>>> from the journal of H. G. Wells
I have received some encouraging information from my superiors concerning this dimension’s long-term future. It seems that there is a high probability that Lane and Kent will be recognized as visionaries and co-laborers for a better life for mankind during their own lifetimes. It is the first heartening news I have received since I began this ill-fated venture.
This future, however, is not cast in stone. There is no clear path leading to this eventuality, nor is this positive time track the only future which might come to pass. There is another potential future, one with a similar probability of coming to pass – and which is much darker – in which the chaos of a half-decade past returns and overwhelms the Man of Steel, and Clark not only gives up the fight against the forces of evil, he withdraws completely from human society, leaving mankind to their own violent devices. To my deep chagrin and utter shame, this potential future did not manifest itself until I transported Lois Lane back to the United States.
I cannot determine, from the limited information available to me, which of these diametrically opposed future paths is the more likely. There are a few paths which track a middle course between these two, more or less, but the probabilities for them are quite low. In fact, the probabilities of either of the extreme futures becoming reality exceed one hundred twenty percent.
This means that a critical juncture in time is upon these good people.
It also means that I am the one who has brought them to this critical juncture.
I write this through damp lenses, knowing that I have made what may be the worst mistake of my career as a Temporal Mechanic. I also am quite limited as to what actions I may take to rectify the situation, despite the situation being one of my own making. The fact that I do not know the correct path I must take to redeem this state of affairs further limits my options.
As a matter of fact, I have virtually exhausted those options. I have, in the vernacular of this time period, run out of cards to play.
I must trust the people whom I have involved to make the proper decisions.
>>>
Lois was fully awake before she moved a muscle.
Her ears took in the sounds in the air, her nose the scents, her skin the feel and texture of her bed. It was a habit drilled into her by Rodolfo and his instructors, one which had been reinforced with severe blows. They were not allowed to injure her seriously, but they were required to leave bruises in the muscles of her arms and legs to reinforce to her that moving before knowing her surroundings might bring instant death.
Her memory returned, reinforced by the evidence provided by her senses, and she cautiously opened her eyes. The room was just as it had been the night before, except there was light streaming through the translucent curtains over the window. She glanced at the bedside clock and read the time.
By conditioned reflex, she snapped erect and yanked the pistol out from under her pillow, then relaxed as she forced herself to remember where she was. This was her sister’s apartment and she was as safe as she had been since before leaving for the Congo those many years before.
She extended her hearing and detected furtive noises outside the bedroom, as if someone were already awake and making a sincere effort not to disturb her. That must have been what woke her, she mused. And Lucy had to be the one making those sounds.
She listened for a few seconds and recognized her sister’s muttered voice. She seemed to be berating herself for something.
Lois rose, pulled on a borrowed terrycloth robe, and dropped the pistol in the right pocket. Then she unlocked the door and peeked out.
It was indeed Lucy, racing around the living room in her underwear and hose, trying to get something done before she – before she left? Hadn’t she told Lois she was taking some vacation days?
Lois let the door swing open and scratched her head. She yawned loudly as if not yet fully awake. “Punky? What’s going on?”
Lucy stopped in her tracks and nearly fell with surprise, then sighed and dropped her arms to the sides. “Oh, Sis, I’m sorry! I was trying to be quiet and not wake you. I got a call on my cell this morning. Bruce Wayne himself is coming to the facility and my boss is about to have three litters of kittens all at once. He thinks having a pretty girl around will make Mr. Wayne back off and not yell at him for anything that’s really nothing to yell about.”
Wayne’s target profile popped up in Lois’ mind once again. Orphaned at age ten by a mugger who’d shot both of his parents, absurdly rich, lived on his father’s estate outside Gotham City, single and a definite ladies’ man, active in the city’s cultural and financial circles, not very political, not a high-level threat. The “Do Not Engage” notation figured brightly in her memory, although she didn’t know what it was about Wayne that warranted it.
She shook her head at Lucy and shuffled forward. “So, you gonna be gone all day?”
