And I don’t frighten easily.”
Mad at her, at his techs and at himself, he stalked back into the front office.
“Clearly,” she muttered, “I’m to follow you.”
Why today? he wondered helplessly. Why, when he was so damn close to finishing his program, did he have to deal with this? With a quick glance upward, he grimaced. Thanks, Edmund. Hope you’re getting a kick out of this.
Caitlin passed him in the hallway. “Maybe I would be better off at Del Taco.”
He watched as she sashayed prettily into the main office, her hips swinging in tune to his undisciplined hormones. “I’ll give you a lift to the nearest one.” Then, to soften the words he realized were unkind, he offered the sweetest smile he could.
She shook her head. “Well, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
Her mouth was pouty, lusciously red, and the most inane thought popped into his head.
She must taste like heaven.
The woman was a blond bombshell, with a complete lack of work ethic, designed to torture him. And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d look like spread across his desk wearing one of those come-hither looks.
“So…how many employees do you have here?” she wondered aloud, interrupting his erotically charged thoughts.
“Besides the three idiots you’ve already met, just me.”
“And now me,” Caitlin added.
“I’m doing my best to change that.”
Ah, sarcasm. Well, she could understand that. The way he kept his big body so tense, she imagined he was quite uncomfortable. Most men, in her experience, fought unease with a sort of bearish aggression. Her father had been the king of that act, though he’d never used it on her, and she imagined this Mr. Brownley wasn’t much different. “I’m sticking, Mr. Brownley.”
“So you’ve said.”
Her bravado was quickly taking a beating in the face of his stubbornness. Before she caved in completely, she tried small talk. “I thought CompuSoft was huge. According to my father, this place was the future of progressive software.”
Incredibly, Joseph’s eyes softened. His attitude vanished. “He said that?”
It was obviously an illusion that he suddenly appeared so vulnerable. He was about as vulnerable as a starving black bear waking from hibernation. “He was quite proud of this place.”
His throat worked. His voice sounded hushed, almost reverent. “I take that as a huge compliment.”
Her father never complimented lightly, and just thinking about him hurt when she was tired of hurting. He’d rarely complimented her. To combat the thought, she desperately continued her one-sided conversation. “How could you have only the four of you here?”
“This is no longer the huge corporation it was under your father. We’ve been siphoned off, separated from all his other various businesses. We’re on our own, just a few of us designing and supporting software.” He gave her that impenetrable stare again. “You didn’t get a copy of the will?”
Caitlin noticed that whenever he mentioned her father, he watched her carefully. But she could hear his thick disapproval, and her stomach tightened in response to the unfamiliar stress purling through her.
If he only knew how she’d pored over that darn will, wondering what had happened to her nice, cozy life.
If only he had a clue as to how lost she felt in this new, unsafe world, or how much resentment for her father she harbored deep down in her heart.
“Yes,” she managed to answer with her usual cheekiness, refusing to let him get to her. “I got it.”
“If the terms were too difficult to comprehend,” he said slowly, finally succeeding in stirring her rare temper, “you should have asked someone to explain it to you.”
“Contrary to what you must believe about me, I do understand the written word.”
“All of your father’s companies were divested. CompuSoft was half-mine to start with, so he simply willed me the other half.”
Her father could give this man half a company, just hand it over, and he couldn’t leave her a penny. Couldn’t leave her anything but a measly job with a man who couldn’t abide her. It took every ounce of common courtesy she had not to resent Joe Brownley for this.
Well, okay, that was a big fat lie. She did resent him. A lot. “Nice of him.”
“Nice?” He missed the sarcasm and let out a short laugh that seemed harsh. “It was incredible. The most generous thing anyone’s ever done for me—” He stopped abruptly, stared at her. “I have no idea why I’m telling you this.”
She didn’t, either. It hurt unbelievably to know her father had thought so little of his own flesh and blood that he’d left this man more than he had his only child. “Where do I start?”
“So you’re staying, then?”
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Fine. This is the reception desk.” He gestured behind him to a wide desk facing the entrance. At least, she assumed it was a desk; all she could see were stacks and stacks of paperwork, files, various computer parts and what looked like an old, forgotten take-out food bag.
“All you have to do is come in on time, which around here is eight o’clock, and answer the occasional phone.” He sent her a long look. “Can you do that?”
“Hmm. I think I can manage.” She was really going to have to teach him a thing or two about manners. As for the ungodly hour, she’d have to work on it. “Surely you have more needs than just answering your phone.”
His light eyes darkened. His mouth curved, making her blink in surprise. Sullen, the man had been beyond handsome. Smiling, he was stunningly gorgeous.
“I don’t think you want to hear about my needs.”
No. No, she didn’t, Caitlin decided as her heart took off running. “Probably not.”
Slowly, he ran his gaze down the length of her, then back up. When he met her eyes with his, an unmistakable heat radiated from them. Caitlin had been on the receiving end of looks like that ever since she’d grown breasts, so she’d long ago learned to tune them out. Yet now, under Joe Brownley’s suddenly hot gaze, as unbelievable as it seemed, she felt herself blush. “Something wrong with my attire?”
“Yeah,” he said in that low, disturbingly sexy voice. “In this office, you’ll need something a little…more.”
She’d known it! Her clothes were all wrong. “More?”
“Shapeless. Like a potato sack.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in a potato sack.”
“You’re distracting.”
