Hero

by Samantha Young

  I wanted to lick him.

  Yearning shot through me.

  When my eyes returned to his I was gratified to find an answering heat in them.

  “You’re early too.” My voice was husky from my wicked thoughts.

  He caught my tone and his eyes dipped to my mouth.

  Feeling smug, I gave him my back and very deliberately bent over his desk so I could place his latte by his computer. “Your coffee,” I said, feeling the heat of his gaze singeing my ass. Without looking back I stood away from the desk and headed toward the door.

  “Alexa,” he said in warning.

  I half turned, my eyes round with mock innocence. I couldn’t maintain it when I saw that he was aroused under his towel.

  My lower belly flipped in response, followed by a burst of tingles between my legs.

  “Quit it,” he demanded.

  “I’m not doing anything. After all …” I grinned wickedly, my gaze dropping pointedly to his hard-on. “I’m out of your system, right?”

  Caine shot me a filthy look but didn’t say anything. What could he say? Having successfully tormented him, I smirked and left him alone in his office. As soon as I closed the door behind me, I sank against it. My legs were trembling.

  I had to get myself together.

  That took me a while, considering that I spent the next thirty minutes fantasizing a different ending to that scene—it mostly consisted in Caine screwing me hard against his office door.

  I wanted the two weeks’ notice to be over. Now.

  Perhaps I should have walked out.

  But then … then he’d know he had really gotten to me and I had to leave this situation behind with at least some of my pride intact.

  “Alexa, come into my office, please,” Caine’s voice came over the speakerphone a few hours later. Maybe he was going to ask me to leave. That way I could get out of this without it looking like I was the one who had caved.

  I sighed. I guessed that was wishful thinking, and as soon as I got inside his office I knew I was right.

  “You want us to what?” I croaked in disbelief.

  “Business trip,” he repeated impatiently. “Seattle. This Thursday. I wouldn’t normally go, but they’ve asked to speak to me in person. I need you with me.”

  “Do you think the two of us going on a business trip together is wise?”

  Caine replied with a cool look. “I’m not a teenager, Alexa. Whatever you think you might have won this morning, you’re wrong. No woman leads me around by my dick. I promise you I can manage to keep my hands off you if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Why was I attracted to this jackass again?

  I grimaced. He didn’t know it, but he’d just made it a whole lot easier for me to walk away from him at the end of the two weeks.

  “Can you handle it?”

  “Oh, trust me,” I said, “being around you right now is like a constant cold shower.”

  His lips pinched with annoyance. “I’ve e-mailed you the details. I’ll need you to arrange flights and accommodation.”

  “Done.” I walked out calmly and just as calmly settled back into my seat.

  That was when the calmness left me.

  Seattle? With Caine? In a hotel?

  I’d either kill him or screw him again.

  “Fuck.”

  “Alexa, the speakerphone is on,” Caine’s amused voice sounded from my desk.

  Oh, balls.

  One of us was definitely not making it out of Seattle in one piece.

  CHAPTER 12

  Caine took it easy on me for the next few days. He didn’t have me running around doing crappy personal errands. It was his way of extending his hand in a truce and I offered him my hand in return by curbing my smart-ass responses to his requests.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t battling a kaleidoscope of butterflies swarming in my belly on Thursday morning. I’d barely slept and I was stumbling around my apartment trying to make sure I had everything I needed in my overnight bag.

  I was just chugging a huge mug of coffee when I saw the black street car pull up outside my building. My mug clattered to the counter as I watched the driver open the back passenger door. Caine stepped out and stared up at the building with a pensive mien. I eyed him hungrily.

  He hadn’t shaved in a few days and it looked good on him.

  As did the four-thousand-dollar Savile Row suit he’d had commissioned along with a number of others while he was in London. It was a slim fit. It was stylish. It was pure class. And the man wearing it looked like pure class too. Sometimes, when he wasn’t being a jackass, he even was pure class.

  I wrenched my gaze from his as he started making his way up the front stoop. My overnight bag was on the couch spilling open.

  Toiletries. I needed my toiletries.

