Connor reached out, brushing his fingers against her arm. The contact sizzled along his nerve endings, but he didn’t draw his hand away. Miranda’s eyes widened as she raised her brown gaze to his. “I want you to know that I hear you,” he said and moved his free hand to the side of her face.
Her sandals were spiky-heeled, but she seemed small next to him, her forehead barely reaching his chin. Her eyes were wide in her face, the black of her pupils nearly obliterating the warm brown and gold tones of her irises. Her chest rose and fell quickly, and she seemed to sway toward him.
A voice in his head ordered him to back off, but Connor couldn’t. Her cheek was soft against his palm, and her eyes were mesmerizing. He wanted to kiss her. The admission should have been a splash of cold water over him, but it had the opposite effect. He tightened his hold on her arm, drawing her closer.
“And I’m glad you liked my ideas,” she said.
“Miranda,” he began, but he didn’t know what to say. Should he tell her he was stepping over his own lines? That he didn’t trust her, but that he couldn’t stop thinking about her? He couldn’t say either of those things because either might break the spell between them. He lowered his mouth to hers and tasted her.
Her lips were spicy from the Kung Pao, but he didn’t care. He pulled her closer to him, his arms fitting around her waist as if they belonged there. Miranda tilted her head, giving him better access to her mouth. Connor sucked her bottom lip between his, and she lifted her arms around his neck, burying her hands in his hair, holding his mouth to hers for a long moment.
He released her lower lip and tested the seam of her mouth with his tongue. He wanted to deepen the kiss, but she ran the show. This was his office, his company. She was his employee. Those things didn’t bode well, especially if he pushed things too far too fast.
She opened to him, and Connor dipped his tongue inside, tasting more of her. There was a hint of sugar from her iced tea along with the spice of the chicken, and under both was Miranda. Just Miranda.
She pulled away, putting an inch of space between them. Miranda put her hand to her heart and shook her head. “I’m sorry, that … that was a mistake.”
Not by any definition he had ever heard. “That was amazing,” Connor said.
She shook her head again and stepped out of his arms. Connor felt her absence like a cool, desert breeze in January.
“I can’t. I don’t kiss co-workers, and I especially don’t kiss my bosses,” she said, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth. “I like working for you, Connor, and I enjoyed having dinner and talking, but we aren’t … we can’t … I can’t. You’re my boss, and I like this job. We can be friends, but we can’t be more than that.”
She gathered her folders and the pad she’d been designing the layout on before they ordered the Chinese.
He wanted to argue with her, but he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She was right. Connor didn’t kiss employees. He should let her go. Keep their redesign work during business hours so there were no more chances of stepping over the line he’d drawn after Alyssa.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. That shouldn’t have happened,” he said and ran his hand through his hair. “It won’t happen again,” he promised, as much to himself as to her.
“I’ll, um, see you in the morning, then,” she said and turned quickly toward the door. Miranda left the office. He heard her heels clacking against the hardwood floor in the hall. Listened to the rise of the elevator and the ding that said the car had arrived. He waited another five minutes before closing his office door and leaning his back against it.
This was good. Get them back to work and away from the comfortable leather chairs. Put her across the desk from him where there was no chance her breast would brush against him or her scent would tempt him into pulling her into his lap.
The rest he would deal with. She would tell him why the subterfuge. He would win back the advertisers with their new campaigns and content. Reeves Pub would be stronger after this than it had ever been before.
Chapter Three
“You need to come back to Colorado. Now.” Miranda’s mother’s voice over the phone line was quiet, reasonable. As if she expected Miranda to pack her things and catch the afternoon flight back to Denver.
Miranda shook her head even though she knew her mother couldn’t see her. “I’m doing good work here, Mom.”
“You’re creating ad campaigns for a gossipy newspaper. That isn’t exactly life-changing work,” Trina Clayton’s voice seemed to echo over the phone, as if she’d put Miranda on speaker. Miranda straightened her shoulders. Trust her mother to ignore the fact that Vegas Nightly was only part of Reeves Pub. Vegas Daily wasn’t as flashy, but it was just as important. She had plans for it, as well. Her mother continued, not allowing Miranda to say anything. “Here, you can work on funding initiatives at the children’s hospital. We’re starting a new drive to send two of our best doctors to a refugee camp in Egypt.”
“I don’t want to be a professional fundraiser, Mother. Journalists can change the world just like doctors can. It’s because of journalists we know how badly people are affected by natural disasters and political coups—”
“Vegas Nightly isn’t breaking news about refugee crises around the world. Their breaking news is whether one Hollywood starlet stole another’s style. Come home, Randa. Come back where you belong.”
“What about the scandal Vegas Daily broke on the mayor’s shady dealings with the casino bosses?”
Trina harrumphed. “What about the three page spread Nightly did on ‘Who Wore It Better’?”
Miranda shook her head. Her mother meant well, and Miranda knew the charity work Trina did was worthy. That didn’t change the fact that Miranda wanted more for her life than sitting on a few boards and attending parties. She wanted … She sighed. More.
