“Is that the guy’s name?”

“Yeah. And yes, I am. I’m sure after a good night’s sleep I’ll be ready to deal with the situation more rationally. I don’t scare easy, but this guy got to me.”

“Last time I looked, offering a bribe was illegal. You can always go after him legally,” Dameon suggested.

She wasn’t willing to go there. “I’ll let Richard know what happened and make a stand when it comes to dealing with him in the future.”

“I don’t like the idea of you having to deal with him at all.”

“I won’t meet with him alone again.” Once bitten, twice shy, she told herself. There was no reason to give the man another chance at scaring the crap out of her. If anything, those tables needed to turn in the other direction. “Thanks for coming with me.”

Dameon turned his truck onto the street leading to her condo. “I’m honored you thought to call me, Grace.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she sat in silence the rest of the way home.

Dameon found an empty parking space and pulled in.

“You don’t have to walk me to my door,” she said.

He cut the engine and twisted in his seat. “Humor me. I’ll feel better knowing you’re inside safe.”

“I’ve lived here for five years.”

“Humor me,” he said a second time.

Grace nodded and stepped out of his truck.

She could see her breath in the cold night air. The bite of the wind had her walking faster. “I can’t believe it’s almost ten o’clock.”

“It’s been a long day for both of us,” he said.

At her door, she pulled her keys out of her purse and turned to him. For the second time that night, she felt a wave of nerves as the evening ended. “Thank you, Dameon. For coming, for dinner . . .”

“You’re welcome.” He stood just out of reach and wasn’t making any attempt to move in to kiss her.

She shivered.

“You should go in.”

With a nervous nod, she fiddled with the key in the deadbolt and twisted the lock. She pushed the door open, and the warm air from inside rushed against her skin. She stepped inside and turned. “Good night.”

“I’ll see you Friday.”

“Right.”

“Good night.”

She started closing the door.

“Grace?”

She stopped and looked up. “Yeah?”

“Just one more thing.” Dameon stepped forward, reached up with a hand to her face, and pressed his palm against her cheek. Their eyes met right before he bent his head and removed any space between them. His lips were warm, and her heart raced with all the excitement of the first taste of the man. Dameon was kissing her, and heaven help her, she was stepping into his arms and tilting her head back to take in the whole experience.

He moved his head to the side and coaxed her lips open.

The man was entirely too good at making her break the rules.

Just as his kiss started to deepen and border on the kind of kiss that shouldn’t happen in public, Dameon ended it.

She blinked her eyes open and found him smiling down. “I want to do that again . . . soon,” he murmured low in his throat.

Words failed her, so she settled with a nod.

He traced the side of her jaw with his thumb before dropping his hand and stepping away. “Good night, Grace.”

“G’night.” She backed into her condo and closed the door.

She heard his footsteps retreating, and she leaned against the wall.

A slow smile spread over her face. The man took her breath away and had her aching for more than a good-night kiss at her door.

Dameon Locke was fast becoming an addiction she didn’t want a cure for.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Grace gave herself credit for not barging into Richard’s office at eight a.m. sharp. She waited until eight thirty. She gave him the courtesy of rapping once before opening the door and letting herself in.

He looked up in surprise.

“Good morning,” she said, giving him the simple pleasantries of polite conversation even though he didn’t afford her the same respect.

“Do we have a meeting this morning?” he asked.

She ignored his question. “Last night’s meeting with Sokolov was a complete waste of time, as I thought it would be. The so-called plans he wanted to use looked like they’d been drawn by a ninth grader and didn’t take anything we’ve spelled out into account.”

Richard stared at her, completely void of emotion. “And you couldn’t tell me this at Monday’s meeting?”

His question took her aback. He was right. “He attempted to offer me a bribe,” she blurted out.

He raised his eyebrows. “Attempted, or did?”

“He waved his wallet around and said there must be some way we could work this out.”

“So he didn’t directly say he’d give you money to approve his plan?”

“He was more subtle than that. I made it clear what we required and left.” He also went out of his way to scare the shit out of her, but she left that out. Richard obviously wasn’t seriously alarmed by her news.

“The last thing we’re going to do is jump into some legal action on vague charges.” Richard leaned back in his chair.

“I wasn’t suggesting we do. I thought you should know what happened. And in the future, I won’t be meeting Mr. Sokolov without someone else with me.” Especially after the sun went down . . . but again, she left that out.

“Well . . . thank you for informing me.” He scooted closer to his desk. “Now if you don’t mind?” He motioned toward the door.

Grace walked away from her boss’s office feeling like she’d just tattled to her teacher about a boy being mean in class.

Back in her office, she closed the door and slumped in her chair. The pile of work on her desk never seemed to go down, and the gratification of doing her job had started to bleed into puddles on the floor that needed to be cleaned up. What happened to the joy she once felt? The job hadn’t changed. Her boss was always kind of a jerk. To her, anyway.

The institutional-style clock on the wall clicked away the seconds.

Every day the seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours. And at five, the pile on her right was never any smaller.

Something inside of her had shifted, and Grace couldn’t quite put her finger on what.

She opened the folder she’d been working on before being pulled away the night before and dug in. Luckily today was a field day. She’d be out of the office for several hours, giving her the space she needed away from her boss. Only a couple more office days, then the holiday party, and short work weeks for the rest of the year.

Her office phone rang, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Grace Hudson,” she answered.

“Good morning.”

Dameon.

Just the sound of his voice lifted her mood. “Good morning,” she chimed back.

“I thought a call would be better than texting your work cell.”

“That’s probably wise.”

“You’ll let me know as soon as you replace it?” he asked.

“I will.”

“Good. That way I can text you something completely sappy about how much I enjoyed last night. Not the reason it happened, but how it ended up.”