Chapter 15
PEPPER
“Miss Quinn, he’s with someone.”
“Look, Tessa. I think you are kick-ass, but either you let me through those doors voluntarily, or I’m going to drop tackle you to this floor.
” I jam my finger toward the plush beige carpet, and fix the older woman with my steeliest glare.
Do I feel bad for threatening a grandma?
Marginally. Will the tornado of anger twisting my insides allow me to stop myself?
No. Besides, Walker’s secretary might be in her sixties, but she’s tough as old boots from what I’ve seen.
“You wouldn’t.” She narrows lined eyes and plants her fists on her wide hips.
“Try me!” I hiss, stalking around her and flinging open the double doors to Chase’s office.
My stomach promptly falls out of my asshole.
A beautiful blonde woman is perched on the edge of his desk, her body angled toward him in a crisp white dress that hugs her slender curves.
The man himself leans back in his chair, also angled her way, a picture of masculine grace in a charcoal waistcoat and sharply pressed white shirt.
He smiles at the woman with an easy, genuine warmth that makes me squirm.
Their attention travels to me at the same time, and suddenly I have absolutely nothing to say. The scathing speech I rehearsed in the cab over here is nowhere to be seen, and as a result, I just stand here, anger making me shake like a shitting Chihuahua.
The blonde woman raises her honey eyebrows and then turns back to Chase. “I’ll…ah, leave you to it?”
“I’ll call you later, Evelyn,” he rumbles in a low voice, his burnt umber gaze trained on me.
The woman swiftly stands, smooths the front of her dress, and walks toward the door.
I cast my eyes sideways as she passes, clocking the red-bottomed court heels and waft of expensive fragrance.
Suddenly, I feel entirely inadequate in my flower-stitched blue jeans and sneakers.
I don’t know why, but I never thought about the fact he might be involved with someone in any serious way.
Not that it matters, and it’s none of my business… but still.
The door closes behind me and he smooths the neat Windsor knot crowning his navy tie. “Thank you for coming.”
The sentiment makes me explode. I’m talking full force pipe bomb, shrapnel in every which direction.
“Thank you? Thank you?!” I march over to his desk and place my hands square onto the top, leaning over to get as in his face as possible given the large walnut desktop between us.
That dark slash of an eyebrow raises, and a corner of his mouth twitches.
It only adds fuel to my fire. “You hardly gave me a choice! You’re so arrogant!
So fucking pigheaded to think you can stroll into my life and—”
“Just how long do you need for this little rant?” He swirls his finger in a circle at me. “Because I have a call to make at nine o’clock and it’s rather important.”
I hurtle off a cliff edge and freefall into seething fury, my volume dialing all the way to ten. “Do you think I give a flying turd about your fucking phone call?”
“You should, because it’s about the image on the ID we found,” he drawls easily, entirely unruffled by my devolvement.
I pause, blinking—caught off guard. “Really? What for?”
“Oh, so now you give a…what did you say? Flying turd?” He crooks his lips into that slanting smirk that I hate and also don’t hate at the same time, and it’s enough to send me back into a flurry.
“God, I cannot stand you!”
“Oh, cut the dramatics, Peppercorn. You’re acting like I fed cyanide pills to your cat.” He picks up a stack of papers from the center of his desk and places them to one side, followed by a stapler. “All I did was give you a few weeks off work. Paid leave, I might add.”
My idiot manager had seemed rather disgruntled to deliver the news an hour ago when I arrived at my desk. Chase rises from his seat and plucks the tailored suit jacket from the back of it, sliding it onto his large frame.
“I don’t want time off from work,” I spit out through clenched teeth. Not under these circumstances, anyway. Give me a pina colada and a beach, and then we’ll talk.
“Well, tough luck. Because a missing shipment of mine turned up in Beirut last night and I need your full attention on this.” He buttons the suit jacket neatly. “Come with me.”
And with that, he turns and heads for a discreet door in the corner of the room.
I fall silent for a second as I watch his progress, seething silently and throwing daggers into his back.
I turn my attention back down to the desk, and without thinking twice, snatch up the stapler and chuck it into my bag.
It’s the best “fuck you” I can muster right now.
