Who's the Boss Now?

by Susannah Erwin

  “Good morning,” she responded. “I know we said noon, but I thought I’d arrive a little early.”

  “Now works better for me, if it’s okay with you?” At her nod, he crossed the room and placed a manila folder on her desk. “Here’s the employment contract you asked for.”

  “My contract? Don’t I get to negotiate my own—” She took the document out of the folder and glanced at the top page. A dollar sign followed by a very large number leaped out at her. “Oh.”

  “We can renegotiate if you like,” he said with a straight face, but a glint in his eye betrayed his humor.

  She blinked several times. No, she wasn’t imagining the number. “I’m sure you don’t often hear these words, but this is too much. I said I wanted the going market rate. This is at least twice that.”

  He sat down in the guest chair opposite her desk, his broad frame filling it completely. Evan owned his surroundings with a breezy confidence that made him even more attractive—and when he smiled at her, her stomach squeezed in the most delicious way. “Are you saying your time and effort aren’t valuable?”

  “No, I—” She stopped and took a deep breath, getting her unruly feelings under control. “You just met me. I have yet to work one day for you. Why are you paying me this much?”

  He shrugged. “I asked around first thing this morning. Everyone I spoke to said you were the one who kept St. Isadore running these past years. I’m still curious why you were only the assistant, however.”

  Because that was the bargain. “Only the assistant?” She stared over the top of the document at him. “Does your assistant know you have so little regard for the role?”

  “I promote mine,” he responded. “I don’t keep them in what amounts to indentured servitude. I looked up your salary, and you were badly underpaid. Think of this as the back pay you’re due”

  “There are other forms of compensation besides money.”

  He shook his head. “In my experience? Not really.”

  She opened her mouth to defend Linus by explaining their agreement. Then she closed her lips with a snap. She’d just met Evan, but it was clear he dealt in hard logic and cold cash. Telling him might make him doubt her business skills at best. At worst, he could have her thrown her off the premises, like Linus’s grand-nephews had when she told them. And Evan had even more cause to bar her from St. Isadore, since he’d caught her red-handed breaking into the owner’s residence.

  She tapped the contract. “I see that. So there must be a catch somewhere...” She read on. “Ah. Found it. I see there’s a performance review at six months and I can be terminated at will without cause until then.”

  “The Global Leader Summit event, as we discussed last night. I told you I cut losses fast and early.”

  She waved off his concern. “Don’t worry, your rich friends will be impressed. Is that all it will take to pass the performance review? A successful event? It’s a pretty simple ask.”

  He gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m a simple man with simple wants.”

  “That’s not what you said last night. I highly doubt there’s anything simple about you. Including your—” she paused but hopefully managed to recover before he noticed “—wants.”

  “True,” he agreed. “I do like things that are...complicated. Hard to figure out. Makes the moment when you realize how to get what you want that much more rewarding.” He grinned, the smile of a big bad wolf luring girls in red cloaks off the forest path. Despite the bright sunshine and summer temperature, Marguerite’s skin prickled with awareness as if they were back in the dark, cool kitchen of the night before and his muscled thigh was warm beneath her leg.

  “Have you ever failed?” she asked.

  He shook his head slowly.

  Of course it was a rhetorical question. She placed her elbows on the desk and leaned her chin onto her interlaced fingers, the better to keep her gaze steady. There’s always a first time, you know.”

  “There’s always the first time you approach a new situation. But you experiment. You learn. Take this, for example.” He picked up a rose-colored foam ball from the desktop.

  “Linus used that for stress relief. Do you need instructions?”

  He turned the full force of his wolfish grin on her, and the ember of excitement, burning since the night before, kindled into a deep glow. “I’m familiar with stress relief. Although this? Not my preferred method.”

  Her throat was dry. She swallowed, hard. “I’m sure. Please, go ahead. You were saying?”

  “It’s a matter of action and reaction. For example, if I press here—” and his thumb made an indentation on the ball “—then I learn how soft it is. How pliant. And if I move like so...” His thumb made small circles on the surface of the ball. She couldn’t tear her gaze away if she tried. Underneath the desk she crossed and uncrossed her legs, hoping that the movement would relieve the tension beginning to pool between them. It did not. “...now I know how the ball reacts to my touch.”

  She leaned back in her chair, hoping to affect an attitude as cool as the rest of her was hot. She wanted this job. She needed this job.

  And mixing flirtation with business—much less going beyond flirtation—was a recipe for disaster. “Seems to me that ball is just lying there. Not quite sure I’d call that a reaction. Unless that’s what you’re used to. If so, no wonder you think you’ve never failed.” She smiled, saccharine sweet.

  His gaze flared with surprise and he laughed, placing the ball back on the desk. “As I said, I learn from whatever situation I’m in. Like what I’ve learned about you.”

  “Me? What could you have possibly learned about me in—” she checked her watch “—less than ten hours?”

  “You don’t take enough credit or compensation for your work. You’re patient, or you wouldn’t be in an industry that requires its product to age. You’re a planner and don’t follow your impulses—except maybe when your wine is involved, and then you had a plan for breaking in and taking it.” His grin reappeared, big and bad and full of wicked promise. “How did I do?”

