She walked away from him to touch a swivel-mounted computer screen, making it pivot diagonally. “That’s cool, but I don’t see what the purpose is.”

“There’s a built-in projector so you can display the screen image on a wall or a ceiling or any other flat surface.” He came up behind her and reached around to flick on the device, throwing the twirling screen-saver image onto a corner of the room. As she tilted her head to look at it, the angle of her body shifted so that her behind brushed against the front of his trousers. He barely swallowed a groan.

She sidestepped away from him, and he couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or to seize her wrist and spin her in hard against him.

When she turned to look at him, he caught it: a quickening of her breathing, a tension in her posture, an awareness in her expression. She claimed she had come back only for the paycheck, but she was not offended by his behavior last night, as he’d feared. She might be wary but she was not indifferent to him.

He contemplated ignoring the mountain of reports on his computer and trying to seduce Chloe instead. Overcoming the barriers she put up would be a pleasurable challenge.

And she was a temp, so there would be no long-term issues as far as the office went. Once Janice was back, Chloe could go on to her next assignment at a different company.

The prospect gave him less relief than he expected. Chloe’s smart observations and snarky asides made the work seem less dreary.

The word brought him up short. When had he begun to consider his job in that light? And how had Chloe become so important to his mood?

“I’ll assume the giant chair behind the giant desk with the giant screens is your workstation.” Her voice derailed the unsettling direction of his thoughts.

“Yes, I use the size of my computer screens to indicate the size of . . . other things,” he said, matching his tone to hers.

That forced a little choke of laughter from her, and he felt a sense of satisfaction out of proportion to her response. It struck him that he could combine the work and the seduction into one package. The idea gave him such a jolt of energy that he wondered that electricity didn’t shoot out from the tips of his fingers.

He pulled a chair away from a workstation and wheeled it over beside his own chair, angling it to face one of the wings of the admittedly huge desk. “Sit here.”

She gave him a look that said she’d rather sit by a spider, and he smiled inwardly. This was going to be fun.

After four hours of perching within two feet of Nathan Trainor, Chloe was in a state of seething physical turmoil and utter mental exhaustion. Keeping up with a mind as lightning fast as his was hard enough, but when she asked a question and he glided his chair over to look at her computer screen, her body compounded the problem.

He would lean in, bringing his cheek so close she had only to turn her head to kiss it. Or they would both reach for the same touch-screen icon and his fingers would brush over the back of her hand, leaving a trail of heat that lingered for minutes. The most exquisite torture was when he would stretch his arm across the desk in front of her to pick up whatever report or contract she was working on. The warm fragrance of starch and man filled her nostrils, making her want to thread her fingers into the heavy waves of his hair, so she could hold him there and simply breathe in.

Even during the midmorning break he finally agreed to take, he lounged on the couch and invited her to sit in one of the leather upholstered chairs beside him while one of his minions served them coffee and various brunch-style snacks. When Trainor stretched out his legs, the fabric of his trousers caught against the nylon covering her calf, and the contact zinged right up to a spot between her thighs.

When Ed appeared in the doorway to inquire where Mr. Trainor would like him to serve lunch, Chloe interjected, “Don’t fix anything for me. I need to run some errands, so I’ll grab a sandwich at a deli.”

She was amazed to see a look of disappointment cross her boss’s face. “I thought we would work through lunch,” he said. “We’ve got some good momentum going.”

So it wasn’t that he wanted to spend some social time with her. He just wanted to keep working. Irritation at her stupid naïveté made her tart. “I’m entitled to thirty minutes of paid lunchtime.”

Annoyance flashed across Trainor’s face. “Take as long as you need. Have Oskar drive you wherever you want to go.”

“Let me make you a sandwich to take with you,” Ed said, his tone conciliatory. “There aren’t many delis in this neighborhood.”

Suddenly she felt stifled. All these offers of so-called help seemed more like attempts to keep her in Trainor’s orbit.

She stood up, sending her chair rolling backward so that Trainor had to catch it to avoid a collision. “Thank you, but I prefer to walk and find my own lunch. I’ll be back in a half hour.”

She stomped out of the room and down the hall, only to stop in front of the elevator with its palm plate. Would the doors open for her, or did her handprint have to be authorized in some way?

Annoyed, she slapped her hand against the black square and dashed away a tear of relief when the doors slid apart. At least she could leave of her own free will while she had the strength to do it.

Nathan tilted back his chair and pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. He’d screwed that up royally.

“If you want to work yourself into a state of collapse, that’s your call. But you need to let Ms. Russell come up for air every now and then,” Ed said.