Scorned by the Boss / The Texan's Secret Past: Scorned by the Boss

Two

“Men suck.” Disgusted, Debbie Harris lifted her appletini high.

“Hear, hear!” Janine Shaker picked up her Cosmo and held it poised for a toast.

“Preaching to the choir,” Caitlyn said, and lifted her glass to clink against the rims of her friends’ glasses. Then she took a long sip of her raspberry martini and blew out a breath.

After the weekend she’d had, not to mention that last conversation with Jefferson, it was good to be with her friends. Women who understood. Women she could count on, no matter what.

“Are you okay, honey?” Debbie asked, always the one with the biggest heart and the soul most easily bruised. “I mean, really okay?”

“I’m fine,” Caitlyn said, and surprised herself with the truth of the statement. Good god. She’d been poised to marry Peter, for heaven’s sake. Shouldn’t she be in mourning? Shouldn’t she be weeping miserably in a corner somewhere?

Sure, she’d done some crying over the weekend, but if Peter really had been the love of her life, then wouldn’t she be feeling more…shattered? But she didn’t. And somehow that was even sadder than the breakup of her engagement.

“I cannot believe Peter thinks you’re in love with your boss,” Janine said on a snort of laughter. “Lyon makes you nuts.”

“I think Peter was just scared and needed a reason to back out of the wedding, the big weenie,” Debbie said.

“Yeah, but accusing her of being in love with Lyon?” Janine shook her head. “That’s really stretching.”

At the moment, Caitlyn could hardly even think about Jefferson Lyon without gritting her teeth. In love with him? Not a chance. Attracted? Sure. What red-blooded, breathing woman wouldn’t be? But attraction was where it started and ended.

“Don’t even get me started on Jefferson Lyon,” Caitlyn muttered, and snatched a tortilla chip from the basket in the middle of the table. As she crunched down hard on it, only half pretending she was snapping her boss’s neck in half, she told her friends, “When Jefferson found out the wedding was off, he just said, ‘Oh, good. You can go to Portugal with me after all.’ No I’m sorry, Caitlyn. Are you all right? Do you need to take some time off? Do you want me to kill the jerk for you?” She took a sip of her drink and reached for another chip. “I’m telling you, I came within a hair of quitting.”

“You should’ve,” Debbie said. “Men suck.”

“Where’ve I heard that before?” Janine wondered aloud.

“Funny.” Debbie smirked at her, then turned her gaze back on Caitlyn. “Anyway, Peter obviously had some commitment issues and was just using Lyon as a handy excuse.”

“Well, it was a stupid one,” Caitlyn said. She refused to think about the quick whip of something hot and delicious that usually zapped her whenever she was too close to Jefferson. That was just lust. Or not even that. Just…appreciation for a good-looking guy. That was it. She nodded. Appreciation. Attraction. Nothing else.

“Duh.” Janine shook her head. “But the upside is he gave you a month to call it off. Unlike my own unlamented ex-fiancé, John, who thought three days was more than enough time.”

True. Janine’s ex-fiancé had left her a note, three days before their simple backyard wedding that read only, Sorry, babe. This isn’t for me. Debbie was right, Caitlyn thought. Men really did suck.

“Did you tell your mom yet?” Debbie asked the question, already wincing in anticipation of the answer.

Yep, these friends knew her well. Knew her family. Knew what kind of hell her mother was going to put her through for ruining her only shot at being mother of the bride.

“Yeah, that was a good time.” Caitlyn closed her eyes and sighed, remembering the look of stunned shock, disappointment and frustration that clouded her mom’s face just yesterday when she’d dropped by her parents’ house to deliver the blow.

“Guessing she didn’t take it well?” Janine asked.

“You could say that. You would have thought I’d… No, I can’t even think of anything that could rival how this news hit Mom. She’s had her dress for the wedding since the week after Peter proposed,” she reminded them unnecessarily. “‘Four times,’ she told me yesterday, ‘four times I was mother of the groom. It was my turn to be Mother Of The Bride.’”

“Yikes,” Debbie muttered.

“That about covers it,” Caitlyn said. “She even says the words Mother Of The Bride in capital letters. She’s been so enjoying being in on everything. Heck, the only way I got to pick my own site was because Peter and I were paying for the wedding ourselves. Otherwise mom would have found a cathedral or something. She really was looking forward to a big show. I was her only shot at the brass ring.”

