“Whoa. No arguments? No conditions?”
I saw my mother watching us very closely. Dammit, I was an adult and didn’t need Mommy meddling in my life. I’d pretend to go along with this “Brady needs a life intervention” thing while I followed my own agenda—not that I had an agenda; I just knew whatever I did would be the polar opposite of what she wanted. The smile I offered her had her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“Brady?” Nolan prompted.
I faced my cousin and sighed. “Would you listen even if I demanded conditions?”
“Nope.” Nolan grinned again. “This is gonna be so much fun.”
Chapter Four
Lennox
‡
Monday mornings were the worst. Everyone needed something right away. Everything was crucial. As much as I wanted advancement in this company, I planned to work toward something more than what my boss Lola did—coordinating schedules.
I spent the morning entering new templates for inner-office memos, which I considered ridiculous busywork. But Personnel wanted each department to have a uniquely colored memo so they could tell at a glance which department the correspondence was coming from. Just an easier way for Anita—aka Attila—to avoid those e-mails she didn’t want to deal with.
I’d brought my lunch and ate with my coworker Sydney in the break room. She’d had a date this weekend with a guy she’d connected with through an online dating service. So I had to hear all the pros and cons about whether she should agree to a second date. What she told me about the man didn’t trip any warning bells, but I knew the guy wouldn’t trip my trigger either.
“Lennox, you should totally join the service,” Sydney said for the hundredth time. “I bet you’d have hundreds of guys signing up to take you out.”
“Syd, I’m happy that this is working out for you, but I’m just not the type to let a computer pick a match for me.”
“That’s what it does. It finds your type. It really works!”
“So I’ve heard, but I still have a problem meeting a guy who could’ve totally lied about who he is, just to get a hookup.”
“You make it sound like an escort service.”
I wiped my mouth. “No, with an escort service you know exactly what you’ve paid for going into it. With online dating? Not so much.”
“You are impossible,” Sydney complained.
“Wrong. I’m practical.”
“So very glad to hear that, Lennox.”
Thankfully, all I did was gasp with surprise at Brady Lund’s interruption. But he had scared me enough that I threw my bag of chips all over the table. My face flamed.
“Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Yes, you did. “Then maybe you shouldn’t sneak up behind people.” Crap. Had I really said that to him? What was wrong with me? Why was I always as prickly as a cactus around him?
He chuckled.
I looked up at him. Mistake. Few men wore a suit as well as Mr. Perfect. My thoughts rolled back to how he’d dressed for his date on Saturday night. If I were dating him, I wouldn’t want him in casual attire. I’d want the hot-looking suit-and-tie-wearing guy.
When he continued to stare at me, I said, “Was there something you needed, Mr. Lund?”
“Yes. You’ll be assisting my admin today in the conference room since her secretary is out sick.” He held up his hand before I opened my mouth. “I know protocol, Lennox. I cleared this with your supervisor.”
“And Lola sent the CFO of Lund Industries as the errand boy to tell me?” Dammit, mouth, do not engage before brain.
“No. I came in here to get my lunch.”
Now I really felt like an idiot. A sassy idiot. This was a large employee break room; it served the whole building—the entire company. Sometimes we even had catered lunches in here. But in the last year I’d never seen the CFO step foot in here, let alone admit that he brown-bagged it once in a while.
“I’m sorry. I just assumed—”
“That I don’t eat lunch?” He flashed his teeth in a predatory smile. “Or that I prefer raw meat tossed in my office rather than swimming around looking for chum?”
I couldn’t help but smile. Of course he was aware of his reputation as a shark. And it was really hard for me not to make a crack about sushi.
He walked over to the fridge—and I told myself not to gawk, but my greedy side ogled him: the way his suit pants rippled as he walked and how broad his shoulders looked in that perfectly cut suit jacket when he bent over.
Sydney kicked me under the table so I was innocently picking up my chips when he turned around. And I might’ve peeked at what he had in his lunch—a takeout deli salad.
Which he apologized for. “I was supposed to meet my sister for lunch, but she had some crisis in PR so she’s placating me with this.” He sighed. “I’d really hoped for something more substantial.”
“Me too, but the lunch fairies are stingy today,” Sydney said.
She always knew what to say.
But the CFO paid no attention to her. He zeroed in on me. “You know where my office is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Jenna will see you up there in an hour.” Then he strode off.
I crunched a chip.
“Lennox.” Sydney leaned forward and whispered, “I think he likes you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I always say the wrong thing around him.”
“I’ll bet he asked for you specifically to assist his admin.”
“Unlikely.”
“I’m going to ask Lola if he requested you.”
I grabbed her arm. “Don’t you dare. I don’t want Lola to think I’ve got a crush on him. And that’s exactly what she’d think if I ask her if he was asking about me.”
“But it wouldn’t be you asking her. It’d be me.”
“Same difference.”
“Fine,” she huffed out. “But you have to tell me if he sticks around to flirt with you while you’re working.”
“He’s a busy man. I doubt he’ll even be there.”
So I could admit some disappointment when the hottie CFO with the killer smile and dreamy blue eyes was out of the office for the afternoon.
