Fair Game (3 page)

All through the meeting, she’d been really,
really
thinking about how good he would be, but she had to get that idea out of her mind. Since they’d be working together, the man was off-limits.

“Perhaps you should try Little Miss Snowflake,” she quipped, giving him a big, toothy smile. “She seemed quite eager.” Damn. Did that sound like jealousy?

“Little Miss Snowflake?” Kyle laughed, then cut himself off, but his blue eyes still sparkled. “No.”

“Well, then”—Josie raised her hand—“gotta go. No need to walk me out. Honest.”

“Tomorrow.”

She’d turned, on her way out the door for the second time. “Tomorrow?”

“The sand plant tour. I’ll pick you up at your office at two thirty.”

Jeez, that sounded idiotic, forgetting about the plant tour. “I can drive myself.” She cocked a hip. “Is this another come-on?”

He smiled. “I like the way you smell.”

He could have made an excuse. Instead, the honest comment sent heat rolling through her body.

“I won’t touch,” he added.

She almost hoped he’d break the promise.

She’d known her share of persistent guys. But he was so low-key about it, it was enticing. She was a girl like any other girl, and it was nice to be desired. She found his attention flattering. She could also easily find herself wanting more of it, which was
not
good in this particular situation. “Okay, two thirty.” So why was she agreeing?

“Wear a short skirt.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Cool your jets. No means no.” But God, she liked it. She liked
him
. He was intelligent, confident, authoritative, and exceptionally hot in suit and tie. A lethal combination. She liked a man who dressed up well.

“No means no,” he agreed, “unless a woman has already put her hand on my cock.”

Which she had. That robbed her of all arguments. “I’ll e-mail you the presentation package and see you tomorrow at two thirty. No need to come in, I’ll be out in the parking lot.” Then she beat a hasty retreat. Was that him laughing as she passed down the hall?

She stopped in the ladies’ room before heading out. The mirror revealed the telltale flush on her cheeks. The guy got her motor running. But really, this was a huge job. Her boss was Ernie Masters, but it was Connor Kingston she wanted to impress. He wasn’t just family, being Faith’s husband and all; he was CEO of Castle Heavy Mining. Faith’s father, Jarvis, would retire soon, and then Connor would be chairman. He’d given her a big chance to make good with this project. She wouldn’t let him down by having a fling with the lead client contact.

Leaving the stall, she washed her hands, then dried them. It wasn’t
just
Connor. Business and pleasure did not mix in any way, shape, or form. Especially if the man had any power over you. He’s in charge, you’re the one who gets screwed. And not in a good way. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt to prove it. Granted, she might be judging Kyle harshly based on a college love affair gone sour, but hot as he was, casual sex wasn’t worth taking the risk, not where her career was concerned. She had a couple of good guy friends to take care of those needs.

That was it. She was just horny. She needed a little roll in the hay to get Mr. Kyle Perry out of her system.

 

 

BY the time she got back to work, Josie had managed to move Kyle Perry to the back of her mind and was now ready to read Ernie Masters the riot act for ditching her. It was the principal of the thing. Even if he was her boss, he shouldn’t have left her in the lurch without the presentation package. She would have tackled him right away, too, if she hadn’t gone to her cubicle first to check her voice mails. The most significant was Connor, saying he wanted to see her ASAP when she got back. The slightest edge of tension laced his tone. Kind of odd for Connor, since nothing seemed to muss up his calm.

She left behind the hubbub of FI&T—Furnish, Install, and Train—of which Program Management was only one department. The cubicle arena housed not only her group, but the buyers, installers, instructors, et cetera. The phones never stopped ringing, and the voices rose to fever pitch as the day progressed and nerves frayed. A program manager was the center of a customer’s attention. When the crap rained down, it rained right on the project leader’s head. Yet Josie loved every minute of it. It was her job to make sure everything came together on time and on budget. If she screwed up, okay, not so pleasant. But when it all went right, she was a hero.

Her noisy, frenetic, predominantly male work environment was in marked contrast to the relative quiet along the executive row hallway leading to Connor’s office. She’d always felt as if she needed to genuflect, which was a holdover from when Jarvis Castle was running the whole shebang. Now the old man only came in two or three days a week. He spent a lot of his time with Faith and three-and-a-half-month-old David. The way old Jarvis gloated over the baby, you’d think no one had ever had a grandkid before.

