Page 13 of Master Heimdall

“What’s wrong?”

I tilted my head to the ceiling and leaned back in the chair, praying for some answer to give him other than the truth. Unfortunately, as usual, the universe was silent.

“Rosette Dodds.”

I was surprised by the way his eyes lit up and he smiled. “You should hire her.”

“Pray tell, why should I hire the ever popular Ms. Dodds?”

He shrugged. “She hooked me up with the perfect gift for Julia.”

How the hell had Rose managed to bribe or influence everyone in the office? The woman had flown into the country less than twenty-four hours ago, yet somehow she even had the company’s recluse rooting for her.

“Shit! Her birthday’s coming up. Why didn’t you remind me?”

He gave me a pointed look. “What’s your problem with Ms. Dodds?”

Of course, the asshole wouldn’t take the change in subject gracefully.

“She’ll be a distraction.”

Lincoln snorted. “For whom?”

I took another sip of my scotch before confessing, “Me.”

“No rule says you can’t date an employee.”

It was my turn to snort. “Only if I publicly disclosed the relationship.” Why had I thought that was a better policy than banning relationships or having no rules on the situation? The idea of sending a company-wide email to inform everyone I was fucking Rosette Dodds seemed insane. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t date employees. It’s too messy and you know it.”

He shrugged, which only made me angry. I tossed back the last of my drink. “Thanks for the scotch.”

He rolled his eyes and returned to his work as if I wasn’t still in the room. Eventually, I left his office and wandered through the halls until my watch told me an hour had finally passed.

I expected to find Rose still furiously working on the spreadsheets, but instead, she stood in front of my Nespresso machine, calmly making herself a drink. What the hell? Had she given up already?

“By indulging in my coffee, am I to assume the task you were assigned was too difficult to even give your best effort?”

She looked at me with a calm, smug expression and took a slow sip of her drink before answering. “I think you will find everything you require in the files, Mr. Dakos.”

There was no way she could have done all that in an hour. I stalked over to the laptop and clicked through the files. Each tab was filled out, and she added some good suggestions. Did the woman type a thousand words a minute? I couldn’t have even gotten through a quarter of the information, and she had finished with time to spare. There was only one thing I could say.

“The job is yours. Can you start immediately?”

“I would love to, Mr. Dakos.”

I was so screwed.

Chapter Six

Rose

I was going to have to find some way of working out my sexual frustration or I’d explode. It’d been two full weeks at the new job, and a whole lot of eye candy. Seriously, how was a woman supposed to not notice being surrounded by extremely fit security specialists every day?

I was no stranger to gorgeous men. Having been in my line of work, every now and then a football team, or some group of magnificent-looking athletes would stay for a period of time. Or those sexy Italian businessmen who look like they’ve graced the runway stage their entire lives would check in. However, it wasn’t just that G&H had fit, combat-ready security surrounding me all day long, but after some time away on a few jobs, Gabriel was back at the office.

The man’s naturally gruff and sexy tone of voice had my panties melting on a regular basis. I mean honestly, he was what I would consider perfect for me, except for the fact he seemed to avoid me like the plague. He’d successfully eluded me since being back from his trip. How did I know he’d been steering clear of me? Because I’d been actively trying to “accidentally” meet up with him and none of my usual tactics worked.

Okay, technically, I didn’t have usual tactics, but I found myself stooping to listening for his door to open and choosing that moment for a bathroom break. You could almost say I felt like I was personally under attack, as being noticed was like oxygen. Gabriel seemed immune to my charm, a trait I’d worked hard to cultivate. The man was impervious to my lures despite my cranking them up to the point that if I did anything more it would be embarrassing. I needed to get over my obsession and distract myself with something or someone else.

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