“What is this?”
“A thank you,” Connor said. He’d released her hand before they’d joined the rest of the staff on the pool deck, and Miranda missed his touch. “You’ve been working nonstop for nearly six weeks, and the presentation went well this afternoon. I think we’re going to have a great publication on our hands. And it’s because of you.” He picked up a glass of wine. “To Miranda,” he said loudly.
“To Miranda,” the crowd echoed. In addition to Lila and the office staff, Miranda saw Callie, Gage, and Jase near the cabanas. A few of the pressmen had come, and most of the reporting and blogging staff were there, all wearing bathing suits and bikinis. Although the evening was cool, the pools were heated, and to add to the ambiance, heaters were blowing warmth into the space.
A man wearing a white chef’s coat slid the lids off chaffing dishes filled with seafood, vegetables, and rice, and several of the workers got in line to fill their plates.
“You didn’t have to do this.”
“Seemed like a good way to celebrate.”
“Too bad I’m wearing Nicole Miller instead of Nicole Hanriot.”
Lila handed her a small bag. “I’ve got you covered.”
Miranda looked into the bag to see her favorite black and navy tankini, a breezy maxi dress, and the crazy flip-flops from the night she and Connor walked the Strip. “You had Lila fetch beachwear for me?”
“What, you only gave me an emergency key in case of actual emergencies?” Lila joked. She moved closer to Miranda and whispered, “About time you came out of the closet about our boss.” Miranda blushed.
“How did you know?”
“Best friend plus human resources specialist means I’m intuitive about these things. Also, when he comes into a room, you blush.”
Miranda’s eyes widened. “I do not.” She’d worked so hard to keep her reaction to Connor under wraps, and for what? Everyone knew.
Lila shook her head, giggled. “You blush, his entire countenance lights up. It would be sickening if you weren’t my best friend.” She hugged Miranda. “I’m hitting the buffet before all the good seafood is gone. Have a fun night you two,” she said before moving into the crowd.
“Didn’t I tell you no one cared?” Connor asked. Miranda had no comeback to that. He was right. Her no-PDA rule had been for naught. “It’s also the only way you’ll make it down the shark slide.”
“But the slide closes at six,” she said, and her voice raised an octave.
“Turns out, nothing is closed if you pay the owner enough money.”
“You rented the Hideout and the shark slide for me?” She’d wanted to try the shark slide since coming to Vegas, but had never taken the time. And now, the slide was all hers—well, hers and about thirty of her co-workers’—for the evening.
He shrugged. “Go change.” Connor pointed toward a cabana with a closed door. Miranda changed quickly, and when she returned poolside, Connor waited, wearing black flip-flops, board shorts, and a UNLV T-shirt.
She grabbed his hand. Screw her inhibitions about dating her boss. Obviously people knew, and obviously they didn’t care. So she wouldn’t either. “While everyone else is eating, let’s get the first few slides out of the way.”
They made it to the slide entrance first, and a lifeguard asked for their party information. Once they’d been cleared, he walked them through the slide. It was completely enclosed, but part of the slide would go directly through the Golden Nugget shark tank, giving them up close views of the sharks.
Miranda sat on the slide, and when the lifeguard gave her permission, began sliding. It was like a regular waterslide, and then the slide curved, and the enclosure changed from an opaque yellow to clear plastic. A Great White swam above her; a few smaller sharks darted around the tube. Then she was back inside the opaque area until the final turn. She reached toward the piping, as if she might reach out and touch one of the sharks. Silly, she knew, but they were beautiful.
Then the slide ended, and she splashed down in the shallow pool. A minute later, Connor slid out of the tube. He caught her around the waist and pulled her to him.
“You look incredible,” he said, pressing his lips to hers.
“I thought we were having dinner.” She sank into the kiss, putting her arms around his neck to play with his hair, ordering herself not to think, for once, about what anyone who might know them would think.
“There is a buffet set up upstairs.”
She chuckled. “I love you,” she said and froze. “I mean, ah, thank you.” Please let him ignore that. Please, please, please. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready to be in love with Connor.
Connor looked at her for a long moment, not saying anything. A flash of some emotion she couldn’t decipher crossed his blue eyes, and his brows squeezed together. She tried to move out of his embrace, but his arms held her in place.
“I, just … it’s the sharks, and the presentation going so well, and I really shouldn’t have had that glass of wine on an empty stomach—”
His mouth descended on hers again, stopping the ramble of words. His lips were firm against hers, and his tongue tested the seam of her lips until she opened for him. For a second, she tried to convince herself she hadn’t meant what she’d said—that it really was the craziness of the day and the sharks. But she didn’t want to lie to herself. Not about Connor.
She didn’t know when it had happened. Maybe with that first kiss in his office after he found out about the new health plan. It could have been when he showed up at her apartment on Thanksgiving. Making love with him that first time in his living room.
Maybe it was the first time she’d offered him a cup of coffee, and he drank it even though it nearly choked him.
Whenever it had happened, it had. She was in love with Connor Reeves.
