Virtually Perfect. Samantha Hunter

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СКАЧАТЬ naughty grin almost had Raine’s own lips twitching.

      “Not my style, Gwen, you know that. I’m tired of test drives. I think I am just going to take a break from men for a while.”

      “You have been on a break from men for about ten years, by the sound of it. You need a man—a real one—who can flip your lid, so…”

      “…to speak, yeah, I got it, Gwen. Stop.”

      The warning tone made Gwen sigh and shake her head at Raine. Raine watched her pop up from the chair and felt a twinge of envy. Gwen was intelligent, quirky and an annoyingly eternal optimist.

      As the main health and fitness writer for the magazine, Gwen had a body that wouldn’t quit and a lively attitude that drew everyone to her. She and Raine should not have been compatible at all, but they’d become very close over the past few years. Gwen changed her hair color weekly; right now it was platinum-blond with some red and green streaks for the holidays. Thanksgiving had just passed and Christmas was only a month away. Gwen was all sparkly. Raine supposed Gwen made everyone who came into contact with her feel a little sparkly, too.

      Today she was slinking around in snug black leggings and a fitted black sweater. She wore at least a dozen silver pentacle earrings and little jingle bells on the toes of her short, stylish boots. It didn’t surprise Raine one bit that Gwen mixed her Wiccan jewelry with her Christmas decorations—Gwen celebrated everything—and at least the jingle let you know when she was coming.

      Men tripped over each other when Gwen walked by, not that she noticed. Love ’em and if it’s good, love ’em some more and see what happens was Gwen’s philosophy. She just tripped through life and “trusted the universe”—as she was always advising Raine to do. And she was a good friend. Suddenly Raine felt like queen bitch. Expelling a heavy breath, she tried to make nice.

      “Gwen, I’m sorry, I’m just frustrated with Duane and this whole article thing and I want to get it over with and—”

      “No problem, sweetie. I have to get back to work, too. Oh crikey—he’s coming this way!”

      “Who?”

      “Clark!”

      Raine puzzled for a moment and then saw Jack Harris appear in the doorway. He would make a lousy Clark Kent was her first thought. His hair was not black, but more of a chest-nutty auburn, and his eyes were not blue, but brown. He had a good build: tall, lanky, muscular and thin. Like a cowboy.

      She frowned; he wasn’t dressed for the office. True, the magazine had a fairly relaxed dress code, but Raine valued a professional appearance. Jack did not look very professional in tight jeans and a black cotton, button-up shirt. His hair was a little too long, curling around the collar a bit; he needed a haircut, she thought. No, he did not resemble Superman one single bit. He said something but she missed it, and blinked at him, returning to the moment.

      “Hmm?”

      “I need to look at your computer. It will only take a few minutes.”

      “Why?”

      “Routine. We’ve set up a new security system and need to make sure everything is working.”

      “Well, okay.” She rolled her eyes at Gwen, who was unabashedly checking out his butt as he walked into the office. As Raine passed by him to get to the other side of the desk, she couldn’t help but notice that he smelled great, like sand and sea.

      She looked up, and locked glances with him, then tilted her head a bit, narrowing her eyes and studying him intently. She froze on the spot. Something itched at the back of her mind but she couldn’t reach it. Something familiar. His eyes cooled and took on an unfriendly edge that made him look decidedly un–Clark Kent like. He cleared his throat.

      “Excuse me.”

      She raised a dismissive eyebrow and slid past, following Gwen out the door.

      “God, isn’t he hot?” Gwen gave a dramatic little demonstration of being weak in the knees as she walked down the hallway.

      Raine blinked. “Jack? I guess. Though there was something about him… I think I have seen him somewhere, but I’m not sure.”

      “Well, it’s a small town. You may have seen him around before and just not thought about it.”

      “Yeah, maybe. There was something about his eyes. I just can’t figure out why he seemed vaguely familiar.”

      “Oh well, you’ll remember. Anyway, okay, back to Rider— I think you should meet him, just for kicks.”

      Raine rubbed her temples. “Gwen, I think I am getting too old to do things just for kicks.”

      “You’re thirty-two, not eighty. Not that being eighty should stop you, you know, if you were. Just imagine, if he is even half of how you described him online in the flesh—so to speak.”

      Raine could imagine. Imagination wasn’t the problem; reality was the problem. It never lived up. But still, what if it did? How could she ever know if it was worth the risk? She heaved a sigh and looked back down the hall toward Duane’s office. Even if she didn’t want to meet Rider, she felt outvoted by people who wanted her to do it. But what did she want?

      “I need to get back to work. I guess I have some major revisions to do on this article.”

      “Okay, well, but think more about meeting him, anyway—it could be the chance of a lifetime.”

      JACK SWORE PROFUSELY at the computer as he tapped keys and compared what he was seeing on Raine Covington’s computer to what he was checking on his laptop. Something just wouldn’t take and he couldn’t figure out why. He changed the setting on the firewall—the device that kept the network safe—for this particular computer, and it would click off again the minute it rebooted. That just shouldn’t be happening.

      He was going to have to take a deeper look to find out what the bug was. It would take some time and digging. Usually this was the part of his job as Network Security Administrator that he liked best—prying open the mysteries of the wires, swimming down into the information flows, right into the nervous system of the machine, and figuring it out. He could get lost in there for hours, forget to eat, and not care.

      But now he felt the pressure of time. The last thing he wanted was to spend more time in Raine Covington’s office, so he would have to come in during the evening or on the weekend. It galled him how she had looked at him as if he were a bug on a microscope slide, and then dismissed him like one, too. It even bothered him that it galled him—everything about her was annoying.

      He’d remembered her right away when he had seen her name on the employee list. She, apparently, did not recognize him. That was really not a surprise, but it was what rankled most, in spite of himself. Some things you carried with you, whether you liked it or not.

      She’d barely noticed he was alive when they were in high school together, though he shouldn’t take that too personally—that was how she was with everyone. He’d thought she was the most beautiful girl in school, but her personality was far from attractive.

      Living in a mansion in an exclusive neighborhood in the Connecticut countryside outside Essex, she rarely socialized with anyone at the school, and in fact, looked miserable most of СКАЧАТЬ