Much More Than a Mistress (5 page)

Jen had left for the night, and there was a different guard posted by the elevator. He was older than Michael but no less intimidating.

“Jane, this is George Henderson, the night guard. George, this is Miss Monroe. She'll be temping for me until Tiffany comes back from her maternity leave.”

“Ma'am,” George said, nodding stiffly, and he didn't even crack a smile.

Jordan hit the button for the elevator and it opened almost immediately. She stepped in first, leaning against the back wall to take some of the pressure off her feet because, surprise, they had already begun to throb again. Jordan settled beside her, his arm grazing the sleeve of her jacket. Did he have to stand so close?

As the doors slid closed she experienced the oddest sensation of anticipation, as if any second he was going to do something drastic, like…oh, yank her into his arms
and kiss her senseless. And wow, wouldn't that be awful, because she was sure he was probably a terrible kisser.

She gave her head an exasperated shake. How he kissed was of no consequence to her, because she wouldn't be kissing him.

“Everything all right?” Jordan asked, and she realized he was watching her with a curious look.

She smiled. “Yes, fine.”

“Something on your mind?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“How are your feet?”

“Starting to hurt again.”

“You might want to rethink the shoes tomorrow. Besides, I like you better when you're shorter.”

She must have looked confused because he added with a grin, “I'm intimidated by tall women.”

Somehow she doubted that. He struck her as the kind of man who wasn't intimidated by
anyone.

“So, do you live close by?” he asked.

“Not too far. About fifteen minutes.”

“Well, be careful driving. Even if the rain stopped it's cold, so it might be slick out there.”

“I will.”

The doors opened to the main lobby. She figured that would be it. He would say goodbye and ride back up, but he stepped out with her. He walked her all the way through the lobby, past the coffee shop, which was now closed, and past the guard station to the front door.

“Well, thanks for walking me down,” she said, as he reached past her to open the door.

“I've come this far,” he said with a shrug. “I may as well walk you to your car.”

H
e wanted to walk her all the way to her
car?
“But it's freezing out there and you don't have a coat,” Jane said.

Jordan shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “I could use the fresh air.”

Okay, this was getting a little weird. It was unlikely that he was worried about her safety, since the employee lot was monitored by security cameras. And even if that were the case, wouldn't he send a guard out with her instead? At Edwin Associates no one had ever bothered to open a door for her, much less escort her to her car. Was it possible that he suspected something, and he was going to spring it on her once they were out of the building? What if he knew she wasn't who she said she was?

Her pulse jumping, she stepped outside and he followed her into the chilly night. The wind had died down, but it felt as if the temperature had dropped. “I'm parked in the back.”

“Lead the way,” he said.

He walked beside her, and the farther from the building they went, the more nervous she began to feel. It must have shown, because after a minute he looked over at her and asked, “Is there a reason you're so edgy?”

“Is there a reason I should be?”

He grinned. “Because I'm walking you to your car?”

“Do you always walk your secretary out?”

“Would you be surprised if I said yes?”

“Would you be surprised if I were surprised?”

He laughed. “Do you always answer a question with a question?”

Only when she was nervous, and worried she would say the wrong thing. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you doing the same thing?”

“Touché. Maybe I think you're a really great secretary, and I'm worried you might slip in those behemoth heels and break a limb, in which case I would have to break in someone new.”

“So what you're saying is, your motivation is purely selfish.”

“Pretty much. My motto is, if there's nothing in it for me, what's the point?”

She couldn't tell if he was joking or serious.

As they approached her car she used her key fob to unlock it.

“Wow,” he said, as they got closer and he saw the make. “That was not what I pictured you driving.”

Her either. “It was a graduation present.”

“College?”

“Yeah.” Although actually it was law school. Her parents got a new car for each one of their kids when they passed the bar exam. Her oldest brother Richard got a fully restored muscle car, and for Will—the status
monger—they bought a BMW. For her trendy sister, Mary, they purchased a cute and zippy red Miata, and for Jane, the “practical” child, they picked out a conservative, boxy white Volvo sedan.

Yeah, Mom and Dad.

He looked confused. “Did you actually request this? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a really nice car…for a forty-something mother of two. I imagined you in something a little less…”

“Yeah.” Her too. “It's not exactly my style, but it was a gift, so I'm sort of stuck with it.” At least until she could afford something new. She'd taken a pretty hefty pay cut when she left her parents' firm and since then her savings had been slowly dwindling away.