Miranda wrapped her arms around his neck, and pushed her qualms about saying those three little words away. This was a magical night, and she wasn’t going to worry about anything.
Connor pulled back, setting his forehead against hers. “The only people I’ve ever loved were my family. Caleb. Jase and Gage. Even Helena,” he said after a long moment. Miranda swallowed. It was okay. He didn’t have to love her back. For now, it was enough that she loved him. He took her hand, and they started back up the stairs to the pool and their co-workers.
“I love you,” he said, and though the words were quiet, Miranda felt them all the way to her toes. She turned to look at him, and those icy blue eyes were warm. The smile endearing. He squeezed her hand. Miranda felt her face warm, and her heartbeat quickened.
“You love me.” He nodded. She kissed him, just a quick peck. “I love you, too.”
They walked back up the stairs hand in hand, and this time when they arrived at the pool deck, Connor didn’t release her hand. They filled plates with roasted corn, shrimp, and lobster tails. Most of the staff was swimming in the pool; a few made trips to the water slide. Lila saw Connor put his hand at the small of Miranda’s back, and her eyes widened, but then she grinned and gave Miranda a thumbs up, and Miranda relaxed. No one else seemed to notice that Connor didn’t leave her side. Miranda watched everyone while she ate, trying to remember a time when she had been happier than this. Eating seafood on a winter evening in Las Vegas, with space heaters drying her wet suit, and Connor by her side.
She couldn’t think of a single event from her life in Denver that was better than this. Not when she went to Disneyland at ten, not when she attended the cotillion her mother planned for her eighteenth birthday, or when she graduated with honors from college. Nothing could beat a beach party in the desert with the man she loved.
“You should come home with me tonight,” he said.
The lifeguard signaled that the waterslide would close in a few minutes. Most of the staff had gone, along with Gage and Callie. Jase remained in one of the cabanas, alone, and Connor and Miranda sat on chaise lounges before the big space heaters near the shallow end of the pool. She had no idea what time i
t was—probably just past eight, but it felt much later. She wanted to curl up on the chaise and nap, but she wanted to put the layout on a flash drive so she could work on it from home in the morning.
“I just need to make a quick stop first.”
“You know, if you keep working harder than the boss, you’re going to take his job.”
“Maybe that’s my plan,” she said, joking. It was funny. She’d imagined running Clayton Holdings most of her life. Running the board meetings and making decisions about print runs. She couldn’t imagine being happy doing any of those things now. She liked heading up Connor’s marketing department, working on design elements, and with the new magazine, coming up with a publication focus. She’d leave the hiring and firing and big picture decisions to Connor. “Thirty minutes? Think you could talk the lifeguard into one last ride on the slide?”
He nodded. “Thirty minutes,” he said, “and if you’re not back, we might just break that rule about chasing you around my desk.”
Miranda grabbed her flip-flops and bag, put on a floaty maxi dress over her bathing suit, and went out the back exit because it was closer to the office. She used her keycard at the front door and elevator, quickly making her way to her office. A light under Connor’s door caught her attention.
He was always leaving his desk lamp on, so she pushed open the door. A small woman Miranda didn’t know sat behind his desk, tapping the keyboard. She looked up guiltily.
“What are you doing in here?” Miranda asked.
The woman picked up a dust rag and said in heavily accented English, “Mr. Reeves left his computer on. I was only shutting it down.”
A flash drive protruded from the side of the monitor. Connor never used flash drives. He preferred the Cloud.
“I asked what you’re doing in here.” She walked to the desk, grabbed the flash drive, and held it in her hand. On Connor’s screen were windows showing images of the new publication, and copies of advertiser contracts: files Connor would never leave open when he was out of the office. “You’re the spy.”
“Please, I’m just a cleaning lady.”
“You’re behind the advertiser problems.”
“Please. I was a programmer before we moved here, but I couldn’t get work. I have two babies at home.” The woman pleaded with Miranda, putting her hands together as if in prayer. “I only take information Mr. Reeves doesn’t need.”
Miranda’s stomach clenched. “You hacked Vegas Nightly.”
“I made sure the hack didn’t go up until after nine a.m., when Ben would be uploading content. I didn’t want to hurt anyone; I only needed the money.”
She wanted to throw up. Suspecting her father had planted a spy in Connor’s company, and realizing he actually had … She’d hoped William had backed off. Things had been quiet since the hack. Advertisers had returned. The new publication was shaping up well. But William Clayton was never satisfied with what he had. She should have known he was still plotting against Connor.
God, she was an idiot.
“What is he paying you?”
The woman looked away.
“You said you needed the money. What is my father paying you to sabotage Reeves Pub?”
“My husband … he had gambling debts, and in the summer, he ran. Now I’m responsible. They’ll hurt my babies. Mr. Clayton, he said he would pay the debt, and after he did, he said I had to pay him. Two thousand a month.” She squeezed her hands around the can of cleaning solution and began to pace. “I missed the first payment, and he came to my house. He said if I didn’t pay him, he would have the state come and take my babies. I said I can’t pay. He said I could work off the debt. Every time I give him a flash drive, he takes two thousand dollars off my debt.”
