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“Oh, my.” Helene sighed the words.

The surprise and jealously in her voice somehow managed to break through the spell that Hawk cast over Charlotte.

Eyes closed, she slowly drew her lips from his and gave herself a moment to enjoy the fantasy that the kiss actually meant something and wasn’t just a way to reinforce the lie about him being her boyfriend.

“Come on, Sweets.” He laced their fingers together, lifted their joined hands, and kissed her knuckles. “Let’s get that stuff you needed so we can get the heck out of here.”

“Stuff?” She fast-blinked. “Oh, yeah, the stuff I needed.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” He gave a quick dip of his chin, then looked down at Remy. “Break.”

They left Helene standing there with her mouth gaping open, no doubt envious of that incredibly intense kiss she’d just witnessed. And probably more than a little upset at being called ma’am.

All of which brought Charlotte great joy.

“Why did you do that?” she whispered as they walked away.

“Why did I kiss you?” Hawk stopped her and moved to stand in front of her. He held her upper arms, looked her dead in the eyes, and said, “Because I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you.”

“You … you have?” Oh, man, she wanted to believe him so badly.

“Yep.” He nodded. “I’ll never forget that moment. You walked into the Dark Ops briefing room, and you were wearing this dark blue dress with white across the top. You were beautiful and sincere and so passionate when you talked about helping kids, and, well, I was hooked.”

“I can’t believe you remember what I was wearing.” Knowing what an extraordinary group of people she would be speaking to, she’d spent extra time deciding what to wear in an effort to make a good first impression.

“I remember everything about you, Charlotte.” He stepped closer. “Now, let’s go to your office so I can kiss you again—without an audience.”

She might have walked a bit faster when she led him to her office door. He stood behind her—so close, she could feel his breath across the top of her head. She tugged her keys from the side pocket of her bag, unlocked her door, and they stepped inside.

He shut and locked the door, set Charlotte’s bag on one of the chairs in front of her desk, and pointed at a spot in the corner.

“Place.” Remy sauntered over to where he was pointing, his leash dragging behind, then he lay down and rested his head on the floor.

Hawk stepped up to Charlotte, framed her face with his hands, and caressed his thumbs over her cheeks. His eyes traveled over her features, and when he stopped to look into her eyes, she fought against the urge to fidget.

She thought only guys in romance novels did that kind of stuff.

“Your eyes are incredible. They’re light green around the center and get darker around the edge.” Slowly, he lowered his head … then stopped an inch from her face.

“Are we on the same page here, Charlotte?” His voice was rough. “Because if we’re not—”

She raised up on her tippy-toes, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. Like, really kissed him. His tongue dipped between her lips and a powerful rush of joy flooded her system and her entire body felt like it was sparkling.

Locked in his embrace, his mouth on hers, their tongues sliding against each other’s, she finally felt what it was like to be kissed by someone who knew what they were doing.

A sharp knock knock on the door startled her. She pulled her lips from his and stared at the door like a snarling beast waited on the other side. Just like that, her elation was replaced with unease.

Remy immediately became alert, popped up to all fours, and watched the door.

“Charlotte, look at me.” Hawk kissed the tip of her nose to gain her attention, wrapped his arms around her and put his mouth close to her ear to whisper, “Remember, we’re assuming your office is bugged, okay?”

She nodded.

“I’m your boyfriend, and we’re just here to get something from your office.” His breath feathered across her ear, and a shiver ran through her.

He lifted his head and gave her a look for confirmation.

She nodded, and an involuntary smile broke across her face. This man was potent, with a big old capital P .

“Good.” He gave her a quick kiss. “It’s okay, bud.” Remy plopped back down on the floor as Hawk lowered himself into one of the chairs in front of her desk. Then, casual as you please, he sat back and propped his ankle on the opposite knee. “Go ahead and open it.”

She walked over, unlocked the door, swung it open, and there stood her boss, Douglas Norcross, though he insisted everyone call him Doug.

He was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Hey, Charlotte.” He had a look of concern on his face. “Is everything okay? I got a notification about you taking vacation, so I was surprised when Helene told me you were here.”

Of course, the annoying woman went running to him to blab. She was one of the biggest gossips in the building. Most of the time she worked at Mr. Pennington’s private office across town, so they didn’t have to deal with her. But as chairman of the board, he’d insisted on having an office on the top floor of this building as well, which meant they were stuck with her a few days each month. Lately, she’d been spending more time there, strutting around and acting like she was some sort of queen of the office. Like she was blessing the peasants with her presence or something.

Everyone suspected Helene was spying on them for her boss. Because of that, with the exception of a couple of misguided low-level admins who mistakenly thought she could help them move up in the company, they were all pretty tight-lipped whenever she was around.

