Because while Chelsea’s hair was dark and shiny, it was as short as a little boy’s. A pixie cut, he thought it was called. And that word described Chelsea Duvall perfectly.
With her smooth café-au-lait skin, her copper-colored eyes that frequently glinted with mischief, and the sprinkling of freckles like cinnamon across the bridge of her button nose, she was an ethereal creature. One he wanted to put in a gilded cage so he could keep her safe from the cruel world. And, more importantly, from the likes of Roper fuckin’ Morrison.
“It’s not misogyny. It’s a cold, hard fact. You’re not qualified for this kind of work.”
“Oh sweet Jesus!” She tossed her hands in the air. She was unaware that the movement caused her blazer to gape open, revealing a set of spectacular breasts that stretched tight the fabric of her lavender blouse. “It’s déjà poo. As in, I’ve heard this crap too many times before.”
“Frequency doesn’t make it any less true.” He ripped his eyes away from the vast landscape of her chest because…you know…he refused to be that guy.
Even so, it didn’t escape his notice that her amazing rack was partly to blame for the position Chelsea currently found herself in…the position of pretending to be Morrison’s personal assistant when, in truth, she was waiting for an opportunity to plant a virus in one of Morrison’s computers. Once she did that, the Black Knights back at headquarters in Chicago would hack into Morrison’s systems and get the information they needed to prove, once and for all, that he was the notorious Spider.
For months, they had tried to ferret out Spider’s true identity with no luck. Then, with the release of the Panama Papers, the detailed attorney-client information for more than 250,000 offshore companies and the identities of those companies’ shareholders and financial transactions, they had found the proverbial needle in the haystack. The papers had uncovered a tie between Morrison and a diamond mine in Angola. Which wasn’t all that unseemly on the surface, right? A man of Morrison’s means—estimated net worth fourteen billion dollars—who owned a media empire of a hundred newspapers and dozens of television stations in both the United States and the UK, had investments all over the world, Africa included. But it just so happened that the Black Knights and the CIA had reason to believe that that particular diamond mine was owned by the shadowy Spider.
It had been a clear case of a transitive relationship as far as everyone involved had been concerned. If A equaled B, and B equaled C, then A equaled C. Morrison was Spider. The trouble came in trying to prove it. They hadn’t been able to hack into Morrison’s systems from the outside because, according to BKI’s hacker extraordinaire, the renowned Ethan “Ozzie” Sykes, “Morrison’s firewalls have firewalls.” So that had left them with only one option. Get someone on the inside.
Enter Chelsea Duvall.
She had volunteered for the job with one unforgettable sentence: I’ll get so close to Morrison, he won’t be able to take a piss without me giving it a shake.
Dagan had exploded. He’d told her and everyone else at the early-morning meeting, “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell Chelsea will be the one to do this. She’s an analyst, not a fuckin’ field agent!”
But he’d been outvoted.
Apparently Chelsea was the perfect pawn to use in the chess match with Morrison because the man was known to hire and surround himself with women who possessed certain…physical attributes. Read: Ladies built like brick shithouses. And Chelsea’s backstory about wanting to quit her job with the Bureau of Land Management—that was her CIA cover—move to England, and go to work for Morrison was exceptional for two reasons. One, it was believable. And two, it happened to be one hundred percent true.
Less than two weeks after that fateful meeting at BKI headquarters, it became known that Morrison had fired his PA. Twenty-four hours later, Chelsea’s resume had been in Morrison’s hands. Forty-eight hours after that—time no doubt used by Morrison’s security team to vet Chelsea top to bottom—she had been on a plane to London to sit for an interview.
Just as had been predicted, Morrison had taken one look at Chelsea—and her…uh…myriad delightful features—and hired her on the spot. That was the good news.
The bad news? Well, on top of being an evil and lecherous old fart, Morrison was incredibly paranoid. In the four and a half weeks Chelsea had worked for him, not once had she been allowed to enter either his home office or the office he kept in downtown London to use the thumb drive she meticulously sewed into the lining of her jacket or slacks or whatever other item of clothing she happened to wear to work that day.
Morrison not only locked the doors to his inner sanctums, but gaining access to the rooms required a retinal scan and voice recognition. Getting around the voice recognition part wasn’t too hard. Chelsea had already made a secret recording of Morrison saying the pass phrase. But the retinal scan? Short of offing the asshole and plucking out one of his eyeballs, they were at a loss. Something has to give.
Dagan was convinced that something should be Chelsea’s job with the handsy bastard. They could prove that Morrison was Spider some other way. One that didn’t involve her subjecting herself to Morrison’s unsubtle leers, roving hands, and blatant sexual innuendos.
“I’m just saying”—he eyed her mulish expression—“if you were going to get the chance to plant the virus, it would’ve happened by now.”
“Says who?” She thrust out her chin. It was small and pointy, and he had the oddest urge to bend down and kiss it.
“Says me.”
She rolled her eyes and adjusted her glasses. “And you’re the ultimate authority…uh…why?”
“Let me see. Maybe it’s the hundreds of successful missions I’ve—”
“Lord have mercy,” she interrupted, slipping into the unhurried drawl that revealed her Southern roots. “You realize if I wanted to commit suicide, all I’d have to do is climb your ego and jump down to that place where you keep your humility.”
Before he could think of a good comeback, she continued. “And, sure, okay, let’s stand here and go through all the reasons I’m not qualified for this kind of work. Again. No, really. I love beating a dead dog. You go first. And then when your arm gets tired, I’ll jump in. Ready? Go.”
“Bloody hell!” Christian, a former SAS officer who, for reasons known only to a few, had left Her Majesty’s Army to go to work for Black Knights Inc., called from the kitchen. “Would you two stop trading verbal punches? It’s too early in the morning. I’ve yet to finish my first cup of tea, and all that blathering is giving me a sodding headache!”