Jenna, his admin, was great, though—everything I aspired to be. I marveled at her ability to do twenty-seven things at once while she answered her headset every thirty seconds.
At one point she took the headset off and tossed it on the table. “Calls can go to voice mail for a bit so we can get this done.”
We worked in silence for a while. Then I said, “It’s pretty cool that you’ve got a secretary.”
“I haven’t always had one. When Mr. Lund became CFO, there was so much paperwork that no one had looked at in decades, but we still needed to archive it. It was a full-time job just sorting that out, so he had to rely on Anita to do the day-to-day secretarial stuff for him for a few months.”
I bit my tongue to keep from blurting out a question about Attila.
“Meanwhile,” Jenna continued, “an incoming CFO has twice as much work as a CEO because they have to justify spending across the board. Although this is a family business, no one cut him any slack. Not that he would’ve stood for it if they’d tried it. He is the most single-minded man I’ve ever met.” She peered at me over the top of her glasses. “And my husband is an engineer, so I don’t say that lightly.”
I grinned. In addition to being a whirling dervish, Jenna had a great sense of humor.
I definitely wanted to be her when I grew up.
*
Friday afternoon I was back on the forty-fourth floor helping Jenna compile more packets.
I must’ve sighed loudly because I heard a deep male chuckle behind me. I whirled around and saw Mr. Lund lounging in the doorway, looking as if he’d just stepped off the cover of GQ. Looking at me with a sexy smile and a twinkle in his eyes. My heart rate sped up so fast I felt the throbbing pulse in my eyeballs.
Mr. Lund sauntered forward, his gait loose and measured. His
hands were tucked into his pants pockets. “Is everything all right, Lennox?”
How was it fair that he seemed hotter looking every time I saw him? And why were my reactions to him either tongue-tied or snappish? I could do this. Be normal around the smartest, sexiest man in the company.
“Everything is fine except for the fact you tend to sneak up on me and scare the crap out of me every time we cross paths.”
He seemed to be measuring me in the resulting silence.
Drop your pen and hide under the desk, you idiot. I rather loudly stacked a pile of papers. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lund. Did you need Jenna? She went to track down missing covers.”
“No. I don’t need her for anything specific. I was just wandering, trying to clear my head, and noticed the door was open.” He sat on the edge of the conference table, close enough that I caught the scent of his cologne. He angled his head toward the stack of reports. “I’ll bet you’re wondering why we don’t outsource a project like this to a printing shop.”
I moved in closer to him as I assembled the second-to-last row. “Actually, I’m not wondering that, because if Lund started outsourcing projects such as this one, I’d likely be out of a job I happen to really like.” I blushed. Add “gushing like an idiot about his family’s company” to my list of reactions around the superfine CFO.
“It always makes me happy to hear employees like working at LI.”
LI—company lingo for Lund Industries—sounded weird coming from Lund himself.
He gestured to the stack of finished reports. “The reason LI doesn’t outsource these types of projects is due to the sensitive nature of the financial information. We trust our own people more than outsiders.”
“And if the information is leaked, you have a paper trail to follow.”
“Exactly.”
I looked up at him. We were less than a foot apart. His eyes were a blue deep enough to drown in. It took me a moment to regain my train of thought, but what came out wasn’t what I’d intended to ask. “Did you request me to be assigned to this project?”
His gaze briefly dipped to my mouth before he refocused on my eyes. “And if I say yes?”
“I would say thank you for the opportunity to prove my loyalty.”
“That’s why Jenna requested you. You’ve already proved it.”
I frowned. “When?”
“Last week. She thought it was hilarious that you wouldn’t give me the erroneous report for Marcus because it would’ve broken company protocol.”
My cheeks burned. “You told her about that?”
He grinned. “Yes. It’s not often I’m told no.”
“I imagine it is a rarity for a man like you, especially coming from someone like me, who’s beneath you.” I could’ve kicked myself for my stupid phrasing. “I mean under you.” Dammit. That wasn’t any better.
“I don’t purposely surround myself with yes-men and -women, but it certainly turns out that way. So your honesty and honest reactions are refreshing.”
Yep. He knew the right thing to say too. “Is it hard knowing who to trust?”
He shrugged. “Does it make me sound like a controlling dick if I admit I test people from time to time?”
It seemed he wanted to talk, so I supposed I could oblige him. Oh, who the hell was I kidding? We were having an actual conversation for once where I wasn’t making an idiot out of myself. “For example?”
“I mentioned a few months ago that it’d be beneficial to add aquatics to our employee fitness center.”
“Like adding a swimming pool?”
“Yes. I touted the health benefits of swimming versus high-impact exercise.”
“I hope they told you that you were crazy.”
He cocked his head. “Why?”
“Why?” I snorted. “Because, first of all, the fitness center isn’t on the ground floor. I imagine the price of putting in a pool—even a lap pool—would be cost prohibitive because of the added structural support systems needed to hold that much water. Plus, there would be maintenance issues, as well as chemical storage issues. Not to mention insurance issues. And I can’t believe a fitness pool would get that much use in a business environment. I mean, can you imagine seeing your supervisor in a skimpy polka-dot bikini or a Speedo? Employees would avoid it for that reason alone. Or what if Bob from Accounting whistled at Susie from PR? Would that qualify as sexual harassment if it happened over the lunch hour?”