Miranda crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against her chair back. The big desk came with the office, and sometimes it just felt too big. Like she would never be able to fill all the drawers.
“How’s Dad?” she asked, needing a change in the conversation.
“Busy. You know William. If he’s not buying a new newspaper, he’s revamping an old one. Since you’ve been gone, he’s been more focused on work than ever.” A note of censure rang in Trina’s voice.
Her mother’s hypocrisy knew no bounds. Clayton Holdings didn’t run to the gossipy side of the news in the same way that Reeves Pub did, but the main difference was that William Clayton was a man and Miranda was not. To Trina, Miranda’s ovaries made all the difference in the work she should do. Planning a fundraiser for refugees in a conflict area? Check. Planning how a publication would cover the news of a refugee crisis? Unacceptable.
“It really hurt his feelings when you went to work for the competition. You know how important this Las Vegas merger is to him. This is the last step in moving Clayton Holdings from a regional to a national publisher, and with that move our charitable work will also grow—”
“If he didn’t want me to work for any newspapers except for his, he shouldn’t have blocked every application and interview I landed after I finished grad school.”
“Miranda, that was five years ago.”
“It was nine months ago. When I interviewed with a national television affiliate for a sales position. I want to work, Mom. I’m twenty-eight years old. Women have been working outside the home and outside of charitable institutions for nearly a century. I want more than to attend five-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinners or set up silent auctions. Dad made it clear he didn’t want me working for him or anyone else.”
“We have responsibilities. The Clayton family will always be an important benefactor for local charities.”
It was the same argument they’d been having since Miranda was sixteen and refused to attend a ball that was supposed to recognize returning war veterans. She wanted to pay her respects to the wounded men and women returning, but after talking to a few of them about what they needed—physica
l therapy and mental health support—and realizing the money was instead being funneled to renovate the officer’s club at a local base, she couldn’t.
Her mother didn’t want to hear any of that, though. She only wanted to focus on the good she imagined her silent auctions and expensive dinners accomplished.
“It’s a good job, Mom. Tell Dad I said hello, and I’ll call you next week.” She hit the end call button on her cell phone and put it into her purse.
No, Vegas Nightly, wasn’t the same as the Time, but it was still a good publication.
The readership and ad revenues from the magazine paid the salaries of not only the gossip reporters but also of the hard news reporters Connor had working on the small Vegas Daily newspaper. Even if the only publications he owned were gossipy, it would still be a good job. A job where her input was valued and listened to.
A job she had lied to get. Miranda closed her eyes. She’d only meant to make a good first impression and then come clean about who she was. Now she was nearly five months into a job she enjoyed, and she had no idea how to tell Connor she’d lied to get it. The lie was only complicated more by her response to his kiss last night.
Lila was right. This had gone on too long.
She should quit. Save what little dignity she had by coming clean about everything. Not because Connor had kissed her, but because she’d liked it a bit too much when he had. She’d melted into him. Melted. The last time she’d melted into a guy was … Riley Jameson, a sports reporter in Denver who saw her as a way up the ladder at Clayton Holdings. She’d been stupid to fall for his too perfect lines about respecting her smarts and being impressed that she wasn’t interested in the Denver charity circuit. Instead, she’d fallen hard for a man who’d seen her as his ticket to the sports editor position.
And now here she was, melting into another man who might not have her best interests at heart. A man who would hate her if he knew who she really was. And if he didn’t hate her, if he gave her the chance now, would it be because of that kiss or because she was good at her job?
God, Miranda, do you know how to mess up your new life, or what?
She came to Vegas to get away from the constant pressure of being the woman her parents wanted her to be, wound up lying to get a job she was qualified for, and now had no way of knowing, if Connor didn’t fire her because he believed in her or because he thought he could control her in the same way her family had been trying to control her.
She should quit, but she didn’t want to. Connor had seemed as mystified by that kiss as she had been. He’d backed off just as quickly as she had. One kiss in his office after a long day that ended with them sharing a meal and some of their histories shouldn’t torpedo her new career. If she could prove herself here, maybe her father would wake up to the twenty-first century and stop treating her like she was chattel instead of the smart, capable woman she was. Even if her father never changed, at least she could respect herself for going after what she wanted.
Drumming her fingers against the desktop, Miranda considered her options. March into Connor’s office, tell him the truth about who she was, and beg his forgiveness. Stay right here in her office, and wait for him to figure it out for himself. Sooner or later, her father would tire of her working for the competition. He would make sure Connor knew exactly who she was. Then Connor would fire her.
And Lila, because Miranda was the one who got Lila involved in the first place.
Miranda would face the consequences of lying to Connor, but she couldn’t let her friend take any part of the fall. Lila had only been trying to help.
The phone on her desk chirped, and Miranda grabbed it. “Miranda Cl-Walker,” she said, barely catching herself as she stumbled over her fake last name.
“We’ve been hacked.” It was Ben, one of the producers for the online magazine. “I can’t figure it out. The copy looks right on the back-end, but when you pull up the main site, it’s … bad. Really bad.”