  Better than she’d expected. She thought tech guys cared about only code: cold, lifeless numbers that flashed by on a bright screen in a dim, lonely room. But he’d laid her bare, one personality trait at a time. “That’s not learning.” She pretended to yawn. “That’s amateur pop psychology.”

  He leaned over the desk. Only a few inches separated their mouths. He fixed her with his hazel gaze, a mesmerizing tumble of jade green, amber and russet. “And you don’t like it when people get too close.”

  “Excuse me?” He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t right. She did like having close relationships. The problem was when other people knew how much she cared, they used that knowledge to manipulate her. Betray her, even.

  “Like now. You don’t like it that I’ve picked up so much about you.”

  “Really.”

  He nodded. “Your lips,” he rumbled, the vibrations putting the tiny hairs on her arms on alert.

  “My lips?” She used her tongue to trace them.

  His gaze followed the same path. “You purse your lips. When you’re annoyed.”

  Her lips were indeed pursed. But it was also the shape of a mouth anticipating a kiss. And the light in his gaze told her he knew it, too.

  She leaned back in her chair, seeking to get some distance from his delectable scent. This morning he was a cross between freshly laundered cotton, a hint of the lemongrass and basil from the night before, and a touch of black pepper and cardamom. For the first time in her life, she regretted having a finely attuned sense of smell. “That just means you can pick up on other people’s tells. You must be one hell of a poker player.”

  He laughed. “True. My friends won’t play with me.”

  “But I could be annoyed for a variety of reasons. For example, this is an annoying conversation.”<
br />
  “Annoying because I’m right.” His grin was self-satisfied.

  Their gazes battled. His was amused and...not unappreciative. He clearly enjoyed sparring with her. Learning how to get a reaction out of her.

  She’d walked right into his trap. And unfortunately, she didn’t mind at all. She could make herself very much at home, sharpening her wit to better play with him, watching the colors in his eyes shift and change as he responded.

  But she also knew from experience how fast relationships could change, and one day she’d wake up and find herself shut out and left shivering, miserable and bereft. Casper had been her mentor and Linus a substitute grandfather, but while her caring for them had been platonic, when they left her, each in their own way, it had still been devastating.

  Her initial reaction to Evan was anything but platonic. That spelled more potential trouble, and the situation had an even greater capacity to hurt her. The only way to deal with the heated charge hanging in the air between them was to spell out the rules of engagement from the start. She rose from her chair.

  “Where are you going?”

  “You don’t already know? Since you know me so well.” She pulled off the elastic band holding her messy bun in place, and her hair tumbled down. She then raised her arms to gather her hair back behind her neck, knowing the movement would display her chest to its best advantage. Sure enough, that caught his attention. She then walked around the desk and, facing him, hopped up on the surface, kicking off her sandals before crossing one leg over the other. The foot on top came perilously close to brushing his thighs when she swung it. “I’m being impulsive. Although—” she ran her gaze over his impressive physique, allowing it to linger on the areas that most interested her “—not as impulsive as I want to be.”

  “Oh?” His voice was a deep rumble. “What’s stopping you?”

  She shrugged. “Well, for one, it would involve the other party giving their consent.”

  “Let’s say the other party does. Then what?”

  “But it’s more complicated than that, isn’t it?” She tapped the manila folder containing the employment agreement. “I don’t kiss coworkers. Or do anything else with coworkers, for that matter.”

  Recognition dawned in his expression, followed by a burst of horror. He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t, either. This is...not my usual behavior. I know better. I apologize. If you are having second thoughts about working for St. Isadore—”

  “I’m working for St. Isadore.” That was nonnegotiable. “It was my idea, remember? But—” she let her foot swing even closer to the top of his thigh “—I think we’re both enjoying this...would you call it a flirtation?”

  He didn’t say anything, but the heat in his gaze gave her his response.

  “So. Once I sign this document, I’m your employee. But until then—”

  “—you’re not.” His slow smile made the breath catch in her throat.

  “I’m not.” She used her foot to spin his chair, so he faced away from her.

  He leaned his head back so his upturned gaze could catch hers. “That wasn’t what I was expecting.”

  She hopped off the desk. “Told you. I’m being impulsive.”

  Then she held his head steady with her hands. And lowered her mouth to his.

  Embers exploded into fire. No wonder the upside-down kiss scene in the first Spider-Man movie was iconic. It turned the known geography of mouths into virgin territory, ripe for exploring.

  He made a sound, or she did, she wasn’t sure. He disengaged his mouth from hers, shrugging free from her light grip. But before she could register the loss of his heat against her, he was on his feet, tugging her to him, his grasp firm as he held her hips tight against him so she felt the solid shape of his arousal. Then it was his turn for his mouth to crash down on hers, demanding, insistent.

