by Drea Stein
Noah reared back, shocked by the anger in his eyes.
“Of course he knew. He came to me.” Noah could feel his voice rising, and he took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. He had not come in here to get into a shouting match with Caitlyn. Gary Burton had stressed that Caitlyn was essential to the continued success of the firm, and the last thing he wanted to do was piss her off. At least not too much.
“He came to you?” Caitlyn repeated, and some of the anger seemed to seep out of her. She sank down into her chair and looked at him. “When?”
“About three months ago.”
“He called you out of the blue?” Caitlyn asked, her voice more curious than angry. Noah looked at her blue eyes, feeling himself pulled into them. Her hair was shorter than it had been, with layers that framed her face, highlighting her sculpted cheekbones, but it was still a shiny rich black that he had once compared to printer ink. That had been a mistake. It had taken a little charm of a sailboat to add to her bracelet to get him out of that one.
“Do you still have that bracelet?”
“The what?”
“The charm bracelet. The silver one. You used to collect charms for it. I got you one, remember?”
Her eyes went cold. “Vaguely. It was a long time ago.”
Noah nodded. “Still, I thought it meant something.”
She looked at him, and there was sadness in her eyes. “It all meant something. But it was a long time ago. Too long ago to go back.”
He was about to lean in and ask her why when he stopped herself. He remembered what Chase had said about her, about her ex, and decided that Caitlyn’s edges were still rough. He didn’t need to push, he reminded himself. They had time now, time for him to figure out what made this version of Caitlyn Montgomery tick.
“You’re right; it was a long time ago. I was just curious.” He saw her take a deep breath, as if steadying herself, and the look was back again. Caitlyn was like the sphinx, a natural poker face. It had been fun to try and rattle her, but ultimately pointless.
“The deal closed about three months ago?” she prompted him, and he had to bite back a smile. This was information she was eager to know, and it wouldn’t hurt to make her sweat for it a bit.
“What deal?”
“The one to buy Queensbay Capital,” she said, her teeth gritted.
“Yes. My father and I worked out the terms then.”
“So, you forced him to sell the company?”
Noah shook his head, trying his best to find the right words that wouldn’t give it away. “I didn’t force him to do anything, Caitlyn. It was a business deal. Beneficial to both sides. He said that he was getting tired, thinking of retirement.”
Caitlyn nodded, and her fingers drummed the table. She bit her lip, once, quickly, and then her face settled back into inscrutability.
“Well, that would explain things,” she said, but it was so quiet that he almost missed it.
“But he never told you?” Noah said.
“No one. Was it supposed to be a secret?”
Noah shrugged. It had been a condition of the sale, that no one knew anything had changed, except on paper. Both he and his father had been agreed on that point. Still, he had meant to get more involved, understand the workings of things, but there hadn’t been time.
“He just called you out of the blue?” Her voice was tinged with curiosity.
“Not exactly. He had called me about a month earlier.”
“Oh.” Caitlyn kept her voice flat, but anger flashed in her eyes.
“We talked, worked things out.” Noah kept his voice light, wondering if she would believe him. “You’re angry, but not surprised,” he guessed.
“I didn’t realize he was entertaining other offers. Usually you try to play your potential buyers off of each other.”
“You offered to buy the company?” Noah tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. Her look was steely.
“Yes.”
“But, it cost a lot of money,” he said.
It was her turn to give him a smile – a thin, knowing one – and he felt his pulse speed up a bit as he thought that she had only grown more beautiful. If he had thought anything about coming back to Queensbay was going to be easy, he knew now he was mistaken. Nothing about Caitlyn was ever easy, and that was what made her so damn sexy. And made him want her.
“You might be surprised by my resources, Noah Randall. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating me.”
“Underestimate you? Caitlyn, this was a serious business deal.”
“I was aware of that. Noah, you’re not the only one who has changed in ten years. It would be smart of you to remember that.” She said it so calmly that he felt the anger bubble up in him. She was truly exasperating.
“Fine, then quit. But may I remind you of that non-compete clause in your contract?” he said with pleasure. He saw a look of astonishment cross her face, surprise that he had done his homework.
“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. If you want me to go, then fire me and pay up. But it will cost you. And more than just money. It’s my clients, my picks that are keeping this ship afloat.” She spread out her hands in a relaxed gesture.
Noah let her words sink in, and then he said, as calmly as he could, “Well, then I look forward to working together, for a long and profitable future.”
She was taken aback, he could see that, not expecting him to give in, and he felt a surge of pleasure at having won this battle. He let a bland smile cross his face. Caitlyn Montgomery had a lot to discover about this Noah Randall. He’d learned a bit about how to tame his impetuous nature and how to keep his business rivals guessing. He was going to enjoy keeping Caitlyn Montgomery off guard, even if he had no intention of keeping their relationship purely professional.
“Fine, I have work to do,” she spat out. “So you should go. I am sure you have someplace to be.”
