And she was gone.
He leaned back against the pillows. The bed held her smell, the air quivered with her presence. He waited for the room to settle and return to being his. Still. Quiet. Orderly. He twitched the sheets back into place and punched the pillows into perfect fluffed form. The room was back to status quo, and so was he.
When he woke again, hours before his alarm was set to ring, he was clasping the pillow she’d used tight to his chest. He tried his usual methods for dropping back into sleep, but none of them worked.
There was only one thing to do: diagram the situation causing his insomnia and diagnose the solutions. By the time he stepped into the shower to begin his work day, he’d made three key decisions.
Number one: the search was off. Danica was careful, but the odds had changed. With Cinco Jackson sniffing around, the search was no longer a calculated risk in his favor. He needed Nestor to believe the marriage commitment was real. A front-page story about his pursuit of unmarried females would call that into question.
Number two: he still needed a wife.
Number three: the only logical solution to his dilemma was Danica.
Seven
Luke pushed open the glass doors of Ruby Hawk, eager to put his plan into action. He had examined it from all angles in the hours before the sun rose, not finding a single flaw. And after discovering just how combustible they were in bed, Danica would agree with him, of course.
“You seem chipper,” Anjuli said when she ran into him at the coffee bar. “That’s not your usual style the morning after the Peninsula Society shindig. Did you not go?”
“I went. Have you heard of Medevco?”
Anjuli raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of subject. “Is that a city or a company?”
“Company. High-tech medical devices.”
She shook her head. “No, but I haven’t been following the health-care sector too closely.”
“Check it out, would you? Evan Fletcher is the founder. Grayson Monk is the key investor.” He saluted her with his three-shot Americano. He needed to get some work done before he took Danica to lunch to explain his stroke of genius. In fact, perhaps he should clear his schedule for the rest of the day. Just in case. The hot flare of anticipation at the thought was not unwelcome.
He frowned as he approached the conference room he used as his office. The mechanized shades were down, turning the glass walls opaque. He was positive he had left them up. With all the rumors surrounding Ruby Hawk, it was important to project openness and confidence. He opened the door.
And immediately wished he hadn’t.
Irene Stavros sat behind his desk, thumbing through that blasted Silicon Valley Weekly. “Hello,” she greeted him. “I’m so sorry I missed you at the fund-raiser last night. But it looks like you had a great time despite my absence.” She turned the paper around so he could see the double-page spread. A photo of him and Danica talking to Grayson Monk occupied the center. Her manicured fingernail tapped on Danica’s face. “What I can’t figure out is why you were seen leaving with the help.”
* * *
What did I do? What did I do? What did I do? The refrain would not stop playing in Danica’s mind. She fell asleep listening to its rhythmic beat, and the words provided the background soundtrack for her shower, breakfast and now her journey to work. She barely noticed the scenery as she walked the six blocks from the train station to the Ruby Hawk offices. Images and sounds and scents from the night before occupied her senses.
She slept with Luke Dallas.
No. Strike that.
She had sex with Luke Dallas. Mind-blowing, can’t-see-straight, volcanic sex. The kind magazines wrote headlines about. The kind appearing in books she previously filed under fantasy.
That she and Luke had chemistry had been obvious since that first kiss outside the taqueria. But even very, very, very good sex wasn’t enough to ruin her career over. This...whatever it was...could go no further.
And Luke was sure to agree. After all, he hired her to find him a wife, and she wasn’t on the list. Last night was impulsive madness, fueled by champagne and pent-up curiosity.
Now they knew. It was over and done. There wouldn’t be a repeat.
Autopilot brought her to the converted supply room that was her office. Taking a deep breath, she sat down behind her desk and wrote down her game plan. She would find Luke the third candidate, she would submit her invoice for a job completed and then she would leave Ruby Hawk and start her own search firm.