What the Heiress Wants

by Kristina Knight

  The world seemed to tilt, and to keep from falling over, Miranda put her hand on the back of a chair and squeezed as hard as she could. He knew. Oh, Lord, this was bad.

  “You know?” The words squeaked out of her throat.

  “That your name is Miranda Walker Clayton?” He nodded. “I’ve known for quite some time, and I’ve wondered what you were doing here. The hack is a bit heavy-handed. I expected the slow loss of advertisers. When they started to come back after the Bachelor of the Month feature, did you decide to step up your game? Was the new layout a way to the hack into place?” His blue eyes were like ice, freezing Miranda to the floor. Gone was the man she’d spent most of the prior day with, the man who had kissed her so deeply right here in this office. The man she’d talked to about gaining respect.

  God, he must think the worst of her. She couldn’t blame him, even if she was innocent.

  “I don’t code.” She stood a little straighter. If he wanted to blame her, okay, but he needed to know she wasn’t the hacker.

  Connor blinked. “You don’t code.”

  She shook her hear. “I barely know how to upload. I don’t code. What you were doing yesterday, I can’t. Even if you told me every step to take, every symbol to write, I couldn’t. Yes, my name is Miranda Walker Clayton, and yes, my father is William Clayton. The same William Clayton who owns Clayton Holdings, and who recently bought one of the other Vegas newspapers. I don’t work for him. I haven’t worked for him for nearly a year. I’ll clear my desk, but you need to know I’m not the hacker.”

  “Why lie?”

  The question caught her off-guard. She had half expected security guards to storm through Connor’s office door, handcuff her, and drag her out of the building.

  “I always thought my father was grooming me to take over Clayton, that he wanted me on his team. I interned with the reporters one summer, with sales another summer. Every time I brought up actual work, he pointed out the charity boards I was on with my mother, my degrees. He said I should focus on school. After I graduated, I tried again. He said the Clayton Foundation needed me more than Clayton Holdings did. He even created a marketing position for me. Mostly my job was to plan luncheons or line up donations for auctions. Last year, I tried one more time. He blocked my application at the Denver paper, so I went outside the family business. He found out about a position I wanted with one of the networks.” She shrugged, feeling small, the way she felt after that last interview in Denver.

  “You have good qualifications. We do a lot of business with Clayton Holdings. Maybe you should try for a bit more on-the-job experience. Surely your father can find something for you.”

  That interview lasted all of five minutes, and as soon as the gray-haired man behind the desk mentioned her father’s company, Miranda knew it was over.

  “What happened?” Connor asked.

  “The same thing that always happens. My father wants a socialite daughter, not a working daughter. He made it clear I couldn’t do actual work in Denver unless it was charity work. I want more than that.” So much more than planning dinners and lunches and parties. She wanted her work to matter. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, newspapers and magazines didn’t save lives, but the stories written in them could sometimes change perceptions. Make readers think twice about what they believed.

  “How does Las Vegas fit into your plan?”

  “Lila was my roommate in college. I came out here to cry on her shoulder, try to figure out what to do next. I convinced her to put in my application for the VP position but to leave off my last name. Walker is my middle. I thought I could come in, show you I was more than my name, and … Don’t blame Lila. She was only trying to help a friend.”

  “I make a point not to judge people based on who they are or aren’t. You should have told me from the beginning.”

  “All my life, I’ve been judged on who I am.”

  Connor settled on hip against the corner of his massive, cherry desk. “Yeah. I get that.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “My father was one of the biggest ranchers in the state. My mother a gambling addict. All my life, people have expected me to either self-destruct at a poker table or come into town riding a big Thoroughbred and driving a herd of cattle. I’m not a rancher, and I’m not a gambler.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Launching a magazine and online program when people are reading less and less news is a gamble.” Miranda sat in one of the chairs looking out over the Strip. “I’m not your hacker, but I could still be the reason behind the hack. My father isn’t thrilled that I’m working for Reeves Pub.”

  “I figured that. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t fire you when I figured out who you were.”

  “You thought I was a plant?”

  “Corporate spy?” He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time one company has spied on another, especially not in the media world.”

  “You used me.” The knowledge lifted some of the weight from her shoulders. She knew she should be angry, but how self-indulgent was that? She’d lied about who she was to get this job; it was only fitting that Connor had lied about knowing who she was to try to figure out Clayton’s next move against him. “Putting penises and breasts all over Vegas Nightly isn’t my father’s style.”

  “Undercutting advertising costs, scooping our stories. Those are right up William Clayton’s alley. But neither of those things worked—at least, they haven’t yet. He could have decided to up the ante a bit.”

  “By making the magazine, and you, look foolish.” Miranda chewed on her bottom lip. She’d seen her father do worse, many times.

  William Clayton didn’t like to lose. According to her mother, he saw her working for Reeves Pub as a betrayal. Enough of a betrayal to hack the site?