“Hope not, but I’m afraid so. You’re welcome to cook something for lunch, or you can have a couple of those microwave meals in the freezer, or you can go out. I left a couple of twenties on the breakfast bar with my note, which you don’t need now, along with my spare key. I’ll try to be back before five, but I may not make it until then.” Lucy pulled on a matching blouse and skirt as she hunted for her purse. “Where is that – oh, yeah, got it.” She stumbled toward Lois as she pulled on her shoes. “The fridge is full if you want breakfast. Oh, don’t forget your antibiotics, okay? And call me if you need anything. I don’t care how much Mr. Wayne is worth, I’ll be here if you need me.”
Lois chuckled and hugged her sister. “It’s okay, Luce. I’ll watch some TV, read something, maybe take a long bubble bath. I’ll be fine.”
Lucy dodged Lois’ hand as it made a beeline for her scalp. “Uh-uh! No noogies! You’ll mess up my hair and I have to go to work and I’m just on the near side of late as it is.”
They embraced for a moment, then Lucy danced away and smiled wide. “It’s great to have you back here, Lois. We’ll have dinner tonight and then sit and talk, okay? I’ll tell you all about my life so far.”
“Okay, Punky. See you tonight when you get here.”
It didn’t escape Lois’ notice that Lucy hadn’t suggested that both sisters exchange their recent life stories. It couldn’t have been a slip. There was no way her younger sister was going to let that go.
*****
Lois made certain the front door was locked, then went to each window to close the curtains and blinds without framing herself in them. It was highly unlikely that there was anyone across the street with a Barrett.50 caliber sniper rifle or a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, but one of the lessons she’d had drilled into her repeatedly was to take nothing for granted.
A long soak in the bathtub actually sounded nice. Maybe she could read for a while, get her mind off her assignment and relax. Lucy had a number of romantic novels on her shelves, along with a large section of technical books Lois would read only if she wanted to bore herself to sleep, but nothing caught her eye.
She glanced at Lucy’s desk, but after that glance decided not to touch anything there. The books and papers looked to be arranged just so for a student working on a research paper, and the few specialized terms Lois recognized were obviously above her level of technical knowledge.
Lois smiled to herself. Her little sister was indeed bettering herself. Ten years ago little Punky not only would not have recognized the majority of those terms, she wouldn’t have cared to learn what they meant. Now she was using them as easily as a skilled musician used chords and rhythm to write a hit song.
As fulfilling as that realization was, it still left Lois with nothing to read in the bath.
Then she remembered the Superman biography they’d bought from the pharmacy when they’d filled her prescription. That would keep her interest.
*****
The bath water was almost frigid and the bubbles were long gone, but Lois was aware of none of it. She was absorbed, enthralled, almost enraptured by the story of a man who’d given up everything he’d known to help a world which couldn’t quite make up its mind whether or not it wanted his help. And to her, the most compelling part of the story was Superman’s search for Lois Lane.
She, of course, knew why he’d never found her. She’d been taken out of the Congo after only a few days of captivity, before anyone in Metropolis really missed her. Rodolfo had transported her, drugged and disguised, to Crete and then to Madagascar for what Rodolfo had laughingly called “orientation,” then to Sicily for the rest of her training. There was no trail for even a Superman to find, no clue as to her whereabouts, and he’d confined his search to central Africa based on the premise that she’d never left. The conclusion that she’d died there was not only reasonable, it was all but inevitable.
The few photos of the “other Lois” chilled her. That might have been me, she thought. She might have been the one to come within a hair’s breadth of dying in an explosion. She might have been the one menaced by the mystery man called Tempus.
She might have been the one he’d held so tenderly in his arms.
But she wasn’t. The real Lois Lane of this world – whatever that really meant – was a highly trained, highly skilled, and very successful assassin for hire, available for the right price paid to Rodolfo, an amoral criminal kingpin of uncertain lineage. She was wanted, though not by her real name, in several European countries, and was on several death lists in Northern African dictatorships and democracies alike.
At least she was still non-political.
