by Karen Booth
“Sorry I’m late. I got waylaid in the hall by one of your coworkers. A guy named Wes?” Sawyer removed his suit jacket and tossed it over one of the chairs. “He was asking me all sorts of questions.”
Oh no. “Sorry about that. Was he bothering you?” Kendall just narrowly avoided squeaking her reply.
“He had some interesting information about you.” He sat in his seat and looked right at her while he rolled up his shirtsleeves, amping up her nervousness while distracting her with his forearms.
“He’s the office gossip.” Kendall said it as nonchalantly as possible, scribbling nonsense on her legal pad. “You’ll have to tell me about it later. I think we’re all ready to call in for your first interview. I’ve got water for you and I brought in some cookies. I don’t know about you, but I can always use an afternoon pick-me-up.”
“Yeah. Great. Thanks.” He eyed her as he opened a bottle of water and took a swig.
One-syllable answers and a glare. Not good. “Shall we go ahead and get started? This first writer is a notorious stickler for schedules.”
Sawyer nodded. “Of course. Whatever we need to do. You’re in charge.”
“Great.” Kendall punched the number into the conference phone, still feeling like something was very, very wrong.
“I just want one thing,” he said as the phone rang. “When we’re done with these interviews, I want you to tell me why you lied about the ring.”
The writer picked up on the line. “Hello?”
Kendall almost didn’t hear what she said. She was too busy panicking over Sawyer’s request.
* * *
Sawyer didn’t relish the role of putting Kendall on the spot. It made the crease between her eyebrows deeper and she’d lost the warm smile she’d been wearing when he first arrived.
But he’d been lied to, and that didn’t sit well with him, especially not when it came to a lie about an engagement ring. If anyone wanted to know how he became the guy who doesn’t get involved, it all boiled down to an engagement ring.
Unfortunately, there was no time between interviews to talk to her about it. Each went beyond the time they’d allotted, which Sawyer wanted to take as a good sign. The writers seemed genuinely interested in the project. If only he’d shared information about it earlier, he might not be in this situation right now. Except then he also wouldn’t have had a second chance to spend time with Kendall. And now that he knew the ring was a fake, he could stop tiptoeing around a few subjects.
Kendall punched the button on the speakerphone at the end of the third interview. “That went really well. You did a fantastic job. You didn’t need my help at all.”
“It’s not hard to talk about the hotel. I could do it for hours.” He’d gotten on a roll during the calls, even forgetting the topic of Kendall and the ring a few times. Now he could feel himself floating back down to earth. He couldn’t work with her if he didn’t know why she’d lied.
“I have a few more interviews for you to do later this week, but after seeing you in action today, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. I’m working on an interview with Margaret Sharp for a week from today. She’ll bring her own photographer. You might want to clear your schedule.”
“The Margaret Sharp?” Sawyer was impressed. She wrote for dozens of high-profile magazines.
“Uh-huh. That’s the one.” Kendall collected her things in a hurry, like she was ready to walk out, but he couldn’t let her leave.
“Don’t go, Kendall. We need to talk about the ring. Wes told me it’s a fake. He said he heard women in the office talking about it. He told me he even spoke to you about it.” The memories of his fiancée’s betrayal were right there in his head, tangled up with his anger over Kendall misleading him. And to think he’d given himself a hard time about not calling her—all of that self-torture for nothing.
“You’d believe someone you just met in the hallway over me?”
He didn’t really have an answer to that. “I thought the ring was suspicious from the beginning.”
“Suspicious? Why? Because it’s hard to believe someone would want to marry a woman you couldn’t be bothered to call?”
She was fighting back a little too hard now. “Look. I need to know that I can trust you. I can’t work with someone who lies to me. So tell me now. Are you really engaged to be married?” Even though he was fairly certain the engagement wasn’t real, the wait for the answer seemed unnecessarily painful. He wasn’t sure what answer he was supposed to want. Either she was engaged, Wes was an imbecile and Sawyer needed to drop it. Or she’d lied and was single—a deal breaker delivered with good news.
“Fine. I’m not engaged. But I have my reasons for wearing it.”
“So you did lie to me.” Saying that grated on him like nothing else. He’d had to utter the same phrase to his former fiancée, Stephanie. And the answer had skewered him like few words ever had.
“I never said I was engaged. I’m absolutely certain of that. You assumed.”
“Of course I assumed. You’re wearing a pound of platinum and precious stones on your left ring finger.”
“People wear rings on that finger. It doesn’t mean they’re married or engaged.”
“Please don’t try to talk your way out of this on a technicality.”
“It’s just a ring. I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about it.”
Anger bubbled up inside him. “It’s not just a ring. It stands for something. It stands for love. And commitment.” He needed to stop himself from saying more, from divulging the pain that still burned in his chest if he thought about it.
“It only stands for that if you’re engaged. I never said I was.”
“Fine. Then tell me why you let me believe that you were engaged.”
