Rule of Three

Chapter Three

Where the hell was he?

Dag blinked at the strip of brightness around the edge of the blind on the window and peered around the dim room. Jesus. Chicago. Oh yeah, he was in Chris and Kassidy’s new place.

His head fell back on the pillow and he closed his eyes. Chris and Kassidy.

Why the hell had he come back here? Some kind of misguided idea that after all these years he could come back to Chicago, which he’d missed like hell, and see Chris again, who he’d also missed like hell, and it would all be okay.

He groaned and rolled over in the bed. They’d had such a great time yesterday at the Cubs game, almost like old times. They’d fallen back into easy conversation, laughing and joking like they always had.

Then they’d come home to Kassidy.

Sweet and sexy Kassidy, who was just as easy to talk to as Chris. They’d sat around drinking and talking, and hours had zipped by before he even realized it, along with the better part of a bottle of Limoncello.

Which accounted for the way his mouth felt dry as sand and his head ached faintly.

He rolled out of bed and reached for his watch on the small dresser. Nearly nine o’clock. Were Chris and Kassidy awake yet? Guess he’d find out. He dragged on his jeans before leaving the small bedroom to use the bathroom. The faint sound of a TV drifted down the short hall. Someone was up. Probably Chris. He’d never been one to sleep in or lie around in bed.

Of course, with a woman like Kassidy in bed with him, that could be a whole different story.

Dag found a toothbrush still in a cellophane package sitting on the vanity in the bathroom. Huh. That had to be from Kassidy. He ripped it open gratefully and brushed the sand out of his mouth then washed up.

He wandered out to the living room and found Chris sprawled on the couch watching TV, a cup of coffee clasped in both hands resting on his flat belly. Morning summer sunlight flooded in the arched window, glowing on the polished hardwood floors and turning Chris’s light brown hair gold. He glanced up. “Hey, you’re up.”

“Yeah. Morning.”

“Want some coffee?”

Dag made a face. Chris laughed. “Oh yeah, I forgot you hate the stuff.”

“Got any Coke?”

“Yeah, I think there might be a couple of cans in the fridge. Help yourself.”

“Chris.” Kassidy’s voice came from behind him, and Dag turned to face her. Hell, she looked just as good first thing in the morning, her face bare and pink-cheeked, hair loose around her shoulders. She shook her head at Chris. “He doesn’t know where anything is. You could get up off the couch and look after your guest.”

The two men just laughed, and Kassidy led Dag to the kitchen still shaking her head. She slanted him a glance as she opened the fridge door. “Coke? For breakfast?”

Dag grinned. “Yeah. Why not?” He watched her open the fridge, her movements graceful and smooth.

She glanced up at him through her eyelashes as she shrugged and reached inside for a can. “Seems weird.”

“It’s got sugar and caffeine. Same as a cup of coffee. Why not?

She handed him the can then a glass, her gaze skittering over his body. He hadn’t put a shirt on, in fact he literally wore nothing but his jeans and they weren’t even buttoned. He hadn’t thought before wandering out of the bedroom half naked. And Kassidy was clearly aware of his bare chest.

Like he was aware of her bare legs below the hem of the khaki shorts she wore, her feet small and pretty with rosy-pink polished toenails. He dragged his gaze up and away from her legs.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “We just had toast…”

Dag shook his head. “Nah. I never eat much in the morning. Coke’s good, and then I’ll head back to the hotel.”

She nodded and picked up her mug of coffee then padded over to the couch where Chris sat. She curled up beside him and he absentmindedly slid his arm around her and pulled her closer, his hand going into her hair and playing with the silky dark strands.

Dag watched Chris’s long, tanned fingers caressing Kassidy’s hair, slowly rubbing a strand then dragging his fingers down the length of it. Something clenched inside him and he felt like he couldn’t take his eyes off the mesmerizing motion.

He lifted the glass and took a big swallow of nose-stinging fizzy Coke. He had to get out of there. Now.

He walked across the living room to the arched window overlooking the tree-lined street. Nice neighborhood. The sun lit up the fresh green leaves of the maple trees, the sky above a perfect clear blue. He turned back to the couple snuggled up on the couch together, Chris absorbed in the news show he was watching, Kassidy watching…Dag. Heat suffused him.

He guzzled down the rest of his Coke. “I’ll uh…get dressed,” he said. “And get out of your way. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

“No rush, man,” Chris said. “What are you doing today, anyway?”

Dag paused in the hall. “I have some business stuff to go over. To get ready for my meetings later this week.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Dag returned to the bedroom where he’d slept, found the rest of his clothes and quickly dressed. He pulled the sheets and blankets off the bed, folded the mattress back up into the sofa frame and replaced the cushions. Then he gathered up the bedding in his arms and took it out to Kassidy.

“What should I do with this?” he asked her.

