Tempting the New Boss

by Angela Claire

  “Thanks. You’re all heart. So what now?” He felt more lost than when he and Camilla had been trudging forward in the mud. All he knew was he wanted to be with her, like they had been together in the last day, and it had all gone so wrong for reasons he couldn’t quite understand. Her damn family was everywhere he turned, and suddenly she was back to treating him like the boss and being mad at him, like they’d started out on the plane yesterday.

  “You like the woman, Mason. I’ve never heard you talk about anyone the way you did about her.”

  That annoyed him. “I don’t even know what I said to you,” he muttered.

  “Exactly.”

  Another one of those long silences.

  “So were you polite to her parents?”

  “I don’t think I even said anything.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “Oh and her father was standing right next to her when she blew up about the room. Or standing there for a minute, anyway. He walked away before she got going.”

  “The clerk didn’t say it in front of her father, did he?”

  “I guess, but that wasn’t the problem.”

  “That was sure as hell part of the problem.” She sighed. “You don’t know fathers and daughters.”

  “God, there are so many rules with this,” he complained.

  “Look, at this point, I’m probably doing more harm than good. You’re going to have to figure this one out for yourself, my boy. Good luck.”

  And then she hung up on him, which surprisingly she rarely did. From the few occasions it had happened, though, he knew calling back would be fruitless. She would never answer, even if he tried it a hundred times, which he actually had once for the hell of it. Why not? He had redial.

  He slipped the phone back into his pocket.

  The clerk gave him his full attention now as Mason tried to think of what to do. “Miss Anderson’s suite has an adjoining door to the room next to it,” he offered. “I could give you the other one. The door between them is locked on each side,” he added, probably worrying about the suing the pants threat. “But it’s the best I can do.”

  Mason nodded. At least it was something.

  When he headed toward the elevator, the Anderson family was nowhere to be seen and neither was Camilla. There was a restaurant on the ground floor, Trendz the sign said, so maybe they were all in there. He slipped the card key into his pocket, but chickened out on going in to see, pretending he wanted to eat, too. Just as well since his stomach was churning, and he doubted he could swallow a thing.

  He wished he had thought of something else to say to her parents. Or the brother maybe, who seemed interesting, but he wasn’t supposed to say anything about for some reason.

  All these fucking rules…

  The sister looked just like her, but a few years older.

  As to her mother and father, they didn’t resemble either of their daughters or the son for that matter, except for a similarity in talking and holding their heads. And laughing. There was a lot of that along with the smiles he had come to associate with Camilla. But in contrast to the long, blond hair of her daughters, Mrs. Anderson sported short, brown, curly hair, only slightly less unruly than his own, with shots of gray threaded throughout. Mr. Anderson’s hair was steel gray, what was left of it, completely bald on the top, and he was tall and thin, to his wife’s shorter, plumper frame. Both of them looked much younger than he suspected they must be, with six children older than Camilla.

  He headed to the elevator.

  He wished he was eating dinner, or late lunch or whatever, with all the Andersons right now, then taking Camilla to bed thereafter, snuggling with her in a proper king-sized bed in the Bridal Suite.

  But if he could have only one thing or the other tonight, he was shocked to realize he would have preferred sitting down with her family.

  Damn. What the hell was wrong with him?

  Just in case, though, he went into the gift shop, hoping they had condoms.

  Joey talked non-stop in the elevator on the way up to the Executive VIP floor that needed a special key to make the elevator open. There had been nobody in the plane but them, and he hadn’t been scared at all, and he wondered if Cammy was going to go on the plane home with them. Brandy chimed in occasionally.

  Her parents each held one of her hands. The huddle they had been in when she joined them from the check-in desk made her suspect that her dad had shared with her mom the surprising news from the clerk even before Camilla babbled on about the mix-up. When they all arrived at her suite, she inserted the card key in the door and invited them in, promising Joey a peek at the mini-bar though they had to wait until after dinner to raid it.

