“Oh!” Genuinely startled, she looked at the bedside clock. “Sorry! I got carried away.” She slung her legs over the edge of the bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
She paused, looking like a teenager caught pilfering her parents’ liquor cabinet. “Um? Home?”
“I thought we talked about this.”
“I thought we talked about having sex. Not, like, sleeping in each other’s arms.” She made a funny face, as if she’d tasted something sour.
“Who said anything about sleeping in each other’s arms?” He grabbed one of the arms in question, and tugged. “I’m just talking about sleeping. You’re a superstar, I get it, but surely you need at least a few hours rest.”
Her expression turned serious. “I’m just trying to follow the rules. You don’t seem like the kind of guy who…”
“What?” Suddenly, he really wanted to know how she’d meant to finish that sentence.
“Like the kind of guy who does sleepovers. Crazy junkie mothers notwithstanding.” She pulled back against his grip, but he didn’t release her.
He sighed. He hated it when she made him confront the contradictions in his psyche. He hated it when she caused contradictions in his psyche. “It’s true that I’m a private person.”
She snorted then, a full-on, completely unladylike snort. All the same, it made him want to pin her down and shove his tongue into her mouth. “He said to the person lounging in his bed, wearing his shirt, up to her eyeballs in his company’s financials,” she drawled.
“Touché.” It was all he could say. Unless he wanted to admit she was the first woman he’d ever let into his bed, much less allowed to spend the night. “Will you just shut up and come to bed?”
She gave up resisting, and he settled her under the covers. Turning out the light, he reached for a remote control on the bedside table and aimed it at the skylight. A shade began to retract.
“Can we leave it open?” she asked.
He lifted his thumb from the button.
“I know it’s stupid,” she said from underneath the duvet. “We’re in the middle of the city, and it’s overcast. But I love this skylight. I like the idea that the stars are just up there, even if you can’t see them.”
He hit another button, reversing the shade’s progress to expose the full expanse of glass. He couldn’t give her anything close to what she deserved. In fact, he could only give her one more night after this. So he could at least let her sleep under the invisible stars.
Chapter Eleven
Cassie awoke warm and cozy under Jack’s duvet. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the white winter sky through the skylight. It looked like snow. She stretched. “Mmmmm.” She sounded like a cat. She felt like a cat. Scooching over—Jack’s bed was enormous—she wondered what they would do this morning. The slideshow of possibilities that flipped through her head brought a grin to her face. Who knew last night’s epic marathon could leave her still wanting more? She fanned her arms out under the mound of covers, intending to wake him, but her fingers glided over nothing but cold sheets.
She was alone in the bed. Well, that was…surprisingly disappointing. But it was a work day. Popping her head out of the cocoon of down, she made out of the sound of the shower.
“Hey,” she called as she walked through the open bathroom door. He stepped out of the shower stall with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Oh, hi!” she said again, startled and unaccountably embarrassed, given all that had transpired the last couple of nights. It was just that he looked like some kind of Nordic sea god, all chiseled angles and wet blond hair slicked down his head. She could still hardly believe she was sleeping with someone like him.
“Hey,” he said, stepping around her to get to the sink. He didn’t look at her as he said, “Sorry to wake you. Last day of work today—the office always closes after the Christmas party until after New Year’s, so I’ve got tons to do.”
“Right, of course.” She spun around and headed back out to the bedroom in search of clothes, swallowing the little lump of worry that had lodged in her throat.
“Shower, though, hang out as long as you like,” he called after her, his voice flat, like he was reciting lines in a play.
“That’s okay,” she said, locating and pulling on her jeans. What had she expected? To wake up in his arms to the swell of violins? To find him looking at her with stars in his eyes? No, she wasn’t that stupid. But maybe she’d expected the generous lover who’d plied her with snacks and insisted she stay the night to be a little…warmer the morning after.
“Seriously,” he said, emerging from the bathroom, attention on his phone as he texted furiously. “Take your time.” He disappeared into the walk-in closet. “I’ve got a shitload of work to do today.”