“Oh, thank you, Dag.” She rose from the couch and accepted the bundle of laundry with a smile. “You didn’t need to do that. I’ll just toss it in the washer right now.” And she disappeared into a small room off the kitchen.

“So I’ll call you later this week,” Chris said, standing too. He followed Dag to the door. “We’ll get things set up for Friday night. But hey, we can do lunch or something one day. If you have time.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Kassidy came to the door too, and Chris pulled her in front of him, slid his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her head. His forearms sat just below her breasts, plumping them up a bit, which made Dag notice they were braless beneath the soft cotton tank top she wore, her nipples hard little points. Another demonstration of the warm and sexy chemistry between the two of them.

Out. Of. There.

“Thanks for dinner, Kassidy. You’re a great cook.”

She grinned. “Thank you. Any time. It’s been great getting to know you.”

And he got the hell out.

On the leafy street, he sucked in big breaths full of fresh morning air as he walked to his car parked at the curb halfway down the block. Oh man. All the emotional crap twisting and turning inside him was completely unexpected. There was no fucking way he could move back to Chicago.

He rubbed his face as he unlocked his car door then slid into the vehicle. His best plan would be to get through these business meetings he had lined up, and then get the hell back to San Francisco.

Kassidy had the day off Friday and planned to do some shopping. They needed towels for the main bathroom—Chris’s mismatched, well-worn towels didn’t fit in with their new condo. And they needed curtains for both the extra bedrooms. When Dag had slept over, it made her want to do up the rooms nicely. Not that she anticipated having guests very often.

Dag.

She got all warm inside when she thought about seeing him that morning. Jesus, the man was walking sex. Those worn jeans sat so low on his hips she could see the twin indentations at the base of his spine when she looked at him from the back, and facing him…well she couldn’t even look, afraid of what she might see. The lowest she’d let her eyes go was his six-pack abs and even that was dangerous. His silky dark hair had flopped over his forehead and those eyes had looked at her with such heat, she’d almost felt like she were burning up.

She’d felt so guilty for admiring his half-naked body she’d practically jumped onto Chris’s lap to force her attention where it should be—on her handsome boyfriend. Who was equally as sexy. There was just something about Dag that kept pulling at her.

And tonight they were going to see him again. He and Chris had had lunch yesterday but hadn’t invited her along. Not that she’d wanted to go. She’d had lunch with friends from work, as she usually did.

The doorbell rang just as she was checking her purse for cell phone, keys and shopping list, and when she peeked out she saw…Dag.

She didn’t know why her heart started thudding in her chest, heavy and slow, taking her breath away. She unlocked the door and opened it with shaky fingers, forcing a smile.

“Hey,” she said. “This is a surprise.”

He smiled back at her, that wicked sexy smile that crinkled his eyes and creased his lean cheeks. “I tried to call you at work but you weren’t there.”

Puzzled, she tipped her head to one side. “Yeah. I mean, no. I took the day off to do some errands.”

“That’s what Chris told me. I called him to find out where you are. I was hoping to pick your brain.”

“Me? Why?”

His eyes sparkled. “I’ve got this idea…met with a guy yesterday, and it got me thinking. And you’re the perfect one to help me.”

“Idea for what?” Thoughts buzzed around in her head. Why me? What guy? What was he talking about?

“Let me take you out for lunch,” he said, not answering any of her questions. “And I’ll explain everything.”

“Uh…okay. I guess.” She glanced at her watch. It wasn’t even eleven yet. “Kind of early for lunch, though.”

He shrugged and gave a crooked smile that sent a shaft of heat right through her. “I’m hungry.”

“Let me guess. No breakfast.”

“Yeah.” His smile deepened. “Okay, I’ll take you for a late breakfast then. No, you have lunch, I’ll have breakfast.”

“Whatever.” Amusement glimmered inside her. “Fine. Let me get my purse.” She grabbed it from the kitchen table where she’d been checking it then flicked off the lights. “I was just heading out. A few more minutes I’d have been gone.”

“Lucky me,” he said, and the husky timbre of his voice brushed over her. She licked her lips as she locked the door of the condo behind her.

His rental car was parked at the curb beneath the rustling green canopy of the big old maple trees in front of their building. He opened the passenger door for her and she climbed in.

“Where should we go?” he asked, fastening his seat belt.

She had no idea. There were so many places they could go, but since it was a gorgeous warm day, she tried to think of somewhere outside. “There’s a little place not far from here. In fact…” She made a face. “We could probably have walked.”

He slanted her a grin as he shifted gears. Something she’d always found very sexy was a man driving a standard transmission, shifting gears smoothly like he could feel the motor revving. When she saw his hand on the gear shift, she had to swallow hard.

“Turn left at the next light,” she directed him. “It’s called Lombardo’s.”

“Sounds fancy.”

“It’s not. It’s just a little place, but it has a nice patio.”

“Sounds good.”

