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Interesting reaction. What is he doing during his lunch breaks?

Chuckling to myself, I sit with the new stack of files for the day and crack the next one open. Dates. Times. Movement. Behaviors. I clock everything I can. Look for patterns. Cross reference against our search points.

It’s the kind of thing that makes my mind zen and my body wild.

I’m pacing before I know it, sitting on the edge of a conference desk, against the edge of a window. Miles sends me a pointed look as I breeze by again.

“What?” My voice is soft as a breath. “Am I ruffling your feathers?”

“Miss Blair. Please.” He sounds fed up, out of sorts, I’m absolutely distracting him.

“Fine, Miles.” I exaggerate my huff and lower back into my seat with a little drama. The next hour isn’t bad, but as I’m packing up Oliver strides into the pen.

His presence makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I slide my bag over my shoulder and track his movements. Lithe. Slow. Predatory. He’s watching me, too. Hunting me.

Shit.

His approach is silent, but he towers over me. He pegs Sunny with a look, and she squeaks and shares a glance at me.

I shrug.

Oliver gestures for me to follow him before turning back the way he came. Expecting me to follow orders.

I do.

12

HARPER

Itake the chance to examine Oliver’s backside as we walk to his office. He prowls. The shape of him long and lean like a tiger under that stark white shirt. His olive skin is shadowed beneath it, which means he doesn’t have anything on underneath.

Prominent shoulders, even with the small stoop forward. Like he has a lot weighing him down. Like it takes all his effort to keep upright and moving.

Yet, the curve of his body is dangerous and appealing. I want to unknot him, straighten him out, find a way to take some of that away from him. It’s too tempting not to.

He’s always been the quiet one. The intense one. The one that both scared and intrigued me in equal measure.

And he’s all the sexier in his office, which looks like a one-man surveillance center. All of his monitors are stacked up one wall, flickering images taking over all of them. There has to be at least twenty of them.

How does he keep it all straight?

I swallow at the magnitude of his mind and how it must work to do this kind of thing all the time.

What does he see when he looks at me? Does he look at me?

My knees tremble as I step in behind him.

“Door.” He waves for me to close it behind me, so I do, thrilled and terrified to be in here with him alone.

Oliver peers at me in the blue glow of all those screens and sits, knees wide, posture loose. He points to the seat beside him.

I slowly step forward and prop myself on the edge of the rolling chair, purse clutched to my stomach. Some kind of protective instinct for those files. Or is it self preservation?

Oliver doesn’t ask me about it. Doesn’t say anything. He’s tapping and clicking, and I’m mesmerized by his hands, those long fingers, until they stop. My attention swings to the screens. To what he’s been doing.

The security feed of me using a computer across the office—the only one I know that someone isn’t strictly assigned to—and that in itself isn’t so suspicious. The screen beside it shows exactly what was on my screen as I uploaded a program to rifle through his system to find Dad’s encrypted files.