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

Three

Caitlyn arrived at a quarter to six in the morning to find Jefferson already on the phone in his office. No surprise there. It wasn’t unusual for him to be at work hours before everyone else. After all, with contacts and business dealings all over the world, most of his phone calls had to be made early to accommodate time changes.

He’d also left a stack of files on her desk, and after making a fresh pot of coffee, she jumped right in. It was better to keep her mind busy. Too busy to think about what she and her friends had decided to do. Because, if she started thinking about it, she just might back out.

“Which I am not going to do,” she muttered with determination.

Behind her desk, the rising sun was just streaking across the sky in shades of lavender and gold. The scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the air and eased the jump in the pit of her stomach. In the corner, the fax machine rang, then hummed busily as it spat several sheets of paper out into a tray.

Caitlyn walked over to pick them up, gave them a quick glance. Bids from other, smaller shipping companies hoping to be a subcontractor for Lyon Shipping. Business as usual, she thought, then carried them to her desk to staple together and tuck into a file. There was always plenty to do. She’d always loved that about the job. There was never a moment in the day where she was bored enough to watch the clock, eager to escape.

The phone rang and she reached for it. Her gaze noted that the light for line two was still on, so Jefferson wasn’t available.

“Lyon Shipping.”

“Well,” a deep, familiar voice said. “Caitlyn, love, you’re at work early this morning.”

She rolled her eyes and grinned. Max Striver, President and CEO of Striver Shipping, always did the subtle-flirting thing. But he was never annoying about it. His British accent flavored his speech, and Caitlyn could hear the smile in his voice.

“Good morning, Mr. Striver. How’re things in London?”

“Max, Caitlyn,” the man urged. “I’ve asked you to call me Max. And London is a ridiculously lonely place. You should come and visit me. Make the old girl shine.”

“I’ll put it on my list,” Caitlyn said, still smiling as she tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder and continued shuffling the files on her desk. “Mr. Lyon’s on the other line, Max. Can you hold? Or do you want him to call you back?”

“If you’re willing to spend a moment or two talking to me, I’ll wait.”

She could work and talk, Caitlyn thought. “What will we talk about, then?”

“How about when you’re going to quit working for that surly American and come to work for me?”

Caitlyn sighed. “Max, you don’t really want me to work for you. You only want to deprive Mr. Lyon of my expertise.”

“A little of both, actually, love,” he said, and his voice dropped a notch or two.

Seriously, accents should be illegal. They did something quivery to the pit of Caitlyn’s stomach even when she knew Max Striver was no more interested in having her work for him than he was in moving to Tucson.

“He works you much too hard. While I, on the other hand,” Max insisted, “am a very understanding employer. Good hours, better pay and, of course…me.”

The light on Jefferson’s phone line went out and Caitlyn said, “I’ll keep it in mind, Max. Meanwhile, the boss is available. Hold on for a moment?”

She put him on hold, buzzed Jefferson’s phone and when he answered, said, “Max Striver on line one.”

“Damnit,” Jefferson muttered. “What’s he want?”

“Me, working for him,” she said.

“Still? You’d think he’d have gotten it through his thick head by now that there’s no way you’d leave Lyon Shipping.” The grumble in his voice was clear just before he disconnected and picked up the other line.

“What is it, Max?” Jefferson leaned back in his chair and swiveled it around until he was staring out at the dock below and the ocean beyond.

“Jefferson, old friend, do I need a reason for calling?”

“Usually.”

He inched forward, admiring the view. A solitary tugboat, encrusted with the Lyon Shipping logo, sailed across the harbor, a frothy whip of ripples in its wake. Longshoremen moved across the docks, driving loaders and swinging nets filled with cargo off the decks of ships.

This was Jefferson’s world.

He’d learned the family business from the ground up. His father didn’t believe in taking the easy way and hadn’t been willing to allow his son to simply step into the executive level without knowing about the men who made this company run.

Now he ran one of the most successful shipping companies in the world and he knew how to get the best out of his employees. Hadn’t he remained calm and in control during Caitlyn’s emotional meltdown yesterday?

