“I am not postponing anything. I’ve sold almost everything I own to pay for this trip—my furniture, my clothes, my car. The lease on this place is up on Tuesday, my plane ticket is nonrefundable. I’m going to Croatia on Monday, and you have no say in the matter.”
“Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case. This morning, Soteria Security discovered a spyware program running on your computer.”
She froze at the implicit accusation.
“It was loaded manually and discovered the day after your contract expired. The day after you formally rejected a generous extension of employment. The shallowest of security checks shows that you received an anomalous lump-sum payment of ten thousand dollars and used it to buy an open-ended plane ticket to a country with no extradition policy.”
She paled with each charge, bracing her hands on the counter like she might faint. Or throw up. And despite himself, he wanted to believe in her innocence.
“Do you understand how this looks?”
“What exactly are you accusing me of?” Her voice was small, but she was heartbreakingly brave as she met his eyes.
Why he felt like he’d fallen from grace right then did not bear contemplating.
Max tipped his chin at the contract. “I’m merely offering you a way out of this. Until this security breach is resolved to my satisfaction, you will resume your role as chief analyst of research and development. We will erase everything that happened since you walked into my office and quit.”
She flinched at that, and though he hadn’t been referring to their hot and sweaty desk-fuck, he didn’t correct her misunderstanding. It was best for everyone if they went back to their normal working relationship.
“Report to Vivienne Grant’s office when you arrive on Monday morning. She can draw up an amendment to ensure you’re reimbursed for the wasted plane ticket. And you can let her know if there are any further concerns we’ve failed to address here today. Now, sign the contract.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He would not be swayed by the wounded look in her eyes. He made sure his shrug was dismissive. “It’s nothing personal, Emma. It’s—”
“Business?” she scoffed, her magnificent eyes glinting sharply, like daggers. “Spare me the trite maxims. Just take your bullshit contract and go.”
Max took the centering breath of a sniper setting up a kill shot. “I have millions of dollars and the future of my company invested in the launch of SecurePay. The timing on this is crucial. If the media finds out we’ve been hacked, the project is dead in the water.” Even the prospect of failure, after everything he’d sacrificed over the last five years to bring SecurePay to market, was like a hot poker to his ribs. It was enough to crack his usual icy veneer. “So until this situation has been neutralized and contained, I will do whatever it takes to ensure this launch goes off without a hitch. And that doesn’t include key members of my team fleeing the country in the wake of a goddamn internal security breach!”
Her lips trembled, but she lifted her chin in a magnificent show of bravado. “I don’t work for you anymore, Mr. Whitfield.” His name sounded toxic on her lips. “Keep your money. I don’t want it. I’m leaving Monday morning, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Max respected the rally, the way her dawning anger brought a flush to her cheeks and put the spark back in her eyes.
It was too little, too late, but she didn’t seem to realize that yet. He felt honor bound to make his imminent victory clear. He didn’t want any misunderstandings between them.
“People who’ve been accused of corporate espionage usually have a hard time boarding commercial flights. Or so I’ve heard.”
Her mouth fell open at the threat. “You wouldn’t.”
He kept his gaze level, implacable, until she realized the truth. That he could. And he would. It was best that she understood that from the get-go.
“You bastard.”
Max accepted the epithet with a tip of his chin as he pulled a pen from his inside breast pocket and held it out to her. “Sign the contract, Emma.”
She shot him a mutinous glare as she snatched the pen from his fingers, and his respect notched up again for her ability to know when she was beat. She slashed her signature across the page in black ink and shoved the contract and the pen in his direction.
Despite the heat of the movement, her eyes were ice-cold when they met his. “Get out.”
Always gracious in victory, Max returned the pen to the inside pocket of his suit jacket, then picked up the papers and left.
IF MAX WANTED a war, she’d give him one.
Emma’s jaw was locked for battle as she strode out of Vivienne Grant’s office and headed straight for the elevator. She managed a distracted smile of thanks at the man who held the door open, so she could shepherd herself and the suitcase of all her worldly possessions inside. It was born out of instinctual courtesy, not sincerity, though. Right now, smiling was the last thing she wanted to do.
Her simmering rage was evident in the jab of her thumb against the button that would take her to the top floor, where that pompous, dictatorial, gorgeous asshole she worked for was probably sitting in his swanky office, plotting new ways to infuriate her. She readjusted the straps of her leather tote against her shoulder as the silver door slid shut.
To add to her sour mood, the elevator stopped to acquire and drop off passengers on each of the four floors between Legal and her destination, dragging out the inevitable.
Emma straightened the placket of her black silk blouse and plucked a piece of fuzz off her pencil skirt. Her sex clothes, as she’d ignominiously dubbed them.
She wasn’t kidding when she’d told Max she’d purged her closet of office-appropriate attire. And that morning, when she’d been getting dressed while cursing his name, she’d liked the idea of taunting him with the outfit. It was the reason she hadn’t pinned the slit in her skirt closed...or worn a bra. Small acts of rebellion designed to put him on notice. He might have forced her to come back, but he wasn’t getting the mild-mannered, desperate-to-please employee she’d once been.
Now that her meeting with his bulldog of a lawyer was over, though, Emma realized the joke was on her. She might not have signed the farcical document that had been presented that morning, but she had signed the contract Max had tossed on her kitchen counter Saturday night. And Emma got the impression that Vivienne had taken an almost sadistic pleasure in laying out the terms that she’d so rashly agreed to with that hastily scrawled signature.
Emma strode out of the elevator before the door was fully open, her heels clicking against the marble tiles as she headed for her desk. Maybe one of her coworkers would loan her a damn sweater before she had to meet with—
“Emma.”
Speak of the devil...
Her name sounded like a curse on Max’s lips, sharp and angry, and though it jacked up her pulse, she was careful not to show it. She stopped and slid him a disdainful glance, vindicated that his deep voice sounded tight when he added, “May I see you in my office?”
It wasn’t really a question, and Emma knew it, so she hesitated just long enough to annoy him. Not that she could tell if it worked. He was already back on lock-down, his handsome features an implacable mask. But it didn’t matter. She was annoyed enough for the both of them.
“Of course. I’m just going to drop my purse and suitcase off at my desk, and I’ll—”
“Now.”