by Leah Vale
"So if you haven’t already told Joseph and Alexander that I tried to ruin the grand openings, do it." He didn’t want her charity.
The sound of the door opening stopped her from replying and drew their attention.
None other than Joseph McCoy walked through the door, followed closely by Alexander. Neither man looked particularly grim. Or as though they’d been told or overheard that the newest addition to the family firm had tried his damnedest to cost them millions today.
Cooper didn’t have to wait long to be sure.
Joseph’s lined faced crinkled further in a grin when he spotted Cooper and Sara by the window. "Oh, good. You’re both here. Damn shame you couldn't get away to show us around that impressive remodel you did, grandson, but I have to say I’m pleased with your priorities."
Cooper kept a firm clamp on any sense of pride that might rear its head at Joseph’s praise. He couldn’t forget what he was here for.
As Alexander closed the door behind him. Joseph came to Cooper and jovially slapped him on the back. "Glad to know you put the success of McCoy grand openings first and foremost."
Cooper looked at Sara, half dreading, half daring her to end this farce and tell Joseph the truth.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Her heart in her throat, Sara jerked her gaze from Joseph to Cooper, only to find him watching her. He was waiting for her to hand Joseph his head on a plate. She could see the certainty that she would do it in his deep blue eyes.
Just as she’d seen the flare of anguish and bitterness when he talked of his disconnected youth. His pain hit her like a stake to the heart.
He expected her to react to him as everyone else in his life had, with an unfeeling selfishness that left him standing stripped bare and alone.
She wouldn’t do it.
Despite risking being hurt, she wouldn’t abandon Cooper. Not only because Joseph had entrusted her with making him a part of the family and Alexander counted on her to do her best to control him, but because Cooper didn’t deserve the sort of treatment he’d been given in the past.
He was a better man than that.
But she wasn’t above a little payback. He was so hot to find a way to make the company lose money it’d fry him to be given the credit for earning a record amount.
She flashed Cooper a smile. "Oh, he’s done more than put the success of the grand openings first, Joseph. He’s guaranteed it."
Cooper frowned fiercely at her.
She tilted her chin upward. Whether he believed so or not, he needed to be a part of something. A family who would stand by him and be there for him. Joseph would be that family, and in time, when he’d come to terms with the situation himself, so would Alexander. While she would never know that sort of connection, Cooper deserved to.
As if to validate her thoughts, Alex moved to join them. "He guaranteed it? How so?" Obviously, he was thinking of how she’d virtually demanded the day Cooper arrived that he be shut out of the company.
Again, she was struck by the similarities between the two half brothers. Both were tall and well built, with a dangerous masculine beauty she’d never noticed in Alex until after she’d met Cooper. Maybe because Alex hadn’t been the brooding type before he’d found out the truth of his parentage.
She met Alex's regard and prayed he wouldn’t see the unprecedented lie in her eyes. "He came up with a brilliant idea to make these openings special, and managed to generate so much buzz we’re getting all sorts of free publicity."
Alexander searched her face for a nerve-taxing moment, then slid his gaze to Cooper, who was staring at her intensely. "Hopefully, positive publicity."
Trying not to fidget under Cooper’s scrutiny, she nodded. "Extremely."
Jpseph chuckled. "That’s a Real McCoy for you."
Cooper closed his eyes and sent Sara into action. She went to her desk. "The preliminary numbers say it all."
Perspiration formed between her breasts as she shuffled papers in search of the notes she’d taken. She’d never lied to any of the McCoys. Never had to. But someone needed to save Cooper from himself, and Joseph had trusted her with the assignment, whether he’d realized the difficulty of the task or not.
Alex came up to her. "Today really must have been something. I’ve never seen your desk like this." There was definite speculation in his tone.
An unwelcome bum of panic started behind her breastbone. The ties that bound her to the McCoys weren’t as strong as blood. She was an employee, not a real part of the family.
To keep Cooper from having the chance to say anything damning, she stalled with "Oh, today was definitely something. Extraordinary, really."
She glanced at the other two men, and the burn spread when she saw that she was about to lose Joseph’s interest. He was far too taken with his new grandson, and would undoubtedly prefer to hear the particulars from him.
She rushed to say, "I’ve been in contact with the managers of the easternmost stores with grand openings today and jotted down some of their numbers."
She thumbed through another stack of papers, searching for her yellow legal notepad, painfully aware of Alex’s sharp interest. The man was suited for his position in the company regardless of who’d sired him.
Maybe one day she’d let him know the truth about what Cooper had done, but not until he’d come to terms with his own situation. And certainly not until he and Cooper had had a chance to form the type of relationship they both deserved. That of brothers.
She'd always attributed Marcus’s lack of interest in Alex to their huge age difference. Now she had no choice but to acknowledge that Marcus had only had his own interests at heart.
