Chapter 1: Nick
My building was quiet this time of night, deserted save for the architect burning the midnight oil on the twelfth floor and the lawyer on the twentieth, who had been sleeping in his office for the past month and a half. The guy was so damn lonely that he was making up things for me to fix so he could talk to someone.
Perhaps I should hook him up with the psychologist on the ninth floor.
The problem was that David couldn't afford her. He'd been kicked to the curb by his wife, and his legal practice wasn't doing that great either.
I doubted he liked me.
David just needed to vent to someone about his troubles, and I was so far removed from his social circles that he felt comfortable confiding in me.
Unlike him, though, I was a man of a few words and preferred working without anyone watching me—a habit from my Special Ops days that I found difficult to change.
Still, David was a good man who was going through tough times, and I could spend a few minutes with him and call it my good deed for the day.
Besides, I needed to practice talking to people in non-military jargon. I sucked at small talk, but I wasn't the type to let a disability of any kind rule over me. I would conquer it the same way I conquered every other obstacle in my life.
David smiled when he saw me. "Hey, Nick. Thank you for coming."
"No problem. So the blinds are giving you trouble again?"
They weren't. I'd fixed them last week.
"Uh yeah. I can't get them to shut. Can't sleep with all that light coming in."
"I've got you covered." I grabbed my toolbox. Pretending to do things to the lever, I asked, "So, how's it going?"
David's shoulders slumped with relief. He always waited for me to ask, probably because he felt awkward about dumping his troubles on me, but I didn't mind. "You wouldn't believe what she's asking for now. My dog."
"Oof. That's a tough one."
His soon-to-be ex was not a good person. She was vicious and vindictive, and I often wondered what David had done to her that was so bad.
He hadn't cheated on her, that I was sure of. The man was still in love with his wife.
"I know, right? Who takes a man's dog in a divorce?" He would know better than anyone. He was a divorce attorney. "Do you think she's doing it to punish me? Because in my experience, when someone does something so personal in a divorce, they are trying to punish their spouse. And if they want to punish you, they still care."
Given what David did for a living, how the hell could he be so naive?
There was no way in hell she cared. Not after what he'd told me about her. "I'm not sure that's always the case. I've seen people do horrible things to others just because they could."
He looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. "Should I ask?"
"No." I never talked about my former so-called career. Couldn't even if I wanted to.
The only reason I was still breathing was that I knew to keep my mouth shut and lay low. With what was stored in my head I was a national security risk, which had been made abundantly clear to me upon discharge. If I reneged in any way or even accidentally let things slip, I would be taken out.
Opening his mouth, David gave me another assessing look and then decided to close it.
Smart guy.
Well, except when it came to his wife, but that was typical. Men were rendered stupid by beautiful women, and David considered his soon-to-be former wife a looker.
Thanks to many surgical enhancements, she might have been considered beautiful by some, but fake boobs and puffed-up lips weren't my thing. I liked my women soft and natural.
Then again, I wasn't looking for a trophy wife or any other kind of wife.
There was no house with a white picket fence in my future, and definitely no wife and two and a half kids. I was damaged goods, and I had enough brains to realize that I should limit myself to hookups.
Hell, I didn't even have a pet.
David let out a sigh. "How did things deteriorate so terribly?"
"It might be just a tactic to force you to make concessions on other things," I suggested. "You said she plays chess, right? Maybe you should make a countermove?"
He brightened. "Yeah, I should." He ran a hand through his thinning hair. "I'm a divorce attorney, for heaven's sake. I know how these things work."
I gave him a smile. "There is a reason doctors don't perform surgery on family members. The same is true with nearly everything else. You need to have some distance to think clearly."
He nodded. "I should hire a colleague to represent me."
While he continued telling me about his wife's crazy demands and how he'd been hoping for a reconciliation, I pretended to fix the blinds.
"Well, you should be all set," I said when he was finally done. I showed him that the blinds worked properly and put my tools away. "Just remember not to pull the string too hard."
"Thanks, Nick." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't tell anyone I'm sleeping in my office. I didn't read all the lease bylaws, but I'm sure that's against the rules, and you could get in trouble if anyone found out."
"Your secret is safe with me, David."
