Behind The Boardroom Door

“What?” she demanded, the heightened awareness she always seemed to feel around Sebastian battling with her very real desire to hang up at once.

“And a very good evening to you, too, Robson.” He sounded amused, and he’d lost the clipped tone he’d used when making his pronouncement on marriage the night before. Once again she heard the slightly sexy undertone beneath his sardonic response and she wondered if he was doing it on purpose. To bait her, perhaps?

She refused to succumb to its allure. “Good evening,” she said politely. “To what do I owe the honor of this call?”

“Aren’t we prim and proper, Robson? Wearing pink?”

“It’s none of your business what I’m wearing!” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she felt as if she’d been had. Was she always going to jump at the bait he dangled?

“What do you want?” she muttered.

She had been enjoying a quiet evening on her own and allowing herself the pretense that the houseboat was hers and hers alone, refusing to think about Sebastian Savas who had, drat his hide, invaded her dreams last night. How perverse was that?

And now here he was again.

“I want an update,” he said briskly, all business. “Did the guy come and fix the leak?”

Neely breathed easier. “Yes. Took him most of the afternoon, though. He’s sending you the bill. A hefty one, I imagine.”

“No doubt.”

He wanted to know what was done, and Neely told him as best she could. She hadn’t been there the whole time. “I had work to oversee,” she told him now. “I let him in, and I came back later to check how things were going. But I can’t give you a play-by-play. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I appreciate your bothering at all. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

She expected him to end the conversation there, but he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say anything. Still, he hadn’t hung up. She could hear him breathing.

There was no noise in the background of his call tonight, either. And Neely found herself with visions of Sebastian in his hotel room, lying on the bed flickering once more into her mind. She focused on a boat zipping across the lake, trying to get rid of the visions out of her head.

“Do you know where to buy little rose-colored boxes?” he asked suddenly.

Neely blinked. “What?”

“Not for me,” he said hastily. “My sister’s getting married. She’s been rattling on about these damn boxes she wants on the table at the reception. For mints or something. She keeps calling me and bugging me.”

Neely’s mind boggled. Sebastian not only had a sister, but she called him and bugged him about tiny wedding favors?

“I said, try the Internet. But she wants to see them in person,” he said wearily.

Neely almost laughed at the combination of fondness and frustration in his voice. “Oh, dear.”

“So, do you?” he demanded when she didn’t speak.

“Why on earth would I?”

“They’re rose,” he said. “That’s almost pink. As far as I’m concerned, it is pink. But Vangie insists there’s a difference.”

“Of course there’s a difference,” Neely said. “But I don’t know anyplace to get them. Some wedding place, I suppose. How many does she need?”

“Two hundred and fifty or so.”

“Yikes. When’s the wedding?”

“Three weeks.”

“And she’s just now starting to look for them?”

“No. She’s just now decided for sure that’s what she wants. Or thinks she wants. What difference does it make? How the hell long does she have to have them anyway?”

“Not long, I suppose. But…I should think she’d want things prepared.”

“Oh, she does,” Sebastian said grimly. “But she keeps changing her mind. Or having it changed for her. First they were silver. Then they were rose. Then they were silver and rose. Now they’re rose again. For simplicity’s sake,” he quoted wryly. “And God knows how many more times it will change. Since the rest of them got here, it’s four times worse.”

“Rest of whom?”

“My sisters. Not all of them, but more than enough.”

“All?” Neely said faintly. He’d mentioned one. That had been surprising enough. And now there were more? “How many sisters do you have?”

“Six.”

“Six?” She gaped, unable to imagine it.

“And three brothers.”

“Dear God.”

“At last count.”

“What!”

“My old man has a habit of getting married and having kids,” Sebastian said grimly. “It’s what he does.”

“I see.” She didn’t, and she suspected Sebastian knew that. The whole notion of ten kids in a family astonished her. And then there was the “my old man has a habit of getting married…” part.

Did his “old man” have a habit of getting divorced as well?

Was that what was behind Sebastian’s complete cynicism toward marriage? She could understand that. But somehow, even though he’d brought it up, she couldn’t see herself asking him.

