I look down at the password etched on the notepad and roll my eyes when I see it actually spells something.
“CapLover,” I say simply, raising an eyebrow and leaning back in my chair with a tilt of my head. “Are you being serious with this?”
He chuckles and flits his eyes between me and the notepad like he’s completely clueless. “Oh, is that what that spells?”
“You know that’s what it spells.”
He shakes his head innocently. “I just threw some random letters together.”
“Right,” I say with a barked laugh. I can’t help it. He’s just ridiculous enough that it’s funny.
“Anyway, this is how I’ll send you pretty much everything. Just keep an eye on it throughout the day, and everything you need to do will be in there.”
I give a lame, double thumbs-up. “Got it.” He bites his lip—a very obvious attempt to keep himself from laughing at me.
Annoyed, I shove him out of the way with the chair and open the email about the Gordon contract. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. In fact, why don’t you go ahead and give me your lunch order so I don’t have to interrupt you later to get it.”
Cap’s smile is so big and brilliant, it’s almost blinding. “See? This is working out great. I don’t know what you were so worried about.”
I grab the notepad and pen, hand it to him, and prompt, “Lunch order,” instead of responding.
He smiles even harder, the charm he was telling Kline Brooks about damn near seeping out of his pores, it’s so potent.
I steel my nerves and turn back to my desk, determined to quiet the very startling thought that I could actually be enjoying Caplin Hawkins’s company.
God, what have I gotten myself into?
Cap
Ruby has been gone for an hour and a half when I finally decide to call it a night. Truth is, I thought about leaving when she did, just to have the chance to watch her squirm at having to be inside a confined space like the elevator with me for fourteen floors, but the workaholic in me won out.
Contracts don’t get done without me, cases don’t get won, and a minute and a half in the elevator isn’t going to make Ruby ready to sleep with me by tomorrow.
No, she’s a real challenge. A woman with virtue that has to be earned.
I haven’t encountered someone like her in a long time…or ever, if I’m being honest.
I’ve had women play fake hard to get, only to cave three hours later like a goddamn planned building implosion, and I’ve had plenty of women who weren’t hard to get at all.
I don’t really mind any of it—I’ll take my romps however I can get them—but I have to admit that the pursuit of Ruby Rockford is proving to be entertaining in a whole new way.
Exciting, even.
She’s a puzzle, a million pieces scattered all over the city, just waiting to be solved. They’re a taunt and a test of my skill, but I love nothing more than doing the impossible.
And, fuck, I love her backbone. She’s strong and stubborn in a way that is completely unfamiliar to me.
Not to mention her hilarious sarcasm and snark. Hell, I’m still laughing at the way she told off some overzealous woman on the phone earlier today.
Fucking mesothelioma… Goddamn, Ruby Rockford is a breath of fresh air.
I shut off the light in my office, close the door, and then step forward to click off the lamp on her desk. When I lean over, the top drawer is open just a crack, an interesting sliver of the contents showing through it like a beacon.
I grab the handle and pull the drawer the rest of the way open to find a paperback book, the cover sporting a bare-chested man and a flirty-looking woman.
The title, Can’t Handle This.
I smirk and open the cover to reveal a random page inside to read a section.
She’s got a feistiness I’ve never encountered before, and I have to admit, it’s a refreshing change of pace.
I love the way she calls my bluff and hardens my dick at the same time.
I laugh, muttering to myself, “What guy wouldn’t like that?”
I just wish I knew the reason for her hesitation. Last night, she had my cock in her mouth and my heart in her hands, and today, she’s avoiding me.
I look up from the page and glance around the empty office before adjusting myself in my pants.
Is this the kind of shit she’s reading on a regular basis?
I scan farther down the page before turning it and reading the next, and when I look up again, I’m at the end of the goddamn chapter.
Shit. Now I need to know how it ends.
I close the book and tuck it under my arm before thinking better of it. I’m waiting on the elevator’s arrival when something very important occurs to me.