I shivered under that Prince of Darkness stare of his.
“In two seconds you’ll be following him out of the door.”
You can do this. Make him hear you, Lex. “Throw me out and I will come back quicker than a boomerang.”
“I daresay a boomerang won’t fare too well against a locked door, Miss Holland.”
“Lock the door and I’ll find other, more creative ways to torment you. I have nothing left to lose at this point.”
Caine heaved an irritated sigh. “You have one minute. Use it wisely.”
God, he really was an arrogant SOB. I pushed down my irritation, reminding myself who he was and what he’d been through. “Two things. First, I lost my job.”
His response to that was to shrug and relax against his desk. He crossed his arms over his chest and then one ankle over the other and hit me with an insouciant “So?”
“So … it’s because of what happened at the shoot.”
“Then I suggest you act more professionally in the future. Now I have lunch to attend to …” He gestured to the door.
“Look.” I held up my hands in something akin to surrender. “I apologize. That’s the second thing. I apologize sincerely—”
“Fucking say it and I will throw you out,” he warned.
“For ambushing you,” I hurried to finish.
He relaxed only somewhat.
“I shouldn’t have done that. I had no idea we were doing a photo shoot with you. I showed up on-set and you were there and I’m in a weird place and I acted emotionally and it was really unfair to you.”
Caine merely blinked at my rambling.
“So I’m sorry,” I finished.
“Fine.” He stood up, his eyes moving over my shoulder, not concealing his impatience.
I took that “fine” as an acceptance of my apology and forged ahead again. “But the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.”
I was treated to another heavy sigh from him. “Tell me again why I should care if the daughter of the man who gave my mother the cocaine that killed her no longer has a job.”
I flinched. “My father’s actions were not mine.”
“Same blood runs in your veins.”
Any hope I had of battling my irritation with his arrogance went flying out the window. “Oh? Cocaine addict, are you?”
I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth.
“Get out.” The words were said with barely leashed fury.
“Okay, okay,” I hurried to defuse that land mine. “That was a shitty thing to say. I’m really sorry. But you’re presuming to know who I am because of who my father is, and that’s shitty too.”
There was no response.
Cautiously I took a step toward the brooding businessman. “Look, you didn’t just get me fired. My boss lost Mogul and two other clients because of your ire. That means my boss blacklisted me. I won’t get another job in the industry again unless you fix this. Just … let Benito do the shoot. Please.”
A weighted silence fell between us as we stared at each other. I was pretty sure (or at least I hoped) Caine was silent because he was considering my request. The silence, however, just afforded me even more of a chance to soak in his rugged, dark handsomeness. Was it possible he was getting better-looking?
That was a problem for me.
My mom had always been so bowled over by my dad’s looks that she felt inferior to him, like maybe she was the lucky one to be with him and not the other way around. I’d hated that and I didn’t need a therapist to tell me it was the reason that I tended to date guys who were attractive but not so attractive they were intimidating. More important, my ex-boyfriends (and it wasn’t like there were lots of those) all made it clear that they thought they were punching above their weight by dating me. I didn’t look for that because I needed to feel more attractive than my partner. It was because I didn’t want to feel inferior.
Not like Mom had.
Which was why my reaction to Caine was an anomaly. I could admit when a guy was a hot guy. But I was never attracted to hot guys, because I’d hard-wired my brain not to shoot off all the chemicals that would make me attracted to hot guys.
With Caine, though … well, my thoughts had wandered into the indecent since the moment we met (if I was honest, maybe even before then) and I could feel my skin prickling with awareness under his fierce regard.
“No.”
No? “What do you mean no?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. “It’s one of the most commonly used words in the English language, Miss Holland. Shocking that someone who doesn’t understand its meaning would find herself unemployable.”
I ignored his sarcasm and flipped my hair over my shoulder with what I hoped was an air of defiance. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
Caine’s already dark eyes shadowed with irritation as he said with a threatening calmness, “You’ll take it and you’ll get out before I personally remove you from my office.”
I shivered again at the thought of him putting those big hands of his anywhere near me. I quickly threw that thought aside and replied, “Please be fair.”
The air around him thickened with anger. “Fair?” he said, his voice hoarse. “What part of you being here is fair? I’m going to ask you to leave one more time, and if you don’t I will physically remove you.”
I closed my eyes, unable to see the pain in his without wanting to hurt my own father. Because my father was a weak and irresponsible man, Caine Carraway had lost everything, and despite all the “everything” he had around him now, I wasn’t convinced from what I’d seen so far that he actually had anything. “I’ll go,” I whispered. When I opened my eyes he was staring stonily at me. My stomach sank at the realization that this was it. His opinion of me hadn’t changed, and I was still jobless. “I really am sorry. I just … I’m just stuck.” And I meant that in so many ways. I grabbed the handle on his office door and had started to pull on it when his irritated sigh stopped me.
“I’ll call your boss and tell him to take you back.”
Relief swooshed through me as I whirled to look at him, amazed. “Really?”
He gave me his back. “Yes, but I will change my mind if you don’t get out of my office in the next five seconds.”
