was so warm and smooth that it took every ounce of willpower for Olivia not to touch him any more than necessary.
“Your hands are cold.” He chuckled quietly. His voice was low and intimate, just loud enough to speak with her and not be overheard by the others.
“Sorry,” Olivia replied at a normal volume, forcing her expression to remain impassive. She wrapped the wires around his back and taped them to the base of his spine. He had dimples in his lower back, which Olivia found simultaneously cute and sexy.
“Do you do this often?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at her.
“No, honestly,” Olivia said. “I mean, I do work with surveillance gear often, but it’s usually on myself. If we ever have to wire up someone else, Adeline typically takes the lead.”
“Well, you seem pretty skilled at it,” he said. Olivia swallowed and avoided his gaze. She hoped that he didn’t notice the blush on her cheeks as she checked to make sure the wires were in place before hooking up the rest of the equipment.
“Well, it is my job.”
Behind her, the girls remained decidedly uninvolved. Olivia was definitely going to give them a piece of her mind later. Their efforts to give her a moment alone with Rhys were obvious and annoying.
“You’re very good at your job.” He grinned. “I mean, I don’t know much about this stuff, but it definitely seems like you know what you’re doing.”
“Thanks,” she said, keeping her voice cool despite the fact that his compliments caused her heart to soften. It sounded as if his admiration was genuine. “So, this little mic box will hook into your waistband. You’ll want to hide it under your shirt or your suit jacket.”
“Thank you,” Rhys told her, accepting the device from her and clipping it into the waistband of his trousers as instructed. “This is so cool. Thanks for giving me the chance to help Lila out. Honestly, I’ve felt so useless these past few years, watching her struggle but not being able to really do anything to stop my brother.”
Olivia blinked, surprised by the vulnerable admission.
“Well, hopefully, we’ll be able to make some progress after tonight,” Olivia said. “Um, anyway, Sunday will be the one listening in to your mic. There’s no need to do anything out of the ordinary. In fact, it’s best if you act as normal as possible. Really, the only reason we’re wiring you up is so the girls can pick up as much information from the party as possible. You know, whispered gossip or commentary that one of us might not otherwise catch.”
“Sounds good,” Rhys said with a nod. “Can I put my shirt back on now?”
Olivia wished he didn’t have to, but then she was embarrassed for thinking that.
“Please do,” she said, tossing his shirt at him and walking away. Even if she wasn’t totally unbothered by his sexiness, she could at least pretend to be.
After all, she was convinced there was no way that Rhys was as attracted to her as she was to him. She saw the kind of women that he was into from his social media accounts. She wasn’t the kind of girl who would wear a tiny bikini, partly because she barely had the chest to fill something like that out, but also because Olivia was a modest person at the heart of it.
It annoyed her that she wished she were different. That she were closer to Rhys’s type. She told off Adeline for being inappropriate about their client’s brother-in-law, but Olivia knew she wasn’t very good at walking the walk.
Deep down, she was excited to spend the evening with Rhys, even if it was all a ruse in the heart of the lion’s den.
Rhys
“Wow, I didn’t realize the house was this big,” Olivia whispered as she and Rhys approached the sprawling front lawn of the luxurious condo in downtown Orlando.
“Yeah, it is pretty nice, huh?” Rhys replied with a chuckle. “For all my brother’s shortcomings, he has excellent taste.”
“Is your place like this?” Olivia asked him.
“No, nothing like this.” He laughed. “But it’s decent. Smaller and filled with less expensive furniture. My brother makes more money than I do. Maybe I should have chosen a more lucrative career.”
“Money isn’t everything,” Olivia replied simply as her heels crunched in the gravel walkway that led up to the grand French doors of the condo. She was dressed in a modest frock, chosen specifically so that she could look the part of the woman Dr. Bannon