“Bluebonnet Place is a charity focused on helping older children in foster care develop life and work skills so that when they age out of the system, they have a foundation to stand on. We assign them mentors who help them with college applications and with applying for financial aid. We assist them in getting jobs during high school to gain work experience and skills. And we provide a place where they can come after school if they need a break from their household or the group home or the streets.”
Kade nodded, seeming as if he was listening with every ounce of his attention. It was both unnerving and confidence building.
She cleared her throat, encouraged by his interest, and began to share the statistics of how many kids aged out of the system and what their likely outcomes were without support. The grim numbers made her stomach twist, but she continued on, her passion for the cause starting to rise to the surface and speed up her words.
Kade took a few notes and appeared appropriately concerned by some of the more dire statistics.
“And I know that we’re small and still relatively new,” she continued, “But—”
Kade held up a hand, halting her. “Don’t start apologizing and undermining everything you just said.”
She bit her lip, swallowing back her instinct to spout disclaimers. “Okay.”
“It sounds like an amazing cause, Tessa. Truly. I’m impressed that you put such a thoughtful organization together.”
“Thank you.” Her heart was like a Boombox rattling her ribcage, and her palms had gone sticky with sweat against the arms of the chair.
“And it would be an honor to have Bluebonnet Place as the featured charity at our event.”
Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod. It was like everything was happening in slow motion, like a dream.
“However . . .”
Her breathing stopped, the awful word clanging in her ears.
“There would be some conditions,” he finished.
The air whooshed out of her in a gust. Conditions. Not a no. Conditions! She could handle that. Heck, she couldn’t imagine anything that would stop her from saying yes. Anything would be better than crawling on her hands and knees and begging her asshole ex-husband for help. She grabbed her pen and flipped her steno pad to a fresh page. “What do you have in mind?”
“Evelyn, our point person who is usually in charge of the event, is on medical leave.”
“Okay.” She made a note.
“And I know that you’re currently working for a temp agency, is that correct?”
She frowned, unsure what that had to do with anything and how he knew the information in the first place. “I am.”
He tugged open one of his desk drawers and pulled out a folder. His eyes met hers. “I need you to quit and come to work for me.”
EIGHT
Tessa tilted her head, the words not quite registering. “Wait, you want me to what?”
“In order for this to happen, I’ll need you to quit the temp agency and take over the event this year as coordinator,” Kade said, his tone no-nonsense.
She stared at him, wondering if he’d knocked his head on something or maybe had gotten sauced on his lunch break. Clearly, he was talking crazy.
“We’d, of course, pay you a fair salary since the position will be full time for the next few months.” He slid a document her way, pointing to a salary number that would take her at least two years of temp work to make. “You’ll have a small office in the PR department and access to one of their assistants if you need administrative help.”
“Van, I mean, Mr. Vandergriff—” she said, panic rooting in her chest and spreading outward. He was being serious?
“Please, call me Kade.”
“Kade,” she said, her eyes lifting from the document before her. All the things he’d said about the event swam through her brain, forming a whirlpool of there’s no fucking way protests—thirty restaurants, booking bands, getting a headliner . . . “I appreciate the offer, but you don’t understand. I’m not qualified to—”
“Of course you are,” he said, his tone not leaving room for argument. “No one will be more passionate about swaying people to participate. I received a copy of your resume from the temp service. You have the basic office skills you need to stay organized, and the admin can help with the little details. Your main focus will be on garnering participants and planning the event. You listed event planning in your Other Skills section on the resume.”
Shit. Once again she was reminded why lying was such a bad idea. She’d added that at Sam’s suggestion to fluff up the resume. And sure, Tessa had planned big parties before, but only at her home, nothing for anyone who was paying her to get it right. “Those events were personal ones. Nothing official. I don’t think I’m capable of taking on—”
“This is the condition, Tessa. Nonnegotiable. I have complete faith that you can do this. If you can’t get the donors lined up, your charity is the one that suffers. And I know you won’t let that happen.”
Her lungs felt like they’d been flattened with a rolling pin. She tried to pull in a breath. There was no way she could take this on. It’d be an utter failure. The highest-level job she’d ever held was the one she had now, and that was only one step above being ticket taker at the local theater. But if she turned it down, Bluebonnet Place wouldn’t get the money at all. She’d walked in promising herself she’d do whatever it took to get this chance and now that promise was coming home to roost like a big, fat, squawking hen.
“Do you accept my condition, Tessa?” Kade asked, all business.
Did she accept? As if she had any choice. Nerves moved over her skin like static. What if she completely embarrassed herself? What if donors laughed in her face? She rubbed her hands along the arms of the chair, trying to get them to stop shaking.
“I guess I do. I’m not sure why you would want me to—” Another worry sparked in the hollows of her chest, cutting off her train of thought. “Wait, tell me you’re not doing this because of what happened between us Friday night.”
