Somewhere along the way, he’d lost sight of his goal. The allure of playing around in all these cool coding languages, falling into the routine of a normal tech-world job, had distracted him from his plan.

That all stopped today.

For the next three hours, Daniel switched between the five windows opened on his monitor, all the while surreptitiously scanning the iPad that lay flat on his desk, partially obscured by several folders and printouts. On the iPad was one of the databases he’d managed to infiltrate. It showed him the login data for every Trendsetters employee, which allowed him to track how long they were accessing the system both at work and remotely.

With this information he could record the IP addresses and have the guys back at FinCEN run them. If anyone sought entry into their work files from a remote address while abroad, it would give him an idea of who was possibly allowing someone else to get into their system. It wouldn’t be the smoking gun they were looking for, but it was a valuable data point.

Daniel was so focused on work that he didn’t hear Samiah’s approach. She tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to jerk to attention.

His body’s reaction to her touch was instantaneous, his skin growing hot and tight. He looked up and was catapulted back to last night and the exquisite feel of palming her curvy ass.

Holy. Fuck.

Daniel cleared the lust from his throat before answering, “Hey.” He removed his headphones and let them hang around his neck.

“Are you actually doing the impossible?” Samiah asked. He frowned, not following. “Working without coffee,” she clarified with a laugh. “You didn’t get any this morning.”

“Um, yeah.” His chuckle held a lot less amusement than hers had. “I came in extra early. Got my cup before you even got here.”

“Oh.” Her head reared back slightly. “Okay. Well, what do you feel like eating for lunch? I’m in the mood for a burger. Maybe we can grab sliders at that pub around the corner?”

Daniel removed the headphones from around his neck and set them on the desk. He’d rather strut down the hallway in nothing but combat boots than do what he was about to do, but it was necessary. He’d succumbed to too many distractions already, this preoccupation with Samiah being the most intrusive.

“I know it was my idea to have the standing lunch date, but I’m not sure that’s the best thing anymore,” he said. “This new project is going to have all of us busy. I think it’s better if I just grab a quick bite here at my desk and work through lunch these next few days.”

He immediately felt like a steaming pile of elephant shit.

Her brows shot up before dipping into a deep V with her frown.