Right. Okay. She might not have tons of dating experience, but she knew a blow off when she saw one. And she wasn’t about to cool her heels after he bolted. She was starting to feel dirty—and not in a good way. “I’ve got stuff to do, too,” she said, hoping her voice sounded normal. “So thanks, but I’ve got to go back to my place.”
He emerged from the closet dressed for the office. The slim-fitting gray wool suit fit him like a glove, and the hot pink plaid tie made her smile in spite of herself. Again, it seemed like he was avoiding her eyes as he adjusted his cuff links. “Okay, tell you what. I’ll leave a key on the counter downstairs. Lock up when you leave and then shove it back through the mail slot.”
He wasn’t even going to wait for her to get dressed? What the hell? “Okay,” she managed, shooting him a fake smile—but he’d already turned away and was rifling through his briefcase. Apparently he wasn’t even going to look at her once this morning. How could everything have changed like this? Last night they had mind-blowing sex and slept in each other’s arms, and now they were strangers? Or maybe this was just normal for him. Maybe she was the one overreacting. It’s not like he owed her anything. She headed for the bathroom, calling, “Have a great day!” over her shoulder. No need for him to know that he’d upset her. After all, it wasn’t like they were having a relationship.
…
It wasn’t until three o’clock, when she was rummaging through her purse looking for her work ID, that Cassie realized she still had Jack’s key.
Crap. She’d hidden in his bathroom until she heard him leave. He’d been talking on the phone—to someone he was less angry at than last time she’d overheard his end of a business call. But she had heard him say, “That is not acceptable,” in a voice that would have made her wilt like a daisy in the desert. His voice had grown quieter as he moved farther away from her in the house, and then she’d heard the front door close behind him.
Once he was gone, she’d waited five minutes to be safe, then hightailed it out of his house, wanting nothing more than to get to her own little apartment and try to shower away what had clearly been a huge mistake. She’d thought she could do this fuck-buddy-number-cruncher thing, but obviously she’d been wrong. It wasn’t like she expected they’d ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after, but she had learned one thing about herself. She needed a fuck buddy to actually be a buddy. To be friendly. The confusing thing was that he had been that—to her if not to the rest of the world. Up until this morning, they’d enjoyed fun, flirtatious banter—in addition to the scorching sex.
But obviously she’d misunderstood. Done something wrong. Including inadvertently keeping his key.
Which he couldn’t know about. She couldn’t risk him thinking she’d held on to it in some kind of desperate, clinging move. If he thought she was trying to manipulate her way into a relationship, well, she’d have no dignity left. So she’d just have to swing by his house on the way to Edward’s—he would still be at work. His precious key would be there when he got home, and he would be none the wiser.
An hour later she hopped off the King streetcar at the top of his street. What a ridiculous day. Thanks to her own stupidity, she was right
back where she started. And what had she done in between? More homework in service of Winter Enterprises. She was pretty sure she’d gone back far enough that she could say with confidence there were no dummy suppliers other than A-plus Construction. And she’d flagged all the fishy cash withdrawals against the company’s credit card. She’d been able to reconcile only a small number of them against expense claims, and from what she could tell there was about a hundred grand in cash unaccounted for—in addition to just under four hundred grand that A-plus had invoiced. She was going to recommend that Jack call in a forensic accounting firm to check her work. It’s possible there were other things going on that she hadn’t even thought of. She was good with numbers, yes, but she didn’t have a criminal mind.
She sighed in frustration as she approached his house. Not only had she spent the whole day thinking about Jack and his problems, she was still at it. She’d done what he was paying her to do, and she was ready for the Wexler trip, so she needed to just turn her brain off until they left. Turning up the path to his house, she resolved to drop the key and be done. She’d wasted enough mental energy on Jack Winter and his…
Barely legal jailbait?
“Hi! Are you a friend of Jack’s?”