The old joke didn’t grant her the wry amusement it had when she’d first heard it. For that matter, nothing amused her any more – nothing except spending time with her children. Despite her real status, despite the way she’d lived the last seven years, she truly loved them. And she’d do almost anything to protect them.
She closed the book and sighed. If only she could get Clark to help her. If only he could get her babies away from Rodolfo. If only—
Wait a minute. Was she really that galactically stupid?
He could help her.
He was Superman. He could do it. He could zip in, grab them, and zip out again before anyone even knew he was there. All he needed was their location and their situation and he’d go heroing off after them.
It would take some thought, but maybe she could come up with a plan, one that would let her ignore her assignment and get away with her babies. Of course, she’d have to reveal what she knew about Rodolfo and his organization, something that would surely put a stop to both his and her criminal activities, but given the small fortune she’d hidden away in the Cayman Islands, she thought she could eventually get over that disappointment.
And then she felt the wry amusement.
*****
At 8:53, Lucy jumped out of her car and all but sprinted across the parking lot and into the security entrance. She squeezed through the door almost before the security system recognized her access card and hurried to her boss’ office.
And then she got her first glimpse of Bruce Wayne.
He looked just like his photographs. He was tall – a little taller than Clark – broad-shouldered, square-jawed and handsome, built like a brick house and dressed to the nines, every hair in place and a perfect smile on his face, displaying both grace and restrained power in every movement. Had she not known Clark so well, she might have been knocked breathless.
But she did know Clark, so while Wayne impressed her, he didn’t overwhelm her.
She slowed her pace and joined the group. Calvin Starnes, her immediate supervisor, gave her a quick glower around Wayne’s shoulder and said, “Mr. Wayne, this is the young lady I was telling you about, Lucy Lane. She’s one of our best team leaders, and she’s better qualified to show you the nuts and bolts of our operation than I am.”
Wayne put his hand out and waited for Lucy to take it. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Lane. Shall we begin our tour?”
As he released her hand, she realized he wasn’t alone. A tall, slender, athletic woman with her reddish-brown hair in a tight bun stood beside him. She carried a computer tablet with a stylus clipped to one side. She was stunning, even with the sensible business suit and wire-framed glasses she wore, and Lucy’s first impression was that the woman was one of Mr. Wayne’s arm candy secretaries.
Until Lucy looked at her eyes. They were sharp, piercing, intelligent eyes that evaluated Lucy even as Lucy evaluated her. A hint of amusement danced at the corners of the woman’s mouth, and she nodded to Lucy as she spoke to Wayne.
“Mr. Wayne, please remember that you have the one-thirty meeting with Senator Palmer today.”
“Oh, yes, Ms. Kyle, thank you. We’d better get this show on the road then, hadn’t we?”
He gestured for Lucy to lead the way. “Thank you, sir. I want to apologize for being late this morning. No excuse.”
Wayne glanced at his wristwatch and frowned. “You’re not late, Ms. Lane. You’re right on time. Besides, Calvin told me he’d called you in from a vacation day. Had I known that before he called you, I would have insisted on someone else showing me around.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, sir. This area is kind of my baby anyway.”
His charming smile returned. “In that case, please introduce us to your baby. Oh, I’m sorry. Speaking of introductions, I haven’t introduced you to my personal assistant, Selina Kyle. Ms. Kyle, Ms. Lucy Lane.”
The trio stopped while Lucy and Selina shook hands briefly. Lucy got the impression that Selina approved of her, at least conditionally. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Kyle.”
“Please, call me Selina. I’m not as formal as Mr. Wayne is, even though I’m almost as essential.”
Lucy chuckled with her. “I’m Lucy. And I think you’ll both like what you see.”
*****
“Well, Mr. Wayne, we’ve seen the break room, the programmer’s cubicles, the regular conference rooms, the videoconference room, the test area and the quality control area, talked with a bunch of the programmers in all those areas, and sampled the coffee, which I think is better here than it is in most companies. What else would you like to see?”
Wayne tilted his head. “The coffee is better than just most companies’ coffee?”
