The young man had also stopped sweeping and was now leaning on the top of the broom handle, giving Knox a complete once-over. Seconds later, he gave Knox a nod of appreciation accompanied by a cheeky grin.
Yep, definitely Benny, Knox acknowledged ruefully as he gave the guy a smile and nod at the unspoken compliment.
Ellie sat back on her bare feet, her three-inch-heeled shoes placed near the door, well away from the dirt and chaos in the rest of the room. The jacket to her dark gray suit was on a hanger on the coat stand beside the door. Her hair was loose today, a silky straight blonde curtain that fell to the middle of her back. Her glasses had slipped down her nose, and there was a smudge of dirt on one of her porcelain-pale cheeks.
She was a bit of a mess, but she still looked beautiful to Knox.
Infuriatingly so.
Knox didn’t want to be attracted to Ellie Hall.
He didn’t want to be, but just seeing her again made him realize that he definitely was.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was sharp with suspicion.
Not the most enthusiastic greeting Knox had ever received. But, to be fair, Ellie hadn’t known he was coming to the HERA offices today. If she had, she would no doubt have tried to put him off, considering the mess he had just walked in on.
Unfortunately for her, Knox really wasn’t in the mood to be put off once he decided he had to see her again. In his need to see her again.
If Ellie, or anyone else, thought he was at all pleased with feeling that need, they would be sadly mistaken. He had stayed well away from any romantic entanglements since the disaster his marriage had become. Ellie was the first woman he hadn’t been able to forget and move on from.
A worried frown creased her brow as she continued to look up at him. “Is Joan not working out for you, after all?”
It was definitely taking a little adjusting to working so closely with someone new, but Joan had been with him for two and a half days now, and they seemed to be establishing a good working relationship.
Unfortunately, Knox’s inner calm, the one that had kept him free from emotional entanglements for the past ten years, had already been completely shot to hell.
Because of one woman.
This woman.
Eleanor Hall.
He had tried putting her out of his mind, had even gone on a dinner date with a beautiful brunette a couple of evenings ago.
For the first time in forever, he’d only kissed that woman on the cheek at the end of the evening before going home alone.
Only to lie in bed, cock in hand, as he thought of Ellie.
He couldn’t concentrate on his work, didn’t sleep, his social life was a non-starter, and sometime during the third sleepless night, he had decided that if he just saw Ellie again, he would realize how ridiculous the attraction was.
Only to have taken one look at Ellie, down on her knees with patches of dirt clinging to her cheeks, and realized that his fascination to be with her still very much existed and wasn’t going to go away any time soon.
What was even more infuriating was that he knew he wouldn’t get any sympathy from his closest friends, the four members of the Wynter family who owned the security company.
Three of them, also confirmed bachelors, had met and instantly fallen in love with the women they were now individually married to. Linus was the only one who hadn’t fallen into the trap yet, but Knox had no doubt that he soon would.
And that love-at-first-sight thing wasn’t confined to just the Wynter family. Declan Quinn, one of the leaders of the company’s security teams, had also fallen instantly in love six months ago and would soon be married to the lovely Fawn.
Not that Knox believed he was in love with Ellie—not yet—but he was certainly so obsessed with her that he couldn’t think of anything or anyone else but her.
He had thought maybe if he could just see her again, it would break the spell.
But no, one look at Ellie, bent over and collecting the broken pottery, and his head had instantly been filled with images of her bent over her desk in that very same way, her skirt pushed up to her waist and her panties around her ankles, while he stood behind her and tightly gripped her hips as he plunged his cock inside her channel. Over and over again, until they both exploded with pleasure.
The same cock that had gone hard the moment he walked into the room.
“I think the more urgent question should be what the hell happened here?” Knox now demanded as his gaze roamed pointedly over the smashed plants and scattered papers covering most of the floor space. Even the pictures and diplomas on the walls had been knocked to the ground. “Did you have a break-in?”
