One Night with the Boss. Teresa Southwick
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content now. The clock was ticking and she wasn’t getting any younger. Doing nothing wasn’t an option.
* * *
Ever since Olivia had left for the day, Brady had been battling the urge to go through her computer files and get more information on Leonard.
“The loser,” he muttered.
She’d left him no choice what with her tight-lipped lack of details. He was hurt, really. They were better friends than this. He would give her data about a woman if he got serious. Then again, he made it a point not to get serious.
Olivia was different. She deserved all the best things that life had to offer and it was incumbent upon him as her boss, and friend, to find out about this guy and make sure he was on the up-and-up.
Like a dieter looking at a seven-layer death-by-chocolate cake, he paced back and forth in her office, fighting the itch to search her files for Leonard-related information.
“What can it hurt? Who will know?” When his damned annoying conscience pointed out that he was better than this, he said out loud and with self-righteous defiance, “No, I’m not.”
He sat in her chair and hit the power button, then waited impatiently for the machine to boot up. It seemed to take forever. She should have told him she needed a faster computer. This was a waste of time and money. Finally it was ready and he clicked on the first file, which was data on her out-of-town trips. Where she’d met Leonard.
“The loser.”
She kept copious notes on everything work-related and her travel was no exception. He’d hoped to hit pay dirt right away, because the less time he spent digging, the less dirty he would feel. A man had to cover his backside, too. On the off chance his poking around was found out, there was plausible deniability. She wasn’t here; he needed a file. It was his story and he was sticking to it. But he was getting frustrated. Everything he saw was budgets, meetings, cost projections and troubleshooting.
The next step was her email, if he decided to go there. It wasn’t an easy choice, because that crossed into her personal life. Although now he knew that was probably where information on Leonard would be found. None of his business. Then again, she’d quit for personal reasons and was leaving him. That kind of made it his business.
“Okay, then. My motivation is quantified.” He clicked on her work email, which was password protected.
In case he ever needed files, she’d given him her core code word and the system she used to change it, one she could remember: her mother’s maiden name with the number of the current month and year. This was January, so he hit the one key, and it was an even-numbered year, so he entered it after Clark. In an odd-numbered year, it would have been before the name.
“I’m in,” he said triumphantly, even as he felt his conscience protest.
Patting himself on the back seemed a little excessive, since it wasn’t even a challenge. There was nothing the least bit stealthy or surreptitious about Olivia. She was open and honest, completely incapable of seeing the dark side to people. Otherwise she’d have seen Brady’s dark soul a long time ago. That also meant she couldn’t see anything bad in Leonard if it was there, which was why he was scanning her emails.
“Hmm. That’s weird.”
“What would that be?”
He looked up and Olivia was standing in the doorway. Crap and double crap, he thought. What would James Bond do in a situation like this?
Charm his way out of it.
“Olivia.” He stood up and gave her the smile that had always kept his mother from taking away his computer when he was in teenage trouble. “You’re looking especially lovely this evening.”
“Really?” One of her perfectly shaped eyebrows lifted. “I look exactly the way I did all day and you never said a word about my appearance.”
“Speaking of that...” He walked around her desk and assumed a casual pose, leaning a hip on the corner. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I used my key and the disarmed security system chirped the way it always does. You must have been really wrapped up in something.”
“Ah.” Since she came and went at will, she needed the system code to deactivate. And he had been oblivious to the sound of the front door opening. Time to shift focus. “I was very comfortable giving you a key. You see? That’s how much I trust you. How can you expect the total stranger who replaces you to be entrusted with easy access to not only my home, but my company?”
Her purse strap slid down her arm and she readjusted it to her shoulder. “It’s about time you built a corporate office for O’Keefe Technology, Inc. with state-of-the-art security.”
She was right. He’d been talking about it for a while and had made up his mind to get the project started. The only reason he’d been dragging his feet was because that move would change everything—and he hated change.
“So, how is Maggie?”
“How did you know I saw your sister?”
Apparently helping himself to her computer made her suspicious about everything. “You told me you were leaving early to pick up a pizza to take over there.”
“Right. I forgot.” Wariness faded for a nanosecond before her eyes narrowed. “A slipup caused by the shock of finding you going through my computer.”
“Oh, that.” He glanced at it over his shoulder. “I was looking for your notes on the job applicants we saw today.”
“I’m efficient, but not quite that good. I haven’t input them yet. Why would you want anything that I might have jotted down?”
“Because I’m the boss.”
He shrugged, but that was more about hiding the shudder those words produced. That response was the equivalent of a mother’s final argument against a child who refused to take no for an answer. Plus her implied accusation was true and he needed something irrefutable to cancel out his devious behavior.
“You didn’t like any of the women you interviewed,” she pointed out.
“I might have been a tad harsh.”
“You don’t mean that.” Her tone challenged him to deny it.
She knew him too well. It was both a blessing and a curse. Time to change the subject yet again. “So, what are you doing back here tonight?”
“There’s some work I need to finish up and I forgot the file.”
“Don’t worry about that. It will keep until tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “That’s where you’re wrong. I need to wrap up everything I can in the next week.”
“And a half,” he added.
“What?”
“It’s a week and a half until your notice is up.”
“What a relief.” There was a touch of sarcasm in her tone. “And I thought there was nowhere near enough time to tie up a bazillion loose ends before my last day.”
“I have complete faith in your ability to do that.” Brady knew the file she wanted was on her desk behind him. But so was her email. So far he’d kept her from seeing it. “Go home and relax. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“Since when?”
“That’s a cheap shot.”
She sighed. “You’re right. It’s never been your management style to insist on overtime. This is my problem. I have a tendency to obsess about finishing up projects.”
“So, I’m giving you a dispensation. Take the night off and don’t think about the office.”
“Very generous of you,” she allowed.