“I’m just here to close out a couple of files and grab a few things I’m going to need in order to work from home.” She kept her voice light.

The chair creaked when Hawk stood, and Doug did a double take.

“Doug Norcross, this is Patrick Nakai.” She added, “My boyfriend.”

Wow, it felt weird saying that out loud, especially knowing it wasn’t true.

Hawk stepped up to her, set his hand on her shoulder, and she felt the warmth of his touch through her shirt.

Yummy.

“Nice to meet you, sir.” He extended his arm, and the men shook.

“You, too, son. And, please, call me Doug,” he said. “Charlotte, I left another message for Kimball about moving you to a better parking spot, and I’m still waiting to hear back from him.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not sure why this is such a difficult request, but I’ll keep pressing him.”

“I appreciate the effort, but I’m sure you have more important things to deal with than getting me a new parking spot.” Now that she knew Kimball put her in that crappy spot for a reason, she didn’t want to waste any more of Doug’s time.

“Your safety is important, Charlotte, so I’m going to keep bugging him,” he said.

“Well, thank you,” she said.

“I’d appreciate that, too.” A muscle in Hawk’s jaw jumped. “It would also be great if the lights could all be brought up to code before she gets back from vacation.”

“Speaking of vacation, why are you taking work home with you?” Doug teased, “I know you rarely take one, so you do remember what a vacation is, right?”

“I do, and I may not need my computer, but I like having it with me, just in case.” She couldn’t remember ever not taking her laptop home with her, nor could she remember the last time she took any time off.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it so you can get out of here.” He shook Hawk’s hand again and tilted his head toward Charlotte. “She’s a heck of a catch, son. I hope you realize that.”

“I do, sir.” He smiled at her.

“I’ll have the facilities team get on fixing those lights right away.” Doug moved to the door and stopped with his hand on the jamb. “Charlotte, you let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you … for everything, Doug.” There was an odd sense of finality to her words.

“You bet.” He tapped the doorframe twice and walked away.

Her boss was a genuinely nice man with a family and a wife he seemed to dote on. He treated his employees with respect and cared about each and every one of them.

Charlotte really hoped he wasn’t involved in this mess.

She closed her door, locked it, and tugged her laptop from her bag before hurrying over to sit behind her desk.

Hawk held his finger to his lips so she wouldn’t say anything that might be overheard, grabbed a piece of paper off her desk, and scribbled a note.

Scanning for bugs. Phone will beep if I find one.

He extended his arm to sweep the phone up and down, all around her desk, her laptop, external monitor, telephone. No beep . He moved over to the file cabinet near the window and scanned the file organizer on top, then ran it over her little Bluetooth speaker, picked it up, turned it over and checked the bottom, the charging cable. Still, nothing.

Remy tracked his every move with his eyes.

Hawk’s gaze lifted to the ceiling and stopped. He picked up a chair, set it under the fire sprinkler, then stepped up onto it. He held the phone up close to it, and there was a long beeeep .

They looked at each other.

She’d known it was a possibility, but Charlotte felt violated and sick to her stomach at the idea of people eavesdropping on her.

He tucked his cell phone in his pocket and pointed at the pencil cup on her desk. He made a scribbling motion in the air, and she handed him a pencil.

Hawk reached up and wedged the tip of the pencil beneath the edge of something and popped it loose. A black device about the size of a dime dropped to the carpet near Charlotte’s feet.

Hard to believe something so tiny could be used for something so awful.

Hawk stepped off the chair, squatted down, and frowned as he examined the small device. He popped a tissue from the box on her desk and spread it out next to the electronic bug.

Charlotte realized what he was going to do, so she slid her drawer open and shuffled through it until she found small needle-nose pliers. Peeking out from the back of the drawer, she spotted a small zip-style bag that once contained a charging cord.

She tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention and held out the pliers and the small bag.

He smiled and accepted them both, then carefully picked up the flat, circular device and set it on the center of the tissue. After examining it a bit longer, he took a picture of it, then flipped it over, poked the sharp point of the pencil into a small hole, and wrapped the bug up in the tissue.

“Okay, we’re clear.” Hawk stood and set the chair back in front of her desk. “Let’s get this done and get the hell out of here.”

“Okay, I’ll get my laptop set up.” She lifted the lid on her corporate laptop. “Sammy said to connect it directly to the internal system, right?”

“Yeah. Let me see if she’s available to walk you through this.” He lifted a hip, pulled his phone from his back pocket, and tapped the screen. “Now that we’re free to talk, I’ll put her on speaker.”