“It was my mother’s ring. It’s a reminder that I need to focus on my career. Romance does not work out for me. I have a real knack for attracting the wrong guys.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
She flipped her hand in his direction. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Wrong Guy Exhibit A, Sawyer Locke. He’s not in it for anything more than a one-night stand. You certainly can’t expect him to call you, even when he says he will.”
Something about this didn’t add up. “Why weren’t you wearing the ring at the wedding?”
She pursed her lips tightly and cast her sights down at the floor. She crossed her arms at her waist, as if she was shoring up her defenses. “I hadn’t needed it before then.”
“I don’t understand. Did the wedding have something to do with it?”
“Maybe. A little.”
He ran his hands through his hair. Of the many frustrating conversations he’d had with a woman, this might top them all. “I need to know what you’re talking about. There are things in my past that make me very distrustful of other people.” Especially women. “I’m putting the fate of my business in your hands. If I can’t trust you, I can’t work with you. It’s that simple.”
“You’d fire the firm?”
“I’d have to tell Jillian I can’t work with you. I don’t know what would happen after that.”
“Oh, I’ll tell you what would happen. She’d give the job to Wes, and that’s not happening.” She drew in a deep breath, still standing, looking down at him with her blue eyes blazing. God, he loved her fire. He might not trust her completely, but that wasn’t going to stop him from admiring the hell out of her. “I started wearing the ring because you were everywhere I went when I came back to the city.”
“Now I’m really confused.”
“Everywhere I went, I would see a sign for your real estate company or see you in the paper. It was too many reminders of a guy who slept with me and didn’t call me. It hurt, a lot. I’ve had way too many guys treat me like that in my
life, and I had to stop repeating the pattern. I watched some silly movie on TV and the heroine did the same thing. She started wearing an engagement ring to make it easier to stay away from the guy who she knew was trouble.”
“And I’m the guy who’s trouble.” Now his stomach was turning sour. Did she really think so little of him?
“Yes.” A distinct frown broke across her face. “Look, the idea might sound dumb to you, but I had no idea you were ever going to see me wearing this ring. It wasn’t meant for you, Sawyer. It was meant for me. To protect me.” She collected her notepad and pens. “It was an unexpected bonus that the ring made it easier to keep things professional with you.”
Everything Kendall had just launched at him was churning in his head. Every stupid guy mistake he’d made, the way he’d hurt a woman he didn’t know well, but one he could admit to being drawn to. Her words tumbled in his head. Wait a minute. “What are you saying? That it would’ve been hard to keep things professional?”
“I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to answer that,” she whispered, stepping closer. “I shouldn’t even be talking about this in the office. I could get fired for this conversation. You know I’m attracted to you, Sawyer. That should be obvious. But we got it out of our systems in Maine, right?”
His heart was pounding in his chest, a reaction he didn’t take lightly. What was it about Kendall that drew him in like this? What made him not want to just drop it and move on? He had to get back on his game. There was far too much evidence pointing to one conclusion—his trust in Kendall was tenuous at best. He needed to reserve what he had for work.
“Yes. Absolutely. Out of our systems.” He knew it was a lie as soon as it left his lips. He grabbed his coat and headed straight for the door, but Kendall grabbed his arm.
“Sawyer, stop. I’m sorry. I apologize. I shouldn’t have let you believe what you did. That was wrong.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you. Because it was wrong.”
“I need to know that we’re okay.”
Were they okay? He needed them to be, but he was very much not okay right now. He wanted her, even when everything about being with her was messy and wrong. He wanted something that was bad for him. And that scared the hell out of him. “With work?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Yeah. We’re good. I just need to go.”
Five
Dim morning light from her bedroom window cast a soft beam across Kendall’s lap. She sat on the bed; the ring sat on her dresser. The thing was taunting her with its sparkly brilliance. She’d been anything but brilliant when she’d decided to take life advice from a romantic comedy.
Had it worked? As Sawyer had so adeptly pointed out, absolutely not. Her charade hadn’t even lasted a week. She was arguably in a far worse spot this morning than the day she’d first put on the ring. Her best defense against her attraction to Sawyer had been a ruse. There would be no more strategic straightening of the ring in front of him, sending off her warning signals that he’d better stay away. He had a much clearer path to her now. And she wasn’t sure she could deny him if he chose to take it.
She’d given up what little power she had when the secret had come out, and she’d been forced to come clean with the reasons why she’d let Sawyer think she was engaged. The ring made it easier to keep things professional with you. She was regretting her admission like crazy, but she couldn’t let Wes get her account. If that happened, she’d be done. Jillian would have her new VP, all because Kendall had chosen to put on the ring.
She was minutes away from missing her train, but she couldn’t find the energy to get off the bed. It was probably just because everything at work was so ridiculously exhausting. Maybe she should make a doctor’s appointment. She couldn’t afford to be sick, not with so much on her plate. Still, it felt like there was a magnetic force tugging at her, encouraging her to lie back, curl up into a ball and take a nap. What is my problem? Why am I so tired all of the time? Maybe it was because she’d been having incredibly vivid sex dreams—her mind was probably tired from staying up all night, getting busy. She could only vaguely remember last night’s, and Sawyer had made an appearance. It was one of those purely hot, unsentimental dreams where two people rip each other’s clothes off and find the nearest piece of furniture. In this case, the kitchen table. Seriously, brain? Not even the couch?