Selina chuckled again. “Mr. Wayne, I doubt that Lucy has had the opportunity to sample the coffee in every company in Metropolis.”
He shrugged. “I suppose not. As long as it’s better than LexCorp’s coffee.”
Now Lucy laughed. “Sorry, sir, I’ve never been there long enough for coffee.”
Selina’s eyebrow rose slightly. “But you have been there, I take it?”
“Yes, for an interview when I first went looking for a career-type job. But they told me I didn’t qualify for anything they had open. Wayne Tech, on the other hand, not only gave me a job, they – that is, your company, Mr. Wayne – gave me the time to learn how to do the job. I also got additional training both on my own time and on company time to improve my skills and the chance to show what I could do with them. Now I’m working on a Master’s degree in Information Technology from New Troy State University, and I have my eye on one of those big offices on the upper floors.”
Selina turned a constrained smile to her boss. “Careful, Mr. Wayne, you may have some internal competition.”
Wayne smiled at Lucy. “I certainly hope so. We all have to be pushed, at least a little bit, to achieve our best.”
For some reason Lois’ face flashed in Lucy’s mind. She nodded at the visitors and said, “I agree. A little pressure is good for all of us, at least some of the time.”
And a little pressure was what Lois was going to get today, too, decided Lucy.
*****
He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face with his hands. The mighty, powerful, influential James Olsen was constrained and frustrated. His flagship business, the Daily Planet, was in the middle of one of the ugliest labor disputes in the history of Metropolis.
And the worst part was that he had no idea how it had gotten to this point.
It had started five months ago when the trucker’s union had requested a meeting to talk about salary and benefits. Since the current contract had, at that time, had eight more months to run, he’d expected it. And his opposite number in the negotiations, union representative Martin Moreau, had begun making polite but firm requests for salary increases, to which James had responded with offers of smaller increases with additional insurance coverage. The meetings had taken place every two to three weeks, with both sides apparently coming closer to a new contract.
Then several days ago – five days before Lois Lane had magically rematerialized in his office – Martin had stormed into the room with four husky bruisers in his wake and slammed him with a demand – not a request, but a demand – for an immediate across-the-board twelve percent salary increase, a sixty percent cut in the employees’ cost of insurance, a guarantee that no employee would lose his or her job for the duration of the contract, and a fully funded pension plan for everyone working twenty-five hours a week or more. James had tried to explain calmly that the Daily Planet couldn’t afford that level of benefit increase, whereupon Martin had leaped to his feet and screamed accusations of exploitation and abuse and promised a strike unless their demands were met at that very instant. He had refused to discuss the terms which James had thought were almost finalized and stormed out dramatically.
James frowned. Upon reflection, he thought it had been a little too dramatic. And given the timing of Lois Lane’s reappearance later that same week, a little too convenient to be coincidence.
Especially given the information he’d learned about the almost-riot two days before. The so-called ‘spontaneous gathering’ had been nothing of the sort. The police had pulled their own video recordings of the area and requested the Daily Planet’s recordings also, which had been delivered with alacrity.
The results of the video analysis was disturbing. Over half of the people in the crowd were either union members from other nearby towns or cities – more than half of those were known to live in Gotham City – or thugs picked up off the street. The DA had identified over fifty of them as members of local gangs who often hired out to serious criminals. This was a planned, deliberate event.
But planned by whom? And why? What purpose did it serve?
After a moment’s thought, James realized what that purpose was.
The near-riot distracted both the Daily Planet, still the city’s most reliable news organization, and Superman, who had broken up the demonstration once it had turned violent. This, along with the sudden return from supposed death by Lois Lane, had cost Olsen Enterprises the close guidance of its founder and still CEO – himself.
There was something he was missing, something important, something key to the entire situation. It couldn’t have been Lois – she wasn’t even in the city when negotiations had broken down. And while he wouldn’t put anything past some of his rivals, not one of them would be stupid enough to authorize a move like that.
Not even Lex Luthor.