At last she found the piece of yellow paper she’d been looking for and handed it to Alexander. "Take a look at this.'
He blinked at the sales tallies and their corresponding stores. "Wow. Did you open early?"
She shook her head. "No."
She waited to say more until Alex handed the paper to Joseph, who’d been drawn toward them like a hound who’d caught a whiff of something really good. Joseph’s nose for business was unparalleled.
And lying to him was like lying to her father.
Sickening guilt tugged at her stomach, but she clung to the notion of a greater good and chanced a quick glance at Cooper, who held his ground, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression inscrutable.
As soon as Joseph had glanced over her figures she dramatically pronounced, "We opened late."
"Late?" Joseph and Alexander said in unison.
"Yes." She kept her attention firmly on them despite the urge to shift her gaze to the other man in her office. "Cooper ordered the doors to remain locked until 4:00 p.m. in the respective time zones--" at least that wasn't a lie ”--and then we ran a radio blitz proclaiming our grand opening prices were so low we couldn’t afford to open sooner.
"People responded by lining up at the stores hours in advance. While we did make deep cuts on the price points of many items, the tremendous volume and sales of other inventory clearly offset the discounts. Assuming the rest of the new stores have the same activity from the lines they have forming, and barring any natural disasters--" this time she did look at Cooper, and would have sworn she saw a slight smile and grudging admiration in his eyes "--we’re on pace to set opening-day records."
Joseph boomed. "Excellent is right!" concurring with her earlier description. He raised the yellow paper in his big hand. "And you say this was my grandson’s doing?"
She yanked in a fortifying breath and went for a half truth. "Opening late was his idea, yes."
Joseph slapped Alexander on the back. "Brilliant of you to put your brother in Operations. He clearly has the head for it."
Alex shrugged, thankfully not revealing his actual reason for the placement: that Sara had declared Cooper in need of a keeper. Something she would have thought twice about if she’d known she’d end up with the job.
Joseph added, "We’ll have to add to the number of charities receiving
a percentage of the take." He then moved to Cooper and offered him his hand, Nerve-racking seconds passed before Cooper took his grand-father’s hand, but somehow what Sara knew to be reluctance came across as nothing more than modesty.
Joseph shook Cooper’s hand. "Way to take the initiative, grandson, I’m proud of you."
Warmth surged in her chest and muffled the guilt. Joseph would wear Cooper down yet.
Cooper’s gaze flicked to hers, a tempest of emotions clouding his blue eyes before he shuttered them behind a hell, it was easy expression. "I did what I could, sir."
Joseph pulled Cooper against him and slung his free arm around Cooper’s shoulder in what was becoming a familiar and hopefully healing embrace. "Sara, you’d best watch out for this one. He just might be after your job."
Joseph had meant it as a joke. She knew he had. Joseph’s tone, his grin, had made it clear. She’d seen him joke exactly like that a thousand times. Her body didn’t care. She felt as though she’d just been pitched off the top of the building and had plummeted fifteen stories to the ground.
She grabbed the edge of her desk to stop her descent into irrationality. Joseph hadn’t been serious. Just as she managed to plaster a good-natured smile on her face and join in Joseph’s laughter, her gaze snagged on Cooper’s.
He understood. He knew how Joseph’s ribbing had scared her, how important her job was to her.
And he knew she’d risked it for him.
The shift in power wasn’t the slightest bit subtle. She glanced at Alexander to see if he’d noticed, but he was checking his watch.
He sighed and said, "We need to get down to that Finances meeting. gang." He started for the door, then stopped. "Although actually, Cooper, since we’ll be hashing out overhead, you don’t have to come to this one. But trust me, when we get to the new stores, you’ll be handed a command performance."
Joseph held up the paper with the sales figures on it and gave Cooper one last squeeze. "And what a way to let them know where you belong." He released Cooper and walked toward the door with Alexander. "Come along, Sara."
"I’ll be right there." She wasn’t about to let Cooper think for one second that he’d drawn a bead on her.
Even though he had. She felt stripped naked and exposed raw.
She raised a staying hand to Cooper even though he hadn’t moved, and followed the other two men to the door. She’d planned on shutting it, but Alexander turned and raised an eyebrow at her.
She fumbled with an explanation. "I just need to tell Cooper which of the stores I’ve already checked in with." Reluctantly leaving the door open, she veered away from it and headed for Cooper.
He watched her knowingly, clearly unwilling to be of the slightest help.
From the hall Alex called, "I’ll wait for you."
Sara groaned inwardly and had to come to a stop closer to Cooper than she would have preferred, to keep from being overheard. Thinking this close to him was hard enough, let alone while being disconcerted. He, too, raised an eyebrow. "Why did you do it, Sara? Or rather, why didn’t you?"
She whispered. "Despite what you might believe, this is nothing personal. Regarding me, that is."