She opened the driver's-side door and stood behind it, using it as barrier between them, not that she was afraid he was going to try something. Or maybe she was a little. Truthfully, she didn't know
what
to think. He was being so friendly and…flirty. She was definitely not the sort of woman whom people flirted with. And even if someone had, it probably would have had her retreating back into her shell.

He didn't need to know that.

She tossed her purse onto the passenger seat and clutched the top of the door to take some of the weight off her feet. “Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow.”

“You never did answer my question,” he said.

“Which one?”

“Why are you so edgy?”

Oh,
that
one. She sort of hoped he'd forgotten about that. “Who says I am?”

He grinned and her knees went squishy again. Even with the door between them he was too close. He had a
way of invading her space, even if he was standing five feet away.

“You're very good at that,” he said.

“What?”

“Not answering questions.”

As a lawyer, she'd had a lot of practice.

“And I know you are,” he said.

“I am what?”

“Edgy.” He leaned in a little closer, and—
Oh my God
—rested his hands on the top of the door beside hers, boxing them in, so that his thumbs were resting on her pinkies. She had to fight not to jerk away, and her heart started hammering about a million miles a second. She was alone, in the dark, in a deserted parking lot with a man she barely knew, her heart racing with a combination of fear and anticipation. And she
liked
it. What happened to practical, play-it-safe Plain Jane?

“You don't have to be afraid of me,” he said, his face so close she could count the individual hairs on his chin. “I'm harmless.”

Oh, she seriously doubted that.

“I'm not afraid,” she said. More like
petrified.

“Then why are you hiding behind your car door?”

Couldn't put anything past him, could she?

“Maybe I just don't like you,” she said, hoping he didn't hear the quiver in her voice, or feel her hands trembling.

He shook his head. “Nah, that can't be it. I mean, look at me. I'm handsome, and rich.”

“And modest.”

He grinned. “Exactly. What's not to like?”

She had the feeling he wasn't nearly as arrogant and shallow as he wanted her to believe, that maybe it was some sort of…defense mechanism. And boy did she know about those. She had practically invented the concept. Keep
a safe distance, don't let anyone too close, and no one could hurt her.

“Admit it,” he said. “You like me.”

She wasn't supposed to like him. Not like this. Not at
all.
But he was right, she did. And it seemed as though, the harder she pushed him away, the harder he pushed back.

“You're my boss,” she said, but it came out all soft and breathy.

His eyes locked on hers. His pupils were dilated so wide his irises had all but disappeared. “Not after we walked out of the building.”

She tried to look away but she was riveted. Then his thumbs brushed across the tops of her fingers, sending a ripple of sensation up her hands and into her arms. If the car door wasn't there between them she would…well, she wasn't sure what she would do. But she would definitely do something.

“I—I really need to get home,” she said.

“You don't want to go home.”

He was right. She didn't want to leave. She could stand there all night just looking into his eyes. Listening to the deep hum of his voice. Feeling the brush of his thumbs over her fingers. Back and forth. And then he was closer, and she realized he was leaning in. Oh my God, he was going to kiss her. He was actually going to kiss her, right there, in the parking lot. And she
wanted
him to. In that instant she didn't care about the investigation or her career.

She should have pushed him away, or run like hell, but instead she felt herself leaning in, her chin lifting, her eyes drifting closed. His face was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her lips and she held her own breath in anticipation…then she felt his breath shifting the hair over her ear and he whispered, “Yeah, you like me.”

She felt him let go of the car door and by the time she
dragged her eyes open he was already walking away. She stood there, stunned and confused, wondering what the hell had just happened.

 

Whoa.

Jordan walked briskly back to the building, his pulse jumping, sweating despite the cold, wondering what the hell had just happened.

He hadn't meant to do more than tease Jane a little, yet he had come within a millimeter of pressing his lips to hers. He couldn't remember a time when the idea of doing nothing more that kissing a woman had gotten him so hot and bothered.

He shook his head and laughed in spite of himself. He was supposed to be toying with Jane, and here he was in even worse shape than her.

