Chapter 14

I am not checking out my reflection in the dark computer screen to see if any of the mascara I put on this morning has smudged. I'm not. If anything, I'm checking the blackened screen for any blemishes before I turn it on. Nothing is more disturbing than greasy fingerprints.

And it's a total coincidence that I put on my most flattering leggings with a bit of butt support to come to work. They just happened to be on the top of the pile this morning when I dressed. As was the cute fluffy rainbow sweatshirt I'm wearing on top. It's just a fluke that my clothes are prettier and less baggy this morning.

I'm also not waiting with a knot of anxiety in my belly for a certain tall, handsome, charming billionaire to walk his way into my office.

I'm so not.

A shadow walks past the opaque glass door, causing my heart to positively stop in my chest.

"Morning, boss." Maria pokes her head in.

"M-morning," I stutter back, still half-shocked with broken expectations. And I might have to bring a portable CPR device to work if my heart is going to stop every time someone pokes their head through my door.

Maria's eyes narrow on me as she saunters in. She reaches my desk and plants her palms on the flat surface, leaning forward to get a better look at my face. "Are you wearing makeup?"

She stresses the word makeup as if I were Cruella de Vil wearing Dalmatian puppies. "It's just a little mascara." I wave her off.

"Hmph." She stands tall and crosses her arms over her chest with a satisfied pout.

"What?" I scowl.

"Oh, nothing. I just find it funny that you're wearing your hair down, have makeup on your face, and look"—she circles a hand toward my general chest area—"like you made an effort."

"Please, these were just the first clothes I found in my closet this morning."

Maria throws her head back and laughs.

My scowl deepens. "What are you laughing at?"

"My gosh, boss, you're such a terrible liar."

"I'm not lying."

Maria circles the desk and sits on it on my side. Then she reaches for my collar and pulls something off. "The price tag still attached to the cute sweats begs to differ."

I stare at the cardboard label, equally appalled Maria caught me in a lie and relieved it wasn't Thomas.

"What?" I squirm under Maria's amused gaze. "I bought the sweater on Saturday and dropped it on top of the pile. That's the only reason I'm wearing it."

Maria's grin widens. "It's okay, boss, if Thomas Mercer was looking at me the way he looks at you, I'd dress for work in much more scandalous clothes."

I roll my eyes, but the warmth on my cheeks tells a different story. Maria always knows how to push my buttons. "Can we please focus? This is still a workplace. Did you want to discuss anything work-related?"

Maria taps a finger on her chin. "Are the succession plan for the company and his delicious buttocks considered work-related?"

"No."

"Then, no." Maria hops off the desk and heads for the door. "I'll leave you alone so you can have a private Monday morning meet and greet."

My cheeks flame even hotter as Maria sashays out of the room. Private meet and greet? How does she come up with this stuff?

I drop my head in my hands; it's only been a week. How am I going to survive eleven more?

"Not a morning person?" A deep voice makes me jolt upright.

As I lift my head, I see Thomas standing there, looking as attractive as ever in jeans and another fitted sweater.

"Good morning, Reese," he says with a smile.

"Hi," I choke out, cursing myself for sounding so breathless.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he adds, tilting his head.

"No, no, of course not," I reply quickly. "I'm just in severe need of caffeine."

Thomas's smile widens. "Good thing I came prepared, then." He lifts his arms slightly and drops one of the two paper cups he's holding on my desk.

I was so dazed looking at his face that I hadn't even noticed the coffee cups in his hands.

"Thanks," I croak, taking my cup and lifting it in a mock cheer.

I take a sip, expecting a plain Americano, maybe with some added milk and sugar, but my eyes widen as a perfect blend of creamy, nutty sweetness hits my palate.

"How did you know I drink honey almond milk flat whites?"

Thomas tilts his head to the side. "I might've had a little tip-off."

K-2P wheels to the corner of the office where Thomas's desk is located, muttering, "From me, the droid you once cared about." The robot drops into his charging station, adding, "My weekend was fantastic, thanks for asking."

I roll my eyes. "I take it you two had a blast."

Thomas studies me in a way that makes my throat go dry. "It was interesting…"

What does he mean by that? I glare at K-2P. What did the little snitch tell Thomas about me? He knows way too much. I should've never sent them home together. I'm about to downright ask when Thomas precedes me, saying, "So, who am I shadowing today?"

I let out a little exhale of relief that at least he doesn't expect us to spend the day together in this confined space. "I was thinking Ari."

"Oh, the one in charge of making robots for dummies, got it." He drops his messenger bag by his desk and walks back to the door, pausing on the threshold. "Cute sweats, by the way."

And then he's gone, taking all the air in my lungs with him.

I'm about to turn to K-2P to grill him, but the robot is already scurrying after his new best friend.

Okay, then. To be fair, I'd betray my maker and go after the hot billionaire if I were him, too.

The morning proceeds mostly smoothly until a Google Alert lands in my inbox a few hours later with an announcement from our biggest competitor, Bios Torc Solutions, stating the company has started a hand-guided programming research and cooperation program with Caltech.

Darn, being first to market in this space is essential. We need to secure a patent before they do. So far, we've been the only US-based company who's looking into this, but with BTS entering the game, the competition ought to light a fire under us.

I print out the press release and bring the papers to Ari like I would on any other normal day. That she and Thomas are working together is no factor in my eagerness to discuss the news with our industrial robots team leader.