She’d die if this was some handout because she hadn’t had money that night, or worse, if it was some after-sex payoff. Bang the CEO, get a job.
He smiled. “Rest assured. I’m not doing this because of Friday night.”
She nodded, hearing the sincerity and taking comfort in that. Thank God. “Okay.”
He pulled out another sheet of paper and slid it on top of the other. “I’m doing this because of Friday night.”
She peered down at the new document with dread. “What is it?”
“This says that you will report directly to the head of the PR department, not to me, and that I have no say-so in your employment status and no authority to terminate you in the future.”
“I don’t understand. Why does that matter?” she asked, scanning the page but not really understanding why it was necessary.
He reached out and put a finger beneath her chin, lifting her face toward his. “Because when you’re in my bed again, I don’t want you worrying about business getting mixed with pleasure.”
Her ribs pulled tight, her spine going ramrod straight. “Excuse me?”
He lowered his hand but not his uncompromising gaze. “I told you on Friday. One night was not enough.”
“And I told you that’s all I had to give,” she said, the words barely making it past her constricted throat. “Is this a condition of the deal?”
His lips curved with hot promise. “Of course not. I plan on pursuing you whether you take the job or not.”
“Kade,” she protested, goose bumps breaking over her skin at the thought of him touching her again. But bad idea didn’t even begin to describe what getting involved with him would be, especially now. “I can’t, we can’t . . .”
He stood and walked around the desk, sliding into the spot in front of h
er. The look he gave her when he perched on the edge of the desk and peered down stripped her to the studs. “Tell me you haven’t thought about Friday night.”
Her gaze dropped to her hands. God, of course she had, about a thousand times since she’d left him. I can teach you things. His naughty words had reverberated through her every night when she’d lay in bed alone. “It doesn’t matter if I have or haven’t.”
“Of course it does. In fact, right now, that’s all that matters to me,” he said, his voice like warmed honey sliding over her. “Put me on your list, Tessa.”
Her attention snapped upward. List? “What? How do you know about—?”
“Your friend, Sam, let it slip when I tried to find you to see if you were okay,” he said, as if it was totally normal that he’d sought out her best friend to track her down.
Humiliation washed through Tessa, and she made a mental note to kill her best friend. Headstone: Samantha Dunbar, death by TMI.
“So what item did I check off for you?”
She put a hand to her forehead. Jesus. This is not happening. “We are so not talking about this.”
“Oh, we so are.” He nudged her with his knee, his whole demeanor switching to playful mode. “I’m dying to know. Was it seduce a stranger?”
She snorted. “Hello, you seduced me. I was minding my own business, thank you very much.”
He grinned. “Okay, I’ll grant you that. So, let’s see, was it, have a one-night stand? Do something kinky?”
She groaned. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Fine, my list has things on it I want to improve. One of them was what my ex said to me about being bad in bed.”
Kade’s expression instantly darkened. “Your ex obviously had no idea what to do with you.”
“Probably not.”
“No probably about it.” Kade hooked both his ankles around the legs of her chair and dragged her and the chair forward until she was braced between his knees. He laid his hands over hers on the arms of the chair and leaned into her space, his expression full of temptation and illicit intention. “I do know what to do with you, to you. Give me a chance to show you, Tessa.”
She stared back at him, captured in the spell he was weaving around them, her body warring with her common sense. Everything about Kade called to her—his voice, his smile, the way he looked at her as if she were the most decadent meal of his life. He was temptation wrapped up in an unfairly sexy package, like a tropical vacation to her midwinter life.
“You don’t understand. My life is all kinds of complicated right now. I’m juggling so much already—a new town, night school, trying to find a career, my list. And now with this job it’s going to increase a hundred fold. I don’t have the ability to add one more potentially complicated thing.”
His gaze softened. “It doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, I can make it exceptionally uncomplicated.”
“Sex is always complicated,” she replied, but there was no punch in her protest.
“No, sex is complex. Relationships are complicated. Friday night was as simple and straightforward as it gets.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You call that simple? That was like a three-ring circus compared to my former sex life.”
“This further proves how neglected and sheltered you’ve been,” he said, his tone full of graveness but humor crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I can show you complex. Complex, kinky, deviant. Pick your poison.”
She smiled, remembering his words from the other night. I’m a kinky fucker. “Sounds like I’d need to create a whole new page of the list to cover all that.”
He leaned back to grab something on his desk and then reached for her hand. Before she could figure out what he was doing, he stamped the top of her hand.
She glanced down to see his signature in blue on her skin. “What’s this?”
“My full endorsement of that idea. Make a new list. Put me on it.”
She laughed. “You’re weird, Kade Vandergriff.”
“So I’ve been told. But for the sake of my fragile ego, let’s label that as charming instead.”
