“Of course.”
Unbidden, the image of her standing in the photographer’s studio bare-breasted, pants unbuttoned to expose the dimple of her bellybuttonabove lacy black underwear invaded his mind. He was an asshole for thinking of it, but she’d blown him away. Not because of how gorgeous she was—well, notjustthat—but because she’d put herself at risk to avenge her sister and stood up to Mars like some kind of warrior angel.
Thanks to Tara, hundreds of young women would be safe from that predator. Forget her small stature and delicate appearance.On the inside she was a fucking Amazon.
And Jeff needed to get the hell away from her before he got any stupid ideas.
You did all the hard work.
After Jeff disappeared into the computer room, Tara couldn’t stop thinking about his words. And the pictures. Mars was dead, but he’d left a horrifying legacy of abuse. Her mind flashed back to the studio, Mars holding her to the wall, thefeel of his hands on her naked skin. A shiver chased down her spine.
What she’d been through was nothing compared to what Emily or any of those girls on the camera had suffered. Still, Old Tara would have sought out someone to help her erase that memory, to replace it with something good.
New Tara would finish her work, go to the women’s shelter for her volunteer shift, and thank her luckystars that she didn’t have an abusive husband or boyfriend and had never been raped. Even at his worst, Colin had never been rough with her.
Not any rougher than she’d wanted.
At quarter to five, she was immersed in calculating pay for the security specialists, all of whom worked on contract, when the office phone rang. As business manager, she was Steele’s receptionist and human resourcesmanager and everything in between. One of the guys, Todd, liked to joke that she was their “team mom.”
She’d take it. Especially because, given her luck with men, she was never going to be a real mom.
The phone rang again, the caller ID indicating the number was private. “Steele Security, how may I help you?”
“I’m calling for Tara Fujimoto,” the man on the other end of the phone line saidin a gravelly voice.
“This is Tara.” It wasn’t odd for her to get a phone call. After all, she was the first point of contact for most of their clients, and had a network of people all over the country who helped her procure whatever the guys needed for their missions. She responded in kind when possible.
“This is Bob—” Static interrupted and then the line went dead.
“Hello?”
No response.
She repeated her query a few more times but only heard dead air. “When you block your number, I can’t call you back,” she said, replacing the receiver with more force than necessary.
With a sigh, she backed up her work in the accounting software and cleaned up the papers strewn across her desktop, anticipating a repeat phone call any minute.
Just before five, Jeff emerged from the corridorthat led to Kurt’s office and the computer room, his brown hair mussed, face drawn.
“Everything okay? You look tired.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said, aping a wounded look.
She gave him an indulgent smile. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just not cut out to sit at a desk for hours on end staring at a screen.”
The way she did. But these guys trained relentlessly when they weren’t outputting their lives on the line.Activewas not a strong enough word to describe them.
“You leaving in a minute?” he asked.
“Yep.” She shut down her computer. “I’m working at the shelter tonight and I need to run home and eat something first.”
“I can wait and walk you down.” The look on his rugged face was an odd mix of friendly nonchalance and impatience. As if he offered out of a senseof obligation rather than a real desire to confirm her well-being.
What was his deal? One minute he was friendly, supportive, maybe even a bit flirty, looking at her like she was his favorite meal. The next, he was all business, no expression. Total shutdown.
Not that she wanted his interest. For starters, they worked together. Her reputation as a professional was about all she had left, andsleeping with a coworker would shoot that all to hell. The guys would never look at her the same.
