Excerpt of Power Play by Tiffany Snow

At eight o’clock on the dot, Parker Anderson stepped off
the elevators and headed my way.

It was secretly my favorite part of the day.

Parker Anderson wore five-thousand dollar suits and
walked like he owned half the city. There was no one he
couldn’t intimidate, and he knew it. Some called him
arrogant; he said it was confidence.

This morning he’d worn his usual kind of power suit, this
one a dark gray pinstripe with a light gray shirt and
what I recognized as a Burberry tie. His dark hair was
long on top, parted on the side, and lay in a smooth wave
back off his high forehead. It made a nice contrast to
the clear blue of his eyes. His face was perfect
symmetry, an oval with a straight nose that conjured
adjectives like aristocratic. A strong jaw and chin were
the perfect complement, while his lips—his lips were in
the sweet spot between too-thin and too-feminine, not
that I spent much time staring at his lips. At least, I
tried not to stare. He was thirty-five, incredibly
handsome, successful, wealthy—and as unobtainable as the
moon.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the view.

“Good morning, Sage,” he said, the deep baritone of his
voice as smooth as a shot of twenty-year-old scotch. He
took the stack of messages I handed him and glanced
through them. This was our morning routine, too.

“Good morning,” I replied with a smile. I caught a whiff
of his cologne mixed with his aftershave. I’d become so
accustomed to the slightly spicy scent that I didn’t
think I’d ever be able to smell it and not think of
Parker.

Usually he’d give me a polite smile, then disappear into
his office, but today he hesitated.

“I, um, I didn’t get you at a bad time when I called last
night, did I?” he asked, still looking through his
messages.

My eyes widened. He had never asked me that before and
there had been plenty of times that were “bad.” I was
gonna have to mark this one down on my calendar.

I was so surprised, I blurted out the truth. “I’d just
gotten dumped.”

Parker looked up at that. If my candor had shocked him, I
couldn’t tell. His blue eyes were steady on mine for a
long moment in which I may have stopped breathing. He
rarely ever focused that intently on me and I found
myself wishing for the umpteenth time that Parker were a
less attractive man. It would make concentrating at work
a helluva lot easier.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said at last.

My smile was as fake as the name-brand purse I’d bought
off a street vendor on Michigan Avenue.

“It’s fine,” I said quickly with a nervous wave of my
hand as I tried to figure out what to say. It wasn’t like
Parker and I often chatted about our personal lives. “He
was bad in bed anyway.”

Oh. My. God. Had I just said that? To my boss?

I gasped in dismay, both my hands flying to cover my
mouth. Talk about too much information.

His lips twitched slightly and I swear his eyes crinkled
at the corners, as though he were holding back a full
blown grin. He cleared his throat.

“Yes, well, um, that’s…too bad. Guess you’re better off
then.” With another fleeting smile, he headed into his
office, the glass door swinging closed behind him.

If he couldn’t see me through the glass wall, I would
have put my head down on my desk and moaned in sheer
mortification. I’d mentioned sex to my boss. And that I’d
been having bad sex. Maybe he thought it was me? What if
he thought I was bad in bed?

“It doesn’t matter!” I hissed to myself, grabbing my
coffee and taking a steadying swig as though it was
bourbon rather than a nonfat-grande-caramel-no-foam-latte
(add whip). Who cared if Parker thought I was bad in bed?
It wasn’t like I’d ever get the opportunity to—

Nope. Not going there. I was not a secretary-with-the-
hots-for-her-boss cliché. Any woman with eyes could
appreciate the many wonderful attributes of Parker
Anderson. I was just…normal.

Right.

It was business as usual after that and I made myself put
aside my embarrassment and stop thinking inappropriate
thoughts. Parker was as normal as ever as I transcribed
from his voice memo recorder, edited a Power Point
presentation he was giving in New York next week,
coordinated the quarterly performance reviews, and all
the usual things that made the day fly by. Mondays were
busy so Parker always ate lunch at his desk. At noon, I
ran out to get his usual from the restaurant four blocks
down. He had their Monday special of Tuscan-style salmon
with rosemary orzo.

I had a hot dog from a street vendor that I scarfed down
while hurrying back from the restaurant. I always ate it
plain because one time I’d dropped mustard on my blouse,
which had sent me into a panicked tizzy and resulted in
thirty minutes in the bathroom trying to unsuccessfully
scrub it out. I’d tried to hide the stain, but Parker had
seen when I’d had to take him some files.

“Problems at lunch?” he’d inquired with a pointed look at
my stained blouse.

I hadn’t eaten mustard, or anything else, on my hotdog
since.

Parker was still in a meeting when I set the tray on his
desk, arranging the plate and cutlery just so. The
mouthwatering aroma of the salmon filled the air, making
my stomach growl even after my hot dog.

I was just finishing folding the napkin into a bird of
paradise when the door to Parker’s office swung open.
Surprised, I glanced up…and promptly forgot all about the
napkin fold.

Holy shit.

Bradley Cooper all buff and badass in The A-Team
immediately sprang to mind.

He was over six feet tall, his broad shoulders encased in
a white T-shirt and leather jacket, with the outline of
dog tags underneath the thin fabric stretched across his
chest. Chestnut hair that had a hint of curl in it was
slicked back from his face and begged for a woman’s
fingers to run through it. His jaw was grizzled with two
days of whiskers while his eyes were obscured behind
mirrored sunglasses.

The man slipped the sunglasses off and I swear my knees
went weak. His eyes were a bright blue, the corners
showing fine lines from either smiling or squinting. I
chose to think it was from smiling because with looks
like his, why would he not smile?

“Where’s your boss, sweetheart?” he asked, hooking his
sunglasses on the front of his shirt. He glanced
curiously around the office.

I realized I was gaping and closed my mouth with a snap.
The “sweetheart” set my teeth on edge. I wasn’t his
sweetheart—at least, not without dinner first.

My smile was like saccharine. “Who’s asking, sugar pie?”

His eyebrows shot up and his gaze whipped around to mine.
Then he gave a low chuckle and took a few steps toward me
until he stood right in front of the desk. He held up a
badge.

“Detective Ryker, CPD.”