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Wren tried not to roll her eyes. In the three weeks she’d been working at Ainslie Ave, Aimee had managed to lock herself out of the computer system at least four times. Clumsy fingers, she’d claimed, but Wren found that hard to believe considering the delicate and intricate portraits she painted.
“Can you help me?” the other woman pleaded. “I don’t want to disturb Sean again. He got very frustrated last time.”
“Sure.” Wren headed back into the studio and took a seat on the stool in front of the old laptop that served as their shared work computer.
Within minutes she’d located the problem—Aimee had made a spelling error when she’d created her new password, which explained why she hadn’t been able to use it to log in after the reset.
“Okay, that should do it.” Wren clicked over to their email program. “I’ve reset it again and tested that it works. I’ll leave a note on the desktop with the password this time so you don’t forget it.”
“Thanks.” Aimee had the decency to look mildly sheepish.
Wren was about to move away from the computer when she noticed something strange about the email inbox. A ton of unread emails had banked up from contacts she’d never seen before. Normally, the inbox the three women shared was filled with general requests from the website’s contact form. There might be the occasional email requesting information or dates of shows, but otherwise they didn’t get many direct emails from clients.
“Are you logged in to Sean’s email account?” Wren asked, looking up suddenly.
Aimee cringed. “Yes, but please don’t tell him. I needed to, uh...delete an email.” She fiddled with the end of her paint-splattered tank top, the chipped pink nail polish on her fingers glinting like shards of broken glass in the afternoon sun that streamed in from a large window beside them.
“How did you get into his account?” Wren could hardly believe Aimee was the password-cracking type.
“He keeps it written down.” She averted her gaze and spoke softly so that Lola couldn’t hear them. “Please don’t say anything.”
Wren knew for a fact that his passwords weren’t written down anywhere in the studio...after all, she’d looked. Which meant that Aimee had been places that Wren hadn’t, and from the expression on her face she wasn’t too comfortable sharing that information.
“I won’t, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to be logging in to his email account from our shared computer. You might get someone in trouble,” she admonished, feeling immediately hypocritical because she knew exactly how she was going to exploit this opportunity.
“You’re right,” Aimee said, knotting her hands in front of her. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
“I won’t say anything.” Wren turned the laptop back to herself. “And I’ll log out so I can check on the shared inbox and make sure we haven’t missed anything. You’d better get back to your painting in case he comes in.”
“Thank you.”
Perhaps it made Wren a horrible person to be admonishing Aimee while planning to use her lapse in judgment to scan through Sean’s emails. But Wren had learned a thing or two about morals in the last six months—they were not as black-and-white as she’d been led to believe. For example, in Christian’s mind it had been perfectly okay for him to make up stories about her because he felt she was a bad person for hiding her “depravity.”
Besides, she wasn’t hurting Aimee. She was simply making use of a happy accident to help her friend.
There was nothing suspicious in his emails. Time for plan B. Her nails clicked quietly against the keys of the laptop as she searched for the passcode to the storage room. Nothing. But she did manage to find his birthday, address and home phone number, which gave her something to work with. Wren wasn’t a master spy by any stretch, but she had sat in on an internet security session at the community center back home during one of her volunteering stints. At the time she’d thought it was boring as hell, but some of the stats had stuck with her.
Like how the majority of people use their birthdays as pin codes for ATMs and online banking. Perhaps that extended to locked rooms, as well.
Taking a second to check that no one was watching her, she logged out of Sean’s email and pocketed the note she’d scribbled with his details. Tonight, after everyone had left, she’d “accidentally” forget to set the alarm so she could come back and have a crack at the storage room lock without leaving a trail.
* * *
RHYS WASN’T THE kind of guy who ever had trouble sleeping. He pushed his body hard at the gym and he pushed his mind hard at work each day. Those things combined meant he was usually out the moment his head hit the pillow.
But not for the last three nights.
Stifling a yawn, he rubbed at his eyes and reached for the coffee on his desk. The nighttime hours had been ticking past slowly while Rhys’s eyes remained open in the darkness. All he could picture were flashes of Wren and her painting. Of the sexual energy mixed with her embarrassment.
He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since that night...but that didn’t dull the vivid memory.
The painting had taken him aback. Not because he thought there was anything wrong with it—far from it. But he’d been shocked by how strongly his body had reacted to the desire and curiosity and abandonment in her work. Art was not his thing—numbers and data were. But she’d invoked a kind of visceral reaction that was totally foreign.
And then she’d kicked him out.
He wasn’t sure what to make of it. But one thing he did know for certain was that he wanted to see her again, despite understanding that she wasn’t planning to stay.