Chapter 2: Nick
After packing up, I went down to the twelfth floor for the next ticket on my list. A flickering light bothered the pretty architect who had been working late every night for the past few weeks.
Hoping she would be gone by the time I got to her office, I had deliberately seen to David's ticket first. It wasn't because I didn't like her, but because I liked her too much.
Jessica Dare was too sexy to ignore, but she wasn't hookup material, and I didn't need complications.
Still, when she stayed alone in that office, I felt compelled to check on her. The building had good security, but I knew better than most that there were ways around the surveillance cameras and other safety features. Besides, the threat might come from a co-worker who knew that Jessica was working late and decided to pay her a visit when no one was around to stop him.
An attractive young woman wasn't safe alone at night and shouldn't be staying in an empty office alone.
Maybe she didn't want to go home because she was avoiding something? Or someone?
As images of Jessica being mistreated flitted through my mind, the old aggression surfaced that I had worked so hard to suppress. If she was still there tonight, I would ask her a few questions, and if she was having trouble at home, I would do something about it.
Don't be an idiot. What didn't you understand about lying low and keeping your head down?
Counting back from ten, I doused the anger with a torrent of pure will and let out a breath.
The old Nick had died along with his identity, and a new Nick had been reborn. The old one had been a dangerous operative and a keeper of national secrets. The new one was a custodian of broken blinds and flickering lights.
Ladder winched over my shoulder, I made my way past the half-tucked chairs and around the standing backlit desks that artists favored. As I passed by her, I caught a whiff of her sweet perfume.
The woman smelled like dessert.
She hardly looked up from what she was doing until I came close enough to see her sleepy smile. "Oh hey, Nick."
"Hello, Jessica. Working late again, I see."
"You're working late too." She leaned back in her chair and twiddled her pencil. "Sorry to make you come up for this." She pointed at the light above her desk. "It doesn't flicker all the time, but when it does, it's distracting, and I lose my concentration."
She spoke a little too fast, and a pretty pink blush spread over her porcelain-cream cheeks.
Interesting.
She hadn't done that before. Was she showing interest?
I hoped I was reading her wrong. She was already hard to resist as it was, and it would be even harder if she started to flirt with me.
Don't flatter yourself.
Perhaps she was shy and people made her nervous. Was that why she preferred to work at night? The open-style layout of the architecture firm didn't allow privacy, and introverts didn't like to be surrounded by people.
"No worries." I gave her a bland smile. "I'll fix it for you in no time." Climbing my ladder next to her desk, I noticed her drawing. "Is that a library?"
"One day it will be."
I wasn't sure I should ask more questions. She was always tight-lipped and seemed extra tense.
When I slid the cover from the light fixture, dust snowed onto her drawing. "I'm so sorry!"
Jessica loosed a huff, either irritated or trying to blow it off. "It's fine. My idea was a little dusty to begin with." Chuckling at her own pun, she crumpled the drawing and chucked it into the trash. "I need to start from scratch." She pushed her fingers through her long cherry chocolate hair.
It was one of her best features—rich, thick, and glossy—and the things I imagined doing with it would have shocked her.
Thankfully, I had a well-practiced poker face, so she didn't have a clue.
Or maybe she did.
A sexy woman like her probably had men ogling her left and right.
I felt lousy about her drawing, though. I had barely gotten a glimpse, but I was sure it didn't deserve to be trashed.
"Why did you throw it away? From what I managed to see, it was not half bad."
She snorted. "Not half bad is not going to cut it."
"It was okay until the sprinkling of dust that fell on it. I'm responsible for your design's untimely demise."
She sat up and cast me a shy smile. "It's not your fault. I just have too much on my mind and not enough caffeine in my body, and that design lacked inspiration. Sometimes it's better to start anew than try to fix something that's not working."
"Let me make it up to you." I climbed down. "I'll get you coffee to fuel up, and you can tell me what's bothering you and get it off your mind. I'm an excellent listener."
For a moment, I thought she might take me up on it. But she hesitated. "Thanks for the offer, but I should get back to work. This library isn't going to design itself."
The pretty, shy blush bloomed on her cheeks again, and for once, I couldn't control the response it evoked. Thankfully, my coveralls were loose and hid the evidence.
