What the Heiress Wants

by Kristina Knight

  Connor mumbled something she didn’t quite catch, so she continued.

  “We have the equipment already, and the staff. Just a matter of changing up shifts. And the print version would offer more in-depth content. For example, when your brother was the Bachelor of the Month, we could have offered an interview with him; something casual. People want to feel like they know celebrities, especially local celebs. I haven’t talked to the bloggers or reporters, but most of them hit the clubs, anyway. They have the contacts to really show viewers what happens in Vegas.”

  “As long as they don’t get sucked in to the show. They’ll have a job to do.” He made a few notes on the pad before him, and Miranda wanted to crane her neck to see what he wrote. Instead, she kept to her seat across the desk from him, clasping her hands in her lap.

  “Getting paid to attend parties … I think they’ll jump at the chance.”

  “Would you?”

  “Get paid to party?” She thought about the options for a moment. Wasn’t that what her father had offered? Take a generous salary from the publishing company but spend her time on boards and at charity events. Not quite the same as actually reporting on Vegas nightlife. “I would,” she decided.

  Connor grimaced. “I hate parties.”

  “You do?”

  “Everyone trying to be happier than everyone else. It’s maddening.”

  “They why operate an entertainment news magazine and video property?”

  “Because I got a great deal on the printing press.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not the answer you were looking for?” He glanced at her. “You thought I had some deep-seated need to report on what the Kardashians do in Vegas?” Connor shook his head. “Nothing quite so shallow.”

  Miranda crossed her legs and sat forward in her chair. “You don’t love the smell of ink on a press? The sound of the pages as they zip through the stiles?”

  “Actually, those are two of my favorite things,” he said after a moment. Connor returned his attention to the papers on his desk, and Miranda took a moment to study him.

  That shock of dark blond hair fell over his forehead, and he kept pushing it back into place. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she’d watched him enough over the past months to know the blue of his eyes would be darker because of his concentration. He’d hung his pinstriped, navy suit coat over the back of his chair, and his crisp, white sleeves were rolled to his elbows, showing off strong forearms with a smattering of short hairs over his skin.

  He twisted his mouth to the side again, and again made notations on the small pad to his left. She’d never noticed before he was left-handed. Connor flipped between a few pages, and the little crease between his eyes deepened. Her mouth went dry, but she refused to lick her lips. Yes, he looked good in the suit. Yes, he looked better a little disheveled as he was now, and yes, she wanted to run her hands through that mop of hair.

  But he was her boss. This job was too important for her to think of him in any other way. He didn’t even know who she really was, for crying out loud.

  Connor looked up, and Miranda’s face heated. “These are decent ideas.”

  Miranda focused her words before allowing herself to speak. “I know. The biggest changes will be to layout, as you can see—”

  “The layout works.” His voice was flat, and he kept his attention on the papers in his hands, which crinkled when he clenched his hands tighter.

  “No, it doesn’t. It’s clunky. All the navigation goes back to the main page, the writers aren’t deep linking, and related articles and blogs should appear on the sidebar of each piece.”

  “The search feature takes care of that.”

  Miranda shook her head. “Readers will use the search feature on retail sites; most of them don’t think to search for other references to Leonardo DiCaprio or the Kardashians. We need to keep them glued, deep linking, and showing related articles will do that.” Nervous butterflies beat in her belly.

  “I’ll consider a redesign,” Connor said after a long moment. “My plans for the video segment are in line with what you’ve laid out, and I like the additions to the print edition.”

  He liked her ideas. He liked them. Miranda wanted to Snoopy dance around the office but settled for squeezing her hands in her lap.

  “Thank you.” Now was the time. Tell him who she was, apologize for the subterfuge, and then beg him to keep her job. “I wanted to—”

  Connor pushed his chair away from the desk and began unfolding the sleeves of his shirt. “I’m late for an appointment with one of the hotels on the strip. Let’s look at implementation of these ideas tomorrow morning.” He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it over his shoulders. “Ten o’clock?”

  Relief washed through her. She had another day to figure out how to tell him who she was without getting fired from the only real job she’d ever held. “I’ll have preliminary numbers and schedules ready,” she said.

  Connor nodded, put a few folders into his briefcase, and motioned her to the hallway. For a few moments they were side by side, their steps in sync, and Miranda could feel the heat from his body. She swallowed.

  Connor paused at her door. Miranda clasped the knob in her hand, feeling the cool metal of the handle against the small of her back.

  “See you in the morning,” he said and continued down the hall, leaving her outside her office door. Her heart seemed to flutter in her chest. Miranda shook her head. What was going on with her? Feeling all giddy as she walked the hall with her boss was so not in her best interests. She needed to be focused on the business, not the animal magnetism of a man in a great suit.

  He liked her ideas, and that was huge. She wouldn’t mess that up with a silly office crush.

  Especially when she still had to figure out a way to keep her job once he found out who she really was.

  Chapter Two

  Connor got into his Jaguar and ran his index finger along the inside of his collar. That had been close. Too close.