A startled look crossed his face.
Crap. I’d become a babbling idiot again.
Then he smiled at me as if I’d passed some kind of test. “Those were my thoughts exactly.”
Whew. “So what did the members of your team say when you brought it up?”
“At first, no one said a word. Then, let’s say . . . Bob”—he smirked—“agreed it was a damn fine idea and he’d take the lead on getting the project under way.”
I groaned. “Did you dress him down in front of everyone for being an ass-kisser?”
His eyes narrowed. “My reputation is that bad?”
“Mr. Lund. Surely you’re aware of the terror you invoke merely by walking into a department,” I said dryly.
“Didn’t appear to hold true for you, Lennox.” That sexy smile danced on his lips and I found it impossible to look away from his mouth.
“Wrong. You can’t tell I’m quaking in my stilettos?”
He blinked as if he didn’t believe me.
I held out my hand, showing him how badly it shook. “See?”
He took my hand and squeezed it. “You must be a helluva poker player, because I never would’ve guessed. You’re always so . . . I can’t place my finger on it, which is probably why I keep finding reasons to talk to you and try to figure it out.”
The way he was looking at me—not like a CFO passing the time with a secretarial worker, but a man wanting to spend time with a woman he was attracted to—utterly addled my brain.
Jenna hustled into the room. “There you are,” she said in an exasperated tone.
Feeling guilty, I immediately dropped his hand and spun around to face her.
But she wasn’t talking to me. “You cannot hide in here.” She handed Mr. Lund a file folder. “They’re waiting for you in Mr. Nolan’s office. He told me to make sure you brought that.”
His mouth flattened into a grim line. Then he looked up at me. The frown bloomed into a charmingly sheepish smile.
My belly jumped.
“Thanks for the enlightening conversation, Lennox. I hope we can do it again sometime”—he shot Jenna a dark look—“without interruptions.”
“Me too, Mr. Lund.” One hank of his dark hair fell over his eye as he studied the paperwork in the folder, and I had the urge to smooth the hair back into place. After he disappeared through the door, I glanced up and realized I’d just been ogling Jenna’s boss—right in front of her.
She didn’t wear a look of censure, just a knowing smirk. “Yes, he always looks that good. It’s annoying really. Just once I’d like for him to show up at work in stained sweatpants with his hair uncombed and facial scruff.”
“Even then I bet he’d look amazing.”
Jenna chuckled. “Good point. Luckily, Mr. Lund is somewhat . . . unaware of his attributes. That makes him a little more human.”
“After talking to him a few times, I see that he isn’t nearly the big bad I thought he was.” At least not in the same way I had before.
“Big bad. You kids and your weird phrases. I never understand half of them.” She pointed to the stacks of paper. “Let’s wrap this up so you can finish the day in your own department. I’m sure you’ve got big plans for the weekend.”
“Not really.”
Jenna studied me. “Seriously? You’re—what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-eight, actually.”
“I’m just surprised you won’t be out hitting the clubs and partaking of the Twin Cities nightlife.”
“I lived it up plenty in my misspent youth,” I admi
tted. “My idea of a perfect weekend is staying in.”
“You sound just like him.”
I didn’t have to ask who “him” was, but it intrigued me that the CFO of one of the Twin Cities’ richest families wasn’t out at charity events every weekend. I imagined him soaking in a bubble bath, a lowball glass of Scotch in his hand. Then, when he unfolded himself from the deep water—because I knew he wasn’t the type who could sit idle for very long—the bubbles slipped down his gleaming naked torso, revealing—
“Lennox?” Jenna prompted. “Are you okay?”
Not really. Just ignore me while I have explicit sexual fantasies about your boss. “Yes, you just got me to thinking about the weekend.”
“Well, whatever put that dreamy look on your face, I hope it figures into your plans.”
Not in a million years. But I smiled and said, “One can hope.”
Chapter Five
Brady
‡
“I look like I’m trying too hard to be cool and hip,” I complained to Nolan Friday night as I entered my living room, wearing dark jeans and a black shirt with the cuffs rolled back. I wasn’t ready to go with the unshaven look—I’d scraped the scuff off my face after work—but following my shower I went with the current “I don’t give a damn about my hair” trend and did nothing, letting it dry naturally.
Nolan gave me a head-to-loafer inspection. “Damn, cuz. You are one ugly fucker. You’ll probably sit in the corner as me ’n’ Walker and Ash score.”
“Asshole. Who’s driving?”
“Car service.”
“Smart.” Tempting to ask where we were going, but I decided to just go with it, since I was basically being railroaded into this night out. “You want something to drink before we leave?”
“Whatcha got that’s new?”
“A small-batch whiskey distilled in Wisconsin.”
“I’ll take that.” Nolan parked on one of the barstools as I ducked behind the bar.
I snagged two lowball glasses and filled them halfway with ice. Then I pulled out the small bottle and poured three fingers in each glass. We touched glasses without an official toast and drank.
What You Need (Need You #1) Page 5