Damn, if she weren't working in my building, I would have kept at it until she overcame her shyness and agreed to talk to me. Instead, I nodded and climbed back up.
Ignoring the ache in my left calf, I removed the old fluorescent bulb and replaced it with a new one. From up there I could see down Jessica's blouse, and the view was spectacular.
I couldn't force myself to look away.
"Are you okay up there?" she asked.
I chuckled as I climbed down. "Must have zoned out. All these late nights are getting to me."
"Understandable." She looked at me with assessing eyes. "But that's when you usually work, right? You don't fix things during the day."
"Not unless it's an emergency."
Jessica frowned. "When do you go home?"
This was it, but she didn't need to know that.
"If there is an emergency, I get the call at home and come over."
"Oh, yeah. That makes sense." She lowered her eyes to the blank page in front of her.
Even though it was a bad idea, I couldn't help but continue our conversation. I wasn't ready to be done with her yet. "Phelps sent me a long list of nonsensical items to fix in his office, so I assume he is back in town. Is that why you're stressed?"
Her boss was a conceited jerk who thought he was a god because he was a famous architect, and his work appeared in magazines. Luckily for his large staff of junior architects and other support personnel, he frequently attended shows and conferences or met with out-of-town clients.
Her pencil darting over the page, Jessica shrugged. "He is a contributor, but he's far from the only thing troubling me."
I wanted to ask about those other things, but it seemed as if she was tired of the conversation and wanted me to leave.
"Is there anything else I can do for you?" I asked, not expecting her to come up with anything.
Lifting her head, Jessica smiled. "It's so nice of you to ask, but I have nothing else." She chewed her bottom lip like she wanted to say something.
"I think there is," I encouraged. "Come on. It's only nine o'clock, and the list Phelps sent me won't take three hours. I need something to do to fill the time until my shift ends."
It was a lie because I didn't have to answer to anyone and could leave whenever I pleased, but she would find it believable.
"It's embarrassing." She lifted her empty coffee mug. "The coffee maker is acting up. It tastes off, even after I ran the cleaning cycle. Well, I hit the button for the cleaning cycle, and it didn't seem to work."
"I'm happy to look at it, but that might be a call to the company that put it in."
She flushed redder than before. "I'm sorry I troubled you. The coffeemaker is not part of your job."
"It's no trouble at all. If I can't figure it out, we can call the company. No big deal."
She smiled again. "Thanks, Nick. You're my hero."
Been a while since I'd been one of those. "Be right back."
I left for the break room and fiddled with the water line. Sure enough, there was a hard water clog. Once I got it taken care of, I returned. "All done."
"That was quick."
"Yeah, I threw some vinegar in and—
She lifted her hands in the air. "No, no, don't tell me. It'll ruin the magic."
It was nice to know Jessica could be silly sometimes—she was always so intense.
"Okay, I'll spare you the gory details." I winked.
"Thank you so much. You are saving my career, for without coffee, my muse is nowhere to be found."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Really?"
"I'm serious. I can't do my job un-caffeinated. How can I repay you?"
Don't say blow job.
"I'm happy to help. I have stuff to do in Phelps's office, but I'll keep it quiet." I hesitated. "Tell me when you're ready to leave, and I'll escort you to your car. It worries me that you are all alone up here and then down there. It's not safe."
"Oh, Nick." She put a hand over her heart. "It's so sweet of you, but you have nothing to worry about. The only way to get into the building or the underground parking is with a swipe card or to go through the guards in the lobby, and there are surveillance cameras everywhere. I feel perfectly safe working here late and then going to my car."
The naïveté of civilians was astounding. They truly believed they were safe until shit happened to them, and they realized that they'd been living in a fake bubble.
I forced myself to smile. "I don't want to scare you with horror stories, but just promise me you'll be careful."
"I will. Thanks again, Nick. You are a lifesaver." She smiled. "If I'm done before you are out of Phelps's office, I'll let you know when I'm leaving."
"Thank you."
Nodding, she looked down at what she'd drawn so far and started absentmindedly sucking on her pencil eraser.
Damn.
I struggled not to let my imagination run away with me at the sight and left for Phelps's office.
His printer was not in my job description, but he would whine if I didn't check it, and his office was a suitable location to watch her from. One inner wall was frosted glass, so there was no—
Wait, where'd she go?