  The room opened to a large sitting room, wall-to-wall windows allowing late afternoon sunlight to filter in, coating the buildings in the distance in sepia like an old-fashioned photo. Plush, cream carpet complemented the rose silk covered couches and polished wood side tables with legs that looked like lion’s claws. Brandy wandered beyond the sitting room into the bedroom. “Wow, look at this. Very nice.”

  The bed, covered in a lacy white coverlet over more rose silk, was huge, the requisite flat screen looming nearby.

  “And this bathtub,” her sister added, marveling at the gleaming whirlpool tub right in the bedroom, big enough to accommodate more than the bridal couple it was supposed to, a glass blocked shower and gold countered vanity in the nearby bathroom.

  Her mother took Camilla aside. “Honey, you’ve been through an incredible experience. Not only the plane, ah, landing,” she apparently didn’t want to say emergency landing or crash, “but it sounds like you were walking your way out of the woods all night.”

  Not all night.

  “I won’t have you feeling like you have to entertain us. It’s enough for us to know you’re safe. To see you. We couldn’t have imagined a better outcome. You take a shower, or maybe a bath in this lovely tub, and get some rest. And if you still feel like a late dinner after you’ve taken a nap, you let us know. But I’m betting your head will hit that pillow, and you’ll be out for the night.”

  “No, Mom, I want to go to dinner.”

  Her dad came over. “You listen to your parents for once, little girl, and have some alone time before we descend on you. We can catch up tomorrow.”

  “If this is because of what the clerk said—”

  “No!”

  “No! Of course not.”

  Their denials were simultaneous and pretty loud.

  Brandy glanced over with interest from where she and Joey were taking an inventory of the mini-bar.

  “Accidents happen. Mix-ups.” Her mother stared intently into her eyes, and Camilla wondered if she was talking about the clerk or something else.

  “Don’t think a thing about it, sweetie,” her dad said. “We just want you to relax, and maybe your sister will come and check on you in a little while. See how you are.”

  “Did you leave your suitcase in the plane?” her mom asked.

  “Oh, yes.” She just remembered.

  “No problem. You know how Brandy over packs for everything. She’ll bring you something fresh when she checks on you.”

  “Come on, gang,” her dad called out in the direction of Brandy and Joey. “Let’s leave your sister to rest.”

  Joey protested, but with additional hugs and kisses for all, they were gone.

  As much as she wanted to be with her family, they were right. She was exhausted and needed some alone time.

  But the growl emanating from her stomach reminded her she was starving. She had half a mind to call for some room service, but when she saw it was the same number as the front desk, she thought better of it after the hissy fit she had thrown with the clerk down there just now.

  It was a little over the top in the outrage department, since she had already slept with Mason and might have even done so again, God help her, if they had started out with two separate rooms, sneaking behind her parents’ back as the unwritten pact b
etween the Anderson girls and their parents required. But it was the presumption that infuriated her. It was the principle of the thing. Besides, she needed her own room to steady herself—it had been pretty intense—before she talked to him again.

  There was a knock on her door, and since she hadn’t called for room service, she had a sneaking suspicion she knew who it was. She ought to just leave him standing out there in the hall. But she had a sudden vision of him clutching her in his arms as the plane descended and asking her all those silly questions he didn’t have the slightest interest in and never would have under normal circumstances.

  She opened the door.

  It wasn’t Mason, and she ignored the disappointment in the pit of her stomach that was worse than the hunger pains.

  “Hi,” her sister said, handing over neatly folded jeans and a sweater, fresh socks nestled in the bundle as well. “I’m supposed to give you these, but I think Mom and Dad sent me back here so quick to see if you wanted to talk.”

  Camilla shut the door, set the clothes on a chair, and went to the mini-bar to take out a Milky Way and hand Brandy a bag of popcorn. With a bottle of water for each of them, she wandered back to the bedroom and folded her legs up beneath her in the flowery armchair. “I thought they wanted me to sleep.”