She caught herself rubbing the tips of her fingers along her collarbone, just as she spotted the clock. Go away, sex brain. Time to gather what little energy she had and get on with her day.
She slipped into her pumps, grabbed her coat and laptop bag, and rushed out the door. Outside, she was greeted with the sort of day she hated—gray and drizzling. She ducked inside her coat, gathering the collar around her neck. As she started down the street, she noticed a black, stretch limousine ahead. It was not a typical sight in her decidedly unglamorous, working-class neighborhood.
A man in dark sunglasses and a black suit stood sentry in front of the passenger window. Her mind flashed to the first day she’d gone to visit the Grand Legacy and that led to thoughts of Sawyer. Was it just that her brain wanted to go there? Or was this the universe sending signals again?
She was getting close now, and the man stepped away from the car, facing her and taking up much of the space on the sidewalk. With his sunglasses on, she couldn’t read his intentions, and that made her heart panic. What is he doing? Refusing to slow down, she angled toward the far right-hand side of the walk, but he followed until she was blocked by trash cans. She dodged to the left and he followed just as fast. There was no path to the street. The cars along it were parked bumper-to-bumper.
“Kendall Ross?” the man asked.
“How do you know my name?”
The limousine passenger door opened. Kendall jumped back.
“Mr. Locke would like to speak with you.”
Mr. Locke? Are you kidding me? Why was Sawyer on her street? Why was he sending a glorified errand boy after her? She marched over to the car, ready to give him a piece of her mind. “Sawyer, you have my phone number. What are you doing?” She leaned down and peered inside, but Sawyer wasn’t sitting in the back seat. James Locke was.
Sawyer’s father was handsome, she’d give him that much. His hair was salt-and-pepper, cut neatly, his face shaven. Still, he gave off this aura that Kendall knew all too well, and it was much more pronounced with the elder Locke than it was with Sawyer.
“Ms. Ross. I was hoping to speak to you.”
“I’m on my way to work.” Her instinct was to tell Mr. Locke that he could take his conversation and shove it, but she could only be so bold with a muscle-bound gorilla standing behind her.
“I’ll give you a ride. We can chat along the way.”
She could not afford to be late for work, but oddly enough, it wasn’t Jillian’s voice she heard in her head right now, it was her mother’s. Never get in a car with a man you don’t know. Then there was the not-small matter of everything Sawyer had said about his father. The man was known for going to great lengths to get whatever he wanted. “I don’t think so, Mr. Locke, but thank you.” She stepped back and turned away, but her face met the driver’s chest. “Excuse me.”
Mr. Locke climbed out of the car. “I want to make you an offer, Ms. Ross.”
“What?” Trapped by the open car door and stuck between these two men, she was a few seconds away from screaming bloody murder.
Mr. Locke looked up and down the street. “This isn’t a great neighborhood. I’ve heard it’s not safe.”
“It’s fine. I like it here. I know my neighbors.” The sky grew darker. Kendall had to wonder if Mr. Locke was able to summon threatening weather with his mere presence.
“A professional woman like yourself, trying to work your way up in the world, should have something nicer. Safer. More secure.”
“What are you saying?”
“I have real estate all over the city, Ms. Ross. Wouldn’t you love to own a luxury apartment? A building with a doorman, three times the size of your current apartment, gourmet kitchen, a concierge. No rent to worry about. All paid for. It could be yours.”
This was officially the strangest interaction Kendall had ever had with anyone. “What do you want from me?”
“I understand you’re working on a new project at your firm. Perhaps you could take some of my suggestions for a new PR strategy. Or provide information to interested parties.”
“Suggestions? Interested parties? You’re talking about your son, Mr. Locke. He’s my client. I would never divulge a client’s information or purposely take a third party’s lead. That’s absurd.”
“So you want me to sweeten the pot.” He swiped at his lower lip with his tongue. “The apartment and fifty thousand.”
“No, thank you.”
“One hundred thousand. And the apartment.”
Not that she wasn’t already sure he was dead serious, but this was getting scary. The lengths this man would go to get at his own son. It struck Kendall as impossibly sad. “You aren’t listening to me. That’s a violation of my working arrangement with your son. I could lose my job. I’m not giving up my career for an apartment or money. I’ll take my chances in my neighborhood, thanks.” She turned away, prepared to punch the driver in the stomach this time, but he let her past. She only got a few steps though before she heard Mr. Locke’s voice again.
“You could always lose your job some other way,” he called.
She whipped around, only to see him remove his sunglasses and polish them, as if they were having a normal conversation.
Kendall rushed back. “What did you just say?”
“People get fired all the time, for all sorts of things.” He shrugged. “There’s always somebody, somewhere, who can be paid for information. Perhaps one of your coworkers? Then you wouldn’t be of much use to me or my son. I’m sure your boss wouldn’t like that. Especially if it looked as though you leaked the information.”
