Page 38 of Close to the Edge

In my den I made a stab at work for a solid hour before giving up and giving in to a burst of resentment. I swiveled in the seat and stared out the window.

Caleb probably thought he was only doing his job, but his interrogation had peeled back a thin layer of memories I wanted to keep buried.

Boston. My mother.

Frustration threatened to build as I paced from window to wall and back again. My restlessness eventually drove me to the cinema room and I halfheartedly settled for a new rom-com I wasn’t really in the mood for.

I startled awake to a blank screen and a sore neck. When my disorientation cleared, I noticed a blanket that had been draped over me and there were cushions I’d dislodged in my sleep, which weren’t there before.

My heart lurched as that warmth encroached again, teasing me with its comfort. I pushed it away, got up and stumbled upstairs to bed.

Caleb Steele, like everyone in my life, was a transient,paidpresence.

Nothing else.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, minus the mind-melting making-out sessions, the probing questions into my sex life and the sexually loaded banter.

That set the course for the next three days.

On Thursday we returned to the Japanese restaurant and picked our way through an uncomfortable meal.

As he wove through light traffic on the way back to SDM, I glanced at him, that little morsel he’d let drop on Saturday returning like a nagging toothache.

Who was the client who’d triggered his rule? Was he or, as I suspected,she,still in his life?

At a stoplight he speared me with dark blue eyes. “Something on your mind?” His tone was cool. That plus the absence of his mocking eyebrow lift rattled me more than I cared for. It was like he had become a different person after the episode in the parking lot.

I reminded myself that I’d only known him for a handful of days.

That first night and day had been...out of the norm. Intense. We were both fighting for control. We’d reached an understanding and now he was focused on what he came here to do.

This was the real Caleb Steele. End of story.

So this unsettled sensation that had carved a small hollow in my stomach was misplaced. Right?

I looked away from his piercing eyes. “Nope. Nothing at all.”

He drove on, dismissing me as coolly as he’d done for the past few days.

Unfortunately, the sensation knotted inside me wasn’t as easy to dismiss. Admitting I wanted the dirty-tongued, brooding-eyed Caleb back was...hard.

I glanced out the window, frowning at my reflection when I caught myself biting my lip. I had more important things to dwell on than which version of my fixer I preferred. Besides, what the hell could I do? Crawl into his lap, drag my fingers through his hair and kiss him the way I’d wanted to do on Saturday before sanity returned?

The dragging sensation in my belly gave me the answer.

I avoided his gaze for the remainder of the journey.

The fretful but excited buzz in the air when we reached my floor was a great excuse not to hunt for an answer right then.

“What’s going on?” Caleb asked as we entered my office.

“We’re presenting a midseason upgrade on two SDM products to the board tomorrow. The day before is always a little frantic.”

His gaze narrowed slightly as he watched me. “That doesn’t include what you’re working on, does it?”

“No. That’s still confidential. But I’ll be giving a presentation of my own to three of the board members tomorrow, too.”

“Which members?”

---