“She’s gonna make you pay.”

Janine grumbled, “She should be making Peter pay.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Caitlyn said with a shake of her head. “The point is it’s over. And now our little circle of dumpdom is complete.”

Debbie looked at her across the table. “I just can’t believe Peter turned out to be a stinker. He seemed so nice.”

Janine finished the last of her drink and scowled down at the empty glass. “They all seemed nice, at first. Mike was great to you until you found out about the other two wives he already had.”

It was Caitlyn’s turn to wince now. Six months ago Debbie had been within a couple of weeks of her own wedding, a planned elopement to Vegas, when she intercepted a phone call for her fiancé, Mike, at his place. Turned out that the woman on the line was Mike’s wife. And by the time it all got sorted out, yet another wife had been discovered. And now Mike was in jail, where every good bigamist should land.

“True,” Debbie mused, and rubbed the empty spot on her ring finger where her antique moonstone had shone brightly up until six months ago. Then she shrugged and looked at Janine. “You were in the worst shape of all of us. Only three days to cancel everything.”

Janine nodded. “John always did have a flair for the dramatic. The creep.”

“It’s been a pretty rotten year, hasn’t it?” Debbie flipped her long blond hair back over her shoulder and looked from Janine to Caitlyn. “Romance wise, I mean.”

“Fair to say.” Janine signaled the waitress by holding up her nearly empty glass. “What’re the odds that all three of us would get engaged and then unengaged in the same year?”

“There’s a cosmic kind of symmetry in it, I admit,” Caitlyn said on a sigh. Running the tips of her fingers through the water mark her glass had left on the glossy tabletop, she added, “At least we have each other.”

“Thank god.” Janine’s brown eyes narrowed as she chewed on the end of a swizzle stick.

Caitlyn took another drink of raspberry-flavored liquor and licked a stray drop off her bottom lip. “All three of us engaged, then dumped. What does that say about us?”

“That we’re too good for the available men around here?” Janine offered, grinning.

“Well, sure, that,” Debbie said with a smile. “But it also says here we are. Monday night and we’re at the same table in the same bar where we’ve been meeting for the last five years.”

“Hey, I like On The Pier,” Janine said, signaling again to the waitress by holding up her empty glass.

“We all do,” Caitlyn threw in, draining her martini to be ready for the second round already on its way. Idly she glanced across the crowded room. There were a few suits, men fresh from work, stopping by to have a quick drink on the way home. But, mostly, the crowd was made up of people like Caitlyn and her friends—relaxed, in jeans and T-shirts, looking to unwind in a comfortable spot.

On The Pier, a tiny neighborhood bar in Long Beach, had been their designated meeting place since they’d all turned twenty-one. Every Monday night, no matter what, the three women had a standing date for drinks and gossip.

And over the last year, as they’d taken turns commiserating with each other over broken engagements, these Monday-night get-togethers had become more important than ever. Caitlyn ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass and studied her two friends thoughtfully. She found herself smiling in spite of the heavy, cold lump settled in the pit of her stomach. The three of them had been friends since high school, when they’d met in detention hall.

Raised with four older brothers, Caitlyn had been hungry for a sister. And with Debbie and Janine she’d found two. They were closer to her than anyone else she knew. “It’s a great neighborhood bar and we know everybody here. It’s our comfort zone.”

“Exactly!” Debbie gulped the last of her drink and set her glass down. Leaning her elbows on the table in front of her, she glanced at each of her friends and said, “That’s my point. We’re all in a comfort zone. We each got dumped and we’re still here. Same spot. Same day. Same time.”

“So?” Janine paused when their waitress delivered their fresh drinks and took away the empty glasses.

When the waitress had gone, Debbie grabbed hers and took a quick gulp of the pale green liquor. “So, why are we content to stay in a comfort zone? Why don’t we break loose? Try something new?”

Caitlyn frowned at her. “Like what?”

“Like…” Debbie paused. “I don’t know offhand. But we should do something.”

“Maybe—” Janine said, then quickly closed her mouth and shook her head. “Nope. Never mind.”

“What?”

“No way do you get to say that and then stop,” Caitlyn protested.

“Fine.” Janine grinned at each of them, then took a sip of her drink. “I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days now. None of us got married. None of us got the honeymoon we were planning on. And none of us has spent the money we had been saving up for the whole wedding/honeymoon extravaganza.”

