The powers…Oh, yeah.
Luke shrugged.
“Fine, I guess. And no,” he said before Matt could repeat his question, “I haven’t talked to them. I’ve got a dinner meeting, though.”
“And I blew the surprise.” The other man grimaced. “Sorry, dude.”
Dismissing that with a shake of his head, Luke continued to his office. Matt followed.
“Better to be prepared,” he said, dropping into one of two purple club chairs and gesturing for Matt to take the other. “So…anything?”
“That’s what I heard. You interested?”
Luke stared blankly at the plate glass that served as his office wall.
Was he?
A week ago he’d have said no. He’d needed a change. Something new.
Then it’d been a simple decision. Kettlemens was offering him a pile more money and a whole lot of traveling down easy street.
He’d do what he was good at. No muss, no fuss. No stress.
Yeah. It’d been simple.
Now, thanks to Vanna, things were a hell of a lot more complicated.
“Do you think I’ve had it too easy?” he asked. He didn’t have to look at him to know Matt was baffled.
“Too easy? Is there any such thing?”
“Seriously. Do you think this—” he waved a hand around his office, then pointed a finger toward the ceiling to indicate the higher-ups “—that. Do you think it’s all been too easy?”
“You’re good at what you do,” Matt said, his words slow and measured, as if he realized this was a major deal to Luke, so he was carefully weighing each one. “You bring in business. You’ve garnered more client satisfaction than anyone else at Tri-Solutions. You’ve earned your ride, dude.”
“But do you think it’s easy?”
Matt shook his head as if he didn’t understand the question.
“Like, easy for you to do what you do?” At Luke’s nod, he shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. You make it look easy. But you know how that goes. For all I know, you go home and pop antacids, listen to Enya to unwind and study sales material until you cry yourself to sleep.”
Luke snickered at the image. But a second later his frown was back.
“What’re you worrying about? There’s no rule that says you have to bust your ass in life. Why shouldn’t you do what comes easy?”
Because he was bored.
Because Vanna had shown him the reward for taking on a challenge.
And because while he might still be viciously pissed at waking up alone with no way to track down the woman who’d blown his mind, she’d been right.
If he wanted to be happy, he needed to get the hell out of his comfort zone.
Girlz Guide Words of Wisdom
…
Real Girlz aren’t perfect and perfect Girlz aren’t real
.
So get over it
….
It was silly, but Gia had hoped sliding back into her real self would put her brain back on the right track. But after six hours at the hairdresser’s, a return to cotton undies and two days without makeup, still all she could see was Luke’s naked ass, in Technicolor perfection, every time she closed her eyes.
She was going crazy trying to forget. But forget she would, she promised herself as she strode down the hall to her supervisor’s office.
She’d given Jessa all the makeup, hidden the lingerie away in the back of her dresser drawer and had even watched all four
Pirates of the Caribbean
movies back to back, hoping her favorite sexy pirate would erase the weekend from her mind.
The only things she hadn’t been able to let go of were her shoes. She might have to go back to being Average Gia, but she was doing it in fab shoes, even if her killer Giuseppe Zanotti heels were now paired with jeans. Kinda like a pep talk to herself. Assurance that if she just kept the faith—and wore hot shoes—she’d find a way to turn the whole Luke Monroe fantasy into a lesson in going for the big dream. Instead of a miserable memory.
“You wanted to see me, Pete?” she said as she stepped into what’d once been a stylish boardroom before Tech got hold of it. Now the long space was wall-to-wall computers of varying types, the better to test their latest programs and codes.
“Yeah. Sit.”
A man of few words, Pete didn’t look up from the laptop he was focused on. His fingers flew over the keyboard in time to the punk beat coming out of the stereo speakers. Used to his need to finish one thing before he bothered with another, Gia sat.
She amused herself for the next three minutes by staring at her lucky shoes. They’d given her the confidence to go after Luke in the bar. Now they’d give her the confidence to get over him. She turned her ankle this way and that, watching the light glint off the red leather. The gorgeous peep toes proved that she wasn’t avoiding any reminders of her weekend. If she were that heartbroken, she’d have tossed the shoes in the garbage.
Shuddering at the thought, she quickly amended that to hiding them in the very back of her closet, behind her prom dresses and the hideous bridesmaid gown she’d worn in her cousin’s wedding.
“You have a good weekend?” Pete asked, finally looking up from the computer.
“Great. Just great,” she said a little more exuberantly than the question warranted.
After a couple of confused blinks, Pete shrugged. Nothing derailed the guy for long.
“Good. You need to be in top shape,” he told her before turning to dig around on the table, shuffling through files.
“You’re promoted. New tech team, second in command. You report in—” he looked at his watch while handing her a folder “—fifteen minutes.”
