“Good. Will you miss me?”
Her breath caught on a soft gasp. Of course she’d miss him, but she couldn’t admit that.
“It’ll give me a chance to catch up a bit,” she hedged.
Josh laughed, the sound sending a tingle of longing from her ear to her core. “You can admit it, you know.”
“Admit what?” Callie remained deliberately vague.
“That you’re looking forward to seeing me again. How about dinner on Wednesday night? We’ll go somewhere private and intimate. Would you like that?”
Callie hesitated before answering. Of course she’d like that. In fact, she couldn’t wait. The realisation that she’d be alone in the office for the next couple of days was tinged with disappointment already.
“Yes, I would like that. Shall I make a reservation somewhere?” she replied, her voice uncharacteristically husky.
“I’ll take care of it,” he answered, again in that low tone that made his statement all the more intimate. As if he was going to take care of a great deal more than a simple dinner booking.
Desire simmered through her veins in gentle waves and she shifted on her ever-so-sensible office chair in a way that lacked prudence altogether.
Wednesday. Two days, two nights. It was an eternity and yet so close. The anticipation of his return was going to have her at fever pitch and he knew it. That simple fact alone should have her changing her mind, refusing his invitation, but she wanted more. She wanted him.
“I’ll get onto those files for you. Can I access them with my fingerprint and password?”
“I’ve already spoken to Drew about your print ID on my station, but you’ll need my password,” Josh said, before rattling off the access letter and number combination she’d need.
He trusted her enough to give her his private password. A swell of joy hit her. Hard on its heels, though, came the diminishing reality of what she could find out with that information and, more particularly, what Irene would expect her to find out.
Callie pushed the thought from her head. She’d been entrusted with this key, she didn’t dare abuse that trust. Not when her every instinct told her that Josh Tremont was far more than what everyone else suspected. Not when her heart urged her to obey instinct over rationality for the first time in her life.
As soon as Josh ended their call, Callie walked through to his office. Settling herself into his chair, she couldn’t stifle the strange sensation of warmth that permeated her skin. Everything about this room spoke of the man he was, his presence and personality indelibly stamped in its atmosphere.
She gave herself a quick mental shake and logged in to his computer, using her print scan and the password he’d given her. She held her breath a moment as the system hesitated before opening fully, and then she was in. Free to peruse everything and anything that took her fancy.
The message Irene had left on her phone on Saturday night replayed in her head. Callie had the opportunity, here and now, to put things right and settle the matter once and for all. First, though, she had to send those files through to Josh.
Once that had been done, and she’d received the pingback read receipt she’d requested, Callie debated logging straight back out again. There’d be a record of how long she’d been active on Josh’s computer somewhere in the system if anyone bothered to look, but the question was Would they? Obviously, if she logged out and logged back in again it would send up a red flag, even if Josh’s password worked for her again. She knew his access codes were changed on a random basis. Perhaps even after giving her this password, it would be invalid for future use.
This was her first and last opportunity. She had to do it, no matter how much it went against her grain. Callie’s first loyalty had always been to Irene and she was permitting that loyalty to be compromised by her unexpected emotional response to a man she barely knew.
Taking a deep breath, Callie allowed her fingers to dash over the keyboard, executing a variety of searches using specific keywords. In no time at all she had a list of files and one by one she copied them onto a flash drive so she could study them at home. Silently she vowed to destroy the information as soon as she knew Josh was innocent of what the Palmers accused him of.
For some reason, when she got home, she was reluctant to turn on her computer. Eventually, though, after she’d had a light bite to eat and had brewed a pot of herbal tea, she opened her laptop and powered it up.
A sense of foreboding manifested in a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach as she slotted the memory stick into its spot. A burning sensation that grew stronger as she opened each file she’d copied and skimmed its contents. Josh Tremont seemed to have an awful lot of information about the corporate structure and current business plan at Palmer Enterprises for someone who didn’t work there.