He smiled to himself as he listened to the fax machine in the outer room. Even now, Caitlyn was efficiently bringing order to chaos. Everything was as it should be. As he’d known it would be once she had had a chance to calm down.

Just as he knew that Max would never be able to steal her away to work for Striver. Caitlyn’s own sense of loyalty would prevent her from leaving him for a competitor.

“Jefferson? You still there?”

He frowned slightly as he realized he’d allowed his mind to drift away from the business at hand. And when dealing with Max Striver, it paid to keep your mind on business. “I’m here, Max. And I’m busy.”

“Oh, I’m sure. I’ll only keep you a minute. Just wanted to let you know I heard about your trip to Portugal.”

“And…”

“And I understand that the shipyard there has come to a grinding halt due to a strike.”

“It was settled last week,” Jefferson said, gritting his teeth as he forced a smile into his voice. “Everything’s back on schedule.”

“Oh, happy to hear it.”

“Yeah,” Jefferson said. “I’m sure.”

He and Max had been competing for years—at everything from racquetball to gross tonnage shipped. Now, with the first of the Lyon cruise ships ready to set sail in just under six weeks, Max was no doubt hoping to beat Jefferson to the prime Atlantic routes.

“As it happens, I am,” Max assured him. “We can’t really have a competition if your boat never gets off the dock, can we? We’re going to have a month’s head start on you as it is.”

Jefferson picked up his sterling-silver pen, tapped it against the desktop, then tossed it down. Leaning back in his leather chair, he stared up at the ceiling and smiled. “From what I hear, you should be more interested in what’s happening to your own ship.”

There was a pause in which Jefferson imagined Max sitting straight up in his chair and glaring at his reflection in the mirror across from his desk. A good image.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Jefferson said, enjoying himself more now, “my man in France tells me that the new Striver ocean liner is having some trouble keeping its chefs.”

“Lies.”

“Uh-huh.” Grinning now, Jefferson said, “You know, if you knew how to treat employees, Max, your new chef wouldn’t be on his way to Portugal right now to check out the kitchen on the new Lyon cruise ship.”

“You stole him away, did you?”

“Wasn’t even difficult,” Jefferson admitted. “Seriously, Max, you should have offered to pay the man what he’s worth.”

A long moment passed before Max chuckled. Then he said, “You win this round, Jeff. But the game’s not over.”

When he hung up, Jefferson was still smiling. Caitlyn was busy running his office, he’d managed to one-up Max—and it wasn’t even eight in the morning yet.

Caitlyn’s fingers flew across the keyboard as she typed up one of several memos that would be distributed throughout the company. Amazing, really, she thought, her mind free to race even while she was busy transcribing Jefferson’s pitiful penmanship.

He didn’t even consider for a moment that she might one day take Max up on his offer of a job. “There’s no way you’d leave, Caitlyn,” she muttered, repeating his words with a bit more snide in her tone, then adding a few more things that he was no doubt thinking but hadn’t said. “You’re just too reliable. You’re like my trusty dog, Caitlyn. Always there. Happy to help. Grateful for a stupid pat on the head.”

It wasn’t so much that she resented the fact he wasn’t worried about keeping her on as his assistant, she told herself firmly as she turned to reach for the memo as it shot out of the printer. It’s that she resented the fact he wasn’t worried about keeping her on as his assistant!

Shouldn’t he be worried? Shouldn’t he at least have the decency to say, I hope you never leave, Caitlyn. You’re too important to me. To the company.

Right. Like that would ever happen.

She shook her head, told herself she should be flattered that her boss was so sure of her loyalty. But that just didn’t work. Instead, she was really irritated that it didn’t bother him at all for one of his top competitors to continually be offering her a job.

“See?” she whispered. “This is why you need to take a break. You need that trip, Caitlyn. It’ll be good to get away from everything for a while. It’ll be good for Jefferson Lyon to have to run this place without you for a while. Maybe then he’d show some gratitude. Maybe then he’d notice you and—”

No. What was she saying?