“And…” Debbie prompted.

“And,” Janine said, “last night it suddenly occurred to me—why don’t we spend that money together?”

“How?” Caitlyn asked, intrigued enough to listen.

“On a blowout no-holds-barred vacation,” Janine said, clearly warming up to her own idea as she spoke. Her eyes flashed and her grin spread. “I say we each take the four weeks’ time we were going to use for our honeymoons and go on a trip together. We go to some fabulous resort, get waited on, drink, play and get laid as often as humanly possible.”

“You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?” Debbie said.

“Well, yeah,” Janine allowed. “Since Saturday night, when Caitlyn called to tell us about Peter. Really pissed me off. And then I realized that all three of us have had a crappy year. Seems like we owe ourselves a good time.”

Debbie blew out a breath, took a gulp of her drink, then set the glass down on the table. “It does sound good.”

Caitlyn’s blood was humming. She felt excitement stir. She’d had a rotten weekend, a lousy day. And didn’t she deserve to have a little fun? This might be just the ticket. Nodding, she said, “It’s a great idea. When do we go?”

Janine looked at the two of them and laughed. “Two weeks. Enough time to get someone to cover for us at work and not so long that we’ll convince ourselves not to go.”

“She’s right, Caitlyn. If we don’t do it now,” Debbie cautioned, “we’ll talk ourselves out of it.”

“Good point,” Caitlyn said, knowing that she at least would second-guess the whole “fun” principle until she had convinced herself to save the money and go to work like a good girl. “Okay, then, two weeks. If we can get reservations.”

“Uh, hello? Reservations where?” Debbie asked.

The voices in the bar blurred into a soft background noise, mixed with a slow song drifting from the old jukebox in a corner. Outside, a cold ocean wind rattled against the glass, but inside, Janine’s eyes were flashing as she leaned across the table and whispered, “Fantasies.”

“Whoa.” Debbie slouched back in her chair.

“Really?” Caitlyn grabbed her drink and began to consider the possibilities, hardly listening as Janine kept talking. Fantasies was one of the most exclusive, indulgent resort islands in the world. Everything Caitlyn had read about the place suggested wild nights and glorious days filled with romance and pampering.

Just what the three of them needed.

“We’ll never be able to get reservations there,” Debbie protested.

“Already have ’em,” Janine said with a wink. “I called yesterday and put a deposit down on three rooms. They’d had a few cancellations, so we got lucky. I think it’s fate’s way of telling us this is our time. We need to do it.”

“I can’t believe you’ve already got the rooms.”

“Well,” Janine said, “I figured if I couldn’t talk you guys into it, I could always cancel the reservations.”

A bubble of excitement rose inside Caitlyn and she reached for it greedily. Fantasies. She’d read so much about the place in magazines and celebrity gossip columns, how could she refuse to go in person with her two closest friends? Slapping one hand on the center of the table, she said, “I’m in.”

“Well, we already know I’m in, since it was my idea.” Janine covered Caitlyn’s hand with her own and then both of them turned to look at Debbie.

“This is crazy—you guys know that, right? I mean, we’re just taking off and blowing a ton of money on a few weeks at a resort on a total whim.” Debbie chewed at her bottom lip, looking from one friend to the other and back again.

“What’s your point?” Janine asked.

“Don’t have one,” Debbie said, and laid her hand on top of her friends’. “I was just saying. Anyway, I’m in, too.”

“This is gonna be great,” Caitlyn said, and leaned back in her chair. “I so need this. We all need to get away for a while.”

“Some of us more than others,” Debbie muttered, and nodded in the direction of the door.

“What’s he doing here?” Janine whispered.

Curious, Caitlyn turned in her seat and felt her stomach drop to her toes. Jefferson Lyon walked into the bar as if he owned the place. He stood like a well-dressed statue, his sharp blue eyes scraping the crowd until he found her. Then his gaze narrowed and he headed toward her like a man on a mission.

“Wow,” Debbie whispered. “I never would have guessed he’d come to a place like this.”

“Yeah,” Janine said, “definitely not his style.”