I'd looked down for three seconds at the wires, and Jessica was gone, most likely taking a coffee break now that the line was clear.
She isn't your responsibility.
When Jessica returned, there was no coffee mug in her hands, so she must have been to the bathroom.
The wiring to Phelps's printer was fine. I wasn't sure what he was complaining about and left a note on his ticket that he should call his IT department, then left his office.
As I worked on the rest of his list, I kept glancing at Jessica through the glass partition. She seemed absorbed in her work, but from time to time I caught her looking at me through the glass.
When our eyes met, she smiled, I smiled back, and then we both went back to our respective work.
Damn, Jessica Dare was really weakening my resolve and making me reconsider my rule about not getting involved with anyone working in my building.
I was done with everything else on the list in under two hours, and as I collected my tools, I decided that I wasn't done with Jessica. I wanted an excuse to talk to her again.
Chapter 3: Jessica
"How is it going?" Nick asked as he thrust a paper coffee cup at me.
When had he left Phelps's office? I hadn't heard him open the door or noticed him passing by my desk.
"How did you do that?"
He smiled. "I've gotten pretty familiar with your coffeemaker earlier tonight." He was still holding up the paper cup. "I thought it would help you focus and be done faster."
Nick hadn't answered my question, and I wasn't comfortable asking again.
Since Phelps didn't have a secret passage from his office straight to the break room, I must have been so absorbed in my work that I'd been oblivious to what was going on around me.
After Nick had disappeared into my boss's office, a new idea had popped into my head, a clear picture of how the library should look, and I'd wanted to sketch it quickly before I forgot the details.
Smiling, I took the coffee. "Thanks."
He grinned as if I had just accepted his marriage proposal. "You are most welcome."
If I didn't know any better, I would have thought he was flirting. But the sexy custodian had had plenty of chances to hit on me before and never had. For the past two weeks, I'd spent every night late in the office, and he had popped by on each of them pretending to check on this or that, but I knew he was checking up on me.
It was sweet of him to worry about my safety, but regrettably, he hadn't shown any genuine interest until today. Not that it was any reason to get excited. Exchanging a little more than a few friendly words than usual didn't mean he had a sudden change of heart.
It shouldn't hurt that he could so easily ignore me, but it did. I wasn't a great beauty and could lose a few pounds, but I wasn't a hag either.
The only indication I'd gotten that he wasn't entirely indifferent to me was when I caught him staring at my cleavage from his vantage point on the ladder.
There were no rings on his fingers or even a discoloration that a wedding ring would have left behind, but he could have a girlfriend, and that was why he was keeping his distance.
"I'm afraid to get near your new drawing." Nick leaned slightly forward to get a better look. "But I'm curious. Can you lift it to show me?"
"It's just a preliminary sketch." I grimaced. "If I want to make it by the deadline, it should have been half done by now."
"Phelps?"
"Obviously."
"He seems to ride everyone pretty hard."
If you're game, I'll ride you pretty hard.
Oh my gosh, where did that come from?
I knew very well where. Handyman Nick was rugged and sexy, kind of rough-looking in all the right ways. Dark hair, dark eyes, thick muscles. His corded forearms were fantasy material alone, and combined with the panty-melting smile, the man could have starred in every naughty novel I had ever read.
Feeling my cheeks getting warmer, I looked down at my drawing. "Mr. Phelps is pretty strict about deadlines."
"The library is the assignment? Or is it part of a larger project?"
I was a little offended. Getting assigned the library was a big deal, even if several of my colleagues were working on the same thing and only one of us would be selected to complete it. Then again, how would Nick know that?
Perhaps he thought that all our firm's projects were designing skyscrapers.
"It's the assignment, and I'd better get back to work." I twiddled my pencil but kept my eyes on him for the simple reason that I couldn't look away.
"I'm distracting you again," he said with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
"It's not you, Nick." He was, but I didn't want to offend the guy. "It's just late, and I'm not fit for conversation at eleven o'clock at night. I have a lot on my mind."
Like why was I pushing the sexy handyman away instead of flirting with him?
Because you don't know how.
I didn't even remember how to talk to a guy about anything that wasn't work-related, let alone hint that I was interested. The last time I flirted with anyone was in college.
