Emma curved her gaze around Serena’s back to take in the approaching vision. Texas’s gift to Chi-town might sound like hyperbole, but the girl was not far wrong.
The three partners in Score Property swaggered in looking sweaty, muscled, and positively delicious. Doors that had been closed a moment ago inched ajar, covetous eyes peeking through the gaps. The testosterone pumping from the men, dressed in tanks and shorts that showcased smooth, sunbaked skin, tangoed with the sudden influx of female pheromones. Between accounting, publicity, and admin, eight women worked at Score Property, and all of them would have happily worked for free. The fringe benefits were so damn good.
“Serena, don’t you have nothin’ better to do than sit here gossiping with your coworkers?” Mr. Cross asked in an indulgent tone. “I know I assigned you to making travel arrangements for my trip to L.A., and that ain’t happening as long as you’re here bothering Emma.”
“Sorry, Flynn,” Serena said, not sounding sorry at all. “We were just talking about our weekends. I went dancing.” She managed to infuse a whole lot of sex into the word “dancing,” never mind that Mr. Cross was very happily engaged.
He chuckled. “I bet you did, you minx. You can tell me all about it later over coffee.”
With a lusty giggle and a knowing wink at Emma, Serena slid off Emma’s desk and headed toward Mr. Cross’s office suite. Sixty seconds later, doors had closed and the workday had begun as everyone moved to their starting positions. Everyone, that is, except…
“Ms. Strickland, did you pick up my dry cleaning?”
Of course, she’d known he was standing there. Her body had a weird radar that knew where he was at all times, and as everyone else had scattered, she’d ducked her head and waited for him to head into his office.
But the footsteps never came.
The door did not open.
Instead, the scent of him—a clean, male sweat—assaulted her nostrils.
She looked up and met the cool gaze of Broderick Kane III. The sensitive flesh between her thighs heated, clenched, and gave a little sigh of frustration. It was bad enough he usually looked like sex on pin-striped legs when he was wearing a suit; the days he and his partners did their workouts were a particular brand of torture.
Making little or no effort with his appearance, he walked around in an abstracted haze that should not have appealed to her in any way. She usually liked built, tatted, dangerous men, not the lean, rangy type. Oh, there was muscle there, ropy cords of it rippling through his forearms and impressive thighs, but she suspected he hadn’t worked for it, not really. More like bought them at the gym on the first floor.
Not handsome in the classical sense, he radiated something more compelling. On the day the goddess was giving out the hawt, Brody Kane received an extra helping of sensuality instead of pretty boy. His lips were too full, even when sealed together in their customary grim disapproval. Mahogany hair flopped over his right eyebrow in a way that screamed, “I need a cut but I’m too distracted (making money) to care.”
But his most attractive feature was his eyes. Silver gray like moonlight over a calm stretch of water. Eyes that could cut you to pieces and rebuild you with a single look. To add sexy insult to hot injury, he wore glasses.
Yep, total dweeb.
He also happened to be the brains of Score Property, the numbers guy, and wealthier than sin. The money he spent on suits in a year would have paid off all her debts—all of Daisy’s debts—and left a little to spare for those business classes Emma needed to complete her degree.
“Ms. Strickland?”
She blinked back to the reality of her day job and drew deep for that other woman—Goody-Two-Sensible-Shoes Ms. Strickland. The fraud.
“Dry cleaning’s hanging in your closet, Mr. Kane. I’ve also set up the tea service in the kitchen and will bring it in when—”
“The tea service?” The sexy hair flop ruffled ever so slightly with his querying eyebrow.
“Today’s ten o’clock with the union Jack Consortium on the Crown Point development. Last time Mr. Smythe-Osborne was here, we didn’t have the oolong leaves he requested, but I made sure to get them from the Coffee & Tea Exchange on Broadway. We can’t afford to give him any reason to not choose Score Property to be his stateside partner for the project.”
Mr. Kane stared as if she were speaking in Farsi, then slowly shook his head. “Ms. Strickland, whatever would I do without you?”
“Get the oolong yourself, Mr. Kane?”
The corner of his mouth hitched imperceptibly. Stop the Facebook updates—was that amusement? The man tended toward automaton around the office and never showed signs of enjoyment. Broody Brody, the girls called him.
“Did you do that on your own time?”
“It was no trouble, really.”