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“Apologies.” His voice was dry and held no emotion.
It was like talking to a cyborg.
What the hell was he even doing down here? Wasn’t California Barbie upstairs, waiting for him to fuck her senseless?
Maybe he already had.
Damn, that must have been one hell of a quickie!
I cringed at my own train of thought.
“How did you even know I was here?” I demanded as he stepped closer to my desk.
“You used your key card at the door,” he replied, as if that answered my question.
“Okay…and?” I prodded.
“I get alerts on any after-hours activity so that I know who is coming and going, and when,” Cooper explained, sighing as if he was teaching a particularly slow student.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes at his explanation. Of course he was tracking all comings and goings. He wouldn’t be the world’s biggest control freak if he wasn’t.
“Well, for your information, I’m actually here to work.”
“So am I,” he said, his face unchanged.
“Right. That’s what you were doing. Working,” I scoffed and dropped my gaze while I mindlessly shuffled the stack of pages in my hands, desperately hoping that he would give up and go away.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.
I forced my eyes back to his and steeled myself for the flood of rage he would hurl at me once I busted him. “Cooper, let’s cut the bullshit. I saw you with your blonde bimbo upstairs in your office.”
He stiffened and his jaw locked in place as he thought for a moment.
“Not that I owe you an explanation,” he said, leering over me. “But that was Tessa Greenwood. She worked at Spotlight,” he said.
“I know who she is, Cooper. I used to work there, remember?” I injected as much scorn into my voice as possible. I was being mouthy with him, but I didn’t care. My body was flooded with venom and I had to release some of it. “That she was up in your office, just the two of you, in the dark, after everyone has gone home was more my point. We’re both adults here, Cooper. Don’t insult my intelligence.”
He leaned forward and braced himself against my desk, bearing down on me and forcing my attention. I raised my eyes and nearly reared back at the look of fire in his dark eyes. He was angry. I could see it within every fleck of gold and copper, as if his brown eyes were slowly heating to a molten metal.
I did my best not to shrink away from the waves of anger that were radiating off of his impressive form. I held his stare and kept my lips tightly pressed together, ready with a quick comeback to whatever he was about to say next.
But then, something shifted in his eyes and he straightened. He stood before me and tugged his suit jacket as if it had gone askew.
“Have a good night, Allison. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With that, he swept from the room and disappeared into the shadow-filled hallway outside my office.
I waited a few minutes to ensure he was gone before releasing my breath and flopping back in my chair.
“What the fuck was that?” I whispered to myself.
My heart was still racing long after he was gone. No matter what I did to calm myself, it seemed to make little difference. My body was still reeling from the encounter and my mind was still racing to figure out what had happened.
It was hard to believe that he’d been fucking Tessa in his office. For one thing, it hadn’t been nearly long enough. Cooper was a man who liked to take his time. Then again, perhaps he’d received notice that I’d used my key card and he cut things short to come and talk to me. But why? He hadn’t said anything of importance. He hadn’t really said much, period.
The whole thing was so weird and jarring that it took me at least another forty-five minutes—and another cup of chamomile tea—to settle back down to the point where I could continue working.
I pushed all of the evening’s events out of my mind and pulled up the virus data that I’d captured from the night before. I wanted a chance to study it. Alone. No Cooper hanging over my shoulder, making my brain fuzzy and mushy.