I approach Ari's workstation where Thomas is trying to instruct the robot on what to do without using code, and the robot is responding in the usual way of getting lost after the first initial hits.

I clear my throat to let them know I'm here. "Hey."

"Reese, hi." Ari turns to me with a friendly smile.

Thomas's smile is everything but friendly. I'd call it belligerently charming.

"This just landed in my inbox." I hand the press release to Ari.

She takes one look and low whistles.

"Bad news?" Thomas asks.

The team leader answers him while still shuffling through the pages. "If you consider someone else potentially beating us to the punch of hand-programmed robots and us having wasted two years of research, then, yes, it's bad news." Then she looks up at me. "Do we know who their expert on the modeling of kinematics and dynamics parameters and errors is?"

"No, but I can fish for some intel."

"Yeah, let me know; those Californian hippies don't joke around. If they made the announcement, it means they're close."

"What's the main issue with this project?" Thomas asks. "Why doesn't it work?"

Ari slightly flares her nostrils. "If we knew what was wrong with it, we'd already have fixed it."

Thomas doesn't seem affected by the slightly snippy reply. "What I meant was, what are you observing, which results are not coming back as expected?"

"It's not precise. I teach it what to do by showing, guiding the robot. The end effectors and sensors measure and record the positions and should be able to replicate them." Ari shakes her head. "It works on the smaller co-bots?—"

"Co-bots?" Thomas asks.

"Collaborative bots: robots that are supposed to work alongside humans. But this big guy"—Ari pats the robotic arm—"whenever the operator attempts to impose an impedance control that is appreciably dissimilar to the inherent hardware dynamics, the results are unstable."

I try to explain the problem in more human terms. "We're adding redundant degrees of freedom to compensate for the inertia." I stare at the big metallic arm. "Based on our calculations, the redundancy we're applying should be enough to get a precise result, but it's not."

Thomas studies me and then the big robot. "You mean redundancy works on the smaller robotic arms but not this one."

"Exactly."

K-2P, who's been listening strangely quietly to the entire exchange, chooses this moment to offer his wisdom. "Not all machines can have a superior AI like mine."

I brush his dome. "Yeah, you're the smartest robot I know."

K-2P rears away from me, probably still offended at my lack of devotion, and circles behind me to place himself by Thomas's side. Still, as he goes, he snickers, "Are those your butt-lifting leggings?"

Inevitably, Thomas's gaze drops to my rear end, and when his eyes lift again to meet mine, I want to crawl under the nearest desk and never come back out again.

Thomas's gorgeous eyes twinkle and his lips twitch, but he abstains from making any comment.

Trying to maintain a morsel of dignity, I turn to Ari instead. "We need to come up with a solution before BTS beats us to the finish line."

Ari nods in agreement. "I'll call a team meeting, see if anyone can brainstorm potential solutions or a fresh approach."

I dare a side-peek at Thomas. His eyes are still calibrated on me. I look away, hoping my cheeks don't look as red as they feel hot. "I'll leave you to it, then."

I give them a curt nod before turning to leave. As I walk toward my office, I try to keep a normal pace, not to make it look like I'm properly fleeing the premises. But the almost certainty that Thomas is looking at my retreating, artificially uplifted behind still puts a spring in my steps.

Thomas goes to lunch with Ari's team, and I'm happy I'm not invited. So happy. In fact, I don't see him again until the end of the workday.

He shuffles into the office, looking slightly disheveled after an entire day on the floor.

"Tired?" I ask.

Whether or not he is, he flashes me a smile. One so warm it lights up the entire room. "Ari is intense." He points a finger to his head. "Lots of information to process."

Before I can stop myself, I flirt with him. "Brain not what it used to be?" And the stress I put on the word brain leaves no interpretation to the double entendre.

Thomas stares at me, intensely silent for a few heartbeats, eyes smoldering. I should back down, look away, but I can't. I couldn't take my eyes off him if someone pointed a gun at my head and told me to choose: stare at him or die. I'd go a lucky woman.

Without a word, Thomas bends to collect his messenger bag from the floor. When he returns upright, his eyes snatch mine once again. "Brain's working just fine." His dimples make an appearance as he smiles. "Could always use a little exercise."

I swallow to resist offering to become his new personal trainer.

He knocks on the doorframe. "Night, Campbell. See you tomorrow."

Once he's gone, I sag back in my chair, crossing my arms on the desk and dropping my head on top. I stay that way until a beep alerts me to K-2P's presence next to me.

"Why are you so distressed?" he asks.

"I might have a crush."

The little droid emits a low beep that sounds like an awww. "And what's the problem? The basic human need to copulate shouldn't be something to be ashamed of."

"I don't want to copulate with Thomas," I chide. And before K-2P can call me out, I add, "And you can't repeat any part of this conversation to him. This is a private talk between you and me."

"Pity, because he seems really eager to copulate with you. Couldn't stop asking questions about you all weekend."

"What questions?"

K-2P gives me his version of a shrug. "Sorry, those were private conversations. I can't repeat any part of them back to you."

Impertinent, insufferable humanoid piece of metal. "I could extract your memory processors and read for myself."

K-2P plugs into his charging station. "I'd scrub them before you could access my frame."

"Shouldn't you be loyal to me?"

"Not when you're being dull."

"How am I being dull?"

"By not giving Thomas a chance; he's a wonderful human."

With that scathing nugget of wisdom, K-2P shuts down, and I know better than to try to get him to turn back on. I don't need dating advice from a machine.