Miranda hit a few keys, and the main Vegas Nightly Online page spread across her screen. Complete with vulgar words that appeared to be written in blood, and a few private body parts separating the link structures along the top and bottom of the page.
“Oh my God,” she breathed into the phone. “Take this down. Put up a site maintenance banner. I’ll be in the bullpen in two minutes.”
Miranda hurried down the hallway, wondering what had happened. The site looked like a combination of the old and new. The link structures and layout were new, the graphics part of the old system. After she left, had Connor kept working?
That didn’t make sense. It was his publication—he would never jeopardize it by putting gore and sex all over the front page. She picked up a print version of the magazine and skimmed it. The same headlines were online as were in the print version, but the layout of the print version was the same as it had always been. At least whatever hack had happened, it hadn’t carried over to the print run. She stopped at the reception desk in the vestibule that separated the executive offices from the reporter’s bullpen and the sales offices and asked the secretary to send Connor to the bullpen. He needed to be in on whatever was going on.
She opened the door to the bullpen, where the reporters and producers for Reeves Pub worked, and saw chaos. Ben was ordering a couple of producers to take the site offline, two reporters were fielding phone calls and rubbing the backs of their necks, and the rest were looking around as if they weren’t sure what to do next.
Miranda met Ben at his desk. He was a tall, thirty-something guy with a full beard who wore stocking caps and skinny jeans. He worked the first shift and arrived most days before seven with his messenger bag slung over one shoulder and a cup of herbal tea in his hands. Those hands were shaking now, and his eyes were wild as if someone had spiked his tea with a triple shot of espresso.
“It was fine until ten minutes ago. James uploaded a new poll, and the site just went nuts. It looks like it’s bleeding through the screens now,” he said, motioning toward his computer. The words on the screen did appear to be animated, sliding across the screen. And the breasts and penises separating the navigation panes appeared to dance. “I can’t take it down. I’ve un-published everything I can think of.”
Miranda tried a few key sequences on the back-end of the site, but the penises kept dancing, and the blood lettering kept sliding across the screen. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she wanted to throw up. This was not what they needed; not now. Not when Connor just approved her redesign. Not when she was finally doing the job she was hired to do.
“We need to get to the server,” she said. “Do you have access?”
“Yeah, but if we take it down from the server, we won’t be able to put up the site maintenance notice.”
“I’d rather have a dead screen than this,” she said and hoped Connor would agree. She waited while Ben accessed the main server. Once the server came up on Ben’s computer screen, she clicked into the system and unpublished everything.
The dancing penises and blood snapped off the screens around the bullpen. Only squares of white remained. At least the hack was over.
“Check the site on your smartphones and tablets,” she said, and everyone in the room began checking.
“Nothing.”
“All clear.”
“Thank God,” she mumbled under her breath as Connor walked into the bullpen.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked.
Ben walked Connor and Miranda through the last upload—a poll about the worst pool lounge on the Strip. The poll appeared to be fine.
“The thing is,” Miranda said, “what I saw on the screen wasn’t the old site. It was the new link structure with bits of the new front page layout. The headlines and other copy looked the same as the print version, but how did parts of the new layout get in there? We haven’t implemented anything yet.”
Connor sat at Ben’s desk and began scrolling through the mainframe code. The crease between his eyes deepened, and he frowned as
his hand scrolled the mouse. He made a notation on a pad of paper and kept scrolling.
“Start working on the site maintenance upload,” Miranda instructed Ben. “The rest of you have stories to write, interviews and events going on. We still have work to do even if the site is down.”
Relief shone on a few faces. Photographers and reporters gathered their things, producers began reading through drafts for the magazine and online edition. Phones rang through, and gradually the workers began talking. Miranda watched the transformation of the newsroom in fascination. Every person had a job, and each knew how to do it. They might not have a way of putting the next edition online, but they continued to work as though the system would be back any second. Connor typed a few coded lines onto a blank document and uploaded it to the server. The publishing jingle played softly from the computer, and then a yellow caution sign with the words Site Maintenance appeared on the computer.
Connor refreshed a few other computers, but the sign didn’t grow a penis or a breast, and no fake blood appeared. Finally, Miranda’s heart began to slow. Connor gave Ben a few instructions and motioned Miranda to follow him. At the front desk, he asked the receptionist to hold all of his calls.
“You’re going to be dealing with angry advertisers most of the day, Ms. Vice President,” he said when they were alone in his office. “I want you to explain that we were hacked, and we are taking precautions to increase security.”
“Did you find the bad code?”
“Parts of it, and that’s a simple enough fix. The question is who put the code into the system in the first place.”
“Hackers hack, it could have been anyone from anywhere.”
He watched her for a long moment. “True. It could have been a teenager in China. Or it could have been someone in this office.”
Miranda’s heart stuttered. “You think one of your employees …?”
Connor folded his arms over his chest. “Someone in this office. Within these four walls,” he said, staring hard at her. “Someone who has a connection—a close connection—to a rival publication.”
What the Heiress Wants Page 4
