Page 24 of The Money Man
He leaned forward. “You’ve done an amazing job, you know. Very few people would have bothered to even try to track down the shortfall. You’ve uncovered a significant crime.”
He was so close, close enough that his body stirred the air around her so it stroked over her skin.
She yanked her mind back into focus. He had expressed his admiration for herwork. “It’s hard to see it as significant when you look at the size of the numbers,” she said, shaking her head. “All but one of my clients said they didn’t care about the shortfall and to just let it go.”
“But we don’t know how often the software would skim once it got started. Or whether the amounts would increase.”
Alice straightened as his words ripped away the sensual haze fogging her brain. “I never considered that scenario. It could hurt my clients, even cripple some of them. Myron Barsky is a horrible human being.” When she thought of his limp handshake, she had a hard time imagining that he was a criminal mastermind, but maybe the man striding around the stage, touting the brilliance of his software to a rapt audience, might be capable of stealing.
“Not so insignificant, is it?”
She pulled in a deep breath and held it, trying to retain the hint of starch from his snowy-white shirt and the clean natural fragrance that was uniquely his own without the overlay of a cologne or soap.
He seemed to be searching her face for something. She wondered if he noticed her violet perfume. In a fit of nervous anticipation, she’d sprayed on more right before the limousine had picked her up.
“Alice ...” She could swear she felt his breath on her mouth as he spoke her name and stopped. She could see the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes and the texture of his skin stretching over his cheekbones. The urge to touch him made her dizzy with its intensity.
“I ... what?”
“You are extraordinary,” he said. For a moment, he held her gaze, as though he was waiting for something. Alice froze, torn between wanting to feel the texture of his lips and fearing the humiliation of his reaction if she offered hers.
Derek leaned back in his chair.
Frustration clawed at her. Why hadn’t she just leaned a little farther forward to bring their mouths within kissing distance? Or traced a finger along the line of his jaw? Then he could have made the choice as to whether to take it one step farther.
She was such a chicken.
She needed to respond to his compliment, to bring her crazed mind back to business. Because that was what he was talking about when he called her extraordinary, not about any other aspect of her. “Thank you, but I was just doing my job.”
He gave her a slow smile that pulled at something low in her belly. “Is that what I meant?”
Her breath hitched. It sounded like Derek Killion might have kissed her if she’d given him the right signal. No, she had to be wrong. It would be unprofessional for both of them. She was imagining things.
His smile faded as though it had never been. “You need to get home, and I need to work on foreign exchange. We’ll touch base in the morning.”
She gathered up her documents, shoving them into the leather tote without regard for order.
Derek stood, unfolding his tall, suit-clad body from the chair in a way that sizzled across her nerve endings. “I’ll walk you to the car.”
She shook her head. She needed to recover from the near kiss. So stupid because nothing had actually happened, yet she still felt shaken to her toes. When he started to object, she held up her hand. “I appreciate your gallantry, but I can get from here to the street without your help.”
However, he walked beside her to the elevator and waited until the door slid open before giving her a slight bow accompanied by what seemed like a self-mocking smile. “Good night, Alice.”
When the elevator door closed, she put on her best upper-crust British accent and said, “Good night, Mr. Beaumaris.”
Derek turned away and stopped, crossing his arms and staring sightlessly at the KRG logo behind the reception desk.
He’d almost kissed Alice in the conference room. She’d been so close, her violet scent floating in the air between them, the waves of her thick hair picking up glints of light, even though it was pulled into a knot on the back of her head. He’d nearly leaned in and buried his fingers in that twist of gleaming silk so he could angle her lips to meet his. He’d wanted to taste the sweetness and brilliance of her.
What was it about her that tempted him to break all the rules of professionalism he had adhered to for his entire career?
Was it Alice’s mind? He found intelligent women attractive. Courtney had been academically impressive.Magna cum laudeat Yale.Law Reviewat Harvard.
Of course, Alice wasn’t just smart. She was passionate. She took the BalanceTrakR issue as personally as he did. Using numbers for evil was an affront to her on an almost moral level.
Alice also cared about her customers in a personal way. She wanted their financial affairs to be in order because each one mattered to her. Courtney hadn’t given a damn about her clients; she’d viewed them as nothing more than a means to earning the prestige of being a partner.
Then there was Alice’s belief that Myron Barsky would be grateful to have the error in his software pointed out to him. Derek might once have thought that, back in the early days of KRG. Now he’d seen too much shady dealing to assume people wanted to fix things because it was the right thing to do. Alice reminded him that there were people in the business world who took the high road, not because they would get caught if they didn’t, but because they couldn’t imagine doing their job any other way.