  Sitting across from Miranda, who looked more like an intern making her first presentation than the corporate spy he suspected her of being, made him want to do weird things. Things like dragging her across the desk to kiss her pretty mouth until that worried frown disappeared for good. Like pulling on her long, chestnut hair until a low, deep moan escaped her lips. Things that had zero to do with work.

  Things Connor had only considered once from the moment he set up Reeves Pub. That one time nearly imploded his entire business. He was not going down that road again, not for the pretty heiress currently working in the office down the hall. He hired bright people, pretty people, short people, tall people, fat people, and only once had he stepped over the line and into personal territory. Alyssa was a great reporter, and he’d known from the moment that he hired her she wouldn’t be in Vegas long. What he didn’t expect was that she would get so swept up in reporting on Las Vegas she would forget she wasn’t the story, or that, when her antics on the Strip reflected badly on his business, he would fire her. She threatened a sexual harassment lawsuit, and rather than drag Reeves Pub through more mud, he settled the suit. The last he heard, she was working at a local station on a Caribbean island.

  Now he was sitting in his car, daydreaming about Miranda Clayton. Connor shook himself. Not going down that road. She was his employee, his lying employee. He refused to muck up his work life again. He liked clear boundaries. He was the boss; his employees were his employees. A few might tell him about personal problems, and he’d loaned more than one money when things were tight, but even those interactions were based on business.

  Keep your enemies closer.

  Somehow, he didn’t think Caleb had meant getting physical with the enemy.

  And now, at just after three in the afternoon, he was banished from his office because he’d made up an advertiser meeting so that he wouldn’t cross that firm line he’d created to keep his distance from his employees.

  He turned the ignition and pul
led his car out of the parking garage off Fremont and into the rush of Las Vegas Boulevard. He lived in a condo at the south end of the Strip, in one of the first buildings his brother Gage had renovated a few years before. The top level was split into three penthouses: one for him, another for Gage, and the third for Jase. He would hibernate there, curl up with the briefcase full of paperwork, and not come out until morning.

  The traffic stopped at a red light, and a horde of people streamed into the busy street. Tourists making the rounds of the shops at Caesars and the MGM, gamblers ready to try their luck in a different casino, kids being pulled along by their parents when they probably only wanted to visit the arcade and pool in their hotel.

  Connor loosened his tie, threw it on the passenger seat, and then unbuttoned his crisp collar. He rolled his shoulders. Millions of people visited Las Vegas every day, and all of them found something to do besides work. He’d never had a problem putting work before play, but the paperwork waiting in his briefcase held little appeal.

  His foot tapped against the floorboard as the crosswalk timer began counting down from fifteen.

  He could use the pool and workout facilities at the condo. Do some early training for the 10K he’d signed the office up for in the spring. Traffic began moving again, slowly.

  He could use the gym time to run off some of this excess energy he’d been feeling since he ran into Miranda on the walkway above the pressroom. Or, if he were honest, the excess energy he’d been feeling since she first set foot in the office. The energy that had only become more and more distracting since he’d learned her real identity. And wasn’t that patently ridiculous? Only a fool got carried away with a woman who lied to him.

  Connor was no fool.

  This distraction wasn’t only about his pretty VP. It was about what Miranda wanted. That was the problem. He couldn’t let her go until he knew why she was working for him. As soon as he figured that out, he would forget all about the pretty redhead with the worried frown and deep brown eyes.

  The light turned, and he stepped on the gas. A few minutes later, he pulled into his reserved spot in the condo parking garage and gathered his briefcase. Definitely gym time first, then his head would be cleared of distraction and he could get to the paperwork he’d brought from the office.

  “Hey, stranger,” Callie said from behind him. She pulled the portable table from the hatch of her VW Bug and eyed Connor for a moment. “Are you following me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said and pushed the button for the elevator. Callie set the table on the concrete while they waited. “What are you doing here?”

  “Meeting Gage, Mr. McGruff. We’re going out to the Heck place to consider floor samples and see how renovations are going on the guest houses.”

  Connor felt chagrined. Callie didn’t deserve his annoyance, not when she was merely doing her job. “Sorry. Have a lot on my mind.”

  She patted the table. “I thought you knew about the corporate masseur thing. I never would have bid on the contract otherwise.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  “Brenda, in Gage’s office. She and Lila and a few of the other women meet for coffee every morning. Lila mentioned it to her, she mentioned it to me because she handles my account with the angel fund, and I placed a bid. It’s a good program.”

  Connor nodded. Yet another thing he didn’t know about his employees: They met for coffee with workers from Gage’s and probably Jase’s businesses, too. “Miranda walked me through it this afternoon. You sure you aren’t taking on too much?”

  “I like to be busy. And like I said, I need money coming in while the Heck place is being renovated.”

  “It isn’t like Gage is hard up for the money—”

  She held up her hand, cutting him off. “Don’t go there, Connor. It matters to me.”

