She couldn’t remember if or when she’d been shown such simple, untethered friendship. Any friends she’d thought she had were gone. Vanished into thin air because she was no longer a somebody.
But these guys… They’d all looked her in the eyes instead of her chest—another plus in their favor—when they’d talked to her, and while it was obvious they thought she was pretty, they’d treated her with respect.
Caitlin smiled, embarrassed to feel her throat tighten up at reliving their warm, eager greeting. She’d never in her life felt so welcome—the still scowling Joseph Brownley excluded—and a realization hit hard. Everywhere she’d gone, everything she’d done, she’d either been accepted for her looks or for her father’s money.
Never for herself alone.
Everyone left and she was standing here with her boss. She knew darn well he didn’t want her, that he didn’t think she could handle this job. But for some reason, he wasn’t going to refuse her.
He caught her gaze with his, and his jaw went all hard again. Most of her resolve wavered and what little there was left took a bad beating at his next words.
“Okay, princess, here’s how this situation is going to work.”
Where had that nice man gone? The one she’d first spoken with, the one she’d thought was going to be her friend? She looked carefully, but couldn’t see a trace of him. It was almost as if once he had realized he was stuck with her, he’d purposely turned himself into someone she wouldn’t like.
Well, he’d been partially successful, she thought. She didn’t like him, but she wouldn’t run off because of it.
“Last door on the left is my office,” Joe said gruffly, stepping into the hallway to point it out. “I hate to be interrupted, so stay out.” He looked at her expectantly then, a little hopefully. Maybe she’d still run off if he were boorish enough?
As if she’d read his mind, she laughed at him. Laughed. The unexpected sweet sound had Joseph’s stomach muscles tensing.
“Are you waiting for me to cower from such a fierce command?” She shook her head, her short blond bob flying. Her flowery fragrance wafted up, assaulting his nostrils, annoying him because she smelled so damn good he found himself straining for another sniff. “Or maybe, better yet, you think I’ll run off with my tail between my legs.”
Her words put a vivid picture in his mind of what was between her legs.
“Should I remind you whose daughter I am?” she asked, breaking into his startling sensual thoughts.
Her father had backed down to no one. “I know whose daughter you are.”
“Good. 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.”