The CEO's Little Surprise (2 page)

Nine years later and she was still powerless to move on, unable to fall in love again, incapable of forgetting and far too scarred to forgive. And that's why her hands were still shaking. Pathetic.

The only positive was she felt certain Gage hadn't picked up on her consternation. God forbid
he
figure out how greatly he'd affected her. Emotions had no place here, not at work, not in her personal life.
No place.
That's the most important lesson she'd learned from her former mentor. Thankfully, he'd taken her advice to make an appointment without too much protest, giving her much-needed regroup time.

Her phone beeped, reminding her she had five minutes until the meeting she'd called would begin. Five minutes to put her thoughts together about how Fyra should handle the leak in the company. Someone reprehensible had publicized Harper's nanotechnology breakthrough before they'd even gotten FDA approval or a patent. Five minutes, when she should have had an hour, but didn't because of the car wreck on Central and the surprise appearance of the man who'd laced her nightmares for nearly a decade.

And maybe a few need-soaked dreams. But he didn't have to know about that.

Great. This was exactly what she needed, a come-to-Jesus meeting with Trinity, Harper and Alex so soon after locking horns with the offspring of Satan. Who was here strictly because of a leak that never should have happened.

Well, she'd have to get her wild swing of emotions under control.
Now.
It wasn't as though she didn't already know how she felt about the leak—sick, furious and determined to find the source. They'd not only lost a potential competitive advantage, until they figured out who had spilled, there was also no guarantee the same person wouldn't leak the secret formula—or steal it.

But five minutes was scarcely enough time to settle her racing heart before waltzing into a room with her best friends, who would see immediately that Something Had Happened. They'd probably also realize “Something” had a man's name all over it.

Working with people who'd held your hair when you drank too much and borrowed your clothes and sat with you in a tight huddle at your grandfather's funeral meant few secrets. Most of the time, Cass appreciated that. Maybe not so much today.

In the bathroom, she patted her face with a blotting cloth and fixed her makeup, which was equal parts wardrobe and armor.

No one saw through Cass when she had her face on—with the right makeup, no one had to know you were hurting. The philosophy born out of the brokenness Gage had left her with had grown into a multimillion-dollar company. Best Face Forward wasn't just the company tagline, it was Cass's personal motto.

No man would ever put a crack in her makeup again.

Fortified, Cass pasted on a cool smile and exited the bathroom. Only to run smack into Fyra's receptionist, Melinda. Her wide eyes spelled trouble as she blurted out, “There's an extremely persistent man at the front desk who seems to believe you have an appointment with him.”

Gage.
When she'd said make an appointment, she meant for later. Much later.

Her not-so-settled nerves began to hum. “I don't have an appointment with him. I have a meeting.”

“I told him that. But he insisted that you'd scheduled time with him, and he drove all the way from Austin.” Melinda lowered her voice. “He was very apologetic and sweet about it. Even asked if there was a possibility you accidentally double booked your appointments.”

Did his audacity have no end?

The stars in Melinda's eyes were so bright, it was a wonder she could still see around Gage's charm. Well, Cass didn't suffer from the same affliction. “When have I ever done that?”

“Oh, I know. Never.” Her shoulders ducked slightly. “But I...well, he asked if I'd mind checking with you and he just seems so sincer—”

“Why is Gage Branson in our reception area?” Trinity Forrester, Fyra's chief marketing officer, snapped, her short, dark hair nearly bristling with outrage. Since Trinity possessed the main shoulder Cass had cried on back in college, the statement was laced with undercurrents of the “hold me back before I cut off his fingers with a dull blade” variety.

Cass stifled a sigh. Too late to have Melinda throw him out before anyone saw him. “He's here with a business proposition. I'll take care of it.”

As the woman in charge, she should have taken care of it in the parking lot once she'd figured out he wanted her formula. But he'd been so...
Gage
, with his wicked smile. He fuzzled her mind and that was not okay.

This was strictly business and she would die before admitting she couldn't handle a competitor sniffing around her territory.

“That's right.” Trinity crossed her arms with a smirk. “You take care of it. You toss him out on his well-toned butt. Shame such a prime specimen of a man is riddled with health problems.”

Melinda's gaze bounced back and forth between her employers, clearly fascinated by the exchange. “Really? What's wrong with him?” she asked in a stage whisper.

“He's got terrible allergies to commitment and decency,” Trinity explained. “And Cass is going to hand him his hat with class. Can I watch?”

