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.”