Page 75 of Take It Offline

“At least twice a day, you threaten to strangle your mouse, and yet you’re always coming back to automation. When the great robot uprising happens, I can’t work out whether they’ll hate you or love you.”

“Maybe my mouse likes to be choked,” she says so seriously I stop breathing.

“I’m putting a pin in that, but you better believe we’ll be circling back later,” I say.

The smile that spreads across her face is so bright it lights up the whole damn floor. She’s becoming seriously dangerous for my control.

I sit forward, needing to divert this back to work before I do something stupid. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Emma turns to face me, propping herself up against my desk. It wouldn’t take much to pull her into my lap, and I grip the armrests to stop myself from giving into temptation.

“There’s a way to run a bot over the inbox. It won’t process anything, but it’ll save you from having to log it yourself. It’s already running over the Digital inbox, so we should be able to implement it without needing any extra budget. I’ll email the team to find out.”

If that’s true, it’ll save the team hundreds of man hours. No wonder corporate loves her.

“Have dinner with me.”

“Charlie,” she sighs.

“One meal. I promise to be a gentleman.”

She arches a brow. “That’d be a first.”

Fuck. I can’t get enough of her.

“You’re right. I’m lying. But can you blame me? A man’s got to use everything in his arsenal when it comes to a beautiful woman.”

There’s no response except for a roll of her eyes, but there’s no hiding the faint blush that’s spread over her cheeks. Bingo.

“I’ll think about it.”

Fuck. There it is.

That smile could tempt me to commit any number of sins.

An hour later, a guy with a floppy haircut and a dismissive attitude stares down at Emma like she just asked him to sing “Rainbow Connection” at karaoke. “You needed something?”

The way her shoulders cave makes my blood boil. Who is this guy?

“Yes,” she says, her tone far more polite than I would be. “I was telling Charlie about the bot you built for the inbox?—”

“And?”

Okay, fuck him.

I round the desk, holding back my frustration. “Hey, man. Charlie.” I hold out a hand. “Didn’t catch your name.”

The moment he clocks the suit, his attitude changes, and he shakes my hand with a smile. Yeah, I definitely don’t like him.“Hey. Landon. Nice to meet you. You were in Ops, right? I did a rotation there when I was a grad. Too much pressure for me.”

Less than three feet away, Emma’s back at work as though this clown didn’t just disrespect her. As if this kind of shit happens every day.

Which.

Fuck. It probably does.

My heart cracks under the thought. It wasn’t so long ago that I was giving her attitude, jabs weighted with assumptions I’d made about her, along with the baggage of my own life.

And she handled it, handled me, without backing down. Still does. I’ve always respected that about her. She’s tougher than she looks, but she shouldn’t need to be.

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