She wasn’t trying to get him to notice her as a woman.

Just as a person.

So, yes, she should go. Think about herself first for a change and just take off. Be adventurous.

Yet, even as she said the words, her conscience was arguing with her. There was no point in going away. She wasn’t getting married, didn’t have a honeymoon to go on. So surely she should stay and work. Do the responsible thing. Do the right thing, as she always did.

Good old Caitlyn. By-the-book, follow-the-rules Caitlyn. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t color outside the lines.

“God, I’m so boring.” She propped her elbows on the desk and dropped her head into her hands. “Pitiful. Seriously pitiful. Twenty-six years old and I’ve never done a damn thing just for myself. Isn’t it about time, Caitlyn?” Her voice was muffled against her hands and that was probably just as well. “Don’t you owe it to yourself to get out there and see some of the world and let the world see you?”

Sure, it was an outrageously expensive vacation. But didn’t she deserve a little pampering? Didn’t she owe it to herself to relax and recharge?

“God, now I’m starting to sound like Janine.” She straightened up and smiled to herself as she remembered how her friend had spent the better part of an hour convincing her and Debbie that they were doing the right thing by going to Fantasies.

“Who’s Janine?”

Caitlyn jolted at the sound of Jefferson’s deep voice coming from right behind her. Then she laid one hand against her galloping heart and looked up at him, shaking her head. “You know, it’d probably be easier to kill me if you just hit me over the head, rather than going for the old stop-her-heart routine.”

“You knew I was here.”

“You were on the phone,” she pointed out.

“Not now,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket. The sleeves of his pinstriped white shirt were rolled back to the elbows over tanned forearms and the collar of his shirt was gaping open behind a loosened knot in his navy-blue tie. Leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb, he asked again, “So. Who’s Janine?”

“A friend,” Caitlyn said, turning her gaze back to the stack of files on her desk. God, how much else had he heard? Had he been standing there the whole time she’d been muttering about how boring she was? Perfect. That was just perfect. “You saw her at the bar last night.”

“The tiny blonde or the tall spiky-haired brunette?”

“Her hair is not spiky,” Caitlyn argued, “it’s tousled.”

“By a Weedwacker.”

She’d dismiss that one. Why the interest, though? Was he trying to be nice? Because he felt guilty about not even knowing her fiancé’s name? No. That couldn’t be it. Jefferson Lyon didn’t do guilt. So why the friendly banter? Why not just shut himself up in his office as he did every other day? Was it the early-morning quiet of the building? With only him and her there to work?

Did it even matter?

“You weren’t on long with Max,” she said in a blatant attempt to change the subject.

“No.” Jefferson plowed one hand through his hair. His eyes narrowed and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “He only called to goad me about the strike in Portugal and to remind me that his ship will be ready nearly a full month before ours.”

“Aah.” The competitors were at it again.

Jefferson shoved both hands into his slacks pockets and said, “But at least I got to remind him that we stole his top chef. Besides, Max is still stung over losing the Franco contract to us last year.”

Caitlyn smiled up at her boss. That had been a real coup. Nailing down the shipping contract for Franco Technologies had taken her and Jefferson more than six months to complete. “Well, that had to make you feel better.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “True. Still, if Striver Cruise Lines opens a full month ahead of Lyon, he’s going to be able to get the prime routes.”

“His first ship is smaller.”

His gaze snapped to hers. “You’re sure?”

“First thing I did this morning,” she admitted, handing him a sheet of paper that had come through on the fax just ahead of the bid from the smaller shipping company in Germany. “The shipyard in France where Max’s ship is being finalized was very helpful. I simply asked for an example of their latest work, and they were happy to send me the full specs of the cruise liner they’re finishing at the moment. And ours is at least three hundred feet longer. Better built for the Atlantic routes.”

He tapped the sheet of paper with the tips of his fingers and gave her a smile that lit up her insides like a flash of neon. Oh, good god. She really did need that vacation.

