“
You
kissed
me,”
she reminded him, jabbing a finger to his chest. “And you liked it, Joe.”
“Joe? Caitlin?” This time it was Andy, and the knob turned. Bravely, he pushed open the door. “You’re going to bring the place down. What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” they shouted in unison.
“If you’re trying to fire her,” Vince said flatly, peeking around Andy. “Forget it. We took a vote. She stays.”
“It’s
my
vote that counts,” Joe said. He’d made a living out of calling the shots; retreat didn’t come naturally. He met Caitlin’s fathomless dark eyes and couldn’t, for the life of him, look away.
Time stopped and inexplicably he couldn’t remember why he was so mad.
As if she sensed that, her lips curved softly.
His heart tipped. Just tipped right over and broke a little. Yeah, he wanted her, but even worse, he
needed
her. Not an easy admission, even to himself. Never losing eye contact, he said, “Fine. Dammit. She stays. You’re all crazy.” It threw him to see her smile fully now. “What’s so damn amusing?” he demanded.
“You are.” She said this sweetly and full of such warmth and affection that for a minute he couldn’t breathe, much less speak. “You think you’re so tough,” she added softly. Moving close, she reached up and cupped his cheek.
At the unexpected contact, he flinched. “I
am
tough.”
She shook her head, still smiling. Her eyes glowed. “You’re a big softie, Joe Brownley.”
Vince laughed from the doorway. “Yeah. A big softie. Ask him for a raise, Caitlin. Let’s see just how soft.”
Joe shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t soft at all, but hard as a rock at just her touch. “Get out of here, guys. Caitlin and I have things to discuss.”
“Things?” Andy lifted a brow curiously. “What things?”
“Yeah, what things?” Tim wanted to know, ignoring the order to leave. They leaned against the doorjamb, comfortable. Completely un-cowed by Joseph’s glare.
So much for tough. “Get out,” he repeated firmly, keeping his gaze on Caitlin.
He didn’t hear anyone budge. Not until Caitlin turned to them with that endearing smile, the one that could make a grown man beg, and said in her light, gentle voice, “It’s all right. We’ll try to keep it down.”
Joe watched, stunned, as Tim and Andy smiled back at Caitlin dopily, completely entranced, and then did as she asked. Vince left, too, silently.
When they were alone, he said, “That’s amazing. The way you twist everyone around that little pinkie of yours.”
“What things do we have to discuss, Joe?”
“Rules, princess. Rules.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Those rules again.”
He ran his gaze over her lush, curvy body, and his fingers itched to explore. “Apparently, you’ve forgotten them.”
“Gee, I guess we’re back to the topic of my clothes.”
They both looked at her choice for the day— narrow denim skirt unbuttoned from ankle to well above the knee, topped with a tight, siren red, ribbed cotton top.
He cleared his throat. “I told you we were conservative around here.”
“No, you said I should wear
more
. Well, my skirt goes practically to the floor.” She lifted her foot and wiggled her bright red sandal, exposing a terrific looking leg to midthigh. “I’m trying to fit in with the norm around here.”
“Which is?”
“Casual.” Caitlin lifted her gaze up to his and found his beautiful eyes filled with equal parts heat and annoyance.
Perfect
. Now their moods matched. “What do you think?”
He curled an arm around her waist, still annoyed. Still hot. He dragged her closer. “I think you’re courting disaster.”
“Am I?” she whispered, their lips nearly touching as she strained against him on tiptoe. Gently, she framed his face, marveling at herself. Never in her life had she made a move on a man; now she couldn’t seem to stop. “This isn’t a disaster. This is the rescue.”
“Rescue?” His voice, thick and sexy, nearly had her dissolving in a boneless heap.
“Yeah.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, loving the feel of his warm and solid body against hers. “You’re something. All those hard muscles and that bad attitude. But you can’t fool me, Joe. You care. You feel. And you need this.” Her lips trailed over his clenched, slightly stubbled jaw, and she lingered, suddenly overwhelmed by how he made her feel. She closed her eyes and kept going, expecting him to shove her away any second, but he didn’t. Instead, he tilted his head, letting her have her way. “You need me,” she whispered.