Miranda clutched her stomach. So her father wasn’t even paying the spy; he was blackmailing a scared, single mother with two small children at home. “How many flash drives?”
“I don’t pass along anything important. Old files and contracts. Mr. Reeves, he’s a good boss. I didn’t want to hurt him.”
Yeah. Her father had the corner office in the hurting-people department. He rolled over them until they gave him what he wanted.
She held out her hand. “You need to leave.”
“I haven’t finished my shift.”
“And you won’t. I’ll take your key card, and we will forward your last paycheck, but you have to go. Now.” Miranda felt as if her throat were closing around the words, but she forced them out. She couldn’t leave this woman in the office. Unimportant documents or not, she’d passed corporate information to a competitor, and because of it, Clayton Holdings had had the upper hand over Reeves Pub for several months. She put the flash drive in her bag and motioned the woman into the hall.
“Please. It was bad information.”
“It doesn’t matter. You should have come to Mr. Reeves, not worked behind his back.”
“You’re thirty minutes are up—” Connor came around the corner and stopped short.
Miranda offered him a small smile. “I think we’re going to miss that last water slide,” she said. She took a deep breath and pointed to the small woman, shaking like a leaf, and felt as if her heart had cracked.
Before coming to work for Connor, she had never considered what life might be like for anyone else. She’d been focused on her own unhappiness, on her own goals, and she’d lied to get where she wanted to be. Miranda knew that made her selfish. Now, though, she knew the people she worked with, and not just those in the executive offices. She’d spent time with press workers and reporters; just an hour ago, she’d been elbow-deep in a seafood buffet with bloggers and photographers. But if her father had gotten to this woman once, he would continue to use her, and who knew what scheme he would come up with next.
“I found the spy.”
• • •
Connor wanted to put his hand through the wall. He paced his office. He’d missed it. Missed that one of his employees was working against him. He’d been too wrapped up in Miranda to see what was happening right in front of him.
That wasn’t entirely fair. He thought, when nothing happened after the hack, that it had been William Clayton’s last hurrah.
He should have known better.
Gage and Jase came in without knocking.
“You summoned?”
It was just after nine the morning after the party.
“We found the spy. Miranda did, actually. A Spanish woman who’d been working here as part of the cleaning staff. She says she only passed along unimportant information, but we can’t be sure.”
Gage blinked, silent. Jase leaned his elbows on his knees and shook his head.
“When did this happen?” Jase asked.
“Miranda came back here after the party, saw a light in my office, and found the woman copying files onto this.” He held up the flash drive. To her credit, the woman hadn’t lied. Everything on the flash drive was old. Expired contracts, old layout files. She hadn’t been able to download anything about the new magazine because all of those files were still on Miranda’s computer, and the spy had been focused on his.
He’d fired the woman last night, and although he knew it was justified, couldn’t stop feeling guilty about it. What kind of businessman did that make him? Connor had no doubt William Clayton would fire the woman and not think a thing of it. Instead, Connor couldn’t stop thinking about the woman and her children.
“So it’s over?” Gage asked.
“Not hardly.” Connor sat across from his brothers. “If he did it once, he’ll do it again. The man is determined to be the only news organization in Las Vegas.”
“What do you want to do?”
This is where things got sticky. Miranda had proven her loyalty to him with the hack and again last night. That didn’t mean she would stand by while he went on the attack against her father. Against the company she had dreamed of one day running.
“We’re in the black, and we’re private so he can’t stage a hostile
takeover. But we could stage a hostile takeover of him. Clayton Holdings has been public for a little over two decades, and its stock has fallen about five percent over the last year. He went after my revenue lines, my advertisers. I’m going directly after him.”
“Did you talk to Miranda about this?” Gage asked, his voice wary. “If you haven’t, you probably should.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with her.”
Gage shook his head. “It has a lot to do with her, and you’re going to screw up this thing the two of you have going if you don’t let her in. Women don’t like it when we do things behind their backs.”
“This isn’t the same as you selling out Oasis and getting Callie evicted.”
“No. It’s worse. You’re going after her family.” Gage shook his head.
“They aren’t on the best of terms,” Connor said dismissively.
Jase shook his head. “I don’t think you realize what you’re doing here, Con.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.” What he was doing was taking back control. Protecting his business, protecting his employees.
“You’ve said from the beginning you wanted a small operation—regional newspapers and magazines,” Gage added.
“Clayton Holdings is regional.” Connor knew he was being stubborn, but he didn’t care. Reeves Pub was his. He’d bought it and built it up. The people here depended on him, and if he could grow it bigger, he could bring in additional workers. Give the employees raises. Build something that would last long past his lifetime.
“Clayton Holdings is a national brand on both the print and television side of things, and they just bought up a chunk of Canadian newspapers, too.”
“And Reeves Pub will launch an international eco-travel magazine in a few months. The company can launch that magazine, but to start the Clayton deal, I’m going to have to dip into RBE-type money.”
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