Strangling over a groan, Cass shook her head. This was her battle, and there was no way she'd deal with Gage for a second time today in front of a bevy of onlookers. “It's better if I talk to him in my office. Trinity, can you tell Alex and Harper I'll be there in a few minutes?”

Trinity harrumphed but edged away as Cass stared her down. “Okay. But if you're robbing us of the show, you better come prepared to spill all the details.”

With Melinda dogging her steps—because the receptionist likely didn't want to miss a thing at this point—Cass marched to the reception area.

Arms crossed and one hip leaning on the desk as if he owned it, Gage glanced toward her as she entered, his deep hazel eyes lighting up at the sight of her. His slow smile set off a tap dance in her abdomen. Which was not okay. It was even
less
okay than his ability to fuzzle her mind.

Steeling her spine against the onslaught of Gage's larger-than-life personality, she jerked her head toward the hallway. “Five minutes, Mr. Branson. I'm late for a board meeting.”

“Mr. Branson. I like the sound of that,” he mused, winking. “Respect where respect is due.”

Flirting came so naturally to him, she wondered if he even realized when he was doing it. She rolled her eyes and turned her back on his smug face, taking off toward her office in hopes he'd get lost.

He drew abreast with little effort, glancing down at her because he still topped her by several inches no matter how high her heels were, dang it. His powerful masculinity dominated the small hallway that had always seemed quite large enough for every other person who'd accompanied her to her office.

“Trying to score the first one-minute mile? You can't outrun me barefoot, let alone while wearing icepick stilettos.” He eyed them appreciatively, his too-long hair flopping over his forehead. “Which I like, by the way.”

Her toes automatically curled inside her shoes as heat swept over her skin. “I didn't wear them for you.”

Why had she thought taking care of this in her office was a good idea? She should have gone to her board meeting and had Melinda tell Gage to take a hike.

But he would have just shown up over and over again until she agreed to an appointment.

So she'd get rid of him once and for all.

Two

W
hen she halted by her open office door, Gage raised a brow as he read its deep purple placard. “Chief enhancement officer?”

His amused tone rankled but she just smiled and silently dared him to do his worst. “Branding. We put incredibly careful thought into every single aspect of this business. Seems like I had a mentor once who taught me a few things about that.”

He grinned in return and didn't acknowledge her sarcasm. Nor did he say a word about her outstretched arm, choosing to humor her and enter first as she'd meant him to, but he didn't miss the opportunity to brush her, oh, so casually. She pretended the skin he'd just touched wasn't tingling.

“Yeah, we did have a few lively discussions about business strategies,” he mused. “Branding is why I drive a green Hummer, by the way.”

Cass had decorated her office with the same trademark Fyra deep purple hue, down to the glass-topped desk and expensive woven carpet under it. He took it all in with slightly widened eyes.

“Because you want everyone to see it and think GB Skin has zero environmental consciousness and its owner is obnoxious?” she asked sweetly before he could make a crack about her decor.

Sleek and modern, the offices had been decorated by an expensive, trendy uptown firm. It had cost a pretty penny, but the results had been worth it. This company was hers, from the baseboards to the ceiling and she loved it. They'd moved to this building three years ago, once Fyra posted its first annual revenue of fifty million dollars. That was when she knew they were going to make it.

She'd do whatever she needed to do in order to keep her company alive.

He laughed as he slid into a purple chair and then swept her with a pointed once-over. “You know the name of my company. I was starting to think you didn't care.”

How did he manage to make understanding the competitive landscape sound so...
personal
? It was a skill he'd clearly bargained with the devil to obtain.

“I'm good at what I do. Of course I know the names of my competitors.” Cass remained standing near the door. Which she pointedly left open. “You've got your appointment. And about three minutes to tell me why you didn't take the no I gave you earlier and run back to Austin.”

Casually, he swiveled his chair to face her and waved a hand to the empty chair next to him. “Sit and let's talk.”

She didn't move. There was no way she could be in close quarters with him, not on the heels of their earlier encounter when he'd barely breathed on her and still managed to get her hot and bothered. At least by the door, she had a shot at retaining the upper hand. “No, thanks. I'm okay.”

“You can't keep standing. That tactic only works if you inflict it on someone other than the person who taught it to you,” he said mildly.

The fact that he saw through her only made it worse.

“Really, Gage,” she snapped. “Fyra's executives are waiting in a boardroom for the CEO to arrive. Cut the crap. Why are you here?”

His expression didn't change. “The rumors about your formula are true, right?”