His desk phone suddenly buzzed and he took a couple of deep breaths to slow his heart rate back down to slightly abnormal before lifting the handset. “Yes, Mrs. Cox?”
Dominique’s formal office voice reassured him. “Sir, you have a personal call from Mr. Lex Luthor. Shall I put him through to you?”
Wow, spooky. And a little creepy. The old cliché “Speak of the devil and he shall appear” flashed through James’ mind, but all he’d done was think about the guy. “Luthor? Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, sir. I got the impression that he didn’t think I would repeat his message accurately. He insisted that he would – and I quote – ‘explain to his good friend James Olsen himself.’ End quote, sir.”
James grinned. Dominique had taken their agreement to behave as complete professionals in the office to heart, but he could hear her dislike of the man coming through the line. For that matter, James wasn’t all that fond of him either, but when one very rich man calls another very rich man, the second very rich man should, at the very least, listen to the first very rich man.
“Very well. Please put him through. And secure the call from this end.”
“Yes, sir.”
A few clicks and pops sounded in James’ ear, then he heard his rival’s barbed urbanity. “Hello, Jim? Is that you?”
“It’s me, Lex. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”
Luthor hesitated, then asked, “Is this phone secure?”
“It’s as secure as your scramblers talking to my scramblers can make it.”
“Good.” He hesitated again, then finally spoke. “My wife has left the city for what I hope is a short time. I am not aware of her current location, save that she is safe.”
James waited for more, then said, “I hope you haven’t called to get me to set you up with a date.”
There was no humor in Luthor’s reply. “She is out of town to preserve her safety. I believe I have been targeted by an assassin, possibly sent by one of my foreign rivals, and I want her out of the potential line of fire.”
James blinked several times as he digested the unexpected news, then asked, “Are you looking for help? Of the unofficial and unreported kind?”
Luthor sighed. “Thank you for the offer. I understand that your father works for the National Intelligence Bureau.”
“He does, but we haven’t spoken much in the last few years. He does his thing, I do mine, we exchange birthday and Christmas cards and not much else.”
“Nevertheless, I must ask you a tremendous favor. If you could contact him and let him know that I would be open to any assistance he might lend me, I would surely be in your debt.”
James took a moment to think. If he did this and his father helped Luthor, it might give him a small advantage to use the next time he needed to make a major computer hardware purchase for any of his companies. Of course, it might not, in which case he’d have one more reason not to trust Luthor any farther than he could spit on level ground.
If he declined, Luthor would probably hold it against him later, assuming this mythical assassin turned out to be real and also assuming that he or she failed to kill Luthor. The same would hold true with Arianna Luthor if the assassin succeeded. But if Lex were killed, the resulting power vacuum at LexCorp would probably tear the company apart and destabilize the tech industry in New Troy long enough for his rivals to build up a technological advantage that would last for years, perhaps even decades. And that scenario didn’t have any upside to it for anyone.
He made his decision. “I’ll call him, Lex, and I’ll explain what little I know and ask him to call you, but I can’t make him do anything.”
A sigh of relief came over the line. “Thank you, James. That’s all I can ask of you, and more than I might have done in your place.”
“Just remember that the next time I buy something from you. You can apply it to my discount.”
Luthor chuckled. “I shall. Now I must allow you to go on with your business, as I must go on with mine. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Hey, wait a minute!”
“Yes? Is there something I can do for you now?”
“Actually, there is. I’d like to have everything you have on those demonstrators at my loading dock, and I mean everything.”
Luthor paused. “That is a great deal to ask. Simply revealing some of that information would inform a discerning man such as yourself how that information was obtained.”
“Give me what you have and we’ll call it even between us. Deal?”
“Ah, you do realize how explosive some of this data would be, do you not, were it to become public knowledge?”
“I give you my word that I will guard it as though it were my own personal medical information.”
James thought for a moment that Luthor would refuse, but the man surprised him. “Consider it done. I’ll have everything messengered to you by mid-afternoon today. And I will redact nothing. Much of it will be in digital format, but there is still a sizable portion of the information existing only on paper.”