Gia’s grin was so wide it hurt her ears.
“Promotion? Seriously? I got the Sci-Lab promotion?” She almost clapped her hands together like a little girl who’d been given a rainbow pony covered in glitter. She wanted this promotion. She’d been working her ass off for the past six months trying to prove she could handle it. Trying to prove she was good enough, special enough, to take on a big job.
She resisted clapping, but Gia couldn’t hold back her huge grin.
“This isn’t Sci-Lab,” Pete said.
Gia’s smile froze.
“Huh?”
“It’s another project. Brand-new. You were handpicked. You make this one work, you’ll be out of the cubicle and into an office. It’s your chance to prove yourself, maybe even snag a spot as development coordinator.”
Seriously?
Gia managed to keep the question to herself, but her grin was wide enough to light up the room. Handpicked for a promotion and a shot at development coordinator? That was like getting a pair of Frye boots, a spa day and a shot at wild sex all at the same time.
Her smile dimmed a little, since the only wild sex she wanted was with Luke. Then she reminded herself to focus. This was a major career boon.
Looked as though the Girlz Guide had done it again. Her lucky shoes, and pushing herself to try something crazy like seducing her fantasy guy, had been just what she’d needed to rock her life.
“What do I have to do to get that promotion?” she asked. Not because she doubted herself. Nope, her confidence was bouncing off the moon right now. But Pete knew what it took to make a good impression. “Any advice?”
“Speak up. Don’t hesitate to jump in and lead. This is big shit, and it’s on a crazy-tight deadline. If the team pulls off this project, it’ll open a dozen new doors. The leader wants the best, but they have to be fast and reliable. You’ve got a good rep for thinking outside the box. Use that.”
She had a rep for thinking outside the box? Gia bit her lip to keep from giggling. Maybe she wasn’t quite so average after all.
Gia’s giddy staring was interrupted by Pete’s harrumph. She frowned. He waved the folder again with an impatient look. As soon as she took it, he tilted his head toward the door.
“Go. You only have thirteen minutes now.”
She practically skipped out of the room.
Talk about a rocking distraction to keep her mind off of Luke.
She was halfway down the hall, heading toward her cubby, when she opened the file to read the team details.
What she saw stopped her so fast her gorgeous shoes squeaked in protest against the linoleum.
“Noooo,” she moaned.
Her vision went black. But that was okay, because it gave a nice backdrop to the white dots dancing in front of her eyes.
Deep breath
, she told herself.
Just breathe, dammit
.
It took a few more reminders to get her lungs to work. And a handful of breaths to erase the dancing dots.
Her vision clear, she looked again.
Holy hell.
What was she going to do?
She couldn’t run. Not from work.
Especially not now.
She’d just gotten a promotion, dammit.
Her gaze landed on her feet, the red leather glinting back at her like a wink.
She moaned again.
With a frantic look at the clock at the end of the hall, she headed for the elevators, grabbing her cell from her pocket and dialing as she went.
“Caryn,” she said as soon as the other woman answered. “You have to meet me on the fourth floor, east elevator. Now. Right this second. And bring your shoes.”
“My what?”
“Shoes. The ones you’re wearing, sneakers out of your gym bag I don’t care. Shoes.” Gia punched the down button over and over, but the lights didn’t blink any faster.
“You want my shoes? And what am I supposed to wear?”
Since Gia could tell from Caryn’s voice that she was walking, a little of the panic that’d gripped her belly started to ease.
“You get to wear my Giuseppe Zanottis.”
She could hear her friend’s sharp intake of breath over the phone. In stereo, Gia heard two elevator dings. The one in front of her and, she assumed, Caryn’s.
“You’re letting me wear your sacred shoes? Why? Did you kill someone in them and need to throw the cops off the track?”
“Worse,” Gia exclaimed, collapsing against the elevator wall and opening the file again. “I got a promotion. I have to report to the new team in, like, five minutes.”
“And you can’t be wearing the best shoes in the world?”
“Nope. Because my new boss is Luke Monroe.”
Luke paced outside the workroom, wondering for the tenth time that hour if he’d made the right decision.
What was he thinking, getting back into the tech side of things? He was a public relations guy. He was the explanations guy. He sold the product. He didn’t make it.
At least, he hadn’t in years.
His tech skills, never as strong as his talking skills, were rusty. If he’d wanted to get back into programming, he should have applied to be on a team. Not to lead it.
But no. He’d wanted a challenge. A chance to prove himself. To show that he could step off of easy street and still hold his own.
What the hell had he been thinking?
He had to clench his fingers into a fist to keep from smacking himself in the forehead.
“Luke?” A pretty brunette stuck her head around the door, looking around until she spotted him. “The team is all here.”
