Page 21 of Nefarious
Once in the lobby, he dropped the coffee into the nearest trash can. He nodded to Eleanor, the receptionist, as he cut across to the entrance to the mailroom.
Charlie looked up from a stack of letters. “What can I do you for, Dane?”
Dane hadn’t thought this through and stopped for a second to compose his plan. He turned in the doorway so he half faced Charlie but could still see the entire lobby. “I wanted to find out if the afternoon mail’s already gone out.”
“A-yup. Went out at two, same as always.”
The stairwell door opened onto the lobby, and Morty stepped out. Dane dropped back farther into the mailroom and watched Morty stride across the floor toward the doors leading out to the courtyard. The poor bastard was completely out of breath. Apparently the gym workouts hadn’t gotten him in any better shape. Dane should probably start going more often. For Morty’s health.
“Thanks, Charlie. I’ll leave a little early and stop by the post office.”
“No problem.”
Charlie went back to sorting the mail, and Dane crossed back to flirt with Eleanor, but then thought better of it. It would be satisfying to see Morty’s face when he came back in with no evidence that Dane had been smoking. And even more amusing to watch him realize Dane knew he was trailing him. But as long as Morty didn’t know he knew, it might be advantageous to him.
Instead, he took the elevator back up to his office, left the door open, and waited until Morty peeked through the crack as he passed by.
Sorry, buddy.
The interns had worked hard all week. Val considered letting them head out an hour early. It wasn’t like they were doing any real work yet. But she didn’t want to get them into thinking that Fridays ended at four by default. So she threw an extra challenge at them and promised they could leave once they finished it. It would take them an hour.
She was on her way back down to check on their progress when she passed Noelle’s office and spied Dane through the window in her door. She slowed her pace but couldn’t see more than Dane’s back.
Of course Dane would kick off his plans to woo Noelle. And since the culmination of his efforts would win Val a night in his arms, she ought to be pleased that he’d made his first move. But she’d rather not know how the sausage got laid.
When she entered the training room, the interns’ heads swiveled toward her.
She announced, “When you’ve finished, you’re free to go.”
They all turned back to their monitors with renewed fervor.
Val dropped into a chair and rested her hands on the table before her, wondering what Dane had been saying to Noelle. Surely he couldn’t have wormed his way into her good graces already. She should convince him to change the wager somehow, make his goal more palatable, something that would serve her own purposes.
Maybe Val could drop the games altogether and let him take her home.
It was a constant temptation, but she worried if she gave him the opportunity, there was a better than average chance he’d use it to get even with her for leaving him that morning. She didn’t want to wake up the day after, humiliated and alone, even though that’s exactly what she’d done to him.
She’d been a fool.
That night, on the elevator, he pressed her against the wall, his hands on either side of her head.
“I’ve waited so long to do this.” His body was flush against hers, his hard-on sending sky rockets in flight.
She ducked her head to ask him the question that had been on her mind for ten years to the day. “Dane, why did you do it? Why didn’t you wait one more night?”
He stepped back just as the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened. A wry smile crossed his face, but he held his hand out and said, “After you.”
In the hallway, he wrapped an arm around her waist and held up the key card close to his face to verify the room number on the envelope. Once they crossed that threshold, she knew she wouldn’t want to talk anymore, so she stopped walking. “Dane. We’ve never talked about it.”
He leaned against a wall and ran his tongue across his lips. He smiled, all arrogance. “Are you admitting you wanted me to wait?”
“If that will get you to tell me. It was one more night, Dane.”
The smug grin dropped from his face. “Truth?”
She tried to match his tone with open sincerity. “Please.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “I was nervous, Val. I thought—” He raked a hand through his hair and stood up straight. He paced toward the elevator before spinning back to her. “I thought you would go through with it only to keep up your end of the bargain, but then that would ruin our friendship. And honestly, I was afraid you’d laugh at me.”