I shot out of that office in three seconds flat. I didn’t get everything I came for, which was probably why as I drove home my relief was gradually outweighed by my disappointment. It occurred to me that I wished Caine could see what I saw—that we were the same in some ways. And I didn’t want to be someone he hated.
However, it was clear Caine needed me to leave him alone. And I would. Even if it was the absolute last thing I wanted to do.
CHAPTER 3
The last day and a half of moping around my apartment had been torturous. With nothing but worry and time on my hands, I’d started reliving some pretty crappy memories, including that fateful day seven years ago when I found out the truth about my father and how he wasn’t an absentee father who gave up his jet-setting career in order to see us every day. No, he was a poor excuse for a man who abandoned his first family and took no responsibility for the woman who overdosed in his presence. This led to thinking about my relationship with my mom and about how shit things were before she died. None of those were things I wanted to remember, so I spent most of my time going over and over my accounts trying to figure out a way to stretch the savings I had. I could get by, living in my apartment without a well-paying job, for six months. This meant eventually giving up the apartment was inevitable.
Accounting was so depressing.
I lounged, legs dangling over the arm of my big comfy armchair that probably wouldn’t fit into the kind of apartment I’d have to move to if Benito didn’t hire me back, and I sipped at my Cherry Coke while Bing Crosby sang out “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” from my speakers.
“You sing it, Bing.” I raised my glass in the air in a gesture of solidarity and nearly spilled my soda as the much lou
der sounds of Bruce Springsteen singing “Johnny 99” blasted from my cell.
So I liked a relevant sound track to my life.
Heart racing, hoping the name I’d see on the screen was Benito, I rolled off the chair, landed hard on my knees, bit out a curse word, and scrambled along my floor, spilling Cherry Coke on the hardwood.
Almost smacking my nose against the wall, I got up onto my feet and snatched at the phone buzzing on my kitchen counter. I frowned at the number on the screen.
I didn’t recognize it.
Deflated, I answered in a pathetically sad tone, “Hello.”
“Hello, this is Ethan Rogers calling from Mr. Carraway’s office. Am I speaking to Miss Alexa Holland?”
My pulse started going wild again. “You are.” I held my breath.
“Mr. Carraway requests that you attend a meeting with him in his office tomorrow at noon.”
A meeting with Caine? What on earth—“Did he say why?”
“No, Miss Holland, he did not. May I tell him you’ll be available tomorrow at noon?”
Why, oh, why, after all his protestations did Caine want to see me again? What had happened since I crashed into his office? My stomach did that nervous flippy thing again. “Um …” Had Benito said yes or no? Or was this about something else? What did Caine want from me?
Did it matter?
He wanted to see me again, and that was an opportunity to change his mind about me.
“Sure. I’ll be there.”
Ethan led me into Caine’s office the next afternoon and I was surprised to find Caine not behind his desk but standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows staring out over High Street and Atlantic Avenue to the harbor beyond.
With his back to me, I stole that moment to fully appreciate Caine Carraway without him knowing it. So yeah, I couldn’t see his face, which was the best part, but with him standing with his hands in his trouser pockets, legs braced, shoulders relaxed, the view was delicious enough for me. His height, those broad shoulders, and let’s not forget that ass.
That was a mighty fine ass.
When the seconds ticked by without a response from him, I began to feel like a high school nerd waiting for the captain of the football team to pay attention to her.
I didn’t like that nearly as much as the view of his ass.
“You rang?”
Caine turned his head slightly in profile. “I did.”
“And I assume there was a reason?”
He faced me and I felt that flush of attraction as his eyes swept over me. “You would assume right.” He sighed and strolled over to his desk, his gaze raking over me speculatively as he did so. “Do you own a suit, heels?” His scrutiny moved to my face. “Makeup?”
I looked down at my clothes. I was wearing jeans and a sweater, and no, I wasn’t wearing makeup. I had good skin. I’d inherited my olive skin from my mother, and despite those darn freckles sprinkled across the crest of my nose, it was blemish free. I rarely wore foundation or blush, and because my eyes were so light and my lashes so dark, I only wore mascara when dressing up for an occasion.
I knew I wasn’t glamorous, but I looked like my mom—I had her apple cheekbones, blue-green eyes, and dark hair—and my mom had been very pretty. No one had ever looked me over and considered my lack of makeup with disdain before.
I frowned. “Weird question.”
Caine relaxed against his desk in much the same pose as he had used the last time he pinched his lips at me in his office. And he was pinching his lips and inspecting me. I felt like I was being judged and found wanting, which was insulting normally but somehow even worse coming from a guy who looked as put together as he did.
Sexy jackass.
“I couldn’t change Benito’s mind,” Caine informed me. “That little bastard can hold a grudge.”
If I weren’t so deflated by his news I would have laughed. “Bu—”
“So I thought about it,” he said, cutting me off, “and you can try working for me. You’ll need to invest in some appropriate clothing, however.”
Um … what? Did he just …? “I’m sorry. What?”