Nick smiled easily. "The best conversations happen at night. That's when people are too tired to lie or be polite."
I chuckled. "That's true."
He took a chair from the workstation next to me and straddled it. "So, tell me, Jessica, why are you the only one here working on a library project that seems like it should be handled by a team?"
That was a departure from what he'd said before. How come he suddenly realized that the library was a big project? Had he been looking through Phelps's files while in his office?
Nah, it was a stupid thought.
Nick was the custodian of the office building, not an industrial spy. Although truth be told, he didn't look like any handyman I'd met before.
"You're right. It is a project for a team, but it is also my ticket into an office of my own, and I'm not willing to let a bunch of inexperienced interns screw that up for me, and that's who Mr. Phelps will hire for a team because they're free."
"So he's picky and cheap? That tracks. Not a good combination."
"No," I said with a sigh. "But he's not all bad. If I knock it out of the park with this design, he will promote me. I just need to prove myself."
It was the story of my life. I always felt as if I had to prove myself to someone. First my parents, then my ex, and now my boss.
Nick crossed his arms on the back of the chair and leaned his chin on them. "Maybe you know the answer to a question I've always had."
With conscious effort, I pried my eyes from his sexy forearms, "You brought me coffee, so you are entitled to three questions."
He grinned. "I'll start with just the one—why do libraries always have so many damn windows?"
That was disappointing. I hoped he would ask whether I was single or whether I was busy Saturday night.
Besides, the answer to that was so obvious that I was starting to doubt the guy's intelligence. "So the patrons can see what they read, of course."
He laughed. "Desk lamps could accomplish that. It's just that I've always preferred a quiet little den with a big leather armchair and a fireplace for my reading. Why don't any libraries ever offer that?"
It sounded nice, but the answer to that was as obvious as the first one. "For the same reason libraries don't have coffee shops. Most are severely underfunded, and the room you're talking about would be expensive. Also, you can't have an open fire in a library, so the fireplaces would have to be the simulated kind, and those are costly as well."
"Everything really comes down to money, doesn't it?"
According to my lawyer ex-husband, it did.
Wouldn't Charles get a kick out of my night?
The truth was that having a friendly conversation with a blue-collar handyman instead of another dull dinner with my ex at the Senator's house was a considerable upgrade. "Yes, but money isn't everything."
"True." He craned his neck to look at my drawing and pointed. "This detail here—that looks like a built-in bench under the window."
Was the abrupt change in subjects because Nick sensed that my mood had taken a nosedive?
I thought I had better control over my facial expressions, but apparently Nick had seen right through me.
The guy was surprisingly perceptive.
I chuckled nervously. "You have a good eye. My half-drawn sketch is crude and incomplete, but you were still able to make out what it is supposed to be." I pointed at the large window I’d drawn and the sun rays bathing the enclave in light. "Since the bench provides sitting under a large window, it should be perfect for you."
He smiled. "I asked about windows not because I liked them for my own reading pleasure. I do my best work in the dark."
As his deep voice sent a shiver through me, I had to fight images of handyman Nick using his nighttime skills on me.
I should stop it right there and send Nick on his way. My casual crush on him was deepening, and I couldn't afford the distraction.
During the day, the office was too noisy for me to concentrate on my project, and if Nick kept showing up at night, I wouldn't get any work done then either.
Maybe I should just work from home. It wasn't as I if had any distractions there, but the thought was depressing.
I've been all work and no play for far too long, and chatting with Nick was a rare treat. I wasn't willing to give it up.
My divorce had been hell last year, and knowing that my ex-husband would disapprove of a tryst with an uneducated handyman made the time with Nick feel delightfully forbidden.
Charles no longer had a say in my life, but I relished the thought of his disapproval. If I ever got out on a date with Nick, I would post a picture of us in a passionate embrace on social media. Heck, I would even add a caption about handyman Nick's incredible manual skills, hoping that Charles and all his snooty buddies saw it.
I could just imagine the sour face he would make.
Regrettably, that was all happening only in the fantasy I created in my mind. My brief chats with Nick were not a tryst, and I couldn't bring myself to be more forward and move things along. On his side, he seemed content letting things be what they were—surface-level conversations of the "Hi, how are you?" "Fine, thanks" variety. Tonight's conversation was a fluke.