She shook her head, unsure what to think of this quirky man. One minute he could intimidate her right out of her clothes, the next he could make her feel like she was hanging out with someone she’d known forever. When she’d walked into this office and had seen him sitting behind his big desk in a big office with his finely cut designer suit, she’d had a hard time not dropping him into the same box as Doug. Wealthy, arrogant, and powerful. A guy who spent his life looking down at everyone around him from atop some self-righteous golden pulpit and only taking an interest in someone if it could serve his own plans or image. But as the conversation went on, she was realizing Kade had a completely different vibe, one that seemed out of place considering his station in life. And it was making her want to know more.
“I don’t know what to say to all this,” she said honestly.
“Yes. That’s the word you’re looking for, I believe. And look, I get that you’re unsure because I’ve thrown a lot at you today. But let’s make this as simple as can be. I’m asking you to spend another evening with me. No strings or expectations. Just another night to relax, explore, and enjoy each other. Preferably without fire and life-threatening smoke inhalation involved. If afterward you don’t want to get together again, that’s your call. I would never hold that against you.”
The tune he was singing was a pied piper’s song to her system. Relax, explore, and enjoy. She didn’t even know what relaxing felt like anymore. Friday night with him had been the closest she’d gotten to that state in as long as she could remember. But she sensed there was fine print hiding in his words. He was saying she could walk away, but he wasn’t expecting her to. That easy confidence unnerved her. But she couldn’t make herself close off the option just yet. “What exactly would you want to check off my list?”
His thumbs traced over her knuckles as he watched her with careful eyes. “What experiences or fantasies do you have knocking around in that head of yours?”
Being under his heavy gaze was like being chained to the chair. It made her realize how little her ex-husband had really looked at her. That kind of rapt attention was potent. But she didn’t know how to answer Kade’s question. Sure, she had some fantasies. Who didn’t? But there was no way she had the guts to say them aloud. She’d mentioned a few to Doug once, and he’d looked at her like she’d lost her mind. No way was she risking that embarrassment again. “I don’t even know. I didn’t have room to think outside the box in my previous relationship. Doug had . . . issues about those things.”
“Issues?” He asked leaning back and giving her a little space.
She shifted in her chair, uncomfortable with sharing this much but somehow unable to shut up. Kade’s focus on her was like feeding her truth serum. Maybe she’d contracted Sam’s TMI disease. “He expected his wife to have the proper image—conservative, God-fearing, a lady. A Southern belle for his congregation to adore and admire. But it wasn’t just a public role. That expectation applied in and out of the bedroom.”
A sour expression crossed Kade’s features. “Meanwhile, he’s screwing around on you.”
“Yep.” Saying it aloud sounded even more depressing than knowing it. Her entire sexual history centered around a man who, after the first few years, had barely been interested in her beyond taking her out to be on his arm for photo-ops and church services. He took care of her in the sense of buying her nice clothes and giving her anything monetary she needed, but the little spark she’d thought they had between them had died a quick death after they’d married.
From the start, he’d liked the idea of Tessa being a lady, proper and sweet and respectable. Even in high school before he’d started pursuing the business of religion, he’d wanted to pr
eserve her virginity until they were married. Back then, it’d seemed chivalrous and romantic, but she hadn’t realized where that motivation had come from. And once they had wed, sure, they’d had sex, but it had always been in the most traditional sense possible—in the dark, in bed, missionary style. Anything else was deemed trashy. I don’t want to fuck my wife, Tessa. I want to make love to her.
And Tessa had gone along with it, feeling guilty for even craving anything different. He’d made her wonder if her desires were somehow some defect from her “white trash” genes. But she’d eventually understood where Doug’s logic had come from. His mother had developed a colorful reputation of bed-hopping with wealthy men after her divorce from his dad. And when Doug was a freshman, a sex tape of his mother and a local congressman had been leaked to the press, complete with the details of all the sordid acts they’d done together. Tessa knew the scandal had torn Doug to pieces, causing him to switch schools and miss most of that year. When he’d finally told Tess about it after they’d been dating a while, he’d vomited after.
And she’d felt awful that he’d had to go through that. But it hadn’t meant she’d stopped hoping that he’d be able to come to terms with that and loosen up a little. That things would get better. But of course, they hadn’t. Instead, he’d apparently chosen to fuck other women who were not his wife to fill in the gaps. She got to be the expensive, untouched china in the display case while the other women served more base needs.
Kade wouldn’t put her in the china case. He wanted her like she was Friday night—lustful and bold and dirty. He didn’t want to polish and display her; he wanted to unhinge her.
And maybe that’s exactly what she needed.
“What if you pick what happens instead?” she said on a surge of bravery. “I would’ve never been brave enough to plan out what happened Friday night. The fun was in the, I don’t know . . .”