  Brandy bounced on the bed. “I’m also supposed to make myself scarce if you really do want to be alone.”

  “So is this about the one room thing for me and my boss?”

  “What?” Her sister burst out with a laugh. “You’re kidding!”

  “Oh, guess not.” Mom and Dad were more circumspect than she would have thought.

  “You and your boss shared one room? Was this like, when you were at the deserted ranger’s station in the middle of the woods or whatever? His assistant mentioned that you’d rested at one when she called back.”

  Mmmm, so Marcia knew about the ranger’s station. Of course she did. She’d booked the Bridal Suite for her boss and his new hook-up.

  “That’s not so bad,” Brandy continued. “There was probably only one bed, right? Did you put a curtain up between you like in that old movie?”

  With one bite of the caramel and chocolate, Camilla decided to come clean. Since her oldest sister, Mary, was twenty years older than she was, their parents were of a slightly older generation than the rest of her friends’ parents and even if they hadn’t been, they were Irish Catholics from the cradle. More like cafeteria Catholics when it came right down to it, though, adhering to the parts of the church they liked and conveniently ignoring any too strident doctrines. Camilla was pretty sure her parents didn’t object in principle to their daughters having pre-marital sex so much as they didn’t want to hear about it.

  No such prohibition on conversation among the sisters. If not, how else would she have learned about the birds and the bees? Brandy may have been a decade older, but now that Camilla thought of it, she had first learned about the birds and the bees from this particular sister. No need to hide anything about sex from her.

  Though she wished she could hide the ridiculously stupid career move. Brandy was a homemaker now, tending to her two tweens while her husband, Brad, worked as an engineer at GM, but she had been in the work force earlier, an engineer herself. She would know what a stupid thing Camilla had done by getting involved with her new boss.

  “No, it wasn’t in the ranger’s station. I mean, it was in the ranger’s station, but even before that.”

  “For God’s sake, Cammy, it was your first day. How did you manage to fit in one time, let alone a couple? And weren’t you busy almost crashing?”

  Despite her sister’s laugh, Camilla didn’t think it was so funny right now.

  “On the plane,” she admitted.

  “While it was crashing? Wow, your boss is cute, but that wouldn’t have been the first thing I went for in that situation. I suppose there must have been a certain erotic allure, going out with a bang and all, but me, I would have gone for the oxygen mask instead.”

  “Not while it was crashing.” She took a sip of the water. “Right before actually. And right after.”

  “You go, girl!”

  “Oh stop!” But she couldn’t help but smile. Sugar always made her feel better no matter how dire the circumstances. She should have lunged for a piece of candy when the plane was taking its precarious dips. And talking to a sister made her feel better. Always had. “I really screwed up, Brandy. And I have all those loans to pay off still.”

  Her sister frowned. “Your boss better not be threatening to fire you, the asshole. Isn’t there some legal term for that?”

  “No, of course not. He didn’t even seem to know sleeping with an employee was wrong at first. I had to explain it to him.”

  Brandy raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, I am his lawyer.”

  She scoffed between downing handfuls of popcorn. “I didn’t get to talk to him and he seems cute, but he’s pulling the wool over your eyes, kid. He probably hits on women executives on their first day or something. A perverted kind of orientation.”

  She shook her head, certain. “No, it’s not that. He’s…different.”

  “Did you hit on him then?”

  “No!” She took her sweater off and tossed it on the bed, then pulled her blouse out of the waistband of her jeans. “Of course not. I, ah, went along.”

  Her sister frowned, the laughter gone. “This doesn’t sound good, Cammy. If there’s something you’re not telling me, if he hurt you somehow or pressured you, then you need to do something about it.”

  She was the one who laughed this time. “The only pressure he put on me was asking me outright if I’d sleep with him when I’d already been noticing how cute he was and was starting to even like him.”