One thing was clear, though. The coy routine was no act. He could feel her unease as they rode the elevator down to the lobby, and when they got to the car. When he touched her hands, she was actually trembling. For the life of him he couldn't understand why a woman as beautiful and sexy as her could be nervous around anyone. She was a total contradiction. Confident and capable one minute, shy and awkward the next. If he didn't know any better he might have thought that he had two different women working for him. Or that this was some sort of twisted practical joke.

As he reached the building he heard Jane's car start, then pull out of the lot, but he resisted the urge to turn around and watch her drive away. Instead he pushed his way through the door and back into the lobby, asking the guard on duty, “Hey, Joe, you got a pen?”

“Sure thing, Mr. Everette.” He grabbed a pen from his
station and handed it to him. “I take it it's going to be another late one.”

“You know it.” He jotted Jane's license plate number on the palm of his hand and handed the pen back. “Thanks.”

He rode the elevator up to his office. He'd wondered all day if Jane Monroe was really her name, and he was about to find out.

He logged onto his computer and pulled up the website he'd registered for earlier that day—a service that accessed personal information through license plates. He punched in her number and the information popped up on the screen almost instantly.

Huh. Her name really was Jane Monroe. It listed her address, which he jotted down for future reference, and as she'd claimed, it was about fifteen minutes away. It also listed her birthday, which he was surprised to find was tomorrow.

Well, that had been almost too easy. He thought for sure they would have sent her in under an assumed name.

He pulled up a new page and logged onto a search engine, typing in her name. It came back with a couple hundred thousand hits. He scrolled the first couple of pages, finding an artist, a photographer, a professor at a university in Boston. There was even an actress who played bit parts on several popular television dramas. But no Jane Monroe investigator anywhere.

He started a new page but this time he typed in Jane Monroe, Texas. He got a hit for a website called
Linked Up,
a place to look up professional profiles. A Jane Monroe in El Paso, Texas, was the first on the list, but under profession it was listed as lawyer. That couldn't be right.

He typed in Jane Monroe, Lawyer, this time, and got a hit for a family-owned El Paso practice called Monroe Law Group. There was a small photo of the family on the
info page. There was an older couple who were clearly the parents, two sons, and two daughters. One of the daughters had dark hair and was very attractive, but looked nothing like Jane. The other was borderline mousy with unremarkable brown hair worn in a long, straight style, wire-rimmed glasses that were a little too large for her face and a shapeless gray suit that made her look as though she was slouching. She wasn't unattractive, but compared to the rest of the family, she seemed to almost fade into the background. But there was something familiar about her. Something about the shape of her face, and the tilt of her mouth…

No way.

He looked closer, expanding the page to make the photo larger. Damn. Even bare he would recognize that plump bottom lip anywhere. The woman in the photo was
Jane.

He sat back in his chair, shaking his head, having a tough time reconciling the image on his screen with the blonde beauty working as his secretary. And if she was an attorney in her family practice, what the hell was she doing working at Edwin Associates?

He checked the individual profiles, but hers was missing. Maybe she had left and they hadn't gotten around to changing the photo.

He tried a few more searches with different key words, but he'd reached a dead end. He could only assume that her career as a lawyer was an unremarkable one. Which might explain why she'd left it.

He blew out a frustrated breath. Honestly, he didn't even know why he cared. She was a toy to him. A way to amuse himself until she was finished here. Not to mention a way to take out his frustration against the people who should have trusted him. She was nothing to him, yet there was something about her that just…fascinated him. It was rare
that any woman had that sort of effect on him, and frankly, he didn't like it.

Jordan went into his browser history and erased all evidence of his searches and any activity on the license plate site, then he erased the link for the site from his favorites, just in case. For all he knew Jane could be some sort of computer whiz and just waiting for the opportunity to get into his computer. And since he would be at the refinery most of tomorrow morning, she would certainly get her chance. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of someone snooping around in his office, going through his things, but the sooner she found what she was looking for, or better yet, didn't find it, the sooner she would be out of his hair.

 

Walking into work the next morning after that almost-kiss in the parking lot was one of the hardest things Jane ever had to do. Though no one had seen what had happened, she couldn't shake the feeling that everyone would look at her and just
know.
And she could swear the guards posted at the security station snickered as she passed through.

She knew it was silly, and probably a figment of her imagination, but after a long sleepless night, she wasn't exactly functioning with all cylinders. And she was still no closer to understanding what had happened. Why he had come so close to kissing her then just…walked away. Was it some sort of game to him?