“Right now, I’d give anything just to make that damn drone upwardly mobile.” The bonus is not important to me. If it were money I wanted, I could have just worked for my father. Or just looked for a rich husband like my stepsister.
“It’s already upwardly mobile. The trick is making it stay that way.” He walks over, picks it up, and turns it over in his large hands. Holding it, he faces me. “I know you can figure this out, Sam. I have faith in you. That’s not smoke up your ass, either. I mean that.”
“I know you do. I wonder if El Capitan will feel the same way when he finds out I’m still bombing.”
“You have the chance to find out for yourself.” He grins.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I came down here to tell you that he asked to see us.”
“And you left him waiting all this time, while the two of us sat here talking?” I jump out of my chair like it’s on fire.
“Whew,” he teases. “For somebody who claims she doesn’t like Lincoln, she sure hops up like she can’t wait to see him.”
That irritates me. “Shut up.”
He grins. “I’m just saying.”
“And I’m just saying you really need to start getting more sleep if you think you’re being funny right now.” Lincoln Cage is everything I hate about men, wrapped up in one tall, dark, smug, sexy package. Mr. Ultra-Masculine. God, I can’t stand him.
If I were on Dr. Freud’s couch, he’d have some pretty clear ideas on why I feel the way I do. He’d wrap me up with a neat little bow and call it daddy issues. Lincoln Cage is a younger, hotter version of my dad. Unfortunately, he also happens to be more brilliant than my stepfather. Much as I hate to, I have to respect his achievements. Ryland is right about all the incredible things Lincoln has done in the short time he’s been in this industry.
“What does he want from us?” I ask as I try to match my stride to Ryland’s looping long one out of the engineering department and down the hall to the elevator which will take us up to his office. I’ve never been up there. I’ve never ranked high enough.
“A report on our progress. We had a bit of an emergency meeting today and he wanted something from me by close of business, but I knew you’d be burning the midnight oil and wanted to wait until your latest tests were complete.”
“Emergency meeting?”
“It’s a long story.” He waves it off. “Anyway, he’ll want to know how this issue is progressing.”
“What you’re telling me is, I have to present a report to the CEO of the company, and I have roughly the next half-minute to prepare it.”
“Something like that. Yes.”
I have to lean against the wall of the elevator car for strength. “Great. Just so we’re clear.”
“Fair warning,” he adds, glancing my way. “He’s had a really, really bad day.”
There are only two things keeping my mouth shut right now. First, the fact that Ryland went to bat for me when it came time to hire a young woman as his Senior Engineer. Without him, I wouldn’t have a job in the first place. Second, the fact that he and Lincoln are so close, he’s obviously going to feel sorry for his best friend.
So, instead of informing him that Lincoln Cage can stuff his bad day where the sun doesn’t shine, I simply reply, “Oh. Well. I wonder how that feels.”
“No smartass remarks.”
“You don’t have much faith in me, do you?” I eye him up and wonder just what he thinks of me.
“Oh, I have faith enough,” he assures me with a grin. “But maybe because we’re far too much alike. I see a lot of me in you so let me warn you, your quick-witted jabs won’t be appreciated in this situation.”
“I’ll play nice,” I promise, leaving out the part where Lincoln had better hope he plays nice, too. I’ve never been good at rolling over for a belly rub, no matter who I’m up against or how much leverage they have on me.
Lincoln
Where the fuck is Ryland? I love the guy as much as I could ever love another man, but there are times when I worry that he takes a little too much for granted. Like the limits of my patience. He has saved my life in more ways than one. He keeps me from blowing up daily and God knows, my Engineering and Development department wouldn’t be in half the shape they’re in if it weren’t for him. He knows talent when he sees it and he knows how to keep them performing using a slick carrot and stick method he has turned into an art.