  Brandy set the popcorn on the nightstand and took her hand. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I know. I can’t believe I did it. I didn’t fall into bed with him, into his lap I mean, right away,” she hastened to add. “First I was really mad and he tried to drop it, but I needed to explain to him that it was illegal and confirm that there were no pending, or incipient, suits.”

  “God, now you sound just like a lawyer.” Nobody was a fan of lawyers, even in her own family.

  “I am a lawyer.”

  “That’s your problem.” Brandy pushed a strand of Camilla’s hair away from her eyes. “Your hair looks like shit, by the way.”

  She laughed and pulled her hand away, standing up. “I’m calling Carly.”

  “No, you don’t!” She snatched the hotel cordless phone up. “I was the closest one locally when Mom and Dad were a nervous wreck. You know how Dad always said his worst nightmare would be to lose a child, and he prays to God he dies before any of us do. So I’m the one who was on the plane reassuring them to keep their hopes up and keeping Joey from getting scared.”

  “I know, I know.” Camilla leaned down to hug her. “And I’m so thankful.”

  “Hmmph,” her sister huffed. “Dee Dee wanted to come, but she was getting her hair highlighted today.”

  Camilla slapped at her arm, both of them laughing. “You are so mean!”

  “I’m kidding of course. Dee Dee, everybody, was terrified. But no calling Carly. Why should she get all the juicy stuff? I’m older than her anyway.” She relinquished the phone, tossing it aside. “But I have to tell you, honey, that lecturing the man about not having sex with you after his proposition, while you were alone, was probably not the wisest idea.”

  “Why not?” she objected, kicking off the clunky boots she realized she still had on. “I had to. It was my fiduciary obligation to my client.”

  “Because for one thing, talking about sex, no matter what the context, tends to keep a man’s mind on it. You could have maybe cooled down a little and written him a memo about it.”

  “I didn’t think of it that way. I was just so mad. And then,” she glanced at her sister, turning her back to get this part out, “then I had a few scotches.”


  Brandy was back to laughing. “You are such an easy drunk.”

  “I am not! I never even drink at work functions, and I can’t think of the last time I’ve been in a bar.”

  “Now you know why.”

  “I need to clean up.” Camilla went to the bathroom and stripped off the rest of her clothes before putting on the robe provided with the suite.

  Her sister wandered in as she washed her face with the hotel soap.

  “Be sure to put some conditioner on there when you get in the shower. Your hair looks like a bird’s nest.”

  She scrubbed at the remaining amount of grime the woods had left on her face. “You know I almost would have preferred Mom in here talking about this to me.”

  Brandy leaned back against the sink. “Huh! I still remember when she actually tried to talk to us about this kind of thing. It was painful. You’re so lucky by the time they got to you they passed the buck and delegated this kind of thing to us older girls.”

  Patting a towel against her face, Camilla turned on the shower. “Apparently, it’s an emergency I wash my hair, so scoot. Either come back later, or go amuse yourself in the sitting room.”

  “Come back later? Are you kidding? I got to hear the rest of this. I wouldn’t leave now if my life depended on it. Or one of my kids called.”

  Camilla closed the bathroom door on her. With the steaming hot shower, the muscle relaxing water pressure, and the comforting presence of her sister right outside, very welcome despite the wise cracks, since she needed to talk this out, she felt better altogether. A few minutes later, she came out and went into the sitting room, her wet hair in a towel, the fluffy cotton robe snug and warm around her. Her sister was talking in low tones at the door.

  “Brandy? What is it?”

  “Just Dad.” She stepped away to show her father hovering in the doorway, giving his older daughter a brief annoyed look. “He’s checking up on us, Cammy. Or more to the point, on you.”

  “I wanted to make sure everything was okay, honey. Your sister answered my text saying you were in the shower, and so I thought I’d pop up and just double-check with her you didn’t need anything.”