Still, that alongside the nine brothers and sisters would go a long way toward explaining Sebastian’s standoffishness. When you were one of ten, you probably needed to draw pretty definite boundaries. But from where she stood, as an only child, there was a definite appeal to the sound of all those siblings.

“You’re so lucky,” she told him.

“Lucky? I don’t think so.”

“I would have given anything for a sibling or two.”

“A sibling or two wouldn’t necessarily have been bad,” he said heavily. “It’s nine of them that gets old.”

“I suppose.” But she wasn’t sure. She thought it sounded like far more fun than being dragged around from commune to commune after her mother.

“It’s why I bought the houseboat,” he told her. “They were moving in on me.”

That was why? She sat up straight on the sofa. “All of them?”

“Four of them. Four too many.” She could hear the edginess in his voice.

“Just until the wedding?”

“God, I hope so. In fact, no question. After that, they’re gone.” There was certainly no doubt in his mind about that.

“So, when they’re gone, will you sell to me?”

He laughed. “My God, you’re persistent.”

“When I want something, yes. Will you?”

“Like I said, Robson. Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”

“And what would that be?”

“You’re a smart cookie. Max is always saying so. Figure it out.”

The sight of the houseboat at the end of the dock made Seb smile.

He was always happy to get home. Like he’d told Neely on Wednesday, he didn’t like being on the road. He didn’t mind working all hours, but at the end of the day he liked his own place, his own space. Solitude. Peace and quiet. There had always been a sense of calm when he walked through his front door.

But there had never been a sense of anticipation before.

His heart had never kicked up a notch. On the contrary, it usually settled and slowed. But today, all day long while he was still in Reno going over the building specs with the contractors, in the back of his mind Seb was already on his way home.

Ordinarily he would have stopped and picked up some takeaway for dinner. But tonight he didn’t. He thought he’d wait and see if Robson was hungry. If so, they could get something together.

It wasn’t a date.

It was just a courtesy. They were sharing living space for a while. So, the way he saw it, they could share a meal.

Besides, he owed her. She’d called him about the leak. She’d arranged for the repair. She had been the one who’d had to come home and let the repairman in.

So he would buy her a meal. It was the least he could do. Simple.

But when he opened the door, she wasn’t there.

“Robson?”

Silence. Except for the dog. He was there, stretching and yawning and thumping his tail madly as Seb came in and dumped his suitcase on the floor and briefcase on the table.

The kittens were there, too, purring and meowing, noticeably bigger and even friskier than they had been on Monday. They attacked his briefcase and his shoelaces with equal enthusiasm. One scaled his trouser leg, putting tiny claw holes in the fine summer wool.

“Hey, there!” Seb lifted it off and cradled it in his hands. “Robson? You here?”

The guinea pig whistled. The rabbit didn’t even look up from crunching on its dinner. No noticeable change in them and, thank God, no more of them, either.

And no Neely anywhere.

He felt oddly deflated. Of course he had no right to expect her to be there. They hadn’t discussed dinner. It would have seemed like a date if they’d discussed it.

Well, it wasn’t a date, that was certain. It wasn’t anything because she wasn’t here.

It was only seven, though. Maybe she’d worked late. God knew he did often enough. So he took a shower and changed clothes and came back downstairs hungrier than ever.

Still no Neely.

There was however a blinking light on the desk phone. It wasn’t his phone. But he wasn’t sure it was Robson’s either. If someone had left a message for Frank, he’d have to pass it on. Seb punched the message light.

“Neel’.” It was Max’s voice. “Couldn’t reach you on your mobile. Left you a message, but thought I’d try you at your place. I’m running late. Just go on in. I’ll be there.”

Go on in?

Go on in where? His brain couldn’t help asking the question even though, in his gut, he already knew the answer. But before he could follow the thought any further, his own mobile phone rang.

He answered without even glancing at the ID. “Savas.”

“Oh, good. You’re there!” Vangie’s voice trilled in his ear. “Are you home? In Seattle, I mean?”

Seb slumped on the sofa. A kitten launched itself and landed in his lap. He winced. “Yeah. Just got back.”