  “Where do we go from here?” she asked, not daring to look at the man who held her future in his hands. The man she’d kissed so feverishly only eighteen hours before. The man she’d been lying to from the moment she’d met him. God, she wanted to kiss him again, and that was so, so, so inappropriate. Worrying about kissing someone when her job hung in the balance.

  “You could quit.”

  Cold fear gripped her heart. Quit. Pack her bags and crawl back to Denver. She had no illusions about her options. Without a reference from Reeves Pub, her small push into the working world was over, and there was no way Connor would offer a reference to her. Not now. Back to a life filled with luncheons and balls and parties. It wouldn’t be a bad life. She wouldn’t be homeless or working in a sweatshop, after all.

  “Or you could stay. Implement the redesign. Help me talk down a few advertisers who are probably desperate to separate themselves from a hacked media property.”

  “St-stay?” Her tongue tripped over the single syllable.

  “I still need a VP of marketing, and in full disclosure, I’ve had a keystroke logger on your computer for weeks now. You barely type, much less code. You haven’t been in contact with Clayton Holdings from here, and you don’t take files home. I’ve been wondering what you were up to, and now I know.” Reflected in the window, she saw Connor leave the corner of his desk. He sat in the overstuffed, leather chair beside her. “You want the chance to prove yourself. This is a chance.”

  “You put a keystroke logger on my computer?”

  “And I’ve had your calls monitored. Not what you said, but the numbers you called. I like to trust my employees, but I’m not stupid.”

  “My father would say you’re an idiot,” she said, finally daring to look at him. “But he would approve of that keystroke-logger thing.” That same shock of blond hair hung over his forehead, and his eyes were the same icy blue they’d been in the bullpen. He wore another suit, this one a deep charcoal, with a geometrically patterned tie circling his neck.

  Connor grinned at her. “I’m not really interested in what your father has to say about me. I’m interested in getting my publication back up and running, and in getting my advertisers back. You have goo
d ideas, and based on yesterday, we make a good team.” He reached across the space and squeezed her hand in his. The contact electrified Miranda. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, her toes curled, and it seemed as if she could hear the blood rushing through her veins. She saw his mouth move, but couldn’t make out the words.

  “What?” With effort, she cleared her mind and refocused on Connor.

  “What do you say?”

  What did she say? Miranda went over what he’d said a moment before. That they made a good team. That he wasn’t giving up on his business. He was offering her a job, despite the subterfuge she’d used to first come to work in Las Vegas.

  “I’m sorry I lied about my last name.” She wouldn’t say she lied about who she was, because she hadn’t. The Miranda who fetched Connor’s coffee and designed a new layout for the online magazine was the same Miranda who planned dinner parties and art exhibits in Denver. Miranda Walker Clayton thought she had to drop her last name to become something other than the socialite she’d been groomed to be. Now, Connor Reeves was giving her the chance to not be the socialite and still be Miranda Walker Clayton.

  “I’m not sorry about the keystroke logger.”

  “I want to stay.”

  He squeezed her hand again, and the sizzle crept farther up her nerve endings.

  “Then we have work to do.”

  • • •

  Several hours later, Miranda put the final layout for the new site on Connor’s desk. He hit a few more keys and then turned the screen so she could see it. The new front page looked amazing. No dancing penises, no random breasts or nipples. The font looked like a newspaper font rather than running blood.

  “It’s perfect.”

  “It’s only one page, but give it another week, and we should be back to one-hundred percent.” Connor wiped his hand over his eyes. “Ben and I will be the only ones with access to the template for the time being, which will increase his workload. I’m going to pull him off editing for a while, until we figure out how the hack happened.”

  “I asked Lila to make a few calls,” Miranda said. “There is a security expert and former hacker we went to school with who has agreed to go through the files, see what he can find about the hack itself. He’s also going to present a plan to increase our online security protocols, and I’ve already sent an email asking everyone to change and upgrade their security passwords.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “It may not be in the job description of the vice president of marketing, but it’s better than fetching coffee or filing,” she said, grinning at him. “Plus, I had some free time after I finished that last layout, and since my financial livelihood is chained to Reeves Pub, I figure I should take its security seriously.”

  “I’ll look this over later tonight.”

  “Pulling another all-nighter?”

  “I need to get the new layouts uploaded and protected so Ben can start putting our content back up.”

  “Do you want Chinese or Mexican food?”

  “As vice president of marketing, you don’t have to order my dinner.”

  “Add it—for this evening only—to the job description. Or have you forgotten already that until I came to work for you, my entire life revolved around planning dinners?” It felt strange talking about her life in Denver as a kind of anecdote. Strange and oddly freeing. Denver was her past. Now that Connor knew who she was, Las Vegas might be her future. “Besides, I’m much better at ordering food than making your coffee.”