She rose, walked around him, allowing him a view of her shapely backside in the tight pencil skirt, and he felt his heart skip a beat and growing excitement in his pants. She opened the door for him, her expression cold. He took his leave, brushing past her on his way out, deliberately letting his shoulder touch hers. She felt it, too – the small thrill of electricity. He saw it in her eyes and heard it in the quick hiss of her breath and the way she quickly jumped back, giving him a wide berth.
“I look forward to working with you, Miss Montgomery,” he said as he stepped out in the hall. Heads of assistants and secretaries swiveled towards him.
Caitlyn smiled. Two could play this game. “As do I, Mr. Randall.”
Chapter 14
Caitlyn resisted the urge to slam the door after Noah left. Heart pounding, she waited for it to settle down, trying to convince herself that she hadn’t just wanted to kiss her boss. Instead she sent out a smile that caused the assistants to put their heads down and get back to work. Only Heather didn’t, instead handing her a little pink message slip.
“I held your calls for you,” she explained unnecessarily as Caitlyn looked down at the message and sighed. Mrs. Smith-Sullivan had called, and though Caitlyn knew she should call her back soon, she crumpled the paper instead. It would just have to wait.
Retreating to the safety of her desk and sinking into her chair, Caitlyn rubbed her forehead. She felt a headache coming on as she let the implications of her conversation with Noah settle in. He had looked good, better than good, in his custom-made suit. He had looked like the master of the universe the press had proclaimed him to be. Not a whiff of doubt or regret. Caitlyn had known there had been no love lost between Noah and his father, and she still couldn’t believe that Maxwell had gone to him instead of her.
She had made it clear that she had a serious offer. Because it would have been a kind of sweet success to know that, after all these years, Queensbay Capital was back in the hands of an actual Montgomery. But Maxwell had made an end run around her, going to the son he had practically disowned and selling him her family�
��s company.
Her heart rate, which had calmed, sped up again the more she thought about Noah. What did he now want with Queensbay? After all, he had sworn never to come back here. And how had she behaved? She had basically pissed off her new boss. Not smart, she told herself.
What had she wanted? Caitlyn sighed, her pen drawing doodles on a pad. Glancing down, she realized she was drawing hearts. Disgusted with herself, she ripped the page off her pad and crumpled it up.
She did not want to be thinking about Noah Randall that way and what it would be like to kiss him. Again.
It was just all the emotions swirling around. There had been a lot of endings lately. Her engagement, her life in London, the death of Maxwell, who had been her mentor. Not to mention all the other emotions Noah’s reappearance had brought up: nostalgia, loneliness, anxiety and, even, of course, more than a little bit of lust. There was no way she could deny the last.
It had been months, possibly years, since she had felt like that, remembering the way her stomach flipped and her body trembled. Snatches of that summer came back. Bright, sunny days spent at the beach, or sailing, together, always together. They had been inseparable that summer.
Lust wasn’t love, but it was almost the same. She couldn’t get caught in that trap again. That was the only thing to do. Caitlyn knew she needed to avoid him. She was not going to get caught up with another man, not going to get caught up in the past, and that certainly meant that she needed to stay away from Noah. They had too much history together.
Resolved, Caitlyn turned her attention back to her desk and the unfinished work that was in front of her. When she had returned to Queensbay Capital, Maxwell had made it clear that she needed to impress him with new investments that would net them a profit and new clients with big bank accounts. It wasn’t impossible, but finding clients with a high risk tolerance wasn’t easy.
Chapter 15
“Mr. Harris wants to see you.” Heather poked her head in the office. “All the account managers have been going in, all morning.”
“How do they look when they come out?” Caitlyn asked.
Heather paused, thought about it a moment. “Kind of grim, come to think of it. Are we going to get fired now?” Heather looked nervous again.
“Again, you, probably not,” Caitlyn said with a smile. “Me, I’m not so sure about, but no use speculating. I’ll just have to see what he says.”
Getting ready to go into Sam’s office, Caitlyn took a moment to compose herself. She put on her suit jacket and smoothed her hair. Ready as she could be, she went along the corridor and into the small suite that was Sam Harris’s domain.
“Caitlyn.” Sam smiled and indicated one of the chairs in front of his desk. She took it and sank into a seat that was too big for her. Perching on the edge, she was careful not to look or feel like the little girl who had been called into the principal’s office.
“I asked everyone to come in today to talk about the future of the firm and how things stand. As you might imagine, some people view this as a crossroads for the firm. A great deal of the company’s mystique was tied up in Maxwell. Without him, we need to very actively work to find a way to continue, to ensure that the mystique does not end with him.”
Caitlyn nodded, keeping her face impassive.
Sam hesitated, but she knew what he was going to ask even as the words came out of his mouth.
“I gather the fact that Maxwell sold the firm came as a surprise?”
Caitlyn gave a small nod. She wasn’t sure how much Maxwell had shared of her offer to buy him out of the firm.
“Well, I had been working with Maxwell on a similar proposition, but I guess that blood is thicker than experience.”
Caitlyn said nothing, knowing that she didn’t want to be sharing confidences with this man. There was something in the way his eyes looked at you and through you. Sam Harris had come on board after her grandfather had died. That alone didn’t make him a bad person, but he and Caitlyn had disagreed on just about everything. And worse was that Maxwell had always backed him up.