She crossed her arms over the squiggle in her stomach. “Depends on what you've heard.”

“
Revolutionary
is the word being thrown around,” he said with a shrug. “I've heard the formula works with your natural stem cells to regenerate skin, thus healing scars and eliminating wrinkles. Nanotech at its finest.”

She kept her expression schooled, but only just. “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

Her lungs hitched as she fought to draw a breath without alerting Gage to her distress. The leak was worse than they'd assumed. When Trinity had stormed into Cass's office yesterday to show Cass the offending blurb in an online trade magazine, she'd read the scant few lines mentioning Fyra's yet-to-be released product with horror. But it could have been so much worse, they'd assured each other. The trade magazine had few details, especially about the nanotechnology, and they'd hoped that had been the extent of the information that had traveled beyond their walls.

Apparently not.

It was a disaster. Full-blown, made even worse by Gage's arrival on the scene.

Gage watched her carefully, his sharp gaze missing nothing. “But if my intel is correct, a formula like that might be worth about a hundred million or so. Which I'm prepared to pay.”

Oh, no, he had
not
just dropped that sum on her. She shut her eyes for a blink. Money like that was serious business, and as the CEO, she had to take his offer to the others for due consideration.

But she knew her friends. They'd agree with her that the formula was priceless. “I told you, the formula isn't for sale.”

He stood suddenly and advanced on her, clearly over the power play she'd instigated by standing by the door. The closer he got, the harder her pulse pounded, but she blinked coolly as if lethally sexy men faced her down on a daily basis.

“It's smart business to consider all opportunities,” he said as he leaned against the doorjamb not two feet from her. “If you sell, you don't have to worry about little things like FDA approval and production costs and false-claim lawsuits. You just roll around in your millions and leave the hard work to someone else.”

The scent of clean forest and man wafted in her direction.

“I'm not afraid of hard work,” she stated firmly as she fought to keep from stepping back, out of the line of his masculine fire. It was a battle of wills, and if she fled, he'd figure out how much he truly affected her.

The man was a shaman, mystical and charismatic. One glance, and she'd follow him into his world of hedonistic pleasure. Or at least that had been true in college. She'd learned a few tricks of her own since then, along with developing a shield around her fragile interior.

His gaze held her captive as he reached out and tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering far longer than they should have.

“What
are
you afraid of?” he asked softly, his expression morphing into something almost...warm.

You.
She swallowed. Where had that come from? Gage didn't scare her. What scared her was how easily she forgot to control her emotions around him.

This cat-and-mouse game had veered into dangerous territory.

“Taxes,” she muttered inanely and ignored the way her pulse raced.

When was the last time she'd been touched? Months and months. She'd developed a reputation among single men in Dallas as a man-eater and unfortunately, that just made her even more popular as men vied for her attention so they could claim victory. Mostly she just shut them down because the whole scene exhausted her.

And she couldn't lose sight of the fact that the reason she chewed up men and spit them out was staring her in the face. He was very dangerous indeed if she'd forgotten for a second the destruction he'd caused.

And that's when it hit her. She was handling Gage all wrong.

This wasn't college and Gage wasn't her mentor. They were equals. And he was on her turf. That meant she called the shots.

If he wanted to play, she'd play.

* * *

Once Gage had tucked the errant lock of hair behind her ear, he'd run out of legitimate excuses to have his hands on her. Which didn't keep him from silently running through a litany of illegitimate excuses.

“Gage,” she murmured throatily and the base of his spine heated. “The formula's not for sale. I have a board meeting. Seems like we're done here...unless you've got a better offer?”

Her eyelids lowered to half-mast and she didn't move, but the sensual vibe emanating from her reached out and wrapped around him, drawing him in. Those cutaway panels at her waist would fit his palms perfectly and with any luck, the mesh inserts would allow him to feel her while fully clothed. The thought sent a rush of blood through his veins and the majority of it ended up in a good, solid erection that got very uncomfortable, very fast.

“I just might have something in mind,” he said, his vocal chords scraping the low end of the register. God, she'd even affected his voice.

Down boy. Remind her why the formula
is
for sale...but only to you.

Yeah, he needed to get back on track, pronto, and stop letting her get into his head. He dropped his hand but leaned into her space to see about turning those tables on her. “You're doing amazing things here, Cass. I'm proud of what you've accomplished.'

Wariness sprang into her gaze as she processed his abrupt subject change. “Thank you. I'm proud of what the girls and I have built.”

