Noah laughed. "Yes, ma'am." He stepped just outside the door frame. "Also, Claire?"
"What?" The impatience in her voice inspired an image of fire in her eyes as she stared daggers into his back.
"You are smoking hot." He threw that over his shoulder as he walked away. Sputtering erupted from the bathroom behind him before the door slammed shut.
Once they were both freshly dressed and comfortable, they sat together on the settee, waiting for Simon to join the video call. Claire was furious with Noah for walking in on her. At the same time, she was embarrassed and angry at herself for not shutting the door. What a ridiculous situation!
Despite her embarrassment, she shivered in pleasure, remembering his parting words. He thought she was hot. That memory, combined with the steamy kisses they'd shared earlier, had her face burning, and she fanned herself, trying to cool down her cheeks. He better not say one word!
Her laptop beeped and Simon's face appeared on the screen.
"Well, hello. You two have had quite the adventure," he said by way of greeting.
Noah smirked beside her and she reminded herself to focus on work before answering. "Yes, not exactly how I imagined my first trip across the pond to go." An emergency landing, my coworker seeing me naked… good times, she thought.
Simon's brow furrowed. "Everything okay? I've taken your regular updates to mean y'all were rolling with the punches, but you need to let me know if there's an issue."
Claire waved him off. "No, it's fine. We've been in excellent hands and the Fergusons have been wonderful. It got a little touch and go when the power went out, but they were well-prepared with a generator and a well-stocked kitchen."
Simon nodded. "Noah? Same?"
"Yes. I believe Claire is learning the Scottish accent. It's been a crash course."
Claire's shoulders loosened. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but Noah, the colleague, was easier to handle than Noah, the bedmate. Talking about work let her shove her feelings to the background.
"Good. Noah, your text said you'll be flying back to England?"
Claire looked at Noah. They had dialed in to Simon so quickly, she wasn't in the loop yet. Noah told them what he'd learned about the replacement jet flying in early tomorrow morning. Tonight would be their last night in Leesburgh.
"That works out perfectly because the England accounting group wants to pick Claire's brains on the reporting software they use. With you guys flying back tomorrow, we can just extend Claire's stay in England through the end of the week. Does that work for you, Claire?"
Her mind blanked. "Um… sure. My calendar was cleared for the Norway trip already, so being in a different location shouldn't cause an issue."
"Great. In-person conversations are always better. Things just go much smoother when you're face-to-face. Especially when dealing across disciplines. Body language is much easier to pick up on when you're in the room rather than talking across a video screen."
Simon looked down at something offscreen, then raised the topic of the Norway solution. Earlier, while setting up for the call, she and Noah had read through the update email, but hadn't had time to absorb the details. Now they dove into it, with Noah asking pointed questions.
"So it's a legal thing unique to Norway?"
"Yes, apparently, you aren't allowed to do credit invoices. It causes some kind of tax trigger." Simon checked his notes. "The details are in the report."
"Right. So how do we address it when the rest of the world handles it differently?"
"We have a plan. Delbert and Rick are creating a unique program specifically for the Norway office. They'll use a different menu item when booking sales transactions. And we're writing a trigger into our automations that will follow their unique process based on the entity number. Norway transactions go this way, everyone else goes that way. You two can help with testing next week."
They talked for another twenty minutes about the new requirements and other project work before Simon confirmed he would reach out to Jake to book Claire's hotel and flight home.
They said their goodbyes, and she shifted away from Noah. Her mind drifted back to that oh-so-soft kiss they'd shared this morning. She watched him from the corner of her eye as he ran a hand along his jawline and stared vacantly at the wall. She wondered if he was also remembering that kiss and how it exploded into something hotter. Before she could ask, he spoke.
"The solution they came up with was clever, but accounting heavy. I think Grace must have had a firm hand in it."
Claire blinked and scrambled to catch up. "Grace from the GFS team? I forgot she went with them. She struck me as someone who knew what she was talking about." Okay, we're ignoring the naked part and getting back to business. She shoved thoughts of hot kisses and exploring hands to the back of her mind and switched her focus back to work. Giving her hands something to do, she opened her calendar and reviewed her schedule for the week while they talked.
"Yes, she used to be a controller for our previous parent company and was part of the team who originally migrated us to MADS. She's an expert on the software and is aware of how we've configured it. I think she'd be part of our core team if she wasn't so busy with the financial reporting systems. She also helps with user support, so she knows how the people entering the data actually use the application."
"Why did Grace leave that job?" Claire fired off the email to Jake about flights and answered Simon's questions about phones. She really didn't have a preference.
Noah stretched out his legs out and leaned back on the couch. "I heard her former company tried to play some games with her. Rumor was they promoted someone's underqualified nephew over her or something stupid like that. Anyway, she promptly gave them her notice and came to work for Alex."