It went without saying that they were waiting. Time wasn’t only money when it came to creating these programs; it was make-or-break. Jobs like this one were on spec. Which meant that if another company came up with the program first or pitched it better, they’d get the contract. And all the work Tri-Solutions put in would be wasted.
But hey, no pressure.
Luke took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and pasted on a confident smile.
Time to prove himself.
“Hi, everyone,” he said as he walked into the room. “Ready to rock this project?”
An hour later he’d given up on rocking anything.
After he’d gone over the project specs—building a configurable storefront, tracking system and database for an online retailer who operated in multiple countries—they’d got down to details. Four of the five people on the team had talked circles around him. A few seemed to be trying to prove something, a couple others trying to show him up.
The last one was quiet, taking copious notes in the back of the room. Gia Renyard. He squinted, trying to see her over the heads of the other people in the room. She was scrunched so low in her chair she was practically bent in half. Still, something about her was familiar. He didn’t know her, beyond her qualifications for the project. He squinted at her hand flying across the notepad—it was pretty much all of her he could see except a pair of scruffy tennis shoes. Couldn’t fault her enthusiasm, even if she didn’t seem to have anything to add to the discussion.
Unlike some others he could name.
“Look,” he said, interrupting two scruffy-looking geeks who seemed as if they were about to challenge each other to a light saber duel. “This isn’t a debate. If we just think outside the box a little, we can make this a multi-platform application. Tablets and computers, all linked to the cloud. Which means this wouldn’t be the only client we could sell it to.”
“We have to figure out how to build it first,” one of the geeks shot back. “You’re saying you want it clean, but you also want flashy. And now you’re talking multi-platform customization. You’re asking for a lot that doesn’t easily fit together.”
And the argument started again. Hadn’t these guys ever heard of kissing the boss’s ass and pretending you could rock the job? Luke shoved his hand through his hair, wondering if he could kiss
Kettlemens
’ ass and still get that other job.
“They can fit together if we work backward. Start by outlining exactly what all the end product has to do, then break it down until we see each element and how to bring them together into a whole.”
Luke shot a grateful look to the back of the room but didn’t figure Gia saw it, since she was still scrunched in half. Brow furrowed, he tried to place her voice. Nothing clicked, though. Granted, every time he closed his eyes, another woman’s voice filled his head. A low, husky tone that made even the mundane a total turn-on.
Forcing himself to focus, Luke shifted to the side, trying to see Gia and figure out where he knew her from. All he got was the side sweep of her hair as it curved along her jaw. He’d probably seen her around the building, but he still couldn’t tell if he actually knew her. Frustrating since he was usually spot-on with remembering people. He’d pull her aside when they were done here and ask her where they’d met. Just as soon as he wound up this little fun-fest.
“Gia has a great point,” he said over the arguing voices. He strode over to the opposite side of the room, trying not to make it obvious he was positioning himself for a better view of his new favorite team member. “Instead of each person taking a separate element of the development, we’ll all work together through each stage.”
He shot another grateful look at Gia, but she’d shifted again so her shoulder was angled toward him, and he could only see the side of her head. Her hand flew over the page, though, as if she planned to write up the entire project code before they ended the meeting.
Suddenly a lot more interested in talking to her than proving he could handle taking the lead on this job, Luke decided to wind things up. He glanced at his watch, then leaned his butt against the desk behind him and gave the room the first relaxed smile he’d worn all day. “So here’s the plan. Gia’s given us a framework. I want ten ideas from everyone on how to work within that framework in my inbox by morning. I don’t care how crazy they seem, how out-there they are. Get me the ideas. Tomorrow morning we’ll meet back here and brainstorm through them.”
“Brainstorm?” Geek Two asked.
“It’s when two or more people exchange ideas revolving around a specific question, using the feedback to expand or dismiss the ideas and find a workable solution.”
Luke barely restrained himself from laughing at the sarcastic mutter from the back of the room. He had a feeling this Gia was going to be his greatest team asset.
He spent the next ten minutes going over a few more questions and fielding requests for assignments before he reiterated the deadline. His impatience tightened with every passing minute, though. He wanted these people gone. He needed to talk to Gia.
Only to feel her out on a few of her project ideas, he told himself. Which was complete bullshit.
The truth was, she was the first woman who’d sparked any interest in him since he’d returned from Vegas. He was just as desperate to prove his heart was still loose and fancy-free as he was to commit her to creating a development outline.
Crazy, given that he’d only see her shoulder and the top of her head.
“We’ll assign jobs after the session tomorrow. You want to polish your rep on this project, you bring your A game to the brainstorming session.” With that, he wished everyone a good afternoon and ended the meeting.