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“You know, I’ve seen a lot of fancy offices and technology in my line of work, but I’ve never seen shit like this up close,” he said, getting up and walking the to window. “Itiscool.”
His t-shirt and jeans fit his snug body like a dream, certain areas like his shoulders and thighs straining the fabric to its fullest. He had to lift. There was no other way his body could be so big.
When he turned to look at her, she masked her expression. His lack of mockery wasn’t a green light to lose her shit over him. She’d do well to remember he was just another bad boy with a hot body who loved sex.
Move along, nothing to see, her brain stated, and she opened the inventory for the testing facility.
On the window the list appeared, itemizing the bio-haptics suits and their sizes, along with a schematic of the suit itself.
“Just wait until you see how the testing works,” she promised, and then got to work mobilizing the team for the change of plans under Ryder’s intent gaze.
15
Ryder revved the engine of the old ATV as he rode along the perimeter of the Cavendish property. The early Sunday morning air was crisp, and the blue glow of approaching dawn lightened the surrounding sky. For once the fucking sky wasn’t gray, although a bank of clouds moving from the west would probably blot out any sunshine before it could hit him.
He’d asked Nita about finding something better than a golf cart to ride the long fence line, and she’d directed him to an equipment shed at the foot of the English Manor’s driveway. He’d found the ATV tucked in the corner, covered in cobwebs. After cleaning the spark plugs and filling it with gas, the machine had revved right up.
Now, as he maneuvered through the uneven terrain along the fence, his mind drifted back to the previous night.
Shit, Nita had put in some long hours. She’d set him up on the desktop computer and a wireless keyboard, so their workspaces had been side-by-side on the window wall.
He’d been working from the client list and running background checks, while she’d been doing several things he didn’t think the legal department would do.
“We’re so short staffed, it’s crazy,” she told him as she reviewed their inventory of costumes. “Since I’ve been with Cavendish the longest, I have the most knowledge of how everything’s supposed to go.”
“What, are the other women absentee owners?” he asked.
She laughed.
“A little, but they’ve only owned the club for six months. They’re sorority sisters and none of them have any real applicable job experience for a sex club,” she replied.
“Except your boss. She’s a lawyer, right?” he asked.
“Technically, yes. She was a jury consultant who wants to be a criminal trial lawyer,” she explained. “Hartley’s a lawyer, too, but I’ve never asked what her specialization is. She’s also a former client.”
“So why isn’t she helping with some of this?” he asked, pointing to the seven windows Nita was clicking between. “She can work remotely, can’t she?”
“She needs to focus on this prospective client. Without new meat, Cavendish will be dead in the water,” she explained.
He couldn't deny it. She’d impressed him with her ability to take charge and multitask. She’d arranged transportation for the different client arrival times, kicked the cleaning crew’s butt to show up at 5 a.m. to clean and prep the Spanish Villa, and last, organized a company to pick up the costumes for dry-cleaning. Not to mention the details she’d had to comb over in twelve client contracts, the same clients he was running the checks on.
“Holy shit,” he’d said, forgetting his own work as he watched her make revisions to the legal documents.
“Yeah, I’ll be at this for a few more hours,” she said, and he saw it was already past midnight.
He’d dozed off on the couch, and when he’d awoken, she was gone. She’d put a sticky note on his leg with instructions for checking the security.
Seeing her at work made him think he might need to reassess his opinion about lawyers. Well, maybe just one almost-lawyer. He might have unfairly categorized all lawyers as assholes in his mind. Perhaps there were different lawyers, and he had been too quick to judge. Nita seemed different, someone who knew her way around the legal aspects of the job without compromising her integrity.
Of course, he didn’t know her as a family lawyer, which would be her area of expertise, according to her. So maybe he was smart to reserve judgement. Anyway, he was only there for two weeks, and once his guys showed up—
His intuition kicked his gut sideways and he throttled down the ATV.
He scanned the fence and the tall, dead grass that hid the bottom. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but the hair on his neck still tingled. It was a sensation he never questioned.
Revving up the ATV, he circled back a few hundred feet and rejoined the two tracks he’d made in the damp grass. He drove slowly, his eyes moving up and down the bars, until he saw it. An anomaly in the fencing.
Two metal bars had bulges in them about two feet off the ground, and the wet grass at their base was disturbed.
