Page 21 of Tempt

Chapter 8

“As you can see, we’re keeping these three doors.” I pointed to the doors in question on the plans, then turned the photographs toward Theo. “I found a fantastic carpenter who will lightly refurbish them.”

Theo arched an eyebrow but didn’t look up from the photographs. In fact, he hadn’t made direct eye contact with me once during the entire long, drawn out, hour-long meeting.

It probably had something to do with Margaret sitting four feet away watching us. But jeez,nothing? At the rate he was going, she would figure out we were sleeping together based solely on how hard Theo was working tonotlook at me.

“How lightly?” His delicious voice washed over me and I tried really hard not to sigh out loud.

“He’s going to sand them down, just a little, so that they fit the doorframes better. We will then retrofit the doors and doorway with a new door sweep and insulation that will keep the energy efficiency up.”

Theo nodded and pushed the photographs away. “Talk to me about the floors.”

This time I did sigh, but it was with frustration, not arousal. I’d been on my feet almost the entire meeting. I was thirsty and tired of feeling like I was one wrong word away from outing us. Thankfully Margaret was more bored than I was. She’d picked up her phone five minutes earlier and hadn’t looked back.

So I gathered up all the paperwork on the doors and woodworking, shuffled it into a folder, and pulled out the next one. That was when I realized Theo was watching me very carefully.

His eyes were fixated on my ass as I turned back. I gave him a look and the bastard grinned. He was quite proud of his secret ogling. I cleared my throat loudly as I spread the pages out in front of him.

Of course that did nothing to discourage him. He glanced at Margret a split second before he took a nice long look down my dress. I couldn’t imagine he saw much—I was wearing a work appropriate dress and heels. The neckline was well below my collarbone, yet still modestly above my breasts.

But it didn’t seem to matter to Theo. He was having fun anyway.

I rolled my eyes. “As you can see, we found gorgeous travertine floors underneath the linoleum and plywood someone had installed in the early nineties. They only need to be fully cleared, cleaned, and polished. But there’s a catch.”

“There’s always a catch, Miss Riley.” And now he was using double entendre to secretly flirt in our meeting… I didn’t know if I was painfully turned on or annoyed. Probably both.

“The travertine is original to the building and beautiful, but it won’t be very energy efficient. We have two options. We can either replace it with wood flooring or, like the doors, have your team work on a retrofit that will preserve the floors, but up the efficiency.”

“I’ll have Sarah Smith from research and development contact you. She’s working on something that might do the trick.” His eyes flicked up to mine with a dark, lustful look meant only for me. “I want a report in a week. If we don’t have a solution by then, we’ll move ahead with replacement. I don’t want flooring to delay construction.”

“Sounds good. Is there anything else you’d like to cover?” That was a dumb choice of words. There was an entire list of things Theo would like to cover. Most of it involved which ways I’d like to be pleasured tonight, and a detailed description of how he would remove my clothes. I inwardly groaned.

Theo’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “No, I think the coverage is good. In fact, I think there’s too much.” He let that hang in the air for a moment before finishing his thought. I tried not to choke. “I’m terribly sorry this meeting went on so long. Margaret?”

She looked up, stunned. “I’m sorry, did I miss something? I’m dealing with a client over email.”

I didn’t dare look at Theo when I answered. “We’re done. Unless you have anything else to add.” I silently cheered. I finally said something that Theo couldn’t twist into innuendo.

And yet Istillsaw the corner of his lip pull up. Bollocks.

Well, at least I was continuing my winning streak of making him smile. That actually felt quite nice.

“No. Theo, can you join me for a moment? It’s Stewart over at Sutherland Industries…”

Theo pushed back from the table. “Of course. I’m happy to help.”

Margaret gave me a half wave as she led Theo out of the room. I collapsed into the nearest chair. Holy cow I survived. A week of fabulous intense sex with my secret lover was still a secret. My job was still in tact. And so was his smile.

Things were good.

I grabbed my phone to check my messages and found a text from Theo sent five minutes earlier. He’d sent me a message while we were still talking. My heart skipped a dirty little beat as I read the text.Meet me on the 68thfloor in twenty minutes.

I deleted the text message and groaned.Yep, we were doing this. One boundary line after another. Like dominoes in an intricate pattern. Boom, boom, boom.

* * *

The elevator dingedand the doors slid open. The 68thfloor was a ghost town.

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