Caitlyn had to agree. In a crowd of blue jeans and board shorts, his Armani suit stood out like a flashing neon light. Of course, Jefferson Lyon stood out in any crowd. He just had that kind of aura. All powerful and sexy and—

Cut that thought off at the pass, she told herself firmly as she stood up to meet him. Just as she told herself that the quick spurt of something hot and heavy moving through her bloodstream was simple surprise at seeing him here.

Heck, she hadn’t even known he’d been aware of On The Pier’s existence.

Her gaze locked on him, but she was also aware of how every female in the room watched him move with open admiration. And how could she blame them? He had a way of walking that suggested both power and languor. He moved like a man who knew how to take charge, but liked to take his time about it. Which, of course, only made a woman wonder what that kind of mixture would be like in bed.

Oh, boy.

“Caitlyn,” he said when he was close enough to be heard over the muttering crowd.

“Jefferson, what are you doing here?” Her voice came out a little sharper than she’d planned.

One eyebrow lifted. “I needed to see you about something that couldn’t wait, obviously.”

“How’d you know where I’d be?”

“It’s Monday night. You’re always here.”

That little nugget of information staggered her. He hadn’t known her fiancé’s name, but he knew she came to this tiny bar every Monday night? “I know I am. How did you know I am?”

He shrugged, glanced at her friends, then looked back into her eyes. “You must have mentioned it.”

And he’d remembered?

Shaking her head, Caitlyn told herself it didn’t matter how he’d found her. “So what did you want, Jefferson?”

He looked down at her friends, watching them with avid interest. Nodding, he then dismissed them entirely and shifted a look around the bar, as if unsatisfied to find himself surrounded by so many people. Taking her upper arm in a firm grip, he half steered her, half dragged her, back to the entryway, where things were a little less crowded.

Caitlyn tried not to think about the tiny spears of heat the touch of his hand sent zipping through her system. She’d clearly had one too many martinis. Once free of the main room, she pulled out of his grasp, crossed her arms over her chest and tipped her head to one side, looking up at him. “What was so important it couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?”

Jefferson stared down at her and realized just how different Caitlyn looked when away from the office. He was so used to her tidy, professional appearance, seeing her with her hair down and loose around her shoulders was more distracting than he would have expected. She wore faded, worn blue jeans that clung to her body like a second skin, a scoop-necked pale blue T-shirt that showed just a hint of cleavage and sandals that displayed long, elegant toes painted fire-engine red.

Even over the combined scents filling the air he could smell her perfume, something light and flowery that she never wore in the office. This was why he preferred business relationships to be kept strictly business. He didn’t want to know that Caitlyn liked red nail polish. Or that she smelled like a damn garden. Or that she had a lush figure hidden beneath the boring business suits she wore to work.

Frowning to himself, he pushed away his wandering thoughts. He hadn’t come to be sociable, after all.

“My father called tonight. He needs me in Seattle tomorrow afternoon. So I’ll need you in the office early to take care of a few things before I leave.”

Instantly, her eyes widened. “Is your father all right?”

“He’s fine,” Jefferson said, somehow pleased that she had cared enough to ask. His father had officially retired as head of the company two years ago, but he’d kept a hand in ever since, unable or unwilling to let go. Then three months ago he’d had a major heart attack and was still recuperating.

Odd, but Jefferson was only now acknowledging that Caitlyn had been the only person he’d talked to about his father’s health. So much for keeping personal lives separate from work.

“Good. I’m glad.” She stared at him for a long minute. “But you couldn’t have called me with this information?”

He could have. Should have. But he’d come for a purpose. To remind her just who was in charge in this relationship. He was the boss. He called the shots. She thought she could stomp out of his office in some kind of female huff? Well, showing up here in person reminded her that Jefferson always got the last word.

Of course, he hadn’t intended on hunting her down in this dinky little bar. He’d planned on driving straight to his condo in Seal Beach. But the more he’d thought about her irritated attitude, the more it had annoyed him. All he knew for sure was that she’d been in the back of his mind when he’d left the office. And for whatever reason, he’d driven to the one place he’d known he’d be able to find her.

“It’s not that far out of the way for me,” he said, and turned when yet another customer shoved through the front door. Irritated, Jefferson caught the door, glared at the surfer stumbling through it, then turned his gaze back to Caitlyn. She was still watching him, her brown eyes glittering with the reflected lights of the room. “Anyway…my flight out is at ten, so I’ll expect to see you at six in the morning.”