“Boss?” Quinn Dellinger poked her head into his office, her mass of dyed pink hair almost blindingly bright under the office lighting. “You got a sec?”
“Sure, sure.” He motioned for her to take a seat as he shoved thoughts of Wren from his mind. Work was his priority right now, not women. Not one woman, no matter how tempting. “What’s going on?”
Quinn’s chunky combat boots clomped on the floor. For a woman so petite she made a lot of noise. “I’ve been assigned a case but I need to do a site visit and none of the other guys are free to come with me.”
As a newly appointed junior security consultant, Quinn wasn’t yet cleared to do site visits on her own. She had another few months of shadowing the more experienced consultants before that could happen.
“I’m ready,” she added. “I can do it. I just need you to sign off.”
“You’re familiar with the policy, Quinn. Three months of supervision before you can fly solo.”
Her button nose wrinkled, causing the clear stud there to glint in the afternoon sunlight. “And it’s worth upsetting the client for some stupid policy?”
“It’s not a stupid policy. We have it for a reason.”
He didn’t need to repeat the story; everyone at Cobalt & Dane Security was well aware of what had happened when they’d sent a rookie in alone. One bad incident was all it took to make sure that new security consultants had the proper training and supervision so that they didn’t lose anyone else.
“I know how capable you are, Quinn. I wouldn’t have promoted you if I didn’t believe in your skills.” Rhys reached for his coffee and swigged, praying the caffeine would soon work its magic. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to bend the rules for you.”
She rolled her eyes but a smile twitched on her lips. “You never bend the rules. For anything.”
“Tough but fair, you know the drill,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah.” She folded her arms across the front of her black skull-and-crossbones T-shirt. “So what should we do about the client, then? He said he wants us there today but everyone else is busy.”
“I thought Owen was in the office today.”
She shook her head. “He got an emergency call out to that private client we signed—the crazy stockbroker guy. He’s paranoid. I told Owen as much.”
“It comes with the territory. Doesn’t mean we can ignore the client’s needs.” Rhys tapped his fingers against the surface of his desk. “And Jin is still out sick?”
“Yep. Aiden’s around but he’s scheduled to do a visit to the data warehouse with Logan.” Quinn’s cheeks colored slightly despite the neutral expression on her face. She and Aiden had only told the team they were dating a few weeks back, and every time his name came up in conversation she blushed like a schoolgirl.
Rhys thought it was cute, but Quinn would probably throw something at him for saying so. “Okay, well, I guess it’ll have to be me, then.”
Perhaps a trip away from the office would do him good. He’d been staring at the same email for the last ten minutes and his lack of progress was starting to grate on his nerves. Fresh air and something to focus on might help him to get into the zone again.
“You never do site visits.” Quinn cocked her head. “Ever.”
“You seem to think I never do a lot of things.”
God, did everyone really believe he was that dull? Sure, he liked to follow the rules. He was a “by the book” kind of guy. What was so bad about that?
She shrugged, seemingly unaware of the questions her words had stirred. “Whatever works. I’d rather get out there today and keep this guy onside. He sounds like a bit of a control freak.”
“Let’s keep our insults about the client to a minimum, shall we?” Rhys pushed up from his chair and stuck his phone into his back pocket.
“Sure thing, boss. Whatever you say.” Quinn grinned at him as they fell into step.
After a quick pause at her desk so she could collect her things and confirm with the client that they would now be coming to complete the site visit, they were off.
“This will be fun. We haven’t had an excursion together in ages.” Quinn had a spring in her step as they walked through the office.
“That’s because you’re annoying.”
He didn’t mean it, but he and Quinn had that kind of relationship. There were no filters, no walking on eggshells. She was one of the first people he’d hired when he’d started as IT manager four years ago. They’d developed a deep mutual respect. She was whip smart and loyal to the bone, two qualities that were sorely lacking in the world.
“I’m annoying?” She pressed her hand to her chest and he noticed a small, heart-shaped ring on her finger. “Those are mighty words coming from Mr. Spreadsheet himself.”
He ignored the dig. “What’s with the ring? I’ve never seen you wear anything that didn’t have a skull on it.”
Her cheeks turned hot pink. “It was a gift.”
“Are you engaged?”
“No.” She laughed as if that were a ridiculous notion, but her voice sounded tight and a little strange. “It’s just a ring.”
“A ring from your boyfriend.” He nudged her with his elbow and she immediately swatted him. “Hey, I’m not judging. I’m happy you’ve found someone who puts up with you.”
“He’s man enough to handle me.” Her expression turned serious as they entered the elevator. “I know you two didn’t get off on the right foot, but he’s it for me. I love him.”
Rhys had been forced to hire Aiden because he was friends with the boss, Logan Dane. Given Rhys’s feelings about hard work and the need to prove oneself, it hadn’t been a great start to their working relationship.
