“Exactly. But probably not the first time—he’s way too much of a control freak to let that happen. I think he’d actually have to be in the middle of an affair with a woman before he ever got sloppy enough to risk her getting pregnant. Which means—”
“Which means the field of hundreds just got narrowed down to seventy or eighty?” Which still wasn’t great odds, but she had to admit it was better than what she’d originally feared.
“More like fifteen or twenty. The old bastard’s pretty damn careful about who he lets close to him.” His voice was carefully devoid of emotion, but it made her hurt for him in a way she’d never expected to.
After all, she was the orphan in this equation, the one who had grown up with nothing as she was bounced from foster home to foster home. He was the golden boy, the glib son of a billionaire who had never expected anything from him. So why then did she suddenly feel sorry for him?
Not that she could let him see that. Griffin didn’t do pity, self or otherwise.
“So you want to find your sister.” She dragged herself back to the conversation at hand. “And then what? Saddle her with the CEO job?”
He sighed. “You need vision, Sydney. Work with me here. I find Hollister’s missing daughter, I get the money and Dalton is left with nothing. Which isn’t going to sit real well with him, no matter what he says. So when I sweep in and offer him a fat CEO salary plus major stock options in the company, he’s going to jump at it. Especially if he doesn’t have to deal with Dad’s BS. I’ll put him in charge, let him run things the way he wants to.” He dusted his hands together like it was a fait accompli. “Everybody wins.”
“It’s not always about winning.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Sydney. It’s always about winning. It’s only the stakes and the game that change.”
Which summed up all the reasons she couldn’t be with him anymore. When there was nothing on the line, it was easy to spend time with him and not care about philosophical differences or his lifestyle or the fact that everything really was a game to him.
But now that he was her boss, she couldn’t afford to wear those blinders anymore. She couldn’t afford to let a few minutes’—okay, a few hours’—satisfaction get in the way of her job. She liked her job, needed her job for the money and the sense of self it gave her. There was no way she was going to become one of those women who slept with the boss, her survival dependent on the whims of a man she had no hope of holding on to.
No, a few orgasms—earth-shattering or not—were not worth playing Russian roulette with her whole life.
“You really think this is going to work?” she asked Griffin.
“It’s absolutely going to work. Plus, the good news is Dalton is handing over all his research so far and he thinks he has a lead. So we’re golden.” He winked at her. “Trust me.”
As if. She took a deep breath, blew it out slowly and tried to ignore the fact that she suddenly felt like she was making a deal with the devil. “Fine. I’ll help you find your sister. But that’s it.”
“What do you mean, that’s it? That’s all I need.”
“I mean, if we’re going to be working together, if you’re going to be my boss, this thing between us has to end. No sex, no candlelit dinners, no late-night phone calls. We—” she waved her finger back and forth between them “—are officially over.”
For long seconds, Griffin stared at her like he couldn’t quite comprehend what she was saying. Then he did the most amazing thing. He threw back his head and laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
Three
It was cute really, how annoyed she looked.
She set her jaw as bright pink flushed her cheeks. “I’m not joking.”
He tried to clamp down on his laughter. He really did. “I’m not joking.”
“Then stop laughing.” As if to give herself a better angle from which to glare at him, she pushed to her feet.
But from his point of view, it only brought her closer. She’d been sitting not far from him but still out of reach. Now he was easily able to lasso her arm and pull her toward him so she stood between his outstretched legs.
“I’m serious,” she insisted, but there was no force to her words and—as if she could read his mind—her gaze dropped briefly to his mouth.
“I know you are. That’s what makes it cute.” He widened his stance and pulled her close enough so that she was pressed against the vee of his legs, the juncture of her thighs against the hard length of his erection.
It felt so good having her there, so right. He inhaled sharply and was immediately hit with the scent of her. Sydney never wore perfume, but she favored a shampoo that smelled like coconut and lime. He was used to the smell of her hair, the way it mixed with the naturally sweet smell of her own skin and made him think of eating pancakes in bed on a perfect, lazy Saturday morning. But today she’d showered at his place and instead of her normal tropical, fruity smell, when he inhaled, he got a hit of Sydney layered under the smell of his own soap. Maybe it shouldn’t have been sexy, but it was. He felt it like a punch in the gut. She’d been in his shower mere hours ago. The smell of her only reinforced every instinct he had. She was his. Whether she knew it or not, she belonged to him.
Which made her edict that they stop sleeping together all the more funny.
He gave in to the urge to slip his hand along her jaw and to pull her closer.
Her mouth parted and she sucked in a quick breath. Anticipation. But instead of kissing her, he buried his nose in the hair right behind her ear and drew in a deep breath, just taking in the scent of her because he wanted to remember forever how she smelled in that instant. To burn it into his memory.
He felt a little shudder go through her and then he couldn’t resist running a trail of kisses up under her ear and across her cheek to her mouth. Then his lips were moving over hers in a soul-searing kiss. The kind that almost ended up with him ripping her clothes off and devouring her until she came apart in his arms.
Unfortunately, he didn’t think sex with his assistant would be a very efficient way to spend his first afternoon as CEO. Besides, even with the door closed, there was always the risk they’d be interrupted.
It was a struggle, but he mustered enough restraint to lift his mouth from hers and nudge her hips away from his before he lost all control. For a long moment she just stood there, face tilted up, lips moistened and parted, like she was so dazed she hadn’t even realized he was no longer kissing her.
He smiled again, purposefully making light of the irresistible pull she held over him. “Well, then, you let me know how that goes for you.”
She blinked. “How what goes?”
“That whole not sleeping together thing you have planned.”
The space between her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Then she backed up a step and jerked her hands away from his hips. “Well, this was hardly a fair test.”
“Right, sweetheart.” He bopped the tip of her nose with his finger. “Let me know if you devise a fairer test than that. Meanwhile, I’ll be in my new office.”
He loved seeing her shocked expression as he sauntered into the office that used to be Dalton’s and shut the door behind him.
Once he was alone in the room, however, he blew out a long, slow breath.
When it came to running Cain Enterprises, he wasn’t nearly as confident as he’d let Sydney believe. He wasn’t worried about the day-to-day stuff, but the prospect of dealing with the board damn near had him breaking out in a cold sweat.
The