Getting a firm grip on clearly hysterical hormones, she shifted and turned in her chair, keeping her gaze determinedly fixed on her desk. “Is there anything else you wanted, Jefferson?”

“Yeah. Actually, I wanted to make sure you had the arrangements for the Portugal trip locked down.”

Glad to have him shift back to business as usual, Caitlyn shifted on her chair, picked up a manila folder and handed it to him. “All the details are right there. The Palacio Estoril is holding your usual suite. Your pilot’s notified, so the company jet will be ready whenever you are. And the meetings at the shipyard are set up. The times are all listed there and the hotel will provide a car and driver.”

He idly flipped through the papers, then glanced at her as he turned to head back into his office. “Get yourself a suite, too.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I know that, but we may as well both be comfortable.”

“No,” she said, taking a deep breath and holding it just long enough to quiet the ripples in the pit of her stomach. This wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing with Jefferson ever was. “That’s not what I meant.”

Only yesterday, she’d told him she wasn’t getting married and he’d assumed she’d be available for this business trip to Portugal. Now she had to tell him she’d be taking her four weeks off, anyway. And she didn’t want to be sitting down when she did it. Better to be standing on her own two feet and less at a disadvantage.

That thought clearly in mind, she stood up, walked around him to the coffeepot and refilled her cup.

“What’re you talking about?”

“I won’t be going with you to Portugal after all, Jefferson. I’m taking my four weeks’ vacation.”

He frowned and his sharp blue eyes narrowed. “You’re not getting married—why do you need the time?”

“Because I put in for it and I want it.”

He pushed away from the wall and stalked across the room. Stopping right beside her, he picked up the coffeepot, filled a cup for himself and took a sip before shifting a look at her. “It’s not convenient right now.”

Her fingers tightened on the handle of the cup. “Of course it’s convenient. I put in for this time nearly six months ago. Everything’s arranged.”

“Things have changed.”

“What things?” She still had to tip her head back to look at him, and just at that moment, she wished she stood taller than her five feet eight inches.

“You’re not getting married now. Therefore, you’re able to accompany me to Portugal.”

“You don’t need me there, Jefferson.”

Those eyes of his focused on her and she felt the sheer power that shone from the man. “I decide what I need, Caitlyn. And as my assistant, your presence is required.”

She swallowed hard. “Tough.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Setting her coffee cup down—because her hands were shaking—Caitlyn blew out a breath and told herself that if she was ever going to stand up for herself, now was the time to start. “You heard me. I work for you, Jefferson, but I’m not your indentured servant. I put in for that vacation time. It’s mine and I’m taking it.”

He gave her a long, narrowed look. “Take it after the Portugal trip.”

“No. Not this time.”

Damn it, she wasn’t going to cave to him. Not today.

The year before, her bags had been packed, she’d had her plane ticket to Florida in her purse along with the itinerary for the cruise she’d spent three months planning. Jefferson had called just as she’d been getting into a cab, insisting she cancel her plans and accompany him to a shipyard in France. Her cruise to the Bahamas had sailed without her and she’d spent the next two weeks taking notes and in general being Jefferson’s gofer.

Granted, France wasn’t exactly a hardship…though she hadn’t had five minutes to herself to explore the countryside or get into Paris.

And the year before that, her long-awaited trip to Ireland had been cut short when Jefferson flew the company jet into Shannon Airport and insisted she join him for an important conference in Brazil.

So this time Caitlyn was sticking to her guns.

She was going on this trip with her friends, and if Jefferson Lyon didn’t like it…too bad. Caitlyn felt a buzz through her system as she silently declared her own private Independence Day. No more pesky work ethic. No more putting her own wants and needs on the back burner to make sure everyone else got just what they wanted.

I am Caitlyn, hear me roar, she thought, and lifted her chin defiantly as she faced down her boss.

Four

“You’re being selfish.”