“Benito informed me that it kills him but he just can’t take you back after your behavior with a client lost him such big accounts. You’re the biggest disappointment of his thirties and before you went insane you were the best PA he ever had. The disappointment of your behavior on-set, and I quote, Broke. His. Heart.”
“Oh yeah, he sounds devastated.”
“Despite his flair for the melodramatic, it seems he has high standards and he has led me to believe that before you acted like an insane person you were intelligent, efficient, and hardworking.”
“Insane person?” That word had been used as an adjective to describe me twice now.
He ignored me. “I need a PA. Ethan is a temp and my previous PA has decided not to return from maternity leave. I have a job opening and I’m offering it to you.”
Dumbfounded.
There was no other word for how I was feeling.
How could this man go from never wanting to see me again to offering me a job that meant I was going to be in his face? A lot.
“But … I thought you didn’t want me around.”
Caine narrowed his eyes. “I need a PA who will fulfill all my wishes and demands immediately. That’s not easy to find—most people have social lives. You, however, are desperate, and the way I see it, you owe me.”
I sobered at his reminder of the past. “So what … you get to act out some kind of vengeance by working me into an early grave?”
“Something like that.” He smirked. “It’ll be a comfortable grave, though.” He told me the salary and I almost passed out.
My mouth parted on a gasp. “For a PA job? Are you serious?”
I’d get to keep my apartment. I’d get to keep my car. Screw that … I’d be able to save enough money to afford a deposit on my apartment.
Caine’s eyes glittered triumphantly at my obvious excitement. “As I said, it comes with a price.” His grin was wicked and I suddenly felt a little breathless. “I’m a hard man to please. And I’m also a very busy man. You’ll do what I want when I want and I won’t always be nice about it. In fact, considering what your surname is, you can pretty much guarantee I won’t be nice about it.”
My heart thumped at the warning. “So you’re saying you plan to make my life miserable?”
“If you equate hard work with misery.” He considered me as I considered him, and that damnable little smirk quirked his beautiful mouth again. “So … just how desperate are you?”
I stared at him, this man who held up an armored shield so high in the hopes that nothing would penetrate it. But call it intuition or call it wishful thinking, I believed I could see past that shield of his—like I could feel the emotion he fought so hard to hide. And that emotion was anger. He was angry with me, whether because of my father or my sudden intrusion into his life, and this job … this job was his way of taking back control, of making me pay for throwing him off balance. If I took it I had no doubt he was going to do his best to test my patience to the limit. I was a pretty patient person normally. No way I could have worked with someone like Benito and not have been. But I didn’t feel like myself around Caine.
Not at all.
I was defensive and scared and vulnerable.
It would be a huge risk putting myself in his control.
However, I knew it was a risk I would take. And not just because he was offering me more money than I would ever make anywhere else, nor because this job would look great on my résumé. I would take this risk because I wanted him to see I wasn’t anything like my dad. I wanted Caine to see that if anything, I was like him.
I jutted my chin out defiantly. “I worked for Benito for six years. You don’t scare me.” You terrify me.
Caine slipped on that intimidatingly blank mask of his and pushed up off his desk. I held my breath, my skin prickling as he prowled across the room. I had to tilt my
head back to meet his gaze as he came to a stop inches before me.
He smelled really, really good.
“We’ll see,” he murmured.
I felt that murmur between my legs.
Oh boy.
I stuck out my hand. “I accept the job.”
Caine’s eyes dropped to my hand. I tried not to tremble as I waited for him to decide whether or not he wanted to touch me. Swallowing my misery at his reluctance, I kept my gaze unwavering.
Finally he reached out and slid his large hand into mine.
The friction of the rougher skin of his palm against the soft skin of mine sent sparks shooting up my arm, and arousal tightened my muscles, including those in my fingers.
Surprise flared in both of our eyes.
Quite abruptly, Caine ripped his hand from mine and turned his back on me. “You start Monday,” he said, his words curt as he made his way to his desk. “At six thirty. Ethan will give you the particulars of my morning schedule.”
Still shaken from the sizzle that had just passed between us, I said hoarsely, “Six thirty?”
Caine glanced over his shoulder at me as he shuffled some papers on his desk. “Is that a problem?”
“It’s early.”
“It is.” His tone brooked no denial.
Six thirty it was, then. “I’ll be here.”
“And dress appropriately.” I bristled but nodded at the command. “And do something with your hair.”
I frowned and touched a strand of it. “What do you mean?” I wore my hair long with a slight wave in it. There was nothing wrong with my hair.
Annoyed, Caine turned to face me. “This isn’t a nightclub. I expect your hair and clothes to be stylish but conservative. Image is important, and from now on you represent this company. Slovenly hair and clothes do not reflect the company image.”
Stylish but conservative? Slovenly hair and clothes?
I contemplated him and how pompous he could be. You have quite the stick up your ass, don’t you?
He glowered as if he’d read my mind. “Tomorrow you’ll receive employment contracts. Once you sign those I’m your boss.” When I didn’t answer he said, “That means you act the way I want you to act. That means you shelve the attitude and the twenty questions.”