  Connor could understand that. While the umbrella of Reeves Brothers Entertainment could cover any losses from Reeves Pub without feeling it, he wanted the publications to succeed in their own right. Gage and Jase had the flashy, high-return jobs, but the newspaper was mostly steady. When things were starting with all of them, Reeves Pub had been the one that had provided them with spending money and even underwritten one of Gage’s first developments. Neither Jase nor Gage said anything when profits took a hit last quarter, and Connor knew they wouldn’t say anything this quarter, but he was determined to keep his arm of RBE not only afloat but also profitable. This was his baby. His company. He needed it to succeed.

  Callie’s voice brought him back to the parking garage. “Are you coming out to the ranch for Thanksgiving? I’ve left a few voicemails, but you didn’t answer yet.”

  One of the many balls he’d dropped thanks to his newfound obsession with Miranda Clayton. “Thanksgiving?” Connor pushed his eyebrows together.

  “Big meal, fourth Thursday of November. Usually followed by an afternoon of football and pie and a turkey coma?”

  “I didn’t realize you were having a dinner.” He hadn’t been out to his family’s ranch in a while. He loved the Rocking R, but he was uncomfortable being there all these years later. Somehow he had never made the same peace with the place that Gage had. It was the place that gave the three brothers their start, the place that made them millionaires, but it was also filled with bad memories. For Connor, the ranch was a reminder of Caleb’s death and their mother’s gambling addiction. Things he would rather not relive on a national holiday.

  “My parents are supposed to come in for the holiday weekend, and my condo and Gage’s are too small for a big meal. Jase is a maybe, Rollie and a few of the other hands are yeses. What about you?”

  The elevator arrived. Connor picked up the heavy table before Callie could and stepped inside. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “You should. Gage says you guys haven’t don’t much around the holidays since Caleb died.”

  They hadn’t. The first year, Rollie, the ranch foreman, had grilled steaks and made baked potatoes, but Gage hadn’t shown up, and Jase had had a poker tournament. It was the loneliest meal Connor had ever eaten, sitting with Rollie at the big kitchen table at the ranch, thinking about the years when Caleb grilled filet mignon or prime rib, and the pies their mother, Helena, made for three sprawling teenage boys. Rollie tried to fill the gap, even followed Helena’s dessert lists, but it wasn’t the same. Connor had eaten as quickly as he could, made an excuse to the foreman, and ridden his four-wheeler into the desert. He’d thrown rocks at the cactus for a few hours, feeling sorry for himself. He’d made excuses for every holiday dinner since then, not wanting to be the only one at the table.

  They made it work, though. Despite not spending holidays together like a normal family, they’d built Reeves Brothers and kept the ranch going the way Caleb would have wanted. The three of them had a kind of shorthand when they got together, and none of them talked about the past.

  The elevator stopped at the top floor, and he carried the table to Gage’s door and then turned to unlock his own. Callie’s hand on his arm stopped him.

  “You should come out. Spend the holiday with your brothers.”

  “That may not be a great idea.”

  Callie pushed open the door to Gage’s penthouse suite. “Then again, it might be a great idea.”

  “I’ll let you know,” he said, and she closed the door behind her.

  Spending the holiday with his brothers. It had been ten years since that first failed attempt at making their relationship normal. Three brothers spending Thanksgiving with football and food.

  This time it would be the three of them, Callie and her parents, and a few of the ranch hands. Maybe it was time to start filling the old house with new memories.

  • • •

  Somewhere between three and four in the morning—after running five miles and swimming another three had done nothing to stop his incessant wondering about Miranda—Connor decided he needed a plan. One that didn’t include him dragging Miranda across his desk t
o have his way with her. One that wouldn’t give him the chance to even daydream about dragging her across his desk to have his way with her.

  He just needed to get laid. Every Miranda scenario that played out in his head led to sex. Connor was no saint; he’d had his fair share of women, but it had been a while. After Alyssa, he’d stopped serial dating, which meant no sex. Nearly nine months since he’d been with a woman, and Miranda was exactly his type. Long hair, mysterious eyes, curves in all the right places. And she was smart. God, he was a sucker for a smart woman.

  So he would get laid. Connor scrolled through the contacts list on his phone, but no one in the listing made his fingers clench the way Miranda did. None of the women there even made his pulse race.

  God, why couldn’t he be more like his brothers? Before Callie, Gage had a string of women waiting for a scrap of his attention. Jase was the same with a woman waiting outside whatever casino he happened to be playing.

  Didn’t matter. He’d hit a club tonight, find a suitable candidate, and then this obsession with Miranda would be over.

  The plan was to force himself to see her only as a work colleague, and to do that he needed to release the sexual energy currently dogging him, not wonder what Miranda’s hair would look like wrapped around his hands, and definitely not fixate on her kissable lips, especially when they went all pouty and worried.

  The plan also required a meeting after lunch with Miranda because, while he saw some great potential in her plans, he didn’t work with people he didn’t trust. He couldn’t trust her until she came clean with him about why she was working at Reeves Pub. That meant getting under her skin, at least a little, in a purely professional and not-at-all-naked kind of way. He needed her to see the potential for the publications if they remained independent from bigger conglomerates like her father’s.