“I’m selfish?” Caitlyn repeated, completely flabbergasted that he could even say such a thing. The man who believed the world revolved around him? The man who expected everyone in his life to jump whenever he entered a room? The man who’d ruined every vacation she’d ever tried to take with his own demands? “Are you serious?”

“This isn’t like you, Caitlyn,” he said tightly, his voice dropping to a snarl that usually had his employees in a mad dash for the closest exit.

“No,” she agreed, not even flustered by that snarl. She’d heard it too often to be dismayed by it at this late date. “It’s not like me at all. That’s why I’m doing it.”

“That makes no sense at all,” he pointed out, taking a sip of coffee, then setting his cup down on the credenza beside hers.

“It makes perfect sense.” She threw her hands high, let them drop again and did a quick about-face. Marching away from him for five or six steps, she felt fury rumbling through her, and for the first time in her life, she welcomed it. Stopping dead, she whirled around to face him and pointed her index finger at him accusingly. “You totally expect me to drop everything and do whatever you want me to do. And how can I even blame you for it? My whole life I’ve done exactly what I was supposed to.”

“Admirable.”

“Or weak,” she countered, stalking right back to him. “My parents, my brothers, Peter, you. You’ve all steamrolled over me because I kept lying down on the street and assuming the position. Allowing you all to get away with bossing me around. Well, no more. I’m done.”

“Caitlyn, you work for me.” His voice was deliberately cold. Tolerant. She knew the tone. She’d heard him use it on those who were trying his very limited amount of patience. But Caitlyn wasn’t going to back down.

“I tell you when you take a vacation and when your presence is required,” he said tightly. “I require you with me in Portugal.”

“But you really don’t, Jefferson,” she said, and wondered why she was bothering to repeat herself. He hadn’t heard her the first time; he wouldn’t hear her this time, either. He never heard anything he didn’t want to hear. “The hotel can provide an assistant. Or you could take Georgia with you.”

“Georgia?” His annoyance shuddered in the air around her.

Okay, fine. That was a cheap shot, she thought. No way could Georgia do the job to Jefferson’s expectations. But the point is, he didn’t need anyone with him.

“The work’s done, Jefferson,” she said, trying for calm, despite the way her stomach was jittering. “You’ve made the offer, the papers have been drawn up and looked over by Legal. All you have to do is sign the papers, take a tour of the ship and slap the Lyon logo on her hull. Why do you need me there?”

“Because,” he said, his voice low and tight, “I pay you to be where I need you, when I need you. This is your job, Caitlyn.”

Her head was buzzing. Her blood pumped hard and fast and her stomach did a couple of weird spins. Her job. And she was the first to admit it was a good one. She made a healthy salary, owned her own home—true, a condo, but still a home—and she did darn good work.

But apparently, somewhere along the way, she’d become a piece of office equipment. Steady, dependable, necessary, but as far as Jefferson was concerned, she had no more feelings than the copier that continually demanded more toner.

She hadn’t expected he would take the news of her upcoming vacation lightly. But she also hadn’t expected him to be such a jerk about it. Other people took vacations. Had lives. Why shouldn’t she?

Jefferson Lyon was a man who expected everything around him to fall into line. He walked through life issuing orders with the expectation that they would be followed. Quickly. And as much as that strength and confidence appealed to her, she was just now understanding how hard it was to live with.

Peter had been the same way, just on a smaller scale. Strong, silent, clearly in charge—and she’d gone along with him just as easily as she had with Jefferson. What in the hell did that say about her? Was she really so willing to lose herself in a strong man?

“You know,” she mused aloud, her voice hardly more than a hush as she talked more to herself than to him, “I should have seen this coming a long time ago. But I didn’t want to.”

“Seen what?”

She glanced at him and noted the confusion in his eyes and the familiar stamp of irritation on his features. What was it about this man? He appealed to her on too many levels. She knew that already. And so, apparently, had Peter. But now that she thought about it, Caitlyn was forced to admit that she’d actually been drawn to Peter in the first place because he’d sort of reminded her of…Jefferson.

Oh, good god.

“Are you in a fugue state of some kind?” he prompted.