He found the place easily, and with some kind of wicked luck he found a parking spot on the street and eased the car into it in a smooth feat of parallel parking. He did everything so easily—he seemed to Kassidy to be the kind of guy who had it all, who never had to work that hard, someone for whom things just fell into his lap.

They sat at a small table on the patio under a red-and-white-striped awning, surrounded by pots of scarlet geraniums and blue lobelia. Jazzy music played in the background for them alone, as they were the only ones there at that in-between-breakfast-and-lunch hour. Kassidy ordered coffee and Dag requested a Coke, making her smile, and the waiter left to get those while they looked at the menu.

She wasn’t hungry. She was burning with curiosity. She wanted to know what Dag wanted to talk to her about. All kinds of wild thoughts ran through her imagination, none of them appropriate. At all. But then, Dag had called Chris about where to find her, so it wasn’t likely that he wanted to talk to her about…inappropriate things.

He slapped his menu shut. “Steak sandwich,” he ordered when the waiter returned. Kassidy requested a spinach salad.

“A steak sandwich isn’t exactly breakfast,” she pointed out.

He laughed. “Why not? I’ve never liked following rules.”

That she could believe. Coke for breakfast.

He leaned back in his chair and linked his fingers behind his head. His snug black T-shirt outlined his buff torso, his arm muscles bulging from beneath the short sleeves, exposing a sexy tattoo. His teeth flashed white in his tanned face as he smiled at her. The power of that smile to captivate, to make her feel like she was the center of his attention, of his world at that moment, astonished her.

She looked away from him, down at the white mug full of black coffee. “So,” she croaked. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

He leaned forward, forearms on the table, hands clasping his glass of Coke. “You work in training and development, right?”

“Yeah.” She eyed him.

“And RBM is a big company, right? With more than one location?”

“Yes. We have offices in Detroit, Minneapolis and Seattle.”

He started asking question about traveling to design and deliver training programs. She’d been doing a lot more traveling over the last year and really didn’t enjoy it. She didn’t like being away from Chris, and there always seemed to be so much time wasted sitting in airports, traveling to and from the airport, sitting in the hotel, even with her BlackBerry.

“What about informal learning?” he asked. “Social learning?”

She eyed him. His knowledge surprised her. “What about it?”

“How do people in different locations learn from each other?”

“They don’t.”

“Tell me what you know about social learning.”

“What is this, a job interview?”

He grinned. “No. Just checking some things out.”

“Well, supposedly eighty percent of what people learn comes from social learning, on the job, just talking with coworkers.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Yes.”

“What about networking?”

She frowned. “Once again, I say, what about it?”

“The role of networking in developing staff.”

She could see how his mind was bounding ahead of their conversation and he had to slow himself down so he’d make sense to her. His intelligence was almost scary.

“Oh. Well, that’s huge too, of course. It’s not just what you know, but who you know. Knowing who to ask.”

“Are there a lot of younger employees at RBM?”

She nodded. “Sure. We’re a tech company. We’re always recruiting.”

“But being a tech company, I’m sure your older staff is comfortable with technology too.”

“Yes. I suppose. What’s this about?”

His grin was infectious and teased an answering smile out of her even though she had no idea where this was going. “I was talking to this guy yesterday. We got this idea for social networking.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not another social networking site.”

“You’re not into the FriendSpace thing?”

She hitched a shoulder. “I am. A little. It keeps me in touch with friends who’ve moved away. Obviously I’m not into it to meet people.”

“Okay, good, so you know how it all works.” He leaned closer across the table. “Picture something like that in the workplace.”

“We’ve banned our staff from accessing those kinds of sites,” she replied automatically, her forehead creasing a little.

“No. I mean your own social networking site.”

She stared at him, still not getting it.

“Designed for training and development. Information sharing. Networking.”

She gazed back at him, processing what he was saying. She had a hard time grasping exactly what he was telling her, but he continued to talk, enthusiasm coloring his voice, making his eyes gleam. Obviously he’d been thinking about this and the ideas came pouring out of him. “Think about the organizational knowledge you could capture,” he said. “Picture user profiles describing everyone’s experience, training, education…how easy it would be for someone new to the company to know who to contact with a problem or a question. Whether that person sits in the cubicle next to them or across the country.”

And her mind opened up to an incredible world of possibilities as she started envisioning it. “The relationships they could build, even long distance,” she said slowly. Their lunches arrived and they ate as they continued talking, asking each other questions and throwing out suggestions, and the interest and excitement built inside her as if she’d caught it from him like a virus. A good virus.

“So, that’s what you want to spend your money on?” she finally asked.

He smiled. “Well. I haven’t decided for sure. I didn’t plan to start off right on the ground floor with something, I was kind of looking for something already established that I could invest in. But man, I’m pumped about this.”

“It’s a lot of work.”

“Yeah. But I think I have enough connections that I can find the people I need.” He lifted a brow. “Wanna come work for me, Kassidy?”

Her mouth fell open and she stared across the table at him.