“Great! We thought you’d like to come have dinner with us.” She was all bubbly and bright and eager. Seb could hear lots more bubbly bright female voices in the background. “See the progress we’ve made for the wedding!” Vangie went on. “Want to?”

No, actually he didn’t. Dealing with five of his sisters was very close to the last thing Seb wanted to do tonight.

But he said, “I’ll be there.”

Because the absolute last thing he wanted to do was sit home and think about the implications of Neely Robson having a key to Max’s house.

Neely was humming “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” when she let herself in the front door at eleven the next day.

It was beautiful—sunny and bright with not much wind. Not enough to go sailing, she’d told Max when she left his place, which was fine because she had other things to do.

“Hey, there,” she said dropping her tote bag and kneeling as she threw her arms around Harm who launched himself at her. “Did you miss me?”

“He didn’t, actually,” a harsh male voice said, “because he had me to take him out last night and this morning.”

Neely’s gaze jerked up to see Sebastian standing at the entrance to the living room. He was backlit and she couldn’t really see his features, but she had no doubt he was scowling. She gave Harm one last happy cuddle and stood up warily.

After their two phone conversations during the week, she’d dared hope they had reached some sort of friendly rapport. Obviously she was wrong.

“I didn’t neglect him,” she said firmly. “I arranged for Cody to come in last night and early this morning.

“Because you knew you were going to spend the night?” Sebastian demanded.

“Yes.”

He didn’t say anything, but she could hear his teeth grinding.

“Is there a problem? I called him this morning to make sure he’d come over and he said he did. Are you saying he didn’t?”

Sebastian opened his mouth, then shut it again abruptly. He shrugged irritably and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I never saw him.” He turned away and stalked into the living room.

Neely tossed her tote bag onto the stairs to carry up later, then followed him. “Were you here?”

He turned back to face her. “I didn’t spend the night elsewhere, if that’s what you mean?”

“Unlike me?” Neely said, capable of filling in the blank.

“Yes. Unlike you.” He bit out the words. “Was it worth it?”

“Oh, yes.” She gave him a bright smile. “It was great. We had dinner and then we went upstairs and—”

“Spare me the details,” Sebastian snapped. “How old are you?”

Neely blinked at the sudden shift in topic. “Twenty-six. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“He’s fifty-two!” The words burst from his lips. He wasn’t scowling now; he was glaring furiously.

It took Neely a second to make the leap. Then she narrowed her gaze. “You’re talking about Max, I presume?”

“Damn right, I’m talking about Max! That’s not to say he isn’t well preserved. For his age, I guess he could be considered a stud—”

“A stud?” Neely’s jaw dropped. “A stud?” She stared at him for three seconds, and then a giggle escaped her. It seemed to infuriate him.

“You know what I mean! But for God’s sake, you’ve got skills, talent. You win prizes! You don’t have to sleep with the boss to get ahead!”

She hesitated only a moment. Then she twirled a long curl around her finger as if considering the question.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I believe it’s a tried-and-true method in some companies.”

Sebastian’s jaw locked. She thought she could see steam coming out of his ears. Served him right, she thought.

“And as you say, Max is very attractive…for his age.” She giggled again, as if enjoying some private reflection.

“You’re more attracted to me than you are to Max.” He said the words flatly, yet there was a wealth of challenge in them, and he looked at her as if daring her to deny them.

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. She arched her eyebrows at him provocatively. “You think so?”

“You know you are,” he insisted. “There’s been a spark between us since day one.”

This time she opened her mouth and didn’t shut it, still trying to formulate the words. She gave a careless, dismissive shrug. “In your dreams, Savas.”

But Sebastian didn’t wait. “You want proof?” He closed the space between them so that she had to tip her head up to look at him. His mouth was bare inches away. She could see the whiskered roughness of his jaw, could feel the heat of his breath.

She swallowed. She blinked. She waited.

And the next thing she knew Sebastian’s lips came down on hers.

Neely had certainly been kissed before. She’d known her share of masculine mouths, their hard warmth, their persuasive touch. She’d opened to them, dared to taste them in turn. And she’d always been able to keep her wits about her, to think, hmm, kissing is interesting, but no big deal.