While he waited for her to answer, Charlotte plugged her laptop into the blue cord that was attached to a wall outlet and powered it on.

“Hey, Hawk.” Sammy’s voice had a cheerful lilt. “What can I do for you?”

“We’re at Charlotte’s office, and I’ve got you on speakerphone.” He set the phone on the desk. “Is now a good time to walk her through accessing the system files?”

“Hey, Charlotte,” she said.

“Hi.” Charlotte hoped she’d get to meet Sammy at some point.

“Actually, it’s a perfect time.” Sammy continued, “The situation we were dealing with has abated, and aside from a few minor cuts, scrapes, and colorful bruises, the team is all good. And, bonus, they were able to get all of the victims out.”

“That’s excellent news.” Hawk nodded with a smile.

“I assume you’ve swept the room?” she asked.

“Yeah. I found an HJ-697 device mounted on the fire sprinkler,” he said.

“Amateurs,” she scoffed. “The battery life on those is pretty short, and the reception is crappy.”

“Which tells me it hasn’t been up there very long.” Hawk propped his hip on the edge of the desk. “I’m going to send it to the lab so they can work their magic on it.”

“Good plan.” Sammy clicked a few keys. “Okay, Charlotte, let’s do this.”

“My laptop is connected to the internal system and turned on. What’s next?” She really didn’t want to screw this up.

“Go ahead and log in the same way you always do,” Sammy said. “I’ll walk you through how to give me access to your laptop.”

“You can do that?” She logged into the system like she’d done thousands of times before, but this time … this time it felt different. More ominous.

“Easy peasy.” Sammy chuckled.

“Okay, I’m logged in.” Charlotte’s heart slammed against her chest, but she was determined to get through this. “What’s next?”

“Open your Internet browser and go to this website.” She rattled off a series of letters, numbers, and characters. “Let me know when you get there.”

Thank goodness, Hawk jotted them down on the back side of his earlier note.

Charlotte looked from his note to the computer and carefully typed it exactly as written. A screen popped up with two rectangular boxes in the center.

“Okay, I’m looking at a blue screen with two white boxes.”

“Excellent.” Sammy continued, “In the top box, go ahead and type in your login ID. Your password will go in the bottom box.”

Charlotte’s fingers shook as she typed.

Hawk stood behind her, set his hands on her shoulders, and his touch calmed her nerves.

She lifted her chin and smiled up at him, blew out a breath, and managed to input the needed information.

“Okay, it’s done,” Charlotte said. “There is a prompt asking me to give you permission to access my computer.”

“Perfect. Go ahead and click ‘yes.’” Sammy was friendly and efficient with her instructions.

Charlotte dragged her cursor over to the “yes” box and clicked on it. The screen blinked once, but nothing else happened.

“Okay, I’m in.” Computer keys clicked very quickly in the background. “I’m using an encrypted IP address, so they won’t be able to trace this back to me. When I’m done, they’ll never even know I was there. And they won’t know that you allowed access to anyone.”

They listened to a few minutes of fast typing from Sammy’s end before they heard a low whistle.

“HRA has been getting billions from the US government.” More clicking. “Downloading these files is going to take a little time.”

“How much time are we talking about, Sammy? I’d like to get Charlotte out of here as soon as possible.” Hawk must’ve read her mind, because she was anxious to leave, too.

“Don’t worry, it should only take me a few minutes to download the relevant files from the system. Guys, hang on a sec.” Her voice was muffled, like she was holding her hand over her mouthpiece, and it sounded like she was talking to someone. “Sorry ’bout that. Hawk, Luna’s getting ready to send you and Cole that information you asked for.”

“Great, thank her for me, will ya?” Hawk gave Charlotte’s shoulders a reassuring squeeze, then moved over to stand by the door. Legs wide, arms down with one hand over the other in front of him, he looked like a badass sentry.

She jumped when someone knocked on the door, then jiggled the knob.

“Sammy, hang on a second.” Hawk waited until Charlotte lowered her laptop screen enough it couldn’t be seen, then opened the door.

“What are you two lovebirds doing in here that you needed to lock the door?” Friggin’ Helene stood there, arms crossed beneath her big boobs, her hip cocked to one side.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Charlotte ignored her question, set her forearms on her desk, and forced herself to remain professional. Which was difficult to do when the she-devil was blatantly scanning Hawk up and down. Again .

She’d never been a violent person, but with the way Helene was pissing her off today, she just might make an exception.

“Oh, here’s the bag I’ve been admiring.” She lifted Charlotte’s messenger bag from the chair, held it up, and turned it in her hands to examine it. “It’s so … functional, what with all of these pockets.”