"But it is regarding me." He spoke normally and made her wince. Hopefully, his deep voice wouldn’t carry out into the hall.
"Yes." she hissed, as a warning for him to lower his voice. He appeared ready to press her about her reasons for not exposing him, so she quickly added, "Look, I have to go, but we need to talk about this."
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Alex watching them curiously from the reception area outside her door. She pasted on a pleasant expression and raised her hands as if she was ticking off the stores she’d called. She turned back to Cooper and murmured, "Privately."
She’d take advantage of the chink Joseph’s praise had put in Cooper’s armor and convince him to see reason. Once she had him feeling a part of the family and off his revenge kick, she could return her focus and her emotional energy to her job.
He smirked, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. "Your place or mine?"
The idea of sneaking upstairs to meet Cooper in his suite of rooms in The Big House warmed her cheeks. And since having him with all his sexual magnetism in the cozy confines of her apartment over the carriage house was out of the question--
His naughty-boy mien shifted into a thoughtful one. "You know what? Let’s make it yours. I’m tired of having someone else waiting on me like I’m freakin’ royalty. Let me borrow your kitchen and I’ll make us dinner. You do have a grill. don’t you?"
She scowled. "A little one--but no," she sputtered. "l don’t want--"
"Great." He leaned in close. "Though I am used to working with a big one." He actually waggled his brows at her.
Sara shook her head, desperate to stop him from invading her personal space and halt the image of him and his big one threatening to form in her imagination. But before she could tell him no way, he raised his head and looked behind her.
"I think Mother Hen is wondering what's taking you so long."
She turned just as Alexander leaned back into her office. "You coming, Sara? Joseph will be waiting."
Cringing at being caught so near to Cooper, as well as at Alex calling Joseph by his name rather than Dad as he used to or Grandfather as he should, she took a quick step away from Cooper toward the door. "Uh, yes. I am." She pointed at Cooper. "So you’ll make the calls we were discussing?" She sounded overly loud, but maybe Alex would buy it.
Cooper nodded. "Yes, ma’am. By six o’clock sharp."
"Go ahead and use my office," she added as she followed Alex.
He shook his head at her and mouthed the words your apartment. Lifting his arm. he pointed at his watch, then held up six fingers.
Her body went to Code Red. Cooper in her apartment, where a man hadn’t been in such a long time, was not a good thing.
She paused to silently argue with him. No way was she discussing anything with that man in her apartment. Not when he liked to use his mouth to prove how bad he was. And especially not when she was well aware of how she responded to his proof, lust as he was now well aware of it, thanks to her stupidly telling him as much.
"Sara." Alexander warned, though he continued toward the elevators. If he suspected anything was up, had he decided it was time for whatever was going on between her and Cooper to end?
The fistfuls of hot cinnamon candies with which she’d fueled her frantic race to thwart Cooper earlier churned in her stomach. She had no choice but to follow Alex. Unfortunately, she couldn’t allow what was going on between her and Cooper to end yet. For her job and sanity’s sake, not to mention protecting the McCoys, she needed to convince him to give up on his destructive plan.
She chanced one last glance over her shoulder. Cooper stood in the door to her oftice, his feet braced wide and his arms crossed over his chest, his red tie bunched. He wore the expression she’d once considered inscrutable, but now she could spot the suspicion, the speculation, the hope.
For his sake, she couldn’t end anything until she convinced him to embrace the McCoys as the family he deserved to be a part of.
And for Joseph’s sake, too. He had lost so much already. To lose the chance of having Cooper in his life because she hadn’t been up to the challenge was unacceptable.
She would simply have to shore up her defenses and hope they were enough to survive the coming battle.
SARA HAD A HARD TIME listening to Peter Carver as he reviewed their overhead costs item by item for the company officers in the smaller, less-formal boardroom adjacent to his new office. It wasn’t long before the CFO’s voice faded completely as she tried to formulate the best argument for not letting Cooper through the door of her carriage-house apartment.
Not that she didn’t trust him. Sure, he had plenty of reasons after today to either wring her neck or take advantage of her. But even after the stunt he’d pulled with the grand opening, he wouldn’t do anything dishonorable. He’d prove
d too many times the sort of man he was.
Wouldn’t unless she wanted him to.
Sexual expectation quickened her pulse at the idea of Cooper being wickedly dishonorable with her. If that wasn’t reason enough to convince him to have their "talk" elsewhere, she didn’t know what was. The man was temptation in the flesh.
"Sara?"
Fear shot through her that she’d spoken the disastrous thought and she jerked upright in her seat. She blinked at Peter, who’d called to her.
He smiled encouragingly. "Do you have anything to add?"
She cleared the unwelcome longing from her throat. "No. No, I don’t." She glanced at Alexander, rocking back in his chair with the end of his silver pen against his lips. "Do I?"
