Vance Global's top floor was typically quiet at 9:00 PM. Tonight, it had the aroma of costly wood, single-malt scotch, and a razor-thin thread on the verge of breaking.
The leather-bound audit file was slammed onto the glass surface of the coffee table, making its heavy thud across the dimly lit executive suite.
You're missing $12 million, Mr. Vance," she replied. Her voice crisp, cool, and entirely unaffected by the huge man standing close to the window blinds that span the distance from floor to ceiling overlooking Manhattan.
You'd better give me something better than 'it's handled or else I'm going to write 'gross negligence' in my preliminary report to the board on Monday.
Xavier Vance didn't turn around immediately.
His tailored suit coat was tossed over the back of his executive chair, leaving him in a crisp white dress shirt with the top two buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up to his forearms. His hands were in the pockets of his dark suit coat, and he stood with his hands in the pockets of his dark tailored pants. The lights of New York behind him, his broad shoulders and imposing figure.
When he finally turned, his dark eyes caught hers in the low light. He looked entirely unimpressed by her threat, though a slow, dangerous curve touched the corner of his lips.
Miss Blake, Xavier said, "It is handled. His deep baritone, rough with bark, resonated through the silent room, piercing to her quiet, traitorous flesh with a hot, quiet pulse. “So, as long as I have to pay your firm's crazy retainer, you're not some corporate prosecutor working in your own office at 9 o'clock on a Friday night, you're just reviewing the ledger entries, balancing the columns, making sure it's done right, complying.
“My job is to tell the truth, "She responded, uncrossing her arms and stepping two steps closer to him. Her Louboutins must have sounded like a chain of sharp heels on the hardwood edges of the office. She had been spending twenty-one consecutive days in his company's books, twenty-one days avoiding his embrace, and each night, she had dreamed of him watching her go about the boardroom with his dark gaze, waiting to consume her. “That's the truth you are facing right now is a crime,” she continued, "a federal crime.”
Capturing a crystal decanter from his side bar, Xavier poured two fingers of amber liquid into a second tumbler. He didn't present the glass to her. He walked over slowly, though, each step moving with a graceful ease and fluidity that didn't seem to fit him, who was six foot three and was weighing more than 200 pounds.
He came to a halt right in front of her. The gentle fragrance of his cologne, a fine mixture of sandalwood, rain and raw cedar, inundated her senses, making logic the last thing on her mind.
“You’ve been in my building for three weeks, Sienna,” he whispered quietly. This was the first time since she signed up as the lead external auditor that he had dropped her title from formal. He put the heavy glass on the mahogany desk directly behind her, pinning her between the firm wall of his body and the solid edge of the desk. You see my books as if they are an attack on my character, and you see me as if I'm an exam room you can't wait to explore.
Sienna’s breath hitched, her throat suddenly dry. She made herself not look down and tried to ignore how close he was standing, and how it affected her. She had cultivated her whole career of acting to be cold and collected. She was “The Auditor,” the woman who never raised her voice, never lost her temper, and had exposed three financial officers of Fortune 500 companies.
"Am I?" Xavier's voice lowered into a gravelly, low pitch. His hand lifted slowly from the side of his body, his long, calloused fingers just inches from her jawline. He didn't come into contact with her at all, but the heat emanating from his flesh sent shivers running down her neck. Because, Sienna, you have not looked at one financial spreadsheet in the last 20 minutes - you've been watching my mouth.
Sienna's mind was shorting out, she swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding in her ribcage, seemingly out of control. After ten years, the walls she had erected in her heart were collapsing because of his gaze, walls that had been built to protect herself from the corporate lies that ruined her family.
You're in control of all of this, you think? Sienna breathed her eyes locked on his. “You think because you own this building and half of This City the rules don't apply to you.
"I don't care about the rules tonight," Xavier said softly, his dark eyes dropping down to her lips and then back up to her eyes, giving the impression of a piercing intensity. Every time you walk in my board room, you look at me as though you want to rip my shirt off my back as much as you want to lock me away. Tell me to be your client, Sienna, and I'm out of this door now.
Sienna looked up at him, and her heart raced; her emotions battled for supremacy over reason. She tapped him on his shoulder, and her fingers gripped the soft cloth of his open collar. She whispered, "Don't you dare walk away”.