Free Great Exploitations: Sin in San Fran by Nicole Williams Page B

bathroom until she was standing a few feet in front of me. By then, it would have been impossible not to notice her.”
    I had a few guesses why—she came out wearing some va-va-voom number and fuck-me heels, or she came out in a sheer nightgown with the high-beams on stand-by, or she came out mid-zip to ask him to finish zipping her up. I’d used all those tactics, and I expected my competition to be adept at them. Otherwise they weren’t worthy of the title “competition.”
    “What made it so impossible not to notice her?” I tried to keep all emotion from my voice. I wasn’t sure it worked.
    Henry shifted in his seat again. “Because she wasn’t wearing any clothes.”
    Some filthy words filtered through my head. They were as prolific as they were creative, but they came from a place of irrationality. From my standpoint as an Eve, the competition sauntering up to Henry Callahan in her birthday suit was a gift to me. Even if I hadn’t known Henry for years, I knew enough about him to know that.
    That the competition’s great big plan was to offer her naked self up on a fake gold platter was laughable. Henry Callahan wasn’t the kind of Target who’d do a woman the instant the goods were offered. That wasn’t the way he worked. He required finesse, a slow-simmering romance . . . his Errand was far more delicate than any others I’d worked, and not just because we were ex-lovers. The competition had effectively thrown herself out of the game by missing the mark big time.
    I should have been rejoicing. Throwing imaginary confetti into the air. But I wasn’t. I was fuming, feeling like lava was about to explode from the top of my head. Skanky, slutty bitch. That was what kept playing on repeat through my red-hot head. Those were the emotions of a jealous girlfriend, not a triumphant competitor. Realizing that only made me more angry.
    When I realized the guy sitting across from me was appraising me with that curious look again, I pulled myself together—partly—and reminded myself that I was the best in the business because I didn’t let emotions get in the way of success.
    “She was naked? What was that you were just saying about no one hitting on you?”
    Henry shrugged. “Whatever that was last night was not her hitting on me. I mean, when you hit on someone, you smile at them a bit longer than you would anyone else, or you ask them out to dinner, or you buy them a drink. You don’t show up to a business meeting without any clothes on while your boss is drafting a quarterly report to his shareholders.” Henry shook his head as though he couldn’t imagine why a pretty young woman would throw herself at him without any (or much) warning. That unassuming way of his had piqued my attention all those years ago. To Henry Callahan, he was nothing special—at least no more than anyone else.
    “Sorry to burst your hitting-on-protocol bubble, but she was hitting on you, Henry. Hitting on you hardcore.” I cleared my throat. “At least, she was definitely hoping to make your core hard.” When I gave him a teasing wink, he wadded up a sticky note and tossed it at me.
    “No, not hitting on me. She was off of her meds. Or she was taking too many. Or she had been possessed. Or she had mistakingly identified me as her boyfriend. Or—”
    “Or maybe she just saw you as the great guy all the rest of us see,” I said, right before contemplating throwing myself through the plate-glass window behind him. I might have even gone for it if I wasn’t certain the glass was strong enough to withstand a person trying to throw themselves out of it. It was a software development company we were talking about. A handful of employees made a good run for the windows every week. If the boss didn’t install heavy-duty glass, he’d lose half of his employees in a year.
    “The rest of all who see?” he asked, swiveling so he was square in front of me.
    “I don’t know,” I snapped, narrowing my eyes. “Are you looking