I inhale and close my hand around the doorknob. I’m going to get fired. That has to be what this is about. I exhale. It’s okay. I’m okay. I have money to survive. It just means med school will take longer. But no matter what, I’m not on the streets. The phone buzzes again and Meredith says, “Danny, where are you?”
Steeling myself for what is to come, I open the door and step inside the room. “Shut it,” she orders, and I do as she bids, turning to face her, shocked to find a man standing behind her massive walnut desk where she allows no one, not even me, his back to me as he stares out of the giant window framing Meredith. My entire body clenches with the certainty that he’s with security or the HR department, here to escort me out of the hotel. Wanting this over with, I force myself to walk toward Meredith, and while her long dark hair is as prim and proper as ever, her bold orange dress as stylish as expected, the strain on her face has aged her from fifty to sixty overnight.
I stop behind a leather visitor’s chair, my fingers curling in the back, waiting for her to speak. Several seconds tick by and her gray eyes meet mine, shocking me with what I find in hers, with the impossible. This fearless woman I’ve often disliked but always admired for her fearlessness is afraid.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper, as if that will keep the man behind us from hearing.
“The family is trying to vote me out as CEO. They’re short a critical vote.” She motions behind her. “Danny Woods, meet Jensen Miller, my nephew, and twenty percent stockholder of the company. They need his vote to remove me.”
At the name “Jensen,” I suck in air and wait as the man turns to face me, tall and dark, and as devastatingly handsome in a gray, custom-tailored suit as he had been the night before. In a few strides, he closes the distance between himself and Meredith to claim the spot directly beside her chair. And when those striking sea-green eyes of his collide with mine, and not for the first time, I think this man is about power and absolute confidence, but there is also a worldliness about him that exceeds his age. He is power. He is money and control and I have no idea why, but suddenly I am back in that hotel room and he is yanking my skirt up my hips, his breath warm on my neck and ear.
“Nephew?” I ask quickly, trying to jolt myself back to the present, and somehow I keep my voice steady when I’ve just realized that he has more than my cell phone. He has my panties. “You’re her nephew?”
“That’s right, Danny.” There is a heaviness to the way he says my name and those eyes, those intoxicating and unreadable green eyes, flicker with something I cannot name. “Nice to officially meet you, Danny.”
My spine stiffens slightly with the implication we have met before. That tells me Meredith does not know but could soon. It’s a subtle threat, manipulation at its best, and I call him on his threat, unwilling to play a game or remain here, a prisoner of a stupid mistake. “Officially?” I prod, daring him to speak up and tell all.
His eyes light with a tiny hint of amusement that is still somehow cold, where he’d been downright hot last night. “Meredith’s been telling me all about you the past hour.”
I narrow my eyes on him. “And why, exactly, is that?”
Meredith is quick to answer. “Jensen needs you to acquaint him with the staff and the properties.”
My gaze jerks to hers, my lips parted in silent shock. “Me? Why me?”
“You know the staff intimately,” she says. “They trust you and so do I.”
“Here at the corporate office but not at the other locations,” I argue, and even now, in this crazy situation, it’s impossible not to be flattered by her rare compliment. “We have a regional manager. She can—”
“She can’t know what’s happening,” Meredith states. “No one can but you.”
I look between the two of them, and I can’t help but wonder about Jensen’s motives, both last night and now, which is why I focus on Meredith. And isn’t she giving him the ammunition to take over in a literal way? She’s preparing him to step into her shoes. “Meredith,” I begin. “Can we have a word in private, please?”
“He doesn’t have time to step into my shoes,” she says, “if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s the CEO of Gester’s Golf Club and Resorts based here in the city, which he took over from my brother when he had a stroke five years ago. Today it’s fifty units strong and profitable, with an international expansion in play. That’s what I want for us here and as long as the family fights me, I can’t get us there. I want Jensen to take a consulting role and help negotiate with the family on our behalf. I need you to work with him for the next few weeks.” She stands up. “He’ll be working from the corner office.” The phone rings and she grabs it. My eyes meet Jensen’s, his gaze piercing and intense, his emotions as hidden as his agenda, and my mind spins, tangled in a spider web of options for my next move. Or worse, I’m tangled in his web and last night was no accident, but I can’t assume his intentions. Part of me wants to retreat, to resign and leave, but somehow I ground myself in logic. This could all be a bad coincidence. I need this job too much to simply write it off.