  My doorbell rang and for one confused moment I stood there wondering how on earth Caine had gotten into the building. I hurried to the door and threw it open with the question on my face.

  “Your neighbor let me in,” he explained immediately.

  I frowned at my neighbor’s lack of thought to security. “You could be a serial killer.”

  He shrugged and stepped forward, forcing me to move back to allow him inside. “I guess I don’t look like one.”

  “It was Evelyn who let you in, right?” She was a single career woman much like myself except she was man-crazy and had a different one sneaking out of her apartment every weekend.

  “Young, blond?”

  I nodded in consternation. “She’s going to get me murdered in my sleep one of these days.”

  Caine just nodded absentmindedly and strode into the center of the open living area. He gazed around, taking absolutely everything in.

  “I’ll, uh … just be a moment.” I disappeared into the bathroom, grabbing my toiletries bag and my cell phone charger from the side of my bed. When I returned to the living room, Caine was standing in front of one of my windows. I stuffed my things into my overnight bag and zipped it up.

  While I did this, Caine turned around, his eyes traveling up to the ceiling and down and then into the kitchen.

  Bemused by his curiosity, I said, “What is it?”

  He looked back at me. “This is where you live.”

  I couldn’t work out his tone or what he meant by the statement, so I just sighed and grabbed my bag. “I’m ready to go.”

  Caine strode toward me and reached for the bag.

  “What are you doing?” I pulled it back from him. “I can carry my own bag.”

  “You have to at least allow me the pretense of being a gentleman.” His large hand wrapped around the strap and he gently tugged it out of my grip.

  Following him out, I grumbled, “I hope you’re not going to pretend the entire trip.”

  “And why not?”

  “Well, I’ve built up a resistance to your ungentlemanliness. My immune system can’t handle politeness from you. I might go into shock and die.” It wasn’t entirely true. In public he was every inch the gentleman. In private not so much. I locked up my apartment and found Caine smirking behind me.

  I paused, surprised by the humor in his eyes.

  “Ungentlemanliness?” he teased. “I dare you to say that five times fast.”

  I eyed him warily. “I mean it. Quit it.”

  His reply was to shrug and lead me out to the car in silence. And it seemed he was set to grant me my request. The car ride to the airport was awkward and quiet and I really just wanted to be able to put more than a couple of feet between us.

  Upon arrival at the airport, I said to Caine, “I’ll meet you on the other side.”

  His eyebrows drew together. “What are you talking about?”

  I handed him the boarding pass I’d printed off. “You’re flying first class. That means you go through first-class security and get to wait in the first-class lounge.”

  “And what are you?” he asked, snatching my boarding pass from my hand. “Economy? Are you kidding?
” he huffed impatiently, and grabbed my bag. Before I could say a word he strode off.

  “What are you doing?” I hurried to catch up with him in my stupid heels as he marched to the fast-lane check-in and right up to the check-in clerk.

  “We need to upgrade my employee’s ticket to first class. Is that possible?” He slid my boarding pass across the desk to her.

  “What are you doing?” I repeated. “I don’t need a first-class seat. I never sat in first class with Benito.”

  “That’s because your former boss is a tightfisted bastard. My employees don’t sit in the cheap seats.” He threw me a glare that said, Now, shut up.

  Once my ticket was upgraded, Caine tersely ushered me toward the first-class lounge. He dropped our bags at the bar. “I need a drink. Do you need a drink?”

  I definitely needed a drink. “A mimosa, please.” I slipped onto a stool beside him and we waited in uncomfortable silence as the bartender poured my drink and got a draft beer for Caine.

  A beer.

  That was not what I was expecting at all.

  For some crazy reason the fact that Caine was drinking a beer in his fancy-ass suit in the first-class lounge made me smile.

  Feeling my stare, he glanced at me. “What?”

  I looked away and lifted my glass to my lips. “Nothing,” I muttered.

  “Lexie?” I jerked in surprise at hearing my name called from behind me and spun around on my stool. My eyes moved up the tall, fit, stylishly attired body standing inches from me until they stopped on the familiar handsome face of Antoine Faucheux.