But I don’t take this slack shit lightly. I shouldn’t have to wait so damned long for a face-to-face. He’s kept me waiting exactly seventeen minutes. Sixteen minutes too long. The sound of leisurely footsteps outside the conference door sparks my outrage further. “What took you so long?” I look up from the monitor to glare at him.
He has the good sense to at least look cowed by my reaction as he pauses in the doorway. “Sorry,” he replies, as he steps aside to reveal the petite, curvaceous, sapphire-eyed blonde behind him.
Oh, I get it now. He’s been lounging around with our newest Senior Engineer, his protégé, Sam or whatever-her-name-is. He fooled me with that little nickname of hers, made me believe he was hiring a man. Not that there’s anything wrong with women working in tech—I’m not a monster from the stone ages—but for some weird reason, she grates on my nerves.
One of those girls who think it’s a good idea to wear shapeless, masculine clothes and call themselves by male names. My brain notes the way she has pulled her long, golden hair back in a tight ponytail. No makeup either, though she’s young and pretty enough to not need it. Even so, couldn’t she try to be slightly feminine? She’s wearing loafers, for God’s sake. Although, there isn’t much she can do to hide what she has going on under that crisp shirt and slacks. If I wasn’t so exhausted and put-out…My gaze travel upwards to meet hers.
She lifts her chin and stares at me with those beautiful eyes, but in exactly the way a certain ex-wife of mine likes to do.
In fact, it’s the way she stared at me earlier today. Just like that, all thoughts pertaining to her body and what is or isn’t softly jiggling under her blouse—vanish. “Oh, I see. You’re the one holding up the works, then?” I ask.
She blinks, as though she doesn’t understand the question. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware that we’d perfected teleportation yet.” Then she shoots a look at a very flustered Ryland. “Was that done in-house?”
He grimaces, shrugging at me in an apologetic way. Women. What can you do?
I’d love to tell him right now what I’d like to do, but I don’t feel like giving her room to bring me up on charges of unprofessionalism or whatever she might come up with. I narrow my eyes. “Miss…”
“Harper,” she replies, all but rolling her eyes when I don’t remember her last name.
I do remember it, but I would rather have her think that I don’t. An age-old tactic. Make sure they know how unimportant they are. Keep them from getting too big a head about themselves. “Miss Harper, I don’t know how Ryland conducts business down in your department, but I think it’s only fair to inform you of my intolerance for backtalk. We’re not friends. We’re barely colleagues, and seeing as how you haven’t held your position for very long, I’d be very careful about what you say.”
“Fair enough,” she murmurs. But she doesn’t apologize.
I’m wise enough to know how to pick my battles and this isn’t one worth fighting. She’s just a stubborn little shit and she needs to be knocked down a peg or two. Or more. But I don’t have the time or the inclination. “I didn’t ask to see you both,” I say to Ryland, as I pointedly ignore Samantha’s gaze. She’s looking around the place as though she’s sizing it up for her own use one day. The audacity of this girl is unreal.
“I know, but Sam has been working on that bug I told you about…”
I can’t help myself, I turn to Samantha. “Excuse me. Can I get you a tape measure, so you can take note of the room’s dimensions for later use?”
A ghost of a smile flickers across her face. “No
, no, I’m fairly good at eyeballing measurements.” And damned if her blue eyes don’t drift down to my crotch before bouncing back up to my face.
“As I was saying,” Ryland continues, all but stepping between me and the girl to get my attention. “Sam has been working out that bug we talked about.”
“Working it out?” I ask, intrigued. “Does that mean it’s been fixed?”
He winces. “Bad choice of words, I guess.”
“So it’s not fixed?” I look at her, one eyebrow raised.
“I was working on it just now, before being interrupted.”
“Nobody asked for you to be here.” I look at Ryland again, sending a silent message. He needs to get this girl in line and fast, or I can’t guarantee she’ll have a job with the company by morning. I have enough problems on my mind right now. There are a million engineers out there with the skills this girl has. I’m still not certain I understand why he had such a hard-on for hiring her. Unless it was a literal hard-on, but she’s not anywhere near his type. If anything, I’d expect him to end up with a woman like Regina.