Meredith ends her call. “There’s a package up front for me from the board. Can you go get that for me please, Danny?”
“Of course,” I say.
“Why don’t you walk me to my office before you go?” Jensen suggests.
Blood rushes in my ears. I have no idea what his intentions are. We had a one-night stand that wasn’t even fully realized, but I need to know if it was a mistake or him being manipulative. And I need to know now. “Of course,” I say, quickly checking in with Meredith. “Do you need anything before I leave.”
She presses her fingers to her temples. “Just give Jensen whatever he needs.”
My cheeks heat instantly and the air spikes with the implications of her words she can’t possibly understand. “I’ll show him his office,” I reply, and I have no option but to look at him. “Is now a good time?”
His eyes darken and give a little twist. “Now would be exactly the right time.”
I inhale at the way his words run through me like a jagged-edged rock scraping the bottom of a river bottom running out of control. Like I’m out of control. “Right this way then,” I say, rotating on my heels and marching for the doorway in a slow, steady pace that defies how much I want to dart out of the room. But I won’t let this man see me rattled and I’m good at putting on a mask of calm and cool, no matter how much I feel I am drowning. My mother taught me that with the collage of men and madness that had decorated my teen years.
Stepping into the hallway, I turn, shocked to find him nearly on top of me, so close I’d have to tilt my chin up to meet his stare, which I avoid. Instead, I try to maintain distance, choosing to look at the hard wall of his chest, but my mind is uncooperative of my quest for control, conjuring memories of my hands on his body, while my nose is equally as devious, unforgivingly teasing my senses with the deliciously rich, woodsy smell I’d gone home wearing last night. His scent.
“This way,” I motion, and this time there is no way to avoid the lead spot he’d saved me from last night as I take off down the hallway with him at my heels. And I feel him at my back, stalking me, his eyes on my skin, under my skin. It’s an eternal path to the office door. I stop, and I decide now isn’t the right time for a confrontation after all. There’s too much on the line. I need to think, to have a strategy.
Rotating to face him with the full intention of heading in the other direction, I announce, “This is the spot,” to find him close again. Too close. We are almost toe-to-toe and my gaze lingers on his chest, my mind too easily conjuring memories of my hands in the exact same spot I’m now looking. I need space to pull myself together, and I need it now.
“You don’t think I’m going to let you run again, now do you?”
He hits a nerve and my gaze jerks to his piercing green eyes. “I didn’t run.”
“You ran.”
“I made a choice,” I say, defensive at how he’s turned this around. “That’s not running.”
“We need to talk.” He opens the door, shoving it open without moving otherwise. “Go inside the office, Ms. Woods.”
I consider declining but that’s as good as the resignation I don’t want to be shamed into giving over a simple mistake during my time off of work. He sure isn’t going to resign over this or lose everything. Why should I? Clenching my jaw, I step into the office that is almost an exact replica of Meredith’s. I make it all of two steps when the door shuts firmly behind me, and Jensen—Mr. Miller’s—hand scorches my elbow. I gasp with the electric connection I do not want to feel in every part of me the way I do, and in a blink I am against the wall. He plants one hand on the wall by my head, his other at his waist under his jacket, no longer touching me. Why do I want him to touch me?
“Did you know?” he demands, his voice low, tight as a band about to pop.
I blanch. “What? Know? Know what?”
“Who I was? Did she tell you to seduce me?”
Anger replaces any other emotion. “Seduce you? Me, seduce you? You have to be kidding me. You came up to me at the bar.”
“I was at the bar when you got there.”
“No. No you were not. I’d have—” I stop myself.
His eyes narrow. “You’d have what?”
“You weren’t at the bar. I held a conversation.”
“About helping the bartender get a raise. I assume that was for my benefit.”
Indignation is instant. “You have to be kidding me. You think I’d have left your room if I was trying to seduce you?”
“You got spooked.”