Then the damn woman actually had the nerve to open and close a couple of the outside pockets. She started to access the main compartment, and Hawk snatched it from her grasp. And boy oh boy, the look he gave her could wilt flowers.

“I’m sorry, I was just looking at it.” She actually acted put out by what he’d done. “I’ve been thinking about getting something like it.”

“What do you want, Helene?” Because Charlotte was certain she wasn’t here to admire a six-year-old messenger bag that wasn’t made by one of the fancy, big-name designers Helene preferred.

“Mr. Pennington is asking for you.” She lowered her arms. “And you know he doesn’t like being kept waiting.”

“Please tell him that I’m in the middle of something right now, then I’ll be leaving the office for vacation.” Charlotte shared a loving look with Hawk. “Hawk and I want to spend some time together—just the two of us—away from work.”

Was she rubbing it in Helene’s nose? Yes. Did she feel bad about it? Not even a tiny little bit.

She was done kowtowing to the likes of Pennington. Especially now that she knew he was a horrible, evil monster who did terrible things to children. And she was definitely done putting up with his holier-than-thou assistant.

“Yeah, I want her all to myself.” Charlotte’s bag still in his hand, Hawk stepped over to her and skimmed his fingertip down her cheek.

Holy panties on fire. He sure was good at this pretending thing.

Now that she’d gotten a taste of him—even though it was under false pretenses—her libido had, apparently, decided to come out of hibernation.

Charlotte had better get control of her emotions or she could be setting herself up for a major disappointment.

“Mr. Pennington is not one to be ignored.” Helene propped her hands on her pronounced hips, and her shiny red nails matched her skirt.

“That may be, but he’ll just have to wait until I get back.” Charlotte hoped Pennington and the rest of them were in jail by then.

“What she said.” Hawk reached down to set her bag on the floor behind her desk, straightened, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Well.” She seemed shocked by their dismissal. “I can assure you he will be extremely unhappy when I tell him what you said.”

“So be it.” Charlotte shrugged.

At that, Helene turned on her four-inch heels and stormed off.

“You did great.” Hawk leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss. “Let me lock the door.”

Charlotte waited for the click before returning to her call.

“Sorry about that, Sammy.” She lifted her laptop screen.

“No worries. I finished downloading the files, so you can go ahead and power down and disconnect from the system whenever you’re ready.”

“That’s it?” Charlotte asked.

“Yep, and make sure you take your laptop with you when you leave,” Sammy said. “I’ll analyze these files and prepare a summary.”

“Thanks, Sammy.” Charlotte unplugged the blue cord from her laptop and blew out a sigh of relief that they were done with this part of their clandestine mission.

“Yeah, thanks,” Hawk said.

“You bet.” Sammy ended the call.

“Let’s get the heck out of here before Helene comes back.” Charlotte shoved her laptop in her bag and clipped it shut. “That woman is a menace.”

“You handled her perfectly,” he said. “Do you need anything else besides your laptop?”

She glanced around her office.

“Only this.” Charlotte grabbed the small, framed photo of her and her mom in front of their tent with the glow from a campfire lighting their faces.

It was one of her favorite pictures.

“Good, I’d like to get out of here before Pennington comes looking for you himself.” Hawk relieved her of her bag, hung it over his shoulder, and laced his fingers with hers.

“I’m sure Helene went back to her office.” She looked down at their joined hands. “So you don’t have to pretend right now.”

“We need everyone to think we’re dating. Besides, I like holding your hand.” He turned to his dog. “Remy, break.”

The dog stood, did a downward dog stretch with a yawn, then moved up next to him so Hawk could grab his leash.

Charlotte locked her office, said goodbye to a few people she happened to make eye contact with, and headed toward the elevators.

“You like to camp?” Hawk nodded his head toward the frame.

“I do.” She lifted the photo and looked at it. “I love the smell of a campfire, cooking over an open flame, and when there is a slight chill, I hunker down in my sleeping bag and sleep like a baby.”

“Back home, on the reservation, there’s a spot where I love to set up camp alongside a river that cuts through a beautiful valley.” He waited for her to swipe her ID, pushed the door open, and tapped the elevator call button.

“Sounds amazing.” The strangest feeling came over her—as if she was being watched.

“You okay?” Hawk looked at her with concern.

She leaned close and whispered, “I just always feel like I’m being watched.”

The elevator doors slid open.

“That’s because you are.” Hawk put his hand on the small of her back, they stepped into the elevator, and he pushed the button for the garage.

As the doors swished shut, the elevator hummed, and Charlotte accepted there was a good chance she might never be able to set foot in this building again.