know you'd come to work even if you were miserable sick—and have—if Parker said he needed you. So don't play that ‘I hate my job' card with me. I know you're full of crap.”

“He's not that bad,” I said.

Megan snorted. “You're the only one here who'd put up with him. Even I could only let that pretty face go so far before I'd have to slip something in his coffee.”

I couldn't argue with her. There were some days
I
wanted to slip something in Parker's coffee.

“So I take it Brandon's no longer in the picture if you're going to dinner with a smokin' hot detective dude?” she asked.

“His name is Ryker and no. I got dumped last night.”

“No shit,” she said, looking completely unsurprised.

I held up a finger. “Don't say it.”

“Say what?” she replied, all innocence. “You know what.”

“You mean that I've been telling you for months now how you're never going to have a decent relationship so long as you let Parker rule your every waking moment? That I keep reminding you that this is a job and not your life? That Parker doesn't appreciate you and that I can't for the life of me understand why you allow yourself to be at his beck and call to the point where you can't even date? Is that what you
don't
want me to say?”

I sighed. I couldn't be mad at Megan. Nothing she said was wrong. I knew she only said those things because she loved me and worried about me, but it was what it was. I needed this job. I liked this job, despite the demands it made on me. The pay was awesome, the benefits were great, and I liked living in Chicago. Though Megan would call me a masochist—and probably had at some point—because most of my waking hours were consumed by Parker and my job, I liked it that way.

At my silence, Megan looked contrite. “I'm sorry,” she apologized. “I should just keep my mouth shut sometimes.”

I shook my head. “No, it's okay.” It was kind of depressing when I thought about Brandon dumping me—yet another short-lived relationship to add to my tally—so I pushed the thought aside.

“So I texted Brian this weekend,” she said, and I was glad for the change of subject. Brian was a guy who worked in IT. He was really nice and very good-looking, but I thought he wasn't terribly bright when it came to women.

“And?” I asked. Megan had had a thing for Brian since the day she first met him a year ago. They'd had to work together on a project and had become good friends. “Did he text you back?”

“Yeah, a little,” she said with a sigh. “I think I'm permanently friend-zoned, though. He doesn't seem to get it no matter how much I flirt.”

“Of course he doesn't,” I said. “He's in IT. You'd have to parade in front of him topless for him to get it.”

She laughed. “I don't know what it is with him. Any other guy, I'd just ask them out. But him…I don't know.” She sighed.

“It's because he's different from all the other guys you've dated,” I said. “You're actually friends, which is awesome. They're supposed to make the best husbands.”

Now it was Megan's turn to look slightly uncomfortable. “What was a detective doing here anyway?” she asked, changing the subject.

“No clue,” I replied. “But I think they know each other, him and Parker. Their conversation was a bit…hostile.” A massive understatement.

“Huh. Weird. Maybe he'll tell you?”

I shrugged. “No way to know. But I'll definitely give you the gossip if he does.” I shot her a grin. Megan loved gossip.

“You'd better.”

After I swore to tell her all the juicy details of my date with Ryker, Megan headed back to her desk and I went to retrieve the lunch tray from Parker's office.

He was deeply involved in something, judging by his frown and fierce look of concentration, so I didn't speak. His jacket had been discarded and flung onto the sofa. I picked it up and hung it on the valet in the corner closet so it wouldn't wrinkle. Parker always kept an extra suit and a couple of extra shirts at the office. Once I'd done that, I picked up the tray he'd pushed to the side of his desk.

“Thank you,” he said.

I glanced at him, for a moment wondering if he was speaking to me, but he was still engrossed in the computer screen. Since there was no one else there and he wasn't on the phone, he must have been speaking to me. It was a little odd. He didn't usually say anything when I took away his tray or hung his jacket.

“You're welcome,” I murmured, since it would have been weird to just ignore him. I couldn't help but wonder if Ryker's biting comment earlier was why I was getting a thank-you now, which kind of took the pleasure from it. Not that I did my job for thank-yous; I did it for a paycheck. But still.

“Could you get me the file on that new Russian firm we've been buying from?” Parker said. “Rogers has it, I believe.”

I frowned, thinking. “You mean Bank ZNT?”

“That's the one.”

“Of course.” I headed for the door, then hesitated, glancing at Parker. He looked up.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I was just wondering, and it's probably none of my business, but about the detective who was here earlier. Um, is…everything okay? Do you need anything? Something I could do…” I was rambling now so I shut up.

Parker was looking at me in that intense way of his, which had me rethinking sticking my nose in something that was obviously private. I looked down at the tray I held, unable to meet his gaze, and uneasily shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

“Never mind. I shouldn't have pried,” I blurted, balancing the tray on one arm so I could pull open the door.

“Sage,” Parker called out, stopping me. I looked back at him. “There's nothing you can do, but I…appreciate the offer.”

That eased my embarrassment somewhat and I gave him a fleeting smile and short nod before hurrying out of the office.