“You’re pressing your luck, Caitlin.” He didn’t sound very steady or very tough at the moment.
“I don’t think so.”
Now he did move away, capturing her busy little hands in his. “You don’t know me.” In a gesture that tore at her, he lifted their joined hands to his lips. “You don’t know the real me. All I care about, all I feel, is a passion for my work. There’s not room for anything else.”
“Or
anyone
else?”
“I don’t want anyone in my life.” He stared at her hands resting in his. “I really don’t.”
It was hard to reconcile this man with the abrupt, gruff one that she usually saw. Both were passionate, fierce, intelligent. But this Joe...
this
one she could really like. She told him so.
He let her hands go. “I don’t want you to like me.”
“You can control your computers, Joe,” she said softly. “But you can’t control me.”
“I
can
control this,” he contradicted her. “I can and I will. Because it would be a mistake, Caitlin. We would be a huge mistake. You’d get hurt, and I...”
“Yes?” she wondered with patience. “You’d what? You’d maybe get hurt, too? Well, isn’t that what life’s all about?”
“Dammit, we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you, and how you’d feel when it was over. Afterward.”
Now she laughed, though without a lot of humor. “I never said I wanted you, Joe.”
“You do.”
She let out a genuine chuckle. “Okay, maybe I do. But don’t panic—it’s just physical. Pure and simple. I’d be crazy to want more with you.”
But she
was
crazy, she thought. And she did want more, much more. She sidled up close, batted her lashes at him flirtatiously. “Come on, Joe. Let’s play.”
“No. No way.” He nearly ran to the door.
Just before he shut it, she called out, “So can I have the raise?”
8
C
AITLIN SPENT THE WEEKEND in a strange state of awareness. Friday night, she went dancing with Amy, where they met Tim and Andy and had a great time.
Caitlin realized how much more these friends meant to her than any others she’d ever had.
Things had changed for her, she decided. They’d changed with her father’s death, with her new job. Once she’d lived her life casually, without thought to past or future, but no longer.
For the first time, she had people in her life who cared about the
real
Caitlin, not the spoiled rich one.
Everything else—her financial woes, her worries of what would happen to her future—paled in comparison to that.
Somehow, in the past few months, priorities had shifted.
Now when she looked in the mirror, she no longer saw a pampered woman, but one who lived, laughed, cared....
One who loved.
BY MONDAY CAITLIN WAS already out of money—again—and very tired of taking the bus.
To cheer herself up, she’d spent the last of her pocket change on doughnuts from Amy’s stand. And while this endeared her greatly to Tim and Andy, she didn’t imagine the scale in her bathroom was going to be so kind.
As she went into the small office kitchen, she glanced down at herself and rolled her eyes. Even wearing one of those bras that promised to control and contain—whatever the heck that meant—she still spilled out of whatever she wore. The flowered print dress she had on today dipped a little low in front, emphasizing the problem. And was it her fault her hips strained against the soft cotton? Nope, she decided, taking another bite of a huge chocolate-buttermilk roll. She might as well face it; she was never going to be a waif.
She studied her image in the front of the steel-door refrigerator. Wild blond bob. Red lips. Big eyes.
“You’re beautiful, you know.”
Jumping a little, she faced Vince. He shot her a little smile and gestured to the door she’d been using as a mirror. “You don’t have to check,” he said. “You are.”
“I’d rather be known for my brains.”
She said this with such disgust, he laughed. Then he sobered, stuck his hands into his trouser pockets and came closer. “I saw you and Joe on Friday. You know...in his office.”
So
Vince
had interrupted their kiss!
“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” he said carefully. He squared his shoulders. He didn’t have a single wrinkle. He was a man who appreciated fine clothes, a man with expensive tastes, a man after her own heart...and she didn’t feel anything but a sisterly sort of affection.
What was wrong with her?
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get involved with him.”
Her brain, protesting the early hour, went on full alert. “Vince, he’s your boss and your friend.”
“I know. And I care about him very much.” Vince met her gaze, and she knew he was genuinely sad. “But I care about you, too. Joseph’s not easy on women, Caitlin. They come in and out of his life in a heartbeat. He rarely looks back.”
Her unease grew. “We shouldn’t be discussing this. It’s not right.”