“And I don’t like cats, by the way,” I gripe as I catch up with him, watching as he pulls open a discreet door to reveal a small private elevator.
“Really?” He looks at me with genuine surprise, motioning for me to enter the elevator first. “You strike me as a cat lady.”
“You strike me as a rude piece of shit, but here we are.” I glower and enter the cramped space, which is presumably only built for one person.
He makes a sharp noise that sounds like it could have been a snort of laughter, before it’s covered up with some macho throat clearing.
I hitch my bag up further onto my shoulder.
“And yet, here we are,” he agrees graciously—unbothered in a way that I’m swiftly learning is just him.
He pushes past me and steps into the elevator, one half of his chest grazing the back of my shoulder.
“But don’t pretend there isn’t a part of you that likes what you see, Peppercorn.
” The low honey rumble a whisper away from my ear makes me jump, springing forward as far as possible.
My cheeks burn, every baby hair north of my belly button standing on edge, the ghost of his breath against my ear tingling.
Reluctantly, I get into the elevator and fix him with a death glare.
“You see this here?” I draw a circle around myself, gesturing to the small space that now lives between us.
“This is my bubble—you do not enter my bubble.”
“I hate to break it to you, but we’re in a joint bubble situation right now.” He looks pointedly around the cramped space as we whiz upward.
The doors hiss open, and I’m pressed so far back into them that I begin to topple, a swooping sensation in my stomach. A large, warm hand closes around my wrist, anchoring me upright.
“I knew you’d fall for me eventually.” He winks, mischief carved into every line of his face.
I whip my hand back in a flash, severing the unwelcome connection. “I’d sooner fall for a chimpanzee in a gimp suit.” A faint crease appears between his eyes, but I don’t hang around to see it blossom into full-on incredulity, spinning on the spot.
Instead of the beige carpeted hallway I expect to follow the theme from the executive floor plan below, a dark open-plan room filled with sleek machinery and equipment stretches out.
They glow from soft lighting placed within their sharp contours, not enough to penetrate the tinted glass curtain wall windows on each side that protect the room from daylight.
A second later, the rest of the lights follow, bathing the space in soft gold.
I see the Manhattan bar chart of skyscrapers wrapping around us as though through a photochromic lens, but what steals my attention wholly is the solid wall of screens ahead.
“Good morning, Mr. Walker.” A faceless female voice that sounds oddly familiar greets us as Chase steps in line with me. “Lab temperature is sixty-eight degrees, oxygen percentile is eighty, and all systems remain secure.”
“Thank you, Jen,” he responds casually, flicking open the top button on his shirt and loosening his tie a smidge as he strides over to the largest screen that dominates the middle.
An image I recognize glows on screen, a three-hundred-and-sixty -degree model of the earth, with a network of satellites covering the space around it.
Each satellite blinks with its ID tag and status.
Several screens surrounding it display more communication system stats than I could ever have dreamed of being privy to.
“Any change from the weather buoys in Japan?” Walker addresses the room at large, tapping the surface of an inconspicuous looking white desk—one of the many around the room—causing it to light up with a holographic projection system floating in the air above it.
My mouth drops open, and the little computer nerd who lives inside me beats against my ribs and desperately tries to escape. If only to play on this fucking playground of advanced tech.
“All monitored buoy networks in Asia Pacific are reporting within normal operational parameters,” the invisible voice reports warmly, and then goes on to mention things like wave activity and seismic disturbances, but I’m too gob smacked to follow along—walking quickly to his side where he swipes the air to skip to the next holographic set of data.
I thought the manufacturing plant was cool.
But this? This is…my battle to contain my delight is lost.
“What is all of this?” I lift a hand and slowly press it through the holograph, noting that it doesn’t do anything but project numbers onto parts of my hand, instead.
“This?” Chase looks across his shoulder at me. “This is all Jen, in one form or another.” He casts a wide hand around the room. “She’s my assistant system.”
“Jen? Is that an acronym?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head, swiping a hand down so that the holographic projection entirely disappears back into the table. “It’s her name.”
“Wait,” I say slowly, something finally clicking. That voice. So familiar. It’s almost like…I grew up listening to it. “Is that—”