Connor was on his cell phone, feet propped on his desk, ankles crossed. Open folders lay strewn across his desktop, a ring from his coffee mug seeping through a couple of papers, the messiness uncharacteristic of him. There was something about his smile that said he was talking to Faith. Josie couldn’t adequately describe that smile, except to say that it made her heart beat faster. She wasn’t used to good marriages—her own parents’ relationship was akin to walking through a minefield—but Connor and Faith, that couldn’t be anything other than love and total commitment. The forever kind. See, sometimes marrying the boss’s daughter worked out.

Josie tapped lightly on the doorframe.

Glancing up, he said into the cell, “Josie’s here. Gotta go.” He waved Josie in. “I’ll be home on time”—he paused, sighed—“and yeah, some TLC would be in order. Love you, baby.” Then he punched the end button and slid the phone onto his desk.

“You guys are sickening,” Josie quipped, because that amount of gushing love made her nervous, even if she was on the outside looking in.

Connor grinned, then slapped his feet onto the floor, sat up straight, and toyed with his tie. His suit jacket hung on a coatrack by the door, and he’d rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbow.

She sensed the stress beneath the grin as she slid into the chair opposite his desk. His dark hair was messed up, too, as if he’d run his hands through it.

“Find a replacement VP yet?” she asked. “Because if you haven’t, I’m still willing to take the job.” A little levity might help, because obviously
that
was a joke.

Connor was acting head of FI&T since their VP resigned a couple of weeks ago. FI&T was a massive undertaking, and she knew she wasn’t ready for that responsibility. She didn’t have the managerial skills yet. What bugged her, though, was that she wasn’t getting them with Masters standing in the way. The guy had no ambition and no desire to climb the ladder. How was she supposed to move into his job and get the experience she needed if he was never going to give it up? Not only that, his work had been on a downhill slide lately.

And here she was getting herself all pissed off again because he’d blown off that meeting.

Connor wasn’t getting the levity in her comment. In fact, the grin died on his face. “No VP yet,” he said. “And I wanted to tell you that we’re also losing Ernie Masters as well.”

Yes! Woohoo. She had a shot. Just when she thought life was a bitch.

Then she thought about the phrasing Connor had used,
We’re losing Masters.
“Are you firing him?” She might be pissed, but she didn’t want him fired. The guy had two kids he was putting through college.

Connor gathered a few of the papers on his desk, frowning at the coffee stains. “No. He’s going on medical leave.” Then he glanced up. “He won’t be coming back.”

He wasn’t coming back? Ever? Josie felt her jaw drop. Enough to catch flies. She couldn’t believe it. “Why not? What’s wrong with him?” She felt idiotic, like a middle school kid who couldn’t get fractions, but with that seemingly simple sentence, Connor had ripped the rug right out from under her.

“He’s got cancer.” The muscles of Connor’s face flexed, stressed, and suddenly the strain she’d heard in his voice made sense. “Pancreatic,” he added. “He has months, at most.”

The air in the office felt so harsh it burned her throat as she dragged it in. When Connor said Ernie was leaving, in her own mind, she’d cheered. Her first thought had been about taking Ernie’s job.

Jesus. Even if it was only to herself, all she’d done for months now was bitch and moan about the guy’s slacker habits, how it affected her, that he was standing in her way, yadda yadda. What about how angry she’d been this morning? Ernie hadn’t made it to the meeting because he was busy telling Connor he was dying. God. She started remembering how haggard he’d looked over the last few weeks and months, how tired. Yet he came to work every day, and she’d never even asked if he was okay. Good Lord, the man was only fifty-two, almost her dad’s age.

“He thinks you’re the best candidate for his job.”

Good God, Ernie was recommending
her
. She was
such
a fucking selfish bitch.

“You should meet with him this afternoon so he can turn everything over to you. He also said you can call him any time you have a question.”

Oh man. She wasn’t a crier. Not even after what happened in college. But dammit if her eyes weren’t burning right now. Connor was giving her the job, yet it felt like stepping over Ernie’s dead body.