  “Oh my gosh, Antoine.” I hopped off the stool to hug him and felt his strong arms wrap around me.

  He gave me a squeeze and kissed me once on both cheeks. His dark brown eyes glittered happily into mine.

  Antoine was the men’s fashion buyer at Le Bon Marche in Paris. We’d known each other for four years because of my work with Benito. Mostly we met up while I was in Paris with Benito, but the last time I’d seen him was in New York when he came over for fashion week. He’d even propositioned me the first time we hung out, but I was in a relationship at the time, and the next time we met he was in a relationship, and so on and so forth. It was a shame. Definitely a missed opportunity.

  He shot a look over my shoulder and I tensed, remembering we had an audience. I glanced back at Caine, whose hard appearance didn’t exactly compel a person to be friendly, but my mother had raised me to be well mannered. “Antoine, this is my boss, Caine Carraway. Mr. Carraway, this is a friend of mine, Antoine Faucheux.”

  Antoine held out a hand with a polite smile. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said in his gorgeous accent.

  Caine stared at his hand and for a moment I worried he wasn’t going to shake it. I breathed a sigh of relief when he did.

  Antoine immediately focused on me. “It’s so good to see you. I’m over here visiting a friend and I met up with Benito. I was shocked when he told me he fired you. What an idiot.” He tilted his head and gave me his sexy low-lidded stare I liked so much. “I’ve never seen anyone anticipate someone’s needs the way you did Benito’s. You know he’s having a terrible time without you.”

  I grinned, feeling smug. “Good.”

  Antoine laughed and then shot another glance behind me at Caine. “It looks like you’re doing fine.”

  It did look like that, and I had no intention of telling Antoine the truth. Instead I gave him a noncommittal smile and a shrug.

  “Well”—he pouted a little and it would have looked ridiculous on any man but him—“I have to catch my flight to Paris. It was a short trip this time, but next time I’m in Boston, or New York even, we should catch up.” He lowered his voice and gave me a knowing look. “Noelle and I broke up and I heard you’re not seeing anyone, yes?”

  Oh, balls.

  Heat radiated from behind me and I knew Caine had heard and interpreted Antoine’s comment. It wasn’t like it was hard to understand.

  I never thought I’d want to run my way out of the hot boy sandwich I was in the middle of, but if the floor had opened up in front of me I’d have dived right into the gaping hole to escape the utterly awful awkwardness.

  “True,” I murmured.

  “And of course if you’re ever in Paris …” He leaned down and kissed me on my cheeks again, this time more slowly. His hand rested on my waist. “The new job suits you. You look beautiful.”

  And if we’d had this encounter a few weeks ago, I’d be putty in his sexy-as-sin French hands.

  Unfortunately my mind was muddled enough by the brooding businessman whose stare was burning holes into my skull. “Thank you,” I replied. “I’ll hopefully see you soon.”

  Antoine smiled and then gave Caine a nod of acknowledgment before he left.

  I gathered myself before sliding back onto the stool beside Caine and his foreboding expression.

  I sucked in my breath and waited.

  Just as I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to comment and I could relax, he finished his beer and scowled at me. “I presume you realize he wants to fuck you.”

  I wrinkled my nose in distaste at his crudeness. “You really took my word for it on the whole not-pretending-to-be-a-gentleman thing, huh?”

  He ignored me. “The question is, do you want to fuck him?”

  Oh no. He did not get to be angry or jealous. And yes, okay, maybe I felt a little thrill course through me at the idea that he was jealous of Antoine, but at the same time it was unfair and confusing! Caine had already made it clear that what he got from me on Saturday night was all he was willing to take. He was not messing with my head now.

  My answer to him was to slide off the stool with my drink. I sauntered casually across the room, as far as I could get from him, and settled in a seat with my mimosa and magazine.

  I was glad we had an aisle between us in first class, because I was more likely to punch Caine than speak to him. Six hours later when the plane landed in Seattle, I was much calmer and actually managed to be civil to him as we made our way out of the airport to find our chauffeur waiting for us.