“Thanks, Lex. As I said, I’ll do my best not to reveal anything that might cause problems for you, but I can’t make any promises.”
“The knowledge that you will do your best will suffice. We’ll speak again later, hopefully when both of our lives have quieted down.”
“I’d rather not wait for both of our retirements.”
Luthor’s sincere laugh bounced down the line. James smiled to himself, knowing what the volume and timbre of the sound would do to the ears of anyone trying to unscramble the call and listen in. “Then we must not wait that long. Good-bye for now.”
“Yeah, don’t take any wooden CPUs.”
The line went quiet and he slowly hung up. If Lex was right about someone hunting him, it wasn’t good news for any of the rich men in the state. None of them wanted to declare open season on the wealthy, not really. They were the ones who owned companies and created jobs and kept the economies churning. Oh, it wasn’t unreasonable for some politicians to demand that the rich pay higher taxes than the “little people” the politicians claimed to represent, but arranging for untimely deaths for multi-millionaires was quite another subject altogether. It was bad for business, bad for the city, bad for the community all around.
He lifted the handset again and pressed the intercom button. “Mrs. Cox, please inform security that I’m expecting a delivery from Lex Luthor this afternoon. When it comes, they are to process it normally and make sure it’s safe, then bring it to my office the moment they’re finished.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “How do you feel about a late-evening document scan with me?”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. And before you ask, the delivery I’m expecting is a document drop. I have no idea how much data will be in it or how much will be printed as opposed to digital, and we can’t put any of it on our systems for analysis.”
“Hmm. May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course.”
“We could use the stand-alone system behind your office if we need to. That machine can be easily disconnected from the office network or the Internet. If we turn off that link, no one could hack it because no one could see it online.”
“Good idea. Any other suggestions?”
“Just a question. What kind of pizza do you prefer? It sounds as if this will be a long session.”
He smiled. “I’m a thin-crust pepperoni man myself. What about you?”
“Oh, I prefer deep dish samplers. So I’ll order one of each and tell the delivery person to expect cash. Is four-thirty a good time for me to place the order?”
“If you’re calling the Pizza Palace, any time is a good time. I’ll put some cash on my desk for the pizza and a tip, assuming, of course, you think it’s warranted.”
“It will be if I have anything to say about it.”
*****
James glanced at the clock on the wall and shook his head. This wasn’t the first time he’d worked until nearly midnight, but then he wasn’t as young as he once had been. He and Dominique had worked on these documents for almost six hours, pausing only for pizza and pit stops. He’d had no idea that Luthor’s information-gathering apparatus was this widespread or this effective.
He stood and moved to the open table where Dominique was matching a list of names from the demonstration with a similar list from the New Troy State Investigations Section. The latter list had been something of a gift from his father, who’d called in a couple of favors when James had told him about the threat to Lex Luthor. They’d made some possible connections between the demonstrators and a shadowy criminal organization called Intergang which James didn’t believe anyone else had made.
He touched her on the shoulder and she grunted without turning around. “Dominique, I think we should break for the night. It’s late, we’re both worn out, and I’m starting to see Ninja assassins coming out of the wallpaper.”
She dropped her pencil and leaned back, then rubbed her face with both hands. “You’re right, you’re right, I’m exhausted, but we’re close to putting these things together and I don’t want to stop.”
“I don’t either, but if we both stay at it after we’re too tired to think, we won’t get anything useful out of the exercise.” He took a half-step back and held out his hand. “Look, let’s plan to hit this again at ten in the morning, after you clear all the junk out of my day. You can call in your substitute and we’ll lock ourselves in here and finish up.”
“James, I really want—”
“Please, Dominique. For my sake.”
She looked up at him for a long moment and he fancied that he saw something in her eyes, a message just for him that he couldn’t quite read. But no, it had to be fatigue he saw there.
Then she took his hand and stood up and didn’t let go and brought her lips within inches of his face and stopped. “I don’t want to do something stupid,” she whispered. “But I’ve wanted to kiss you since you dropped me off from the club the other night.”