He crossed his arms before an errant finger could trail down the line of her throat. Because his lower half wasn't getting the message that the goal here was to get
her
hot and flustered. Not the other way around. “Remember that project I helped you with for Dr. Beck's class?”

That was before they'd started sleeping together. He didn't recall being so magnetically attracted to Cass back then. Sure he'd wanted to get her naked. But at twenty-four, he'd generally wanted women naked. These days, his taste was a bit more refined, but no woman he'd dated over the years had gotten him this hooked, this fast.

Of course, he never looked up his old girlfriends. Maybe any former lover would affect him the same. But he couldn't imagine that would be true.

Her eyes narrowed a touch. “The project where I created a new company on paper, complete with a marketing plan and logo and all of that?”

“That's the one,” he said easily. “You got an A plus, if memory serves. Except you didn't do that alone. I was right there every step of the way. Guiding you. Teaching you. Infusing you with CEO superpowers.”

In fact, he'd done such a good job, here he was smack in the middle of her corporation negotiating over a Fyra product that was better than his. He appreciated the irony.

An indulgent smile bloomed on her face and he didn't mistake it for a friendly one. “Nothing wrong with your memory. As much as I'm enjoying this trip down memory lane, if you have a point, now would be the time to make it.”

“Your success here...” He waved a hand at her office without taking his eyes off her. “Is amazing. Your C-suite is unparalleled. But you didn't get here without me. I'm a big factor in your success.”

“Yes, you are,” she agreed readily. Too readily. “You taught me some of the most important lessons I've learned thus far in my life. Fyra's business philosophy grew 100 percent out of my experience with you.”

She blinked and undercurrents flowed between them but hell if he could figure out what they were. Regardless, it was a great segue. Exactly what he'd hoped for.

“I'm glad you agree. That's why I'm here. To collect on that long-outstanding debt.”

“Oh, really?” Her head tilted slightly as she contemplated him. “Do tell.”

“You know what I'm talking about. Without me, Fyra might never have existed. You might never have achieved your goals, particularly not to this degree. Don't you think turnabout is fair play?”

“Hmm.” She touched a finger to her cheek. “Turnabout. Like I owe you for what you've done. That's an interesting concept. It's kind of like karma, in a way.”

“Kind of.”

But he didn't like the comparison, not the way she said it. Karma was rarely a word used in the context of reward. More like you were getting what you deserved.

“What I'm saying,” he interjected smoothly before this conversation went in a direction he didn't like. “Is that I want to buy your formula. My role in your success should be a factor in your decision-making process. In all fairness, you do owe me. But I'm fair, too. I'm not asking you to
give
me the formula for old times' sake. One hundred million dollars is a lot of tit for tat.”

He watched her as she filtered through his argument, but her expression remained maddeningly blank.

“Here's the thing, Gage.” She leaned in, wafting a whole lot of woman in his direction. “You did teach me and I'm grateful. But you must have been sick the day they taught corporate structure, so I'll clue you in. Again. I'm a quarter owner in Fyra. We're missing three-quarters of the decision makers, none of whom
owe
you a thing. I'll take your offer for the formula to the board and we'll consider it. Period. That's how business works.”

Her mouth was set so primly, he had the insane urge to kiss her. But they were just getting into the meat of this and he needed to hone his focus. Not lose it entirely.

So he grinned instead and waved off her protest. “Not in the real world, honey. You need to get out more if that's your best line of defense. Deals are done and undone across the globe based on exactly that. Companies don't make decisions. People do and rarely are they united.”

“Fyra is,” she insisted. “We're a team.”

“I hope that's true,” he said sincerely. “If so, then it's in your best interests to convince them to sell. How would they feel about their CEO not honoring this lingering debt?”

Her brows drew together but it was the only outward sign she gave that she'd heard the underlying message. This was business at its core and he was not leaving Dallas without that formula. It had become more than just about ensuring Fyra didn't take any of his market share. GB Skin was number one for a reason and he liked being the top dog. His products should be the best on the market and Fyra's formula would put him there—assuming it checked out like he thought it would.

Not to mention that Cass's stubbornness had piqued his.

“Threats, Gage?” Her laugh thrummed through him. “You gonna tattle to my partners about how naughty I am?”

He nearly groaned at her provocative tone.

“Nothing so pedestrian.” He shifted a touch closer because he liked the scent of her, tightening the cross of his arms. Just to keep his hands where they belonged. “I wouldn't go behind your back to manipulate the other executives. This is your cross to bear, and I'm simply pointing out that you don't want this on your conscience. Do you?”