“She knows more about the issue than I do, since she’s been working on it exclusively ever since we discovered it.” He turns to her with a scowl. “Tell him what you’ve found.”
She takes a deep breath.
I don’t miss the way her already generously endowed tits expand when she does. What the fuck is the matter with me?
Her voice is lower when she starts talking about her work, “I just ran another test, and there’s been no improvement. At around six-and-a-half minutes, the battery burns too hot and fries everything.”
“Son of a bitch.” I want to sweep everything off my desk and maybe throw the huge, mahogany monstrosity out the window while I’m at it. “How many different types of battery did you use?”
“The lithiums are the only ones with enough juice to sustain the sort of long-range travel you’re looking to support,” she points out. “They just burn too hot after that amount of time. The design has the battery casing placed too close to the motherboard, to make things worse.”
“So you’re faulting the design,” I mutter, my hackles up once again. The design is my baby, and she knows that.
“I didn’t place fault anywhere. I’m merely stating a fact. You want to be kept abreast of how we’re progressing. Well, that’s the state of affairs.”
“What about a higher-powered fan inside the casing?” Ryland suggests. “Anything to keep the temperature down.”
“Tried it—anything stronger is naturally…larger.” Her glance slips down to my crotch and color stains her neck and cheeks.
The first time she did do it in retaliation. She’d caught me checking out her boobs and it became an anything you can do, I do thing, but this time it was completely involuntary.
Suddenly, my cock takes over and thoughts pop into my head.
She’s actually fucking gorgeous. I could do things with her. Bend her over the desk. Fuck her until she screams.
I should have cleaned myself up a little.
She probably thinks I’m a complete mess. Easily rattled, poorly groomed.
Then, thank God, my brain takes over again. Damn it all, what the fuck am I doing getting distracted by one of my staff? I’m fighting for my life here. I’m just tired and off guard. I resist the urge to roll up my sleeves and glare at her. She is the cause of my slip of judgement. There is no place for sex pots like her in these kinds of jobs.
“It would entail a total redesign, which we all know there isn’t any time for,” she finishes, looking at Ryland.
“Find a way to better insulate the circuitry, then,” I bark.
She tilts her head to the side, eyes narrowed to slits. If looks could kill, I’d be six feet under.
Samantha
Find a way to better insulate the circuitry. No freaking kidding. “Thank you so much for your sage, expert advice,” I whisper through gritted teeth. There goes my jaw hinge again.
“Excuse me?” Lincoln holds up a palm in Ryland’s face when he tries to step in. “You’re damn right, it’s expert advice. I’m the CEO of this company and I built it from the ground up, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“I would hope not, seeing as how you’ve been here for all of three minutes and therefore, would’ve only just found out about the company history. If you couldn’t manage to retain that information, I’d have to question your abilities in other areas.”
“Oh, my abilities are just fine,” I snap. God, who does this jerkwad think he is? God’s greatest gift? I can hardly stand the sight of the snide, domineering creep. No wonder he’s divorced. Who could stand living with him? Another one of the little tidbits I’ve picked up after listening in on the office coffee clutches.
“You sure about that? Since you’ve been working on one and only one project for days on end and haven’t come to a satisfactory conclusion?”
Ugh, where does he get off? The gloves are off now. To hell with him, and to hell with Ryland for guilting me into playing nice for his sake! I like him, I really do, and I enjoy working with him, but I won’t let this asshat talk to me like I’m some idiot off the street who doesn’t deserve respect, just because he’s rich and thinks he’s a big deal. “I have an idea. Why don’t you try to fix this yourself, since you’re such a know-it-all?”
“Sam!” Ryland barks. “That’s enough.”
