The rest of the papers she’d meticulously filled out last night were left in the middle of his desk. Kinsley had to curl her fingers into tight fists to keep herself from grabbing the file and putting it neatly away somewhere. She’d get to that later, she promised herself, then turned and hurried out of the office. As she walked out, Kinsley looked around, noticing that there weren’t any decorations here either. She’d been too nervous to notice anything yesterday, but now she absorbed the fact that the man’s office was furnished with an old-style steel desk, big, leather chair, and a desk lamp. There were stacks of files on top of his desk, but no window, no plants, no pictures to soften the bare, white walls and harsh, overhead lighting.
“What do you know about my operation?” He asked.
Kinsley straightened her shoulders, trying to focus on his question and not the lack of décor. She was proud that she’d done her research and was prepared for this question. “You’ve invented several amazing improvements to vehicle safety and efficiency over the past decade.” She rattled off several of the items she’d discovered.
Lincoln nodded, listening quietly. She’d discovered the main stuff, the fancy inventions he’d patented. But the new carburetor and the increased fuel monitor weren’t mentioned.
He paused at the first worktable. “Everything in this room is top secret. So, nothing that you see here can be mentioned outside of these walls.” He eyed her carefully. “This is a new windshield wiper mechanism.” He moved to the next table. “And this will eventually be a more efficient cooling system for refrigerators.” Lincoln moved from one table to the next, telling her whatever popped into his head, all of it lies. He didn’t really think that Kinsley McCabe would talk about what he was building here, but he had to be sure. So, he fabricated different ideas for each workspace. He’d monitor the news feeds over the next few weeks to determine if any of what he told her reached the news. Since he knew that she didn’t have the mechanical engineering knowledge to figure out exactly what he was working on, this was the best way to evaluate her integrity.
“And this will be your office,” he announced as he opened the door to a relatively large office that was brightly lit with more of that obnoxious, overhead lighting, a plain, modular desk, ergonomic chair, a powerful laptop as well as a printer, copier and other office machines. The furniture was top of the line and formed a U shape so that the person could easily shift from the computer to the printer or the door.
“Where is the filing space?” She asked.
“Through that door,” he nodded towards another doorway.
“Excellent,” she replied, rubbing her hands together. “Okay, so what are my duties?”
He pointed his chin at the computer. “I need a work up on the financial status and cost controls on each of my projects. The receipts for the items I’ve ordered are in that box,” he explained, pointing to a large box on the corner of her desk. “Can you let me know the cost for each project to date?”
She smiled and his gut tightened. That smile transformed her face from lovely to utterly stunning and he wondered if he’d made a massive mistake in hiring the gorgeous Kinsley McCabe. Her bright, blue eyes were a bit too enthusiastic, her nose too cute, and those lips…! Good grief, the things that rosebud mouth could do to him!
At the moment, she was bubbling with enthusiasm. Another attribute that he liked. Too damn much! “Absolutely!”
Damn, he liked her! She’d thrown him for a moment over the NDA. But he liked that she’d only held off so that he could witness her signature. It might be all a pretense, but Lincoln suspected that Kinsley McCabe was a very honest person. He liked that about her. Hell, there were a lot of things he liked about her.
Still, he backed out of the office. “The other main issue you’ll need to do for me is to answer the phones and keep the reporters away. They call constantly, asking for interviews.” He frowned. “I don’t give interviews. Ever! Remember that, but when they call, keep them guessing. It’s the only way I’ve been able to control their seemingly never-ending requests. I just toss out the odd tidbit and see where it goes.”
He paused, rubbing the bridge of his nose and he suddenly looked as if he’d been working for the past twenty-four hours and the fatigue was finally hitting him. “Just…keep them away from me.”
“Got it,” she replied, nodding for emphasis. “What else?”
He chuckled. “Isn’t that enough to get you started? I suspect it’ll keep you pretty busy for a while.”
She smiled again and he could barely rip his eyes away. When she smiled, she was a bit like the sun; dangerous, luring him in with her beams of warmth even though he knew that he could get burnt.
“I’m going to be in the work room for a while. Interrupt me if you have questions.”
With that, he escaped into his work room and flipped a switch that added extra light to the entire space. He put in his headphones and did what he did best. He tinkered, moving from one table to the next, fixing things, tweaking switches, fiddling with the components. Normally, his thoughts worked faster than his hands. But knowing that the adorably sexy Ms. McCabe was in the office on the other side of the wall was distracting.
Chapter 3
“I need your help.”
Kinsley looked up from the receipt she was trying to decipher. For the past week, she’d been squinting at receipts, pulling her hair out in an effort to determine how to associate each cost to the projects.
So when he poked his head into her
