Claire’s Tuesday-morning commute was as uneventful as her Will-free Monday afternoon had been. For the first time, she’d arrived on time with no Claire-isms at all. Not even her usual tripping over her own feet as she descended the stairs to the subway. And she hoped, as she slipped behind her desk with time to spare, it wasn’t the sign that a real doozy of a Claire-ism was on the way.
She glanced through her open door at the mahogany entrance to the office across the lobby. The older secretary, Mildred something-or-other, knocked, then entered carrying a large blue coffee mug. It was Michael Anderson’s office, but it was also Will’s home base yesterday morning before he disappeared. Her heart beat a little harder at the thought that he might be in the building. Maybe she should close her door and try to push him out of her mind. Yes. That was a sound plan. Stop spying on the office across the hall and put an end to the mental shenanigans centered on Will Anderson. God knew she’d had plenty of that in her sleep last night. Every dream featured him, and man, what a show her subconscious had put on. Her entire body heated just remembering it.
“Stop thinking about him,” she scolded herself as she crossed her small office to close the door right as those across the lobby opened, revealing a rumpled and more-than-sexy Will Anderson holding the blue coffee mug. God, he looked like he’d stepped right out of last night’s dreams and into the lobby.
Like a deer in the headlights, she froze. So did he. And for a long, odd moment, they simply stared at each other. If attraction could be made tangible, the entire lobby would have crackled with lightning bolts. And then, it would have ended with a sonic blast because he gave her the biggest, sexiest dimpled grin imaginable. A jolt of lust shot straight from her navel to every part of her body, even her freaking toes.
“Ka-boom,” she whispered as she closed the door. So much for a Claire-ism free morning.
…
What the hell was that? Will wondered, heart like a jackhammer pounding in his chest. He stared at Claire’s closed office door and shook his head to clear it. It had been like a scene from one of those silly animated movies where the animals sing and the world melts away while the loving couple make goo-goo eyes. Thank God Michael was out of town and Chance hadn’t made it in yet. If they’d seen it, he’d never live it down. He took a swallow of coffee and shook his head again. His mission was to uncover a spy, and here he was lusting over the number one suspect. Not good.
After another cup of coffee and a shower and shave in Michael’s executive bathroom, Will put on some fresh clothes he’d picked up from home yesterday afternoon and went to the small Anderson security office on the floor below to study the video footage from the past three weeks. It irritated him that the first thing he had done when exiting Michael’s office was check out Claire’s office to see if he could get a glimpse of her. It irritated him even more that he was disappointed her door was still closed.
After several hours poring over security video, Will found nothing out of the ordinary. He looked at his watch. Based on the video footage, Claire Maddox left her office about this time for her lunch break. He stared at the monitor that caught most of the lobby, including her office door. After several minutes, she exited her office, pausing for a moment and staring toward Michael’s office door, then turned right, away from the lobby.
Even seeing her in black and white on a small monitor caused his body to react. This would trouble him in an ordinary situation, but it was maddening since she was a focus of his investigation. Will had learned to trust his gut in the military, and everything in him rebelled against the notion she was the spy. He had to trust that feeling, and he did. He was convinced Claire was innocent. Sure, she had some missing pieces in her personnel file, but so could just about anyone in a temp position, especially being the agency owner’s friend. She’d likely never held down a long-term job since graduating from college.
She disappeared from view on his screen, then appeared in the next as she made her way down the hallway to the lunchroom. But instead of walking to the end of the hall, she looked around as if making sure nobody was watching, then slipped inside the file room, shutting the door behind her.
Will held his breath and studied the screen feeding from the file room. The camera was trained on the back of the space where the important, locked files and the vault doors were located. Claire was not in the camera’s line of vision. What the hell was a temp doing in the file room? None of her job duties would involve business in that area.
His stomach twisted for a moment as he watched the screen. Still, nothing. It was like she had disappeared. He bolted from the office to the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. Surely his instincts weren’t that far off. Claire had seemed so straightforward and real. But then, so had Beth… He marched ahead and yanked open the door to the file room.
Her startled hazel eyes met his, and she gasped. Instead of catching her riffling though files, he found her eating yogurt and a sandwich at the table right inside the door.