All of a sudden, right now, with Sebastian Savas’s mouth on hers, it became a very big deal indeed.

There was the hard warmth and the persuasion. But there was more—a hunger, a need, a seeking, a question looking for an answer.

And her mouth knew the answer even as it asked questions of its own.

It wasn’t just a spark, either. Though she would have had to admit, had she been capable of rational thought, that yes, she’d sensed it, too.

This was far more than a spark. It was a fire, burning hot and fast, fanned to full flame. And the deeper the kiss, the less the fire was quenched. It raged and consumed, hungry and desperate and edging toward out of control.

His arms came around her, slid up her back, drew her closer so that their bodies leaned, touched, pressed. She had never felt like this, had never wanted a kiss to go on and on. Had never kissed without caring where her next breath came from because she knew—she was sharing his.

She lifted her hands and touched his back, his shoulders, the nape of his neck. Her fingers threaded through short crisp hair, then fell to clutch his shoulders as her need spiraled, her hunger grew.

And then, abruptly, Sebastian pulled away to stare down into her eyes, his own lambent with arousal, his breathing harsh. “Does Max kiss you like that?”

Stunned, shaken and absolutely furious—as much at herself as at him, Neely could barely find the words. “No one kisses me like that!”

Sebastian smiled a satisfied feral smile. “So dear Max isn’t perfect after all? I’m not surprised. It’s what you get, trying to get it on with a man old enough to be your father.”

Neely’s heart was still slamming in her chest as she wrapped her arms across it and hoped she didn’t look as rattled as she felt. “I wasn’t trying to ‘get it on’ with Max. We were working.”

“All night?” Sebastian scoffed.

“No, but until two. And then I went to bed. Alone. In the guest room.”

“Yeah, sure. So, you’re saying you’re just friends, is that it?” Sebastian mocked her.

And Neely slowly, firmly shook her head no. “We’re not just friends.” She lifted her eyes and met Sebastian’s knowing look. “He’s my father.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“YOUR father?” Seb stared at her, poleaxed. His heart hammered, his body clamored, and he didn’t believe a word of it. “He is not.”

“He is. Max is my dad.” Robson insisted, her chin jutting as if she was daring him to take a poke at it.

Seb was sorely tempted, especially after he dragged in a desperate breath and looked at that chin more closely, spying something familiar in the shape of it as he did so.

God Almighty, was she really Max’s daughter? Was that the female version of Max’s chin he was seeing? He stared at her, stunned, still disbelieving.

Robson glared right back, eyes flashing. And the longer and harder he stared the more Seb realized that the color of her eyes was the same stormy blue of the man he’d just accused her of sleeping with.

Oh, hell.

The boss’s daughter. And he had just kissed her senseless.

Worse, it wasn’t only Neely Robson who’d been senseless with desire. He’d been right there with her—wanting her.

And now…now he wanted to kill her.

Ordinarily Seb went to ice when his emotions were frayed. He was all steely coldness when he needed to be. But his emotions were beyond frayed at the moment. And he went beyond ice and straight into meltdown.

“What the hell were you playing at?” he demanded.

“Me?” She arched her eyebrows in a way that annoyed him. As if she had nothing to reproach herself with.

“Never mind.” He cut her off before she could speak. “I know damn well what you were doing! You were baiting me, trying to get me to make a complete ass of myself!”

“You did that all by yourself,” she informed him airily. “And I did not bait you.”

“The hell you didn’t! ‘Max is very attractive…for his age’!” He flung her words back at her in a mocking tone. “That’s not baiting?”

“I was agreeing with what you said. You’re the one who called him a ‘stud’ first. You’re the one who accused me of having an affair with him! You’ve been accusing me practically since the day you met me!”

“And you’ve been acting like he was your long-lost lover!”

“Or my long-lost father.”

She said the words quietly, but Seb was too incensed to care. “You didn’t have to lead me on. You could have said, ‘He’s my father,’ anytime at all.”

“I could have,” Neely agreed. “But why should I?”

“Because it’s the truth!” he shouted.

At the fury of his explosion, Harm put back his head and howled.

