He was taller than she’d thought. And bigger. Bigger everywhere, she realized. Leaning back against the car, she stared up at him, her breath catching in her throat as she realized that this was not a man to mess around with. And if her instincts were correct, she’d just messed with his employer.
“Why the rush?” his deep voice asked as he took his hand off her car, knowing she wouldn’t be going anywhere now. To give her a false sense of security, he stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest and giving her a bit of space.
Claire took a deep breath, praying her racing pulse wouldn’t give her away. Trying to appear calm, she put a hand to her throat and smiled as brightly as possible. “Goodness, you scared me.”
“I meant to scare you. I suspect that we have a bit of business to discuss.” He let that comment sink in a bit, watching the slight twitch of her eye that indicated the fear that was seeping through her aura of confidence. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Claire bluffed it out. She didn’t know this man and he didn’t know her. He couldn’t possibly know what she’d been doing. “I have to get back to work, but I’m not sure what business it is of yours.”
The man glanced over to the parking meter and shook his head. “You just got here. Only a bit over ten minutes has lapsed on your meter.”
Claire glanced in that direction, frantically trying to come up with an excuse as to why there was still fifty minutes on her parking meter. “That’s the remainder of the second hour. I’ve already been here too long.”
“Why did you put so many coins in if you knew you had to race back to work?”
Claire cursed him for being so logical. The truth was, she’d filled up the meter just to avoid any kind of suspicion if she’d loaded the meter up with less than an hour. There weren’t too many reasons in this small area that would require only ten minutes of one’s time. Ironic that the extra time was now making her look suspicious anyway. “Just to be safe,” she thought lamely.
He moved slightly, and that shift put his hand in contact with the hood of her car. “You’re engine is still warm. Admit it, you just arrived and now you’re leaving as quickly as possible. Why is that?”
Claire wasn’t sure what to say, but remembered the phrase, “The best defense is a good offense”. “Why are you stopping me? I really need to get back to work,” she said and turned to get into her car. She intended to simply drive off and leave him in the dust, but that plan didn’t really work.
“I think you’re just trying to get away from me,” he said softly behind her.
She spun around, then realized that was a mistake because he was so close. He smelled absolutely wonderful, she thought, then looked up into his grey eyes, her breathing fast for a completely different reason. Gone was her fear that he would know she’d been doing some illegal hacking. Replaced by the fear of him as a man, of someone who might know something about her that she didn’t want revealed, something she wasn’t prepared to handle and wanted to hide from for a bit longer. “Why would I want to do that?” she asked desperately, trying to focus but with him being this close, the heat and spicy, male scent of him made her brain fizzle out.
“Good, then you’ll come have lunch with me.”
He stepped back and Claire took a deep breath. “Excuse me?”
“Lunch. There’s a great sandwich restaurant right behind this building. You’ll love it,” he said and put a hand to the small of her back to lead her away from her car.
Claire looked back at her car, then up into the man’s ice grey eyes. “I really,…”
Mitch stopped and looked down into those soft, scared eyes and something stopped him from doing what he knew he should do. He couldn’t call the police, despite the fact that he was almost sure this was the woman who had been hacking into his systems.
Instead of turning her in, he needed to…he wasn’t exactly sure. But one thing was certain, she wasn’t leaving him right at the moment. “No you don’t. I would guess that you’ve already worked several hours of overtime and could easily spare the extra time to have lunch with me. My name’s Mitch, by the way,” he said as they walked up the sidewalk, the brick wall of the building to her left, the brick wall of his body to her right.
Claire considered her options. This man was dangerous on so many levels but the most urgent right now was the fact that she really needed to bluff her way out of this hacking situation. Put his mind at ease somehow, make him think he’s trapping her for no apparent reason. The only other alternative was to run, which probably wasn’t a good idea. She considered that option for maybe three seconds before discarding the possibility, assuming she’d fail as soon as she tried it. She could go forward or backwards, but this man seemed intent to catch her no matter which way she went.
“Fine. A sandwich would be okay.”
He smiled down into her angry face as they turned the corner which took them to the front of the building. He opened the door and held it open for her and she gritted her teeth as she was forced to walk under his arm, reinforcing that he was so much taller than she was since she didn’t even need to duck. Her height had never bothered her before so it must be something about this man that irked her.
They sat down at a small table by the front window and he politely handed her a menu. A waitress arrived to take their drink order and after that, Claire concentrated on reading every lunch item description available.
Mitch waited patiently while the woman sitting across from him avoided eye contact, a sure sign that she was guilty of something even if he hadn’t suspected her before now. She certainly was a gorgeous little thing, he thought. Too bad she was a criminal, otherwise, he’d go after her socially. This was completely a professional issue though so he needed to keep his mind on the target.
As she bent intently over the menu, he could see down her white linen shirt and he definitely liked what he saw. He knew she had no idea she was giving him such an enticing view though. She didn’t like him one bit, he suspected, and that only increased his confusion over his reaction to her. He almost laughed because she was such a little firebrand. If she could, he knew she’d be spitting fire across the table at him right now, turning him to smoldering cinders. Well, he was smoldering all right. Just not the way she wished.