“You’re getting all mushy on me, Dellinger,” he joked.
“It’s true. He’s a good guy, Rhys. I want you to respect him.”
Rhys didn’t point out that respect had to be earned instead of given out like candy. But Quinn was practically family to him, so he would keep his feelings to himself and take the high road. He always took the high road.
“I do respect him. He’s on my team now so I’ll treat him the same as I treat any other employee.”
She grinned. “Tough, but fair.”
“That’s my motto.”
“I appreciate it.” She laid a hand on his arm, the pink stone in her ring glimmering. “Honestly.”
He cleared his throat. “For what it’s worth, you deserve to be happy.”
“So do you, boss. Why don’t you ever seem to have any ladies hanging around?”
Probably because Rhys kept his work life and his love life totally separate. He’d never believed in mixing the two, though he accepted that not everyone agreed with him on that.
But that didn’t mean he could avoid the little stabs of envy he got watching his friends pair up and find happiness. Maybe it was old-fashioned, but he wanted that stability. He wanted a woman to come home to, wake up next to. To make him feel like he was valued. Needed.
“This is not appropriate conversation for a manager and his employee,” he said, reminding himself that the goal right now was to have fun with a woman and not worry about the future.
“Stick-in-the-mud,” she grumbled.
She might be right, but right now Rhys didn’t have anything that he wanted to share. Especially not with being so occupied by Wren and her painting. His whole body hummed as she drifted back into his mind. There was no way he’d be able to forget what he’d seen, so he’d just have to stage a meeting with her to clear the air. And maybe fulfill a few fantasies...
4 (#u90755d5e-b73a-5b41-8407-b1eb3366a897)
“YOU’RE AVOIDING SOMETHING, WREN.” Sean Ainslie’s voice cut into Wren’s thought process.
Her brush hovered over the same patch of blank canvas that she’d been attempting to start work on for the last half hour.
“Avoiding something?” She put the brush down onto her workstation and looked up. “What makes you say that?”
His eyes swept over the lackluster canvas. A few strokes of color decorated one of the bottom corners but it was clear she had no direction. She hadn’t sketched anything out, hadn’t planned what the painting would look like. Hell, she couldn’t even legitimately claim that she was too swept away by her Muse to do any of the preparatory work.
She had nothing, and as a result, the painting was nothing.
Oh, it’s something all right. It’s a hot freaking mess, is what it is.
“I saw so much inspiration in your portfolio, Wren. So much...” His hands fluttered in the air in front of him. “Passion. Creativity. Your paintings were bold and vibrant. This...” His hands dropped down to his sides. “I don’t know what this is. Do you?”
“I’m a little blocked,” she admitted.
Every time she tried to touch the paintbrush to the canvas she pictured Rhys’s expression when he’d looked at that painting. The memory filled her with a strange mélange of excitement and shame, anticipation and disgust. Part of her wished that she’d let him stay. If for nothing more than to see where they would have ended up. Visions of his deep brown skin and warm eyes filled her mind.
“Just paint whatever pops into your head right now.” Sean touched her shoulder and she jumped, startled as she reached for her brush almost involuntarily. “Whatever image is in your mind now, paint it. I want you to get over this hurdle, Wren.”
Biting down on her lip she shut her eyes and let the memory of Rhys gazing at the painting wash over her. His full lips, the wicked way they’d parted as his eyes had widened. The slight flare of his nostrils.
She started mixing paint as she let her mind wander. His pupils had grown as he’d looked at her canvas, his breath stalling in his throat. Her life had contained few moments as electric as that, as intensely intimate and vulnerable. Wasn’t that the purpose of art? Laying yourself bare?
Being open and receptive?
But that’s how she’d been hurt before. With her heart so open and unprotected, it was ripe for the picking. Her fingers tightened around her brush as she stopped midstroke. The faint sketch of a man’s face—the high points of his cheeks, the rough contours of his lips and the strong angle of his jaw—filled the canvas.
People can only hurt you when you let them. So don’t give them the opportunity.
Her hand hovered again, the moment lost like steam into air. Fear had crept back in and chased inspiration away. Sighing, she threw the brush down into the palette, flicking sienna paint across the carefully mixed palette of earthy flesh tones.
It was useless. She was useless.
Sean opened his mouth to say something but they were interrupted when Lola poked her head into the room. “Sean? I’ve got the security people from Cobalt & Dane here to see you.”
“Tell them I’ll be out momentarily,” he said. As Lola disappeared he turned back to Wren. “I want to see a complete painting next week. The whole point of you being here is to work on improving your art. I can’t help you with that if you don’t produce anything.”