“Now see what you’ve done!” Neely dropped to the floor and wrapped her arms around the dog, shushing him. He stopped howling and happily licked her chin.

“I didn’t do anything,” Seb said gruffly. “He was just yelling at you, too.”

“Was not.” Neely’s voice was muffled against the dog’s fur. She hugged him tightly.

Seb scowled down at her, still infuriated. “Stop hiding behind that dog.”

At the accusation her head jerked up, and she threw him a daggerlike glare. But when Seb just stood there staring at her implacably, she scrambled to her feet, threw her shoulders back. “I am not hiding behind anything—not my dog, nor my father. And I did tell you—just now.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said sarcastically. “Thoughtful of you. Got any more…revelations, Robson?” He arched a brow at her. “Is your mother the Queen of England maybe?”

“Who’s baiting whom now? And my mother is exactly who I said she was.”

“A hippie who just happened to have a fling with the most uptight workaholic in the western hemisphere?”

“She had a relationship with Max. They lived together.”

Seb’s eyes widened in surprise.

“They did,” Neely insisted. “They were young,” she said. “And in love.”

“Sure they were.”

“See?” Robson pretended to pout. Aiming those moist, luscious lips at him. “There you go again, making judgments, jumping to conclusions! That’s exactly why I didn’t say I was Max’s daughter in the first place. If I had, you would automatically have assumed that he’d given me the job because he’s my father.”

“And he didn’t?” Seb asked sceptically.

“No, he didn’t. He didn’t give me my job at all. He’s not even the one who hired me. Gloria Westerman in personnel hired me.”

“You never met with Max?”

She folded her arms across her chest now and leaned back against the bar between the kitchen area and the living room. “I never met with Max.”

“But you knew he was your father.” It wasn’t a question.

Robson nodded. “Yes, I knew. But he didn’t know who I was at all. I hadn’t seen him in years. We moved to California when I was four.”

“And you never saw him again?”

“Not until November when I came to work. And then I didn’t want him to know who I was. I use my stepfather’s last name. Max didn’t know it. I wanted to make it on my own before I told him.”

Seb rubbed a hand against the taut cords at the back of his neck. He was still ticked by her having gulled him with her pretense, but he could appreciate the reason she had given for not telling Max or anyone else who she was. If he was honest, he knew that in her shoes, he’d have been tempted to do the same.

“You’re not telling me he still doesn’t know, are you?” Because there was no way on earth he’d believe that.

“No, of course not. After I won the Balthus Grant and he invited me to work on the Wortman project with him, I knew I had to. If we were going to be working together, I wanted him to know. Besides by then I’d won the grant, so I knew and he knew—and so did everyone else—that I could do the job. See?”

Seb grunted. He rocked back on his heels, muttering under his breath. Yeah, he saw. It made sense, what she’d said. But it still annoyed him.

“You could have told me.”

“Like you told me you were buying the houseboat!”

“That’s not the same thing at all!”

“No? Well, it sure felt like it. One minute I thought I knew what was going on—I was buying a houseboat from Frank—and the next minute you walked in and it was yours! My home belonged to you!” “

Her face flushed again, the heightened color making her more beautiful than ever, and Seb felt an overwhelming urge to stop arguing and kiss her again.

He took one step toward her and she said abruptly, “Stay away!”

He stopped, brows drawing down. “Stay away?”

“Yes.” She wrapped her arms even more tightly across her breasts as if she were cloaking herself in body armor.

He gave her a sardonic look. “You’re going to go all cool and detached and claim that I forced myself on you? Another prevarication, Robson?”

Her lips pressed in a tight line. “I’m not lying, Savas. And I’m not claiming any such thing. But—” and here she shook her head fiercely “—you’re not doing it again.”

“Why not? You liked it. You kissed me back.”

Let her deny that if she dared.

For a moment he thought she might, but then she shrugged. “Yes, I did.”

“So…why stop? Don’t you like kissing? It felt as if you liked kissing,” he told her with a knowing grin.

“Kissing’s fine.” Her voice rose, as if she were going to say more, but in the end, she didn’t. She simply shook her head.