Strapless. Leigh Riker

everything you read. He’s an Aussie, too.”

      “And the combination is magnifique.” Was, she added silently.

      She’d been out of her mind to go to his room. She’d been even crazier to let him out of her sight after their one-night stand.

      Story of my life, Darcie thought. Ships passing in the morning…and all that. She remembered the sight of him then, not in jeans but in his well-tailored suit. Her mouth watered. That white shirt against his tanned skin, and overlaying his muscles…

      Walt’s scowl returned. “You gonna see him again?”

      “I doubt it.”

      “Just as well,” he told her. “We have a lot to accomplish in two weeks.”

      He led her back through the park to Elizabeth Street.

      “I’m telling you,” Darcie said. “We’re wasting our time with this location.”

      “Knowledge is power.”

      “Walt—do you have a life?” Did she?

      Greta liked getting to work early. She loved dawn in Manhattan and French crullers on her way to the office, carrying hot black coffee in a cardboard cup. She enjoyed being alone when no one else was around, and the elevator, the aisles on her floor, the cubicles everywhere, stood empty. She adored the chance each morning to go through someone else’s desk.

      Slinking past the big copy machines at the end of the row, toting her coffee and pastry, Greta wandered into Nancy Braddock’s space. Just outside Walter Corwin’s office, the anteroom wasn’t quite its own room—but close. Certainly closer than Greta’s cubicle, and far more private.

      Breathing a sigh of relief, she cast off her heavy black winter coat, flinging it across Nancy’s desk chair, then pushed up her sweater sleeves. An acrylic sweater, of course. Greta couldn’t afford cashmere. She couldn’t even afford Darcie’s silk-wool blends. Greta knew because she sneaked looks at Baxter’s labels whenever the opportunity arose. Setting her coffee and cruller bag on the desk, she went to work. Nancy deserved this round of snooping. So did Walter.

      Even the thought of his name made Greta’s heart bump.

      As for Darcie… With a brisk sense of purpose, she set about her task.

      At Wunderthings, no one locked drawers. Greta had worked in offices where privacy, and security, were matters for paranoia. Not so here. Thank goodness. It amazed her, but in her five years with the company—she and Walter had started on the same day—she had learned a lot in these early morning sessions.

      If only Nancy hadn’t caught her with Darcie’s proposal.

      The office felt more empty than usual this morning—and the solitude fairly shrieked of her own defeat.

      Thanks to Nancy, Darcie Baxter was now in Sydney. With Walter.

      The double insult was not to be borne.

      After a brief foray through the desk drawers, Greta pulled Nancy’s in-basket toward her. She plowed through monthly reports, expense account renderings, phone messages…finding nothing of interest. Still, you never knew.

      Darcie’s naiveté would be her downfall—if Greta had anything to say about it. She just needed to wait for her next opportunity, and keep searching. No way would that dark-haired, hazel-eyed, trim little witch from Ohio trump her ace again. With Nancy’s help, of course.

      She ruffled through a stack of invoices, including Walter’s AmEx bill for his tickets to Australia, and felt a heavy rush of desire that pooled down low in her stomach. Walter…

      He never noticed her. Not really. But that, too, would change.

      When the elevator doors whooshed open at the end of the hall, Greta crouched low behind Nancy’s desk. What eager beaver had shown up early this morning? Not Nancy, she hoped. Not Walter. Certainly not Darcie, who was probably at this very moment wrapped around him in some Sydney hotel room. Why couldn’t Baxter be satisfied with her new job assignment? Wasn’t that enough? Did she need Walter Corwin, too?

      Anger boiled in her veins.

      Greta cocked her head to listen for a moment, but the person who exited the elevator—whoever it might be—walked down an adjacent corridor, and his footsteps faded. Probably one of the big brass…none of whom had ever acknowledged her contributions to Wunderthings International.

      She would outlast them all.

      One of these days Walter would recognize her value. He would overlook the rumblings from the office malcontents who tried to blame her for their own creative shortcomings. Darcie Baxter among them.

      Greta’s hand stilled on the next to last paper in the pile.

      Aha. So Nancy was no brighter than Darcie. No more resourceful.

      It took Greta Hinckley to pull things off. Someday Walter would reward her.

      The medium-size yellow note had nearly escaped her notice.

      Just as Walter, and the board, and everyone at Wunderthings failed to realize her talents. Oh, Nancy, she thought. You shouldn’t have done this.

      Walt, the message read, using the familiar form of his name. I’ve just seen Darcie’s proposal—attached—in Greta Hinckley’s in-basket. This idea is Darcie Baxter’s. Maybe you should reconsider Greta’s “suggestions” for global expansion.

      How dare she?

      Furious, Greta tore the note into pieces, then into smaller scraps until not a single word remained intact. Darcie Baxter had already been on her list. Now, Nancy Braddock joined her.

      Greta shoved the paper pieces into her gray slacks pocket. She grabbed her coat from the chair, draped it over her arm, aand marched down the hall to her own cubicle. In her other hand she carried her cardboard container of coffee, the greasy bag with the cruller swinging with it. No one would mistake her space for an anteroom, surely not for an actual office.

      But someday…

      She would triumph.

      Darcie had no idea who she was dealing with. None at all. Nancy, either.

      Bitches.

      She would plow them both under. Laughing all the way.

      In the night-dark acrylic tunnel of the Sydney Aquarium, Darcie gazed up in wonder. Above and to either side along the curving route past one tank after another, manta rays, sharks and eels dipped and glided and flowed around her. Their graceful motions tightened her throat in awe. The variety of the coral reef that decorated the display made her mouth water. So did her companion.

      She couldn’t believe she had linked up again…and again…with Dylan Rafferty. He seemed too good to be true—most of the time. Like this splendid place.

      “What I wouldn’t give to capture these colors,” she told Dylan. Meaning, Take you home in my luggage and keep you for myself.

      His hand squeezed hers in the darkness, his gold signet ring imprinting her skin. She doubted he knew what she meant about color, but his broad-shouldered presence beside her enhanced the Saturday sight-seeing experience. It had been a wonderful few days.

      “I’d use them at the new store. I’d reproduce them in scarves, in lingerie. Wunderthings would churn—like these magnificent animals—with spectacular hues and shades, all light and shadow….”

      Dylan slipped his arm around her.

      “Don’t tell me I’m drongo,” she murmured. “It’s my job.”

      Instead, he said, “Walt Corwin doesn’t like me.”

      Surprised, she said, “Walt doesn’t like anyone.”

      That wasn’t quite true, but she didn’t want to hurt Dylan’s feelings. He’d been quiet during their tour of the aquarium—her