“No, no, I want to hear what Mr. Cage has to say,” I reply, never looking away from Lincoln’s eyes. They’re not bad eyes. Deep, dark, stormy, mysterious; the sort of eyes I would enjoy staring into if they weren’t in his face. But they are, which means they suck.
His full and in any other circumstances, totally kissable mouth curves up in a sneer. “You don’t bark after you buy a dog. I hire people like you to do that sort of thing for me, so I’m freed up to focus on big-picture issues, which you would understand if you were in my position.”
And damn my mouth for speaking faster than my brain can think, because what comes out of my mouth next is beneath me, “Big-picture issues like the fact that your daughter is asleep in the next room? What a wonderful, professional atmosphere you’ve cultivated here.”
The silence in the room is ominous.
Even Ryland can’t back me up this time. I wish I could go back in time and not have said those words, because it was unfair of me to throw that in his face. I don’t know anything about his personal life. I only know what Ryland told me on our way past the conference room…that his six-year-old daughter showed up out of nowhere earlier in the day.
It could be a trick of the light, but Lincoln’s face seems to change color. It’s goes to roughly the same shade as an eggplant and his eyes burn like two coals. “Congratulations,” he says coldly. “You just crossed the line, Ms. Harper. And you’re roughly five seconds away from getting fired.”
“All right, all right, let’s all be calm here,” Ryland implores, stepping between us.
“Nobody talks about my kid that way, especially when they have no clue what the hell they’re talking about,” he snarls, glaring over Ryland’s shoulder at me.
I’m almost tempted to apologize. Almost. But there’s something about this man. I know I did wrong, but I cannot bring myself to apologize.
“Understood,” Ryland replies, shooting me a warning look over his shoulder. “She should know better than to say things like that.”
But I can’t stop myself. “What about what he was saying?” I ask.
“Like what? Like how you should get your act together and make the drone work without bursting into flames?” Lincoln taunts.
“Get my act together?” I can feel my blood start to boil. “Perhaps if it had been designed better, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“There is nothing wrong with the design,” Ryland says to the two of us. “We just have to figure out how to solve the problem. There’s always a way to solve a problem, but we can’t waste time with stupi
d, petty fighting. Remember, we’re all on the same team.”
Boy, he’s just the king of the pep talks. And I thought I was the only person whose butt got smoke blown up it. As it turns out, he’s been practicing on Lincoln for all these years. No wonder he’s so good at it. “If I’m going to solve this problem, I need uninterrupted work time,” I interject in an attempt to break the tension. “I need a little faith, a little more time, and a little leeway.”
“You’ve been given plenty of time,” Lincoln reminds me.
“Thanks. I completely forgot.”
Ryland scowls at me, but I don’t back down. “There are other things I can do. I know I’m real close and I’m not one to give up. Ever.”
Lincoln’s lips purse as he considers this. “You have that going for you, at least.”
“That’s only for starters,” I murmur.
“Yes, well, I’ll believe that when I see it. For now, I only have your word and this guy’s assurance that hiring you wasn’t the biggest mistake of his and my life.”
Something tells me he’s made much bigger mistakes—such as his marriage—but even I am not stupid enough to pursue that topic. “That’s just fine by me. You’ll see for yourself once I’ve solved the problem that the other departments have gotten me into.”
Muscles jump in his jaw as my dig hits home. He turns to Ryland. “You’d better leave. Now.”
“Yeah. I was thinking the same thing,” Ryland says, as he grabs my arm, leading me out of the office and down the hall.
I’m so relieved at having an excuse to leave Lincoln’s presence without being the first person to back down from our fight that it doesn’t even occur to me to ask my manager to get his hands off me.
He doesn’t let go until we’re inside the elevator with the doors closed tight behind us. He sighs heavily, seeming to deflate before my very eyes. “What do you think you’re trying to do? Do you think you can mouth off like that and still have a job when all is said and done?”
Too hot to handle: A curvy girl romance Page 17