Page 3 of Seductive Secrets

“On the phone?” Tim interrupted, his eyes sharpening once again. “With who?”

Melvin’s mouth opened and closed, not sure how to answer that question. “I’m…uh…not sure sir. It wasn’t with another employee, so I don’t have that information.”

Tim waved his arm impatiently. “Well find out, damn it! I want to know who was calling about one of our employees!”

Melvin frowned in concern. “Don’t I need a warrant to search someone’s phone records, sir?”

Tim rolled his eyes. “No! You don’t need a legal document to find out who was calling an employee of our company! Now go! Get me that information. I need it fast. We need to stop him if he’s attempting to damage the corporate reputation!”

Melvin jerked to attention. He hadn’t expected a simple alert would cause this big of an issue with his boss. At his last job, these alerts were set up all the time and ninety-nine percentof the time, they turned up nothing. So, why was someone doing a company search on this DuBreck guy?

And why someone in the legal department? He didn’t know much about the company yet, but he’d heard of Angela Bertuccio. Hell, everyone had seen her name as well as her image. The guys in the surveillance room always watched for certain women and Ms. Bertuccio was a favorite target. She was gorgeous with thick, dark, wildly curly hair and eyes that seemed to whisper sensual secrets. She almost always wore suits and high heels that made her legs look beyond stunning. The woman was model-worthy, in his opinion! Well, except she wasn’t very tall. That was a thing for models, but not for Ms. Bertuccio. She was a petite woman, but her legs…!

What’s more, he suspected that Ms. Bertuccio was nice. She was always smiling, greeting other employees as she walked through the lobby, waving to the people she knew. There were other women who were beautiful, but they were standoffish and rude. They thought they were better than everyone else, rarely acknowledging others unless the person was higher up on the corporate food chain.

Melvin sat down at his computer and started the search. He bypassed the check box that asked if a search warrant was needed, clicking no because his boss had declared that it wasn’t necessary.

Tim waited until the idiot new-hire had departed before digging a phone out of his desk drawer. He didn’t want to use the company phone for this conversation. And he wasn’t stupid enough to use his personal cell either. Instead, he pulled out one of the phones from the bottom drawer of his desk and dialed a number.

As soon as the call was answered, he said, “Someone looked into your guy. A lady in the legal department. Named Bertuccio.” His tone was clipped, not adding in extraneous words.

“Find out what she knows.”

The line went dead and Tim ended the call, then carefully wiped his prints off the phone before putting it back into the bottom drawer. As long as there were no prints on the phone, he could claim that the phone wasn’t his and he didn’t know anything about it.

Chapter 2

Angela stepped out of the taxi and looked around. It was a beautiful, tree-lined neighborhood in one of the more expensive areas of Baltimore. Right now, the spring flowers were adding bursts of color and there was a tinge of warmth to the sunshine.

Angela flinched as a cold shiver slid down her spine. Ever since she’d looked up Mark DuBreck’s contact information, she’d felt odd, as if something was very wrong. That feeling, that niggling sensation that something was off was the reason for her presence here in Baltimore on a Friday morning.

After doing a bit more digging into James’ friend, Angela had discovered some inconsistencies. It was already odd that the man had an office in the Chicago headquarters, but worked in the shipping department. But even more peculiar, when she’d visited the address on file for him, Angela had found the address didn’t actually exist. It wasn’t even a post office box. More digging revealed that the man lived in Baltimore, of all places.

That heavy, foreboding sensation was building, she thought, scanning the building. She looked at the blind corners as well as trees lining the sidewalk, examining the area for threats. She also searched for places to hide. Angela was all for attacking life head on, but she also knew the value of an excellent hiding place when the danger became life threatening.

Her past had taught her to listen to those feelings. Should she go find a police officer? Probably. Was she going to do that?

Not a chance. The police would most likely take her request for a “wellness check” on a company employee seriously, but it might take them a few days to get around to it. The policewere great, but higher priority issues regularly overwhelmed them.

Besides, she was just going to knock on the man’s door and see if he answered. No harm there, right?

Again, she looked up and down the street, trying to figure out where that odd sense of danger was coming from.

“Are you going in or are you just going to stand on the sidewalk?” a deep, male voice asked.

Angela spun around, startled by the voice behind her. She recognized that voice and…a split second later, she saw a familiar man walk around the front of a beautiful sedan. How long had he been sitting there? Instantly, all of her senses were alert, but in a completely different way.

The man walking towards her distracted her entirely from the sense of danger she’d felt a moment ago. Instead, Angela felt her pulse pounding faster with every step as he approached, her breath caught in her lungs, and her knees weakened alarmingly. Angela pulled her yellow, wool coat more tightly around her, as if it could shield her from this man’s intense, powerful gaze.

“Hello, Mr. Rutherford. What are you doing here?”

His laugh…goodness, his laugh was nice! No, nice was too tame of a word. He was…hot! Sexy. Dangerous! Angela pulled her sunglasses out of her purse, slipping them on to help hide her expression.

“I’m curious, because several months ago, you called me James.” He reached out, capturing a wisp of her hair, and tucking it behind her ear which sent additional shivers coursing through her. He tilted his head slightly, those crystal blue eyes penetrating deep into her soul. Could he read her thoughts?Could he sense how nervous she was? “Why be formal now?” He stepped even closer and Angela could barely breathe! “I’m curious, Ms. Bertuccio.”

Step back! Angela ordered her feet to move, to put some space between them. But instead, she breathed in the spicy, masculine scent of him.

“Why are you here?” she asked again, leaving off his name. She couldn’t call him James. That just seemed too…intimate. During their last encounter months ago, they’d been surrounded by her guys. She’d felt…safe? No, that wasn’t right because Angela knew that James would never hurt her. Not physically. But there had also been the urgency of trying to find out who wanted to assassinate Kasim. At the time, it would have been odd if she’d called him ‘Mr. Rutherford’. Now, the formal use of his name felt…less dangerous.

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