“Not sure how Maxwell left things with you, but I understand that since your grandfather had some connection to the firm, you might feel a bit of a proprietary interest in it.” Sam’s smile was thin.
Caitlyn gave a slight incline of her head. “I’m sure it’s in good hands.”
“Well, glad to see you’re on board with the changes. Which is a good thing. Noah asked me to take a look at your employment contract. Seems like you and Maxwell had quite the deal. If I fire you for no reason, we owe you a lot of money. If you decide to quit, though, we have you with a non-compete clause for two years. That means no poaching of our clients. Long time to stay out of the business, don’t you think?”
Caitlyn said nothing. If Sam thought that two years of no work would hurt her financially, all the better. And there was nothing in there about Caitlyn’s ability to find new clients.
“Of course, there is that little incident in London.”
Caitlyn shifted in her seat, wondering why Sam was bringing it up, and how he had heard about it. She wondered if somehow Michael’s lies had made their way farther than she thought. She didn’t like where this was going.
“All hushed up, of course, but people will talk. So it seems like it would be difficult for you to get another job, wouldn’t it? But then again, I’m guessing that’s why you were so eager to cross over to our side of the pond.”
Caitlyn said nothing, feeling her anger seething to the top. How dare he bring that up? It had all been cleared up, she had been absolved of any blame, but there was always the worry of rumors. And rumors, in a business involving money and based on trust, were dangerous.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said across the silence.
Sam smiled at her, his even, white teeth gleaming. “Let’s just say I have my eye on you, Caitlyn. If you mess up, I can fire you and not pay you a dime. And it would be pretty hard for you to go off on your own. So, it seems like I hold all the cards in this relationship. And that means you better do a good job, a better than good job, got it? I’m watching you, waiting for you to mess up. Are we clear?”
Caitlyn looked at Sam Harris, who leaned back in his chair, a smug grin on his face. He seemed pretty secure in the fact that he had Noah’s trust. At least for now.
“Perfectly,” she said.
“Good.” He smiled again. “As you can see, I have transferred some of your accounts and given you new ones.”
He pushed a list towards her. She looked it over. The names were unfamiliar, which meant they were probably low-worth accounts.
“Where’s Ryan Fitzhugh?”
Ryan Fitzhugh made commercials for ad agencies, which happened to pay well, if not exactly exalt him in artistic circles. He had a high risk tolerance and enjoyed bragging to his friends about how well his investments did. Caitlyn was proud that she had been able to deliver.
“I transitioned him to Tommy Anderson. I am quite confident he will be able to carry on your good work.”
“But he’s my client.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Sam said. “Technically, they’re the firm’s clients, and if you have a problem with that, well, you know where the door is.”
Caitlyn took a deep breath. He wanted a reaction, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of getting one. At least she had kept Johanna.
Johanna Temple had inherited two magazines from her father, both with flagging circulation and laughable ad revenue. In two years, she had managed to turn around one of them by making it the bible of the lady equestrian set. A small but profitable niche. The other one, targeted to amateur tennis players, was also doing well, and Johanna was considering her next acquisition. Caitlyn had helped her and the firm make a nice little profit on the investments.
Since there was really nothing more to say, she tried, with as much dignity as she could muster, to sweep out of his office gracefully.
Chapter 16
Noah pushed open the door
to North Coast Outfitters and took a moment to drink it all in. If sailing could have a scent, he supposed that Chase must have bottled it and had it blown in. As it was, Noah was fairly sure that the smell of the store – a combination of clean, fresh air and something almost like sunshine – was deliberate. Chase didn’t like to leave anything to chance, especially if he thought it would help him get more sales.
“Can I help you?” A sales clerk, probably still in college, with sun-kissed cheeks and a fresh scrubbed appeal, dressed in trim khakis and a polo shirt, smiled up at him.
“I’m looking for Chase Sanders. I have an appointment.”
The girl, light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, smiled. “I’m Tory, the store manager. Are you Noah?”
He nodded.
“Great, Chase said to keep an eye out for you. He’s upstairs, in the office. Why don’t I show you there?” Tory led the way through racks of foul weather gear, shirts, and other apparel towards the back of the store and a set of floating stairs that led up to a second floor.
He caught Tory looking at him; she blushed and looked away quickly. “Do you need anything while you’re here? We just got in some great new foul weather gear, which is perfect for spring sailing. There’s also a new line of sunglasses in, great for minimizing reflections on the water.”
Noah almost laughed. Chase had trained his employees well.
“I guess I’m fine, though it would probably take a bit to get used to sailing along the East Coast again. I have – had,” he corrected himself, “a boat out in California.”
“I know,” Tory said. “Sorry, when Chase said that Noah Randall was coming, I knew the name sounded familiar. I mean, he talks about you all the time. I just never thought that you were the Noah Randall.”
“One and the same.” Noah smiled. It took some getting used to, knowing that people had heard of him. Before he had sold his company, he’d just been one of many, a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. Now with the sale, he had become a bit of a celebrity, and he’d felt the need to keep his guard up, not sure who was interested in him or just his money.