“It’s not your fault, Josie. He didn’t tell anyone what was going on.” Connor wasn’t that much older than her, thirty-five to her thirty, yet in a lot of ways he was so much more together than she was.

She was afraid if she opened her mouth, she would start crying. About work stuff she was generally emotional, volatile, and outspoken. Her mom said she was like a bull in a china shop when she wanted her way. For the very first time, she realized it really meant that she was all about me, me, me.

“Why don’t you take an hour or so, go get a soda, sit in the sun.” Connor tipped his head slightly to meet her eyes. “Then you can talk to Ernie.”

What she wanted to do was talk to Faith. Funny. They were second cousins, and honestly, they’d hardly spoken until after Faith married Connor last May, yet Faith had become the closest thing to a best friend she’d ever had. There was Trinity, too. They wouldn’t make her feel better, but at least they listened when she said she felt like shit.

Yet she needed to get her act in gear right here, right now. “I’m fine. I don’t need a soda break.” She managed a deep breath. “I’ll talk to him now.”

Connor nodded. “Good. But before you go, why don’t you tell me about your meeting at SMG?”

She realized he was giving her a few extra minutes to compose herself. “It went well. I’m doing the tour tomorrow. They had a few suggestions for the plan’s improvement, but for the most part we agreed on everything.”

“What’d you think of Kyle Perry? Is he going to make the job easier or prove to be a pain in the ass?”

Kyle Perry. For the last five minutes, she’d forgotten all about him, yet the moment Connor said his name, warmth spread through her. “He seems like a knowledgeable, stand-up kind of guy, and I think he’ll be cooperative.” He’d be far more than cooperative if Kyle had his way.

“Good. I got the same impression.” Connor had worked with Kyle when first securing the SMG project. He’d been involved in the engineering stages as oversight—Connor’s background was finance—and as acting FI&T VP, he’d given final approval to her project plan.

Josie rose. “Well, if that’s all, I’ll go see Ernie.”

Connor stared at her a beat. “You’ll do fine, Josie.” He wasn’t referring to the job.

She nodded her head, but she wasn’t so sure. Like her mom said, she was a bull in a china shop, and she didn’t know how to talk to a guy who was dying. She knew she’d say the wrong thing.

At the door, she turned. “Thanks for having confidence in me to take his place.” In her shock, she wasn’t sure she’d said that earlier.

Connor had fought for her right from the beginning, getting old Jarvis to give her a shot at the Dominican project. If he hadn’t, she’d still be treading in Ronson’s steps, and
he
would have gotten Ernie’s job. Ronson was a decent program manager, but he had a tendency to hold everything close to his vest. Hence, when a project got out of control, no one had any warning and the cleanup was that much harder.

Now it was going to be up to her to manage that particular problem of his.

Connor nodded and smiled, but the tension around his eyes was back. She figured he had his own difficult feelings about Ernie’s illness. At least he had Faith and the baby to go home to for his shot of TLC. Even big CEOs needed it sometimes.

For a brief moment, she thought of how it would be to have someone to call when the chips were down. Someone to whom she could confess that she was utterly terrified to walk into Ernie’s office. Someone who was more than a best friend. A lover, a man who knew her inside and out. Someone to put his arms around her and say,
Hey, baby, it’s okay to cry, I won’t tell anyone.

Her distress over Ernie was making her feel unusually needy. Then again, maybe she’d been so focused on her career—and, admittedly, herself—that she’d missed the forest for the trees, so to speak. She hadn’t noticed her boss was dying right before her very eyes.

What the hell else was she missing in her life?

 

 

 

GETTING out of the city was a crawl, but at least the Golden Gate moved at the speed limit. Being on the road so much of the time was beginning to wear Kyle down. As director of West Coast Operations, the regular travel dose was high—two and a half weeks out of four—but because he was divorced with no kids, he was often sent on other missions that were not strictly his venue. He needed to find another job. He made a damn good salary, but at thirty-nine he was more than ready for the challenge of a vice presidency. The opportunities, however, weren’t opening up at SMG. Upon completion of the Coyote Ridge upgrades, finding a new position would become his priority.