A tall blonde was draping pine garlands along Jack’s porch railing and looking, with her rosy cheeks and her pink fur-lined parka, like the spawn of L.L. Bean and Victoria’s Secret. The girl didn’t even look like she was twenty. Even as tears—stupid, juvenile tears—prickled in Cassie’s eyes, her brain kicked into high gear. This was none of her business. She had no claim on him, so what—or who—he did in his spare time was none of her concern. He didn’t do relationships. He’d told her that explicitly from the beginning. What he hadn’t said was what he really meant. He didn’t do relationships with girls like her.
Pink Parka Girl laughed as she tried to disentangle herself from a garland.
Cassie struggled for words. She could hardly explain that she was here to return Jack’s house key. “Ah, actually, I think I have the wrong house.”
“This stupid thing looks awful!” said the girl, finally extricating her glove from the pine bough and trotting down the steps to stand beside Cassie. “Jack is going to hate this! He has his house professionally decorated, and then I come and add this crap.”
She had to get out of here. Cassie took a step, backing away like she was trying to ease her way out of the path of an animal poised to attack. Her heart was pounding accordingly, too. The key would have to wait until she could—
“Cassie?”
Jack. Stepping onto the porch. Holding a mug of coffee, as if it was totally normal for his stunning blonde hopefully eighteen-plus girlfriend to meet his plump, nearly thirty math nerd temporary-friend-with-benefits accounting helper in his front yard.
“Cassie?” the girl squealed. “As in Cassidy? The Cassidy my dad told me about?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “OMG! Cassie, I’m Britney. My dad works with Jack. He’s my godfather. Jack, I mean, not my dad. Because that would be stupid.”
Another peal of laughter, laughter that suddenly seemed obviously of the teenage variety. The girl with the hockey game Jack had asked Carl about. Jack’s goddaughter. Relief flooded Cassie. But only because it was good that Jack wasn’t secretly the poster boy for statutory rape. Not because it mattered to Cassie whether Jack was seeing someone else.
“Cassie,” said Jack, from his perch above them. “This is Britney Larsen, my CFO Carl’s daughter. You remember Carl?”
She could only nod mutely.
“Britney and I have a little tradition where we make a gingerbread house for the company party.”
“Oh, Cassie! You’re going to stay, right? Jack said you had to work, but please won’t you come tonight?”
“Um. I do have to work.” Cassie eyed Jack. “I just came because I forgot to…leave this.” She couldn’t make herself utter the words “your key” in front of Britney. She might as well paint a scarlet A on her forehead. She stepped onto the first step and opened her palm in Jack’s direction.
He looked at the proffered key, face blank. “You can at least stay and help us with the gingerbread house.”
“And the decorations!” said Britney. “Because I’m so bad at it!” She gestured in the direction of the admittedly uneven garlands.
“The party is here?” Cassie asked, hearing the bewilderment in her tone. She’d imagined the Winter Enterprises Christmas party at some swank restaurant. They hosted lots of those sorts of things in the private dining room at Edward’s.
“Yep!” said Britney. “Jack always puts on a huge spread!”
“Well, I don’t do it,” said Jack. “It’s catered. I just show up. And make a gingerbread house.”
Britney waved dismissively. “He just pretends to be a humbug,” she stage-whispered to Cassie. “But really, he’s like the best boss ever.”
Cassie looked back and forth between the man and the girl, unable to find anything to hold on to that would help her make sense of this odd situation. “That’s, uh, great. But speaking of bosses, I’ve got my own, and I’ve got to go.”
“You start at six, don’t you?” asked Jack.
Leave it to him to stand in the way of her escape. Which was extra annoying because eight hours ago, it seemed he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
When she didn’t answer immediately, he locked his eyes on hers like blue lasers and said, “I want you to stay.”