“I care about you.”
“But I’m a big girl,” she said gently. She reached for his hand and squeezed. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
Everything about him was tense, even as he let out a little laugh. “I can’t seem to help that.”
“Well, seeing as there’s little between me and your friend, except resentment and bad air, you don’t have much to worry about.”
“What I saw between the two of you was a lot more than bad air, Caitlin.”
The kiss again. Well, it
had
been quite a kiss. Quite a very good kiss. The mother of all kisses. But it had meant nothing to Joe, which was what Vince was trying so gallantly to make sure she understood.
What she really understood was that Joe didn’t
want
it to mean anything. That he wasn’t comfortable with the intimacy, and she could understand that, as well. Neither was she.
What, she wondered, would Joe say if he knew she’d never experienced any sort of intimacy at all? It wasn’t something she’d set out purposely to do, but she’d never found the right man. Somehow, it had been easy to resist the fast, rich, slick kind of guy her so-called friends had all hung out with. So now, despite her travels and exciting life-style, she was the oldest virgin in the Western Hemisphere. “I’m not going to get my heart broken over one kiss,” she said, more weakly than she would have liked.
“I’m not doing a good job of warning you off him, am I?” Vince asked wryly.
“It’s not your fault. I just never seem to learn what’s good for me.”
“I could be good for you,” he said seriously.
“Oh, Vince.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that so soon.” Softly, he touched her cheek, then walked away.
It didn’t take long to get distracted. She took a call from the mortgage company for the condo her father hadn’t left her. The by-the-book loan officer on the line was not impressed by her employment.
“Look, Ms. Taylor,” he said in a voice bordering on nasty. “I do realize you have a job now, and apparently, you should be commended for that.”
While Caitlin took his not so polite disdain, Joe walked by. He wore the customary faded jeans and T-shirt and was every bit as aloof and dangerously sexy as her dreams had assured her. With his heavily lidded eyes, that perpetual frown on his beautiful, scowling mouth and the rugged, muscled yet lean body, he looked every bit the hoodlum she imagined most mothers warned their daughters from.
But Caitlin didn’t have a mother, and she doubted she would have listened to a mother’s advice, anyway.
“Ms. Taylor,” the mortgage officer said in her ear, “you can’t expect this company to believe that you’ll be able to make the payments, given your current salary. Not to mention how far behind you are already. I’m sorry, but the lock-out will take place on Friday evening, unless you come up with something else.”
Lock out.
As in a huge padlock on her front door. She would have no place to go. “You’re going to put me out on the street because you don’t like my job?”
Joe, already across the office and halfway out the door, froze. Mortified, Caitlin lowered her voice and her head. “You can’t do this,” she told the jerk on the line. “You can’t. My father—”
“Is dead,” the man said bluntly. “And hasn’t provided any means for paying the mortgage. You have no experience, no credits to your name and no viable means of providing us what is due, Ms. Taylor. You can’t possibly blame us for this situation.”
“What can I do to prove myself?” she asked, more than a little desperately. What had happened to her great life? To security? To a full stomach?
“Marry a rich man,” he advised. “Quickly.”
Floored, she hung up the phone and stared at it. She’d mistakenly thought her life was starting to be under control. But it wasn’t even close, she realized, and dropped her head down to her desk.
What could she do?
Hand still on the office door, Joe stared at Caitlin’s bowed head. Her full hair fell forward, exposing her pale, soft neck. She seemed small, vulnerable. Dammit, no. No, he told himself firmly.
You aren’t going to worry about her.
But he let go of the door. Of their own accord, his feet took him to her desk.
Not his problem, absolutely not. Run, don’t walk, to the nearest exit.
He perched a hip on the corner of her desk.
This has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with his promise to Edmund. He’d gone over and above the call of duty so far. Anyone would think so.
Anyone.
Instead of running, he heard himself say, “Caitlin? What’s the matter?”
She jerked upright, flashed him a smile minus her usual megawattage and said with false cheer, “Nothing. Everything’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“You’re out of money.”
“Nothing new.”
“You’re going to lose your place.”
Her shoulders sagged. Her smile faded, and in its place came a disturbing helplessness. “It’s not mine anyway.”