  She’d been kissed before. By expert kissers who knew what they were doing and never gave her cause to complain. But Evan... Evan was in another class altogether. If kissing were an Olympic sport, they ultimately would have to force him to retire because no one could ever be better than him. And he was right. He did learn. Fast. He read her gasps and her sighs and knew exactly how to make her nerves sing.

  She pulled away before her rational mind was taken over by pure want, while she could still control her hands and stop them from unbuttoning his shirt and roaming over his wide chest to explore the muscled skin that had haunted what little sleep she’d had the night before.

  “Still think I can’t act on impulse?” she said, struggling to return her breathing to something resembling normal.

  He broke into a breathless chuckle. “Did I prove to you how much of a quick learner I am?”

  “Your point is made.” Her veins would not stop fizzing.

  “So, if neither of us gets involved with colleagues...”

  “Right.” She walked back to her chair, hoping he couldn’t tell how much her legs quivered, how her knees felt as if they would give way at any moment. “That was fun. But we also agree we don’t kiss—or engage in any other physical activity—with coworkers.” She pulled the employment contract toward her. He watched her through hooded eyes as she flipped to the last page, took out her pen and let it hover about the line for her signature. “Once I sign this, our relationship is strictly professional. Agreed?”

  A light flared in his eyes but was quickly extinguished. “Two consenting adults had a good time, but now comes the hard work. I won’t lie. I do find you attractive. But I also promise you can trust me. My self-control is rock-solid.”

  That isn’t the only thing about you that’s rock-solid... She shook her head. They had a moment, they sated their curiosity, and now they could work without constant static disrupting the atmosphere. Her libido would stay locked up in solitary confinement for the duration of her employment contract. She would not be thrown off track from her goal of restoring the Delacroix name to wine-making prominence.

  But she also wouldn’t lie. She found Evan damn attractive.

  “I look forward to a productive working relationship.” She scrawled her name and dated the document before handing it to him. “Let’s start.”

  Four

  Evan leaned back in his desk chair and stared out the window of his San Francisco office, high in a tower that afforded him a prime view of the bay. It was a clear, bright summer day, absent the fog for which the city was famous. Sailboats blew this way and that over the water’s surface as ferry boats took tourists to and from Alcatraz Island, but he didn’t see them. Instead, his mind fixated on the distant Golden Gate Bridge and the rolling hills on the opposite side. It was Friday afternoon. If he left now and took the bridge, he would be in Napa in ninety minutes and have the whole weekend there...

  “The meeting with the suppliers is Tuesday. We need to nail them down before we speak to the bank next week and—” Luke Dallas put down his electronic tablet and looked up from where he sat in the guest chair opposite Evan’s desk. “Evan? You with me?”

  “Huh?” Evan dragged his gaze away from the window and the route that would take him to St. Isadore. Although technically Luke was the chief operating officer and Evan was the chief executive officer of Medevco Technologies, they ran the business as a team. A smoothly operating team, so Evan didn’t know why Luke sounded so testy. “Sure. I’m with you. The meeting is Thursday.”

  “Tuesday,” Luke corrected. He leaned forward. “Anything you need to tell me?”

  “No. Why? The distribution situation is finally in hand. Three weeks of round-the-clock worry I’m never going to get back, but otherwise, a return to optimal. But it underlines why we need to nail down that investment from Angus Horne.” Evan glanced out the window again. A flash of sunlight off the water caught his gaze. He followed the trail of light to the bridge again. Traffic would be dense, but it would be worse if he left an hour from now. If
he wrapped things up—

  “So you keep saying.” Luke didn’t sound happy, but Luke usually sounded terse. The only times Evan heard him laugh was when Luke was with his wife, Danica.

  “You don’t need me for anything for the rest of the day, right? I’d like to head out to the winery.” Evan began to organize his desktop, straightening papers and putting away unneeded items.

  Luke’s gaze narrowed. “The company needs us to figure out this supply chain problem. Or we won’t have a company.”

  Evan closed his top drawer and locked it. “Alarming. Also, not true.”

  “But now I have your attention.” Luke tapped on the surface of his tablet. “I sent you the information for the supplier meeting on Tuesday—” he stressed the last word “—so don’t extend your stay in Napa past Monday. No matter how attractive she is.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be ready—” He froze, his laptop half in, half out of the carrying bag. “What makes you think there’s a she?”

  Luke never rolled his eyes. But his expression was the closest thing Evan had seen to an eye roll in their year or so of partnership. “You’re moody and easily distracted. There’s no other logical explanation.”

  “There are plenty of explanations. Nico, for example. Nico is more than enough of an explanation.”

  “Right. Nico. The brother I didn’t know you had until you brought him to the office last month. Yes, you’ve always been concerned about spending as much time as you can with him.”

  Ouch.

  Evan liked Luke. A lot. He was the best business partner Evan had ever had in two decades of creating start-ups and building them into success stories acquired by larger companies for hefty sums of money. He’d envisioned being partners with Luke for a long time. Until now. “Just because I don’t turn into goop when my family is mentioned—”

  “Goop? What are you—?”

  “Danica,” Evan shot back at him.

  A warm smile replaced Luke’s taciturn expression.