his father.
“There must have been a miscommunication, Carl.” He couldn’t stand calling the man “Dad” in front of his colleagues. “I thought I was going to be running this meeting.”
Carl Stewart straightened in his seat. “You are, Connor. I’m just sitting in.”
Trying to hide the radical spike in his blood pressure, Connor settled himself in the seat next to his father’s.
The sixty-six-year-old man resisted aging at every cost. As a result, his dirty-blond dye job and string of young companions fooled many into thinking that Carl Stewart was a modern man. But the reality was that he was still a traditionalist who clung to the old ways like a life preserver.
He always did this. He was supposed to be phasing out of the company, making room for Connor to take the helm as CEO. But, typical of their relationship, his father just couldn’t let go.
As long as he attended all the meetings and held tight to the company reins, Carl could ensure that things continued to be done the way they always had been. That meant more vetoes for Connor’s ideas.
As long as his father showed up to work in the morning, the employees would continue to defer to him. How could they respect Connor as their boss if his father continued to act as if he needed to monitor his son at every turn? That’s why Connor spent as much time as he could on oil rigs. Out there, the employees respected him.
With gritted teeth, Connor barreled his way through the meeting despite his father’s constant interjections, anecdotes and questions. He wanted nothing more than to confront the elder Stewart about the situation, but it wasn’t the time to make waves.
His father would never retire if Connor couldn’t convince him that he could run the business with a cool head. That included finessing the old man.
If he bided his time, everything would go as planned. Carl Stewart would retire, and Connor would finally be free to run the company on his own.
At least that’s what he told himself. He could play his father’s game for a few more months, Connor reassured himself as he stalked past his executive assistant into his office.
But not without a little distraction for himself, he thought, picking up his phone to dial Shondra’s extension.
By Thursday afternoon Shondra was beginning to wonder if she’d gotten herself in over her head.
It took a lot of energy to rebuff Connor’s flirtations and do her work. No less than once a day she received phone calls, voice mails or e-mails, and although she found these to be the brightest spots in her day, they were distracting enough that she had to stay late in the evenings to keep ahead of her workload.
As if that wasn’t enough, anytime she found a spare moment she tried to do a little investigating.
Tomorrow she’d be boarding a plane to South America to tour another SI facility and look into their compliance issues. She wanted to make some progress today because she wouldn’t be back in the office until Tuesday.
For all the documents and files she had to sort through, she was coming up with exactly nothing. Worse yet, she was starting to count on Connor’s distractions to get her through the day.
He often called with silly questions to get her caught up in mindless banter. He was quick with words and their verbal sparring was more fun than it should have been.
And when he wasn’t calling, he managed to “run into her” in the break room, the elevator or even the deli where she liked to go for lunch.
The only place they hadn’t crossed paths—
There was a knock on her door.
—was her office.
“Come in.”
Connor slipped through the door and immediately came to tower over her desk.
“What are you doing here?” Shondra’s spine snapped straight. He’d caught her off guard. At that moment her desk was piled with files she’d snuck from a fifth-floor filing cabinet that she had no business accessing.
She wouldn’t be able to explain herself if Connor realized she was snooping around where she didn’t belong.
He circled her desk until he could lean against the edge, looming in her personal space. “What am I doing here? Is that any way to greet your boss?”
Shondra pushed back until her desk chair hit the wall at her back. She needed air and a means to distract him. The last thing she needed was for him to focus on the contents of her desk.
Her heart was racing in her chest. She hoped she didn’t look nervous. Fortunately she suspected that if she did, Connor would thank his masculine charms before he looked elsewhere for an explanation.
“Technically, your father’s my boss.” Shondra noted a pained look on his face that was gone before she could analyze it. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” she said with mock sweetness.
Shondra held her breath as he turned and looked over her desk. He grabbed a pencil out of her organizer and pretended to inspect it. “I just dropped by to make sure you weren’t snacking between meals.”
Shondra snatched the pencil away. “Thanks, but I haven’t had to resort to eating the office supplies yet.”
Connor leaned closer. “I’m glad to hear it. But I’ve noticed that you work through lunch quite a bit. That’s not healthy. I take the proper nourishment of my employees very seriously, so I’m going to take you to lunch today.”
Shondra shook her head. That was all she needed. So far, no one had noticed their little interactions around the office, but if they went to lunch, people would start to notice. She couldn’t stand the idea of being the object of office gossip and she told him as much.
“Besides,” she added, “I’m actually having lunch with Sarah today. So you don’t have to worry about me after all.”
Connor frowned. “You’re having lunch with my executive assistant? Why?”
“Because she’s nice and we hit it off.” Which was true; they’d run into each other a few times in the break room and had a lot in common. But she also thought a lunch date would give her a chance to find out if the woman had ever received any calls from her father.
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