So many emotions attacked him then, he couldn’t think straight enough to sort them out from each other. But leading the way was guilt—guilt because Edmund had taken care of
him
, a punk kid with no future, yet he’d ignored his own daughter.
Despite how Joe felt about her, and how he
didn’t
want to feel about her, she didn’t deserve this. Anger bubbled. Anger at Edmund, anger for Caitlin and anger for himself at being left to deal with the mess.
He was distinctly uncomfortable cleaning up the messes other people made of their lives. He’d done it for his mother. He’d done it for his siblings. He’d done it for countless “friends” over the years who’d assumed that because of what he did for a living, he had an overabundance of money.
He didn’t want to do it anymore. “I can help.”
“No.” Abruptly, Caitlin got up. “I need to walk,” she said, slipping off her high-heeled sandals, replacing them with running shoes. Joe watched, fascinated and mesmerized, as her dress gaped and revealed soft, full, plump breasts rebelling against their constraints.
He was a jerk, he thought, staring down her dress when she was undergoing a crisis. He told himself this quite firmly. But he didn’t—couldn’t—stop looking.
When she grabbed her purse, he stopped her, pulled her back. Their thighs touched, but it no longer startled him to feel that inexplicable heat in his body. “Caitlin.”
“No,” she said quickly, trying to pull back. For once, her eyes didn’t give her away. “No pity, remember?”
“I already told you,” he said, lying only a little. “You’re too prickly to feel sorry for.”
“
I’m
prickly?” She laughed a little. “Right.”
“Let me help,” he said rashly, having no idea why the words popped out. “I want to.”
“Why?”
Because already I can’t stop thinking about you, and if I have to be worried on top of being distracted all to hell, I’ll never get any peace.
“Because you need it, dammit. Because your life is out of control, and you need help. I can supply that help. It’s that simple.”
She stared at him for a long moment, and he could have sworn she was waiting for something, something more. Her lovely dark eyes searched his, but he was still befuddled by the view she’d just given him, and by touching her, and he didn’t know what else she could possibly want.
Finally, she turned away, but not before he saw her expression fall a little. “Thanks, but you’ve helped me enough. More than enough. Be back after lunch.” She ran out the door.
He watched her go, remorse and lust gnawing equally at his gut.
CAITLIN FOUND HERSELF in the lobby, aimless.
“Hey, there.”
She mustered a smile for Amy, who leaned over her food stand with a friendly smile that faded quickly enough at the expression on Caitlin’s face.
“Uh oh, you’ve got
the face
on.” Silently, Amy turned and grabbed a plate.
“What face?”
Amy bustled a moment, then turned with a heaping serving of cinnamon crumb cake. “The kind that is crying out for food. Preferably junk food, the more fattening the better.”
Caitlin had to laugh. “Yeah, it’s been that kinda day.”
“Hmm, no kidding. Tell me.”
“You tell me first,” Caitlin urged, needing to hear about someone and something other than herself and her own troubles.
“Okay. My first customer of the day hits on me every morning despite the fact that I am madly in lust with the UPS guy. The UPS guy, who by the way is the most fab man on the planet, doesn’t know I exist. My supplies were late and so was my alimony check, which means I am now late making my rent.”
Caitlin hummed her complete understanding and nodded, encouraging Amy to continue because suddenly her own problems didn’t seem so major.
“And if I’m late on my rent, it goes on my credit, and if I get bad credit, I can’t buy a new car at the end of the year like I promised myself.” She shrugged. “That about sums it up for today,” Amy said. “Now you.”
“Okay, my boss thinks I’m a helpless idiot. His best friend is falling for me and I don’t want to hurt him. And...I think I’m falling for my boss.”
“The one that thinks you’re a helpless idiot.”
“Yeah.” She could have complained about the condo and the car. Or about her serious and frightening lack of money, but strangely enough, that stuff didn’t matter as much.
“I like being my own boss,” Amy said into their companionable silence. “And you couldn’t hurt anyone if you tried, Caitlin. You’re too kind.”
“I— That’s a very generous thing to say.” Caitlin’s throat tightened at the look of utter sincerity on Amy’s face. “But you don’t really know me.”