A nice fluke.
I didn't know what to say next, so I lifted the cup and took a sip. "Cinnamon?"
"I've seen you sprinkling your coffee with it. Did I do it right?"
Talk about perceptive. Charles had never noticed and wouldn't have even if we were married for fifty years. He had never even made me a cup of coffee, either.
I was fighting tears and a tight throat as I tried to answer with a steady voice. "It's precisely how I like it. You are a very insightful and caring man, Nick."
A practical stranger, who had no romantic interest in me, had noticed what my husband had failed to notice over the years we'd been married.
How had I made such a colossal mistake?
Nick laughed. "You might be the only woman who has ever said that about me."
"Then you're hanging out with the wrong women," I blurted before I could swallow the words.
Perhaps he would get the hint.
"That seems to be my MO," he joked. "The bench—I've never seen that kind of built-in in a library before. Seems more custom than most. You said they're underfunded, but you're putting in an effort that would call for money. Who is the client?"
Evidently, my hint had fallen on deaf ears, and Nick had changed topics again to avoid the grenade I'd just dropped at his feet.
Swallowing the disappointment, I forced a smile. "Good eye. The governor commissioned the library, and he wanted it to be elegant and practical. I thought that the built-in bench should have a nice swoop in the back as part of the esthetics instead of pillows." I forced another smile. "That way, rowdy patrons won't have anything detachable to throw at each other."
It was a miserable attempt at a joke, but Nick laughed nonetheless.
"Is that a common problem in libraries? Wouldn't you get shushed by a librarian for throwing pillows?"
I laughed, too. "Uh, yes, but I've been to some of those reading hours with my niece and nephew, and the kids get very excitable, so it seemed prudent to have some non-throwable options."
"Your niece and nephew, but not your own kids?"
Excited butterflies took flight in my belly. Finally, a personal question.
"I don't have kids. You?"
"No." As he looked longingly at the drawing, a muscle feathered in his square jaw like he was holding back. "I always wanted some but never saw them in the cards for myself." He cleared his throat. "So, this library means a promotion for you?"
Once again, Nick had changed the subject, and my heart fell. "Only if my design is chosen. I'm not the only one vying for the opportunity."
"That's why you're working so hard, right?"
I nodded. "Senior partners don't get where they are without a lot of work." Something Charles never understood that about my work.
He'd wanted me to be available for all of his social functions and always look perfect, which required visits to the hair salon and the manicurists, and shopping for clothes. Some women might enjoy that, but I wasn't one of them. I preferred spending my time creating rather than consuming.
"Of course. Someone like Phelps isn't going to promote anyone without being forced to. He's too cheap."
"Exactly. I had been up for a promotion last year, but…." Don't trauma-dump on the hot guy "…life got in the way. You know how it goes."
Nick didn't need to hear about my messy divorce.
He nodded, and his handsome face fell into seriousness. "More than most, I'd reckon. Well, I'll let you get back to work."
I reached out for his hand before he stood up and gave it a squeeze. I wasn't sure what made me do it other than the need to touch him. His hand was rough and warm and so much bigger than mine. "Thank you for the coffee and the chat. I feel like I haven't spoken to another person in weeks."
"I thought you might need it. The coffee, I mean. I very much enjoyed chatting with you." His smile tightened when his gaze dipped to my mouth. "See you around, Jessica."
"Wait, um," I thought fast for anything to keep him from leaving, "I don't know if you have the time, or if it's something you do, or if I need to put in a ticket, but my chair squeaks. Sometimes."
And on this day, the phrase flimsy excuse found new meaning.
"Why didn't you say so? Stand for me."
I did, trying to do so elegantly and without sticking my boobs in his face.
He sat on it. No squeak.
But I didn't expect one. "It only happens when I adjust it up and down."
"That's usually the cover shaft around the pneumatic cylinder. I'll get some oil and see if we can't lube it up."
Shaft? Lube? Is he choosing these words on purpose?
"I'll be right back." Nick turned around and jogged to his cart.
I was glad for the short reprieve. I needed to catch my breath and plan my next move with Nick, but his backside looked so delectable that I wasted that moment ogling it instead.