  We were staying at the Fairmont Olympic and I tried not to gape as we wandered inside. I’d stayed at nice hotels before, but Benito favored extremely modern hotels. The Fairmont was old-school beautiful with its high ceiling and grand twin staircase at the end of the reception hall. Plush, expensive traditional chairs and sofas furnished the hall, and giant crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting light over all the gleaming chestnut wood.

  “Checking in under Carraway,” Caine said as a greeting to the young woman behind the desk.

  She smiled and began typing on her computer. “Mr. Caine Carraway and a Ms. Alexa Holland. We have you booked for a deluxe executive suite, and a standard Fairmont room for Ms. Holland.”

  Caine exhaled wearily and shot me a displeased look. “Again?”

  I knew what he meant without having to ask. “I’m your PA. I’m perfectly happy with a standard room.”

  He ignored me. “Can you upgrade the Fairmont room to a suite?”

  The girl did a quick check and gave Caine an apologetic thin-lipped smile. “We only have a deluxe room available.”

  “That’ll do.”

  After we’d checked in and were walking toward the elevator, I said, “You really didn’t have to do that.”

  “I’m not repeating myself,” he muttered impatiently.

  “Right, appearances,” I muttered back.

  Caine walked me to my room even though his was a couple of floors above mine. Once inside my perfectly lovely deluxe room, I spun around to face him. He lowered my bag to the floor by the television cabinet. “The dinner with Farrah Rochdale and Lewis Sheen is in the hotel restaurant,” I reminded him. “At seven o’ clock.”

  He gave me a tight nod and started to back out of the room. “I’ll collect you at six fifty.”

  A few seconds later he was gone and I could breathe properly again. I sank onto the beautiful bed and kicked
off my heels. As I stared at the door, a feeling of melancholy began to bring me down. I fought to keep it at bay.

  I just had to make it through dinner this evening and then tomorrow we were on that plane back to Boston. It was safer somehow in Boston. I could hold it together. Here, in close quarters with him, I was constantly reminded of the possibility between us, and Caine’s stubborn-ass refusal to see what might have been.

  Promptly at six fifty I opened my hotel room door to Caine and I had to quickly look at my feet to hide my reaction to his appearance. He’d shaved off his scruff—the clean-shaven look was as hot as the unshaven look—and he was dressed in a light gray slim-fit three-piece suit.

  “Ready?”

  I nodded and closed the door behind me, following him as he started walking down the hall. He made no comment on my appearance and I tried not to let that sting.

  Of course it did.

  I’d dressed carefully in a simple but sexy little black dress. It had a high neck, it was sleeveless, and it came to a few inches above my knee. It also hugged my body like a second skin. I’d whipped out the Louboutins I’d gotten for free at a magazine shoot a couple of years ago. For once I left my hair loose and wavy. It wasn’t Caine’s preferred style, but I was feeling rebellious.

  In the restaurant we were led over to a table where a thirtysomething woman and her fortysomething colleague sat. Farrah Rochdale was CEO of Rochdale Financial Management, and Lewis Sheen was her CFO. The company had started up two generations before, but when it had finally made it into Farrah’s hands it was struggling to draw in new clientele despite having helped some of the country’s fastest-growing businesses in the past. Caine’s company came along to save a company they believed could do well again. They brought Rochdale under their umbrella and injected money and influence into the business. It was now thriving as one of the West Coast’s foremost financial management groups as part of Carraway Holdings.

  However, Farrah had requested a face-to-face meeting with Caine to discuss something of importance that would affect the company.

  I didn’t know what to expect of the meeting or what was going on. I just knew I hadn’t expected Farrah Rochdale to be so young or attractive. She and Lewis stood up at our approach and I noted how tall she was. Her auburn hair was twisted up in a stylish knot and she was dressed in a gorgeous lilac wraparound dress that showcased her phenomenal figure. Farrah stepped forward to receive a familiar kiss on the cheek from Caine before he offered his hand to her CFO.