He swallowed hard. “I – that’s been on my mind, too.”
She smiled slightly and leaned closer. Their lips touched and James forgot about Luthor, forgot about the demonstrators, forgot about his father, forgot how tired he was. For a long moment, the only reality he experienced was her soft lips on his and the warmth of her soft hands on his chest.
It was a good moment that didn’t last as long as he’d suddenly hoped it would. She tried to move away but he put his arms around her and held her gently. “Dominique, please – please stay here with me for a minute.”
Her arms came up under his and her head nestled against his shoulder. “You talked me into it.”
His hand rose almost of its own accord and gently pressed her head closer to him. His eyes closed and he blocked out everything in the room but the feel of her hair, the closeness of her body, the warm after-impression of her lips on his, the feathery awareness of her breath on his neck, the scent of her hair, the texture of her skin.
He could easily fall deeply in love with this woman.
Finally they drifted apart, still touching and being touched. The glistening in her eyes surprised him, and he lifted one hand to brush the tears from her cheeks.
“You know,” she breathed, “I could chalk this up to the intensity of what we’re doing, the tension of Lois Lane coming back from the dead, the late hour, the pizza we ate—” she paused as James chuckled “—but I’d rather believe that it’s real, or at least the beginnings of something real.”
He gave her a jaunty grin. “Me too. Dominique, I think—”
She quickly put a finger on his lips. “Unless you were about to ask me to call a car to take each of us home, I’m not ready to hear what you think.” She quirked one eyebrow upward and tilted her head. “Sir.”
His grin softened and he cupped her cheek. “I’m only ‘sir’ during working hours, remember? Besides, I don’t want to rush you into anything. As much as I’m enjoying this moment, as much as I hope we have many more moments like it, I don’t want to hurt you or get hurt myself. I plan to take things slowly, if only because I don’t want to run off the best administrative assistant in the state.” He gently kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re way too valuable to me on too many levels.”
“Thank you.” She moved back a half-step and cleared her throat. “Shall I call that car for us now?”
“Yes. I’ll shut down the computer while you do that.”
She leaned toward the phone, but instead of picking it up, she suddenly hurled herself into his arms and grabbed him around the chest again. He caught her and returned the embrace until she pushed back out of his reach. Without quite looking him in the eye, she quietly said, “Thank you for what I think you were going to say.”
He smiled and caught her eye. “You’re welcome.”
“I just—” She turned away and sighed. “I’m a couple of years older than you are and I’ve been around the block a few times. I’ve had a few disastrous relationships, starting with Mitch, and you may see me for who I really am and run the other way as fast as you can.” She made a fist with one hand and slowly released it. “And I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you did.”
“I don’t care how many blocks you’ve been around, Dominique. Everything you’ve been through has helped make you the person you are right now, and that’s who interests me. I only care about who you are now, not who you once were.” He reached out and gently touched her shoulder. “And I like who you are now.”
She returned the smile he sent to her, then turned to the phone and wiped her eyes before picking up the handset and making the call. He turned to the computer and powered it down, then checked the room’s security controls. As soon as they left, anyone entering the room would have fifteen seconds to enter the nine-digit code into the keypad on the wall beside the door before the entryway would slam shut and the room would be filled with knockout gas. Having that gas was one of the perks of one’s father being an NIB agent, and it would help make sure that the contents of this room would be safe for the night.
As they waited for the elevator, both shyly trying to decide whether or not to hold hands, he realized that he’d have to work harder than he ever had in his life to keep from falling any harder for her than he already had. He’d always respected her professionalism, her skill, her charm and diplomatic demeanor, her efficiency and ability to anticipate his needs, but now he realized just how wonderful a person she really was. It was as if their relationship had been hiding just out of sight for years, waiting for the exact moment to burst into the open. No friendship, no partnership, no vapid arm candy model looking for a mention on Entertainment Now had ever felt quite as perfect to him as the prospect of a real relationship with Dominique Cox did.
He shook his head and smiled at her as the elevator doors opened. It probably wasn’t worth the effort to keep himself from loving her.
