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anyone’s help to do her job. She had serious potential as a CEO.
    She had serious potential for a hot interlude.
    He knew already it would take more than one night for him to get enough of her. Maybe he could take her for a weekend getaway somewhere. Somewhere romantic. Somewhere like Paris. Helmut chuckled to himself, drawing a few curious glances from the other passengers.
    Claire and a handful of the other executives had a week of product demonstrations, press interviews, and meetings with potential customers lined up at the huge trade show. He himself had an invitation to speak on a panel, and offers for coffees, lunches, and two separate golf outings with some of his counterparts from other companies. There would be plenty of time to spend at Claire’s side as her advisor by day, and to romance her by evening. He would have Betty make the arrangements in the morning.
    And if all went well, he would be extending his stay by a couple of sweet, hot days.

Chapter 5
     
    Steph set a mug of coffee in front of Claire.
    Claire flashed her assistant a smile and wrapped her fingers around the cup, warming her fingers on the hot porcelain for a moment before lifting it to her lips for a delicate sip. If the liquid weren’t just shy of boiling, she would be gulping it.
    She had not slept well last night after Helmut left her at her door. Logically, she knew she was exhausted, but her blood had refused to cool.
    She should have invited him in.
    Her condo was cold. And lonely. She normally took comfort in the clean, uncluttered loft space. Twelve foot ceilings, full-height windows with a killer view of downtown, polished concrete floors and sleek granite countertops. Home had never looked so hard and unfeeling.
    Since she and Frank had split, she’d had only one relationship. If you could call three dates and one night of mediocre sex a relationship. Frank was a lying, manipulative asshole, but his arms had been warm and the sex good. When he wasn’t secretly screwing one of the interns. It had taken a few of his affairs—and the accompanying bedroom dry spells—before Claire caught on to his philandering.
    In the months after the split, she would dream about faceless lovers, who brought her to the edge of climax and left her hanging. In one recurring dream, the man would transform into a giant bird and fly away, leaving her trapped on the edge of a cliff, quivering with need and terrified of falling to her death. By day, Frank’s self-serving attitude cooled off any lingering thoughts of a reconciliation.
    Last night when she closed her eyes, it was Helmut’s stubble-roughened square-cut jaw that hovered just out of reach.
    This morning, Helmut sat at the far end of the conference table, looking cool and collected as he watched the video conferencing screen, without a hint of a dark shadow beneath his eyes. And he was infuriatingly friendly this morning. Friendly like a coworker, not friendly like a man who wanted to see her naked. Why couldn’t the man have the decency to look a little tortured, or at least interested?
    He looked up and caught her gaze, and Claire saw the tiniest gleam in his eyes. A thrill shot through her. But then he just nodded politely and looked back at the video screen where the VP of their European division was giving his report.
    “Your investment strategy sounds risky,” Gene, her Chief Operating Officer, said. “Do we really want to put all of our eggs in with the European Union?”
    Claire snapped her focus back to the debate at the table, over a proposed expansion plan.
    “Non, non, Gene,” the VP said in her heavily accented English. “This is the future. If we get our, how do you say, leg caught in the door now, then we shall benefit greatly from the expanding of the European Union.”
    Claire glanced around the table. “What does everyone else think?”
    “I think Marie is right. Now is the time. We should go for it.” Helmut’s voice washed down Claire’s spine, and she