…
It was the truth. He wanted her to stay. The sudden appearance of Cassie on his doorstep might as well have been divinely orchestrated. He’d spent the entire day feeling like a complete jerk because of how he’d acted this morning. They might not be having a relationship-relationship, but he treated his cleaning lady better than he’d treated Cassie. And his cleaning lady had never blown him until he nearly blacked out and then thrown herself into ferreting out fraud in his company. It was just that his rules were there for a reason. Women were a distraction—they got in the way of work. He hadn’t built Winter Enterprises from nothing into a multimillion-dollar company by being distracted. Though they had clearly negotiated the parameters of their short-lived, rule-bending entanglement, in the clear light of day, last night seemed…wildly dangerous. Still, she hadn’t done anything wrong, and he had pulled the rug out from under her.
“Britney, I need to speak to Cassie for a minute. Can you finish this garland while we go inside and check on the gingerbread?”
His goddaughter’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever you’ve done, Jack, you should just apologize so Cassie will come to the party.”
He winked at Britney. Whatever Carl’s faults, he had raised a pretty damn amazing daughter. “That’s the idea, Brit.”
She tilted her head and regarded the garlands. “I think this is going to take quite a while. These are awful. I’m going to have to totally start over.”
Cassie was still looking adorably like a deer in headlights, so he bounded down the steps and took her arm, pulling her up after him. Once inside, he took her winter clothes and steered her toward the kitchen island where sheets of gingerbread were cooling. “I’m sorry.”
“Excuse me?” She blinked.
“I acted like an ass this morning.”
She blinked, still looking dazed. “You kind of did.”
“Yeah, well, I told you I didn’t do relationships.”
“And I told you this isn’t a relationship!” Her voice rose almost comically.
“I know, I know. We set out the parameters at the beginning, and there was no reason for me to brush you off like that. I just kind of…” I don’t bring women here, much less wake up with them in my arms. So I panicked and acted like a dick. Except that sounded ridiculous to actually say.
“You kind of freaked out.”
Wincing, he nodded. That was it exactly. “I know it sounds stupid, but I can’t afford to get distracted.”
“Dude, you should have just let me go home when I tried to.”
She was right. Except he hadn’t wanted her to go home right then. And in truth, that’s what worried him. It wasn’t that he was breaking the rules—it was that he was getting a little too comfy with them broken. Still, it wasn’t her fault. And they only had a little time left together. It wasn’t like Winter Enterprises was going to crumble around his ears if he let himself be distracted by her for a couple more days. “Look, come to the party. Call in sick to work—I bet you’ve never done that.”
“I can’t,” she said automatically.
Before he could argue, there was a clattering noise from the entryway, followed by the sound of Britney coughing theatrically.
“We’re in here, Brit,” he called.
“I just need to get my hat,” she called. “It’s freezing, and my ears are turning into icicles.”
“It’s okay. Come in and help me convince Cassie to call in sick to work. She’s too conscientious.”
“Oh, please come to the party, Cassie!” Britney came forward clutching her hands to her chest as if she were having a heart attack. Good. Let Cassie resist Hurricane Britney.
Five minutes later a deal had been struck. Cassie would start her shift at the restaurant but would try to find someone to sub for her so she could come to the party later.
“I’ll have to run home after I get off, though, and change.”
“No you don’t!” said Britney at the same time that Jack said, “Wear the red dress.” He didn’t care if he was being overly prescriptive. They only had two days until Wexler. Two days till it all ended. Suddenly it seemed criminal that he wouldn’t get to see the red dress again in the interim.
“What red dress?” said Britney, looking between the two of them. When she got no answer, she grinned and said, “I vote for the red dress, too.”
Chapter Twelve
The next time Cassie arrived at Jack’s, she did so by cab. It was dark—she’d been able to beg off Edward’s early, but since she’d had to go home and change, it was still ten o’clock—and she was wearing the killer pumps. She’d undergone an internal debate, but the “why the heck not” side had won out and she’d abandoned her winter boots and called a taxi, texting Jack that she was on her way. After all, her time with Jack was almost up, so why not squeeze all the fun (okay, all the sex, too) out of it while she could? As long as he didn’t get weird again. The minute that happened, she would bail.
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