“Finally you got something right.” I try to slide away, but the hand on his hip goes to the wall blocking my escape. My teeth grind together. “Let me by.”
“So I’m right,” he states, ignoring my attempt to leave.
“If you mean that I made a mistake. Yes. I came to my senses before I slept with a stranger who...before I slept with a stranger.”
“A stranger who what?”
“Who was a mistake,” I bite out, emphasizing every word.
“So you’re sticking to this story. You really want me to believe you didn’t know who I was?”
His insistence hits a manipulative note that is far too familiar and opens my eyes. “It’s you who knew, isn’t it? You’re turning the tables and deflecting. You were trying to get close to me to get to Meredith’s secrets. And now you’re trying to intimidate me into not telling her.”
“Tell Meredith whatever you like. Let’s go tell her together.” He straightens, waving grandly at the door.
“I’m sure she’ll find it interesting that you would sleep with a stranger in a place you’re trying to take over.”
“I’m not trying to take it over.”
“Right,” I say, reminding myself I’m done lying down in life. It’s never worked well. In fact, it’s always worked really badly. “Of course not,” I continue, “and I’m supposed to believe that you became a rich, successful CEO by being as careless as you were with me. Why would I?”
“I don’t deny it was careless but I own my mistakes. Do you?”
“I already owned it as a mistake.”
“Then put it aside or let’s go talk to Meredith. We’re wasting time I don’t have.”
“I just want to do my job.”
“Good. Then I need short, one-on-one meetings with each of the department heads here in my office.”
Glad to focus on anything resembling normal conversation, I jump on a response. “They aren’t all on duty today.”
“They have to come in because I’m not coming back and we need to leave for the Florida locations tonight. The fact that the family chose to expand to another state when they didn’t maximize this one is beyond me.”
“We?” I ask, barely choking out the question. “You can’t mean you want me to go with you. I’ve never been to the other locations.”
“Meredith doesn’t trust the regional manager, which is a problem that has to be addressed. She should trust her. That leaves you to help me.”
“Meredith’s the better choice,” I say, giving him the same argument I gave her.
“Exactly right,” he agrees, “and yet she chose you.”
Reading the undertone of the statement, I snap this time. “Stop accusing me of something I didn’t do. I’m not going to travel with you and she told me you chose me, not her.”
He ignores my accusation, firmly insisting, “You’re going.”
“Why would you still want me to help you if you obviously think I’m a problem?”
He leans in, the space between us dissolving to nearly nothing, the spicy scent of him teasing my nostrils. “Because the only way I’m going to find out if Meredith is playing games with me through you is by keeping you close.”
“She’s not,” I insist quickly, my stomach rolling with the impact of one bad decision I can’t take back. “I promise you, she’s not, and I didn’t know who you were.”
“Prove it. Do your job. Take me to the locations as requested and help me evaluate the operations.”
He’s an asshole times ten, but I’m trapped by my own actions and I know it. “Yes. Okay. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.” Heat flushed my cheeks at the poor choice of words. “I mean—”
“Relax, Ms. Woods. I forgot a very important rule last night I won’t be foolish enough to forget again. I don’t fuck where I work no matter who might think otherwise.” He pushes off the wall. “Go line up the meetings.”
“What do I tell the managers this is about?”
“I’m a member of the board brought in by Meredith to evaluate productivity. Anything else they need to ask me directly. Give me thirty minutes for each meeting.”
“Yes. Okay.” But I don’t move and neither does he. For several beats we study each other, the room somehow shrinking around us, and yet worlds separate us when only a few pieces of clothing had last night. He imagines the worst me and me of him, and as much of an ass as he’s being, I know he sees me as a trouble. There’s nothing I can say to him that will make him believe me, and nothing he can say to me to make me believe him, not that I think he cares about making me believe anything right now. He doesn’t have to care what I think. I work for him, not the other way around.
I turn away and reach for the door, and part of me expects him to stop me. Ridiculously, as pissed as I am at him, as certain he’s using me, or tried to, part of me wants him to grab me, push me against the wall, and take me like he didn’t last night. And I really think there is an insanity gene in my family I’ve inherited from my mother. Frustrated at myself, I turn to the door.