  “Your coffee is horrible.” Connor sat back in his seat and put his hands behind his head. He looked amazing, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his tie askew.

  “I was hired for marketing, not coffee making.”

  “I could go for pizza, actually, if you really don’t mind ordering. Everything except anchovies.” He glanced out the window at the setting sun, and something fleeting seemed to cross his face. A shadow that made his high cheekbones stand out, and his blue eyes darken.

  “Do you want company?”

  “Go home, Miranda.”

  She hesitated at the door and glanced back, but Connor was still staring out the window, watching the sun sink low in the west and the neon from the casinos twinkle to life. She didn’t want to leave.

  Quietly, she closed his office door. She placed the dinner order and wandered the main office floor. Everyone had gone, and it would be a while before the cleaning staff arrived for their shift. She should go home. Relax. They had a meeting with several advertisers tomorrow, and she needed to be fresh for it. She couldn’t make herself leave, though. Didn’t want to leave.

  She liked her small apartment in North Las Vegas. For the first time in her life, she’d decorated to her tastes rather than submitting to her mother’s. The white sofa was comfortable, the television large and high definition. She’d added a few plants to the tables, and hung some prints from local artists on the walls. Usually, she couldn’t wait to get home, but tonight, she didn’t want to leave the office. She stood in an alcove with floor-to-ceiling windows. From there, she could see into a bit of Fremont Street where no one seemed to have a care in the world. They hadn’t been hacked. They weren’t trying to break free from a life they’d never wanted to lead. Miranda sighed. This was ridiculous.

  Connor knew who and what she was. He’d asked her to stay on at the company. That meant something. It meant a lot. He trusted her to do a good job. No one had ever put their faith in her like that. This was a big deal. So why did she feel as if she were still walking the high wire, waiting to be pushed off into the pit of her lies?

  The pizza arrived. Miranda grabbed a couple of paper plates and sodas from the break room and delivered everything to Connor’s office. He’d left his desk to stand at the window looking out over the bustling street below. She set everything on the table and went to stand beside him.

  “Tell me what I can do to help.”

  She wanted to put her hand on his shoulder. He looked so alone at the window. Not lost, and not as if he were giving up. Just alone. Connor didn’t deserve to be alone. He had a staff who respected him, and by all accounts, a family who loved him. To keep from reaching for him, she folded her arms across her chest.

  He startled, as if he hadn’t heard her come in. “Nothing. It’s all done except the uploading.”

  “Then why are you so pensive?”

  “I like knowing what to expect. After Clayton bought out the other local paper, I expected him to come after my advertisers. I never expected him to hack my site.”

  “You can’t anticipate every possible option,” she said. “We took the hacks offline, you finished the code for the new layouts, and I upgraded security. All of that happened in a little over nine hours. Whether my father authorized the hack or not, he won’t have anticipated how quickly you would get everything back online.”

  “Maybe.” Connor turned from the window. “I shouldn’t have kissed you last night. I don’t get involved with my employees that way.”

  “I kissed you back, and I don’t get involved with my bosses in that way.” She motioned to the box on the table. “You hungry?”

  “Starving. Join me?” They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, savoring the melted cheese and pepperonis, sautéed mushrooms, and black olives. “Thanks for the pizza,” he said after a while.

  “Thanks for inviting me to stay,” she replied.

  “I shouldn’t have kissed you, but I’m glad I did. It was a good kiss.”

  Miranda’s toes curled, and her tummy muscles clenched. It was an amazing kiss. A kiss so different from any she had experienced before. Her gaze caught his, and she couldn’t move, couldn’t look away.

  “Yeah,” she said finally.

  “I said I don’t get involved with my employees that way, and I don’t.” Connor picked up another slice of pizza and ate. “Until you walked into my office five months ago, it had been a long time since I considered putting pleasure before business
.”

  The butterflies in her belly began beating as if trying to break free from the wall of her abdomen. Miranda couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t look away from Connor’s icy, blue gaze. It was as if she were mesmerized. “Most of the people I’ve worked with have been women, so …” She trailed off. She wasn’t a lesbian? That was her reply to the loaded statement he just put out there?

  Connor finished his pizza and drank from his bottle of soda. “I won’t touch you again—not unless you want me to. If we do, ah, touch, it doesn’t have to affect our working relationship. You’re still my VP. I’m still the CEO. We’ll just have a little more between us than files and layout designs.”

  “Connor …” she began.

  “No pressure. This doesn’t have to go anywhere. We’ve shared two working dinners and a single kiss. If you don’t want it to go any further, it won’t. If you want it to go somewhere else, it’s your decision.”

  Miranda held the slice of pizza in her hand for a long moment before putting it back in the box. She couldn’t eat; not now. Not when Connor was making it that clear he was open to more than a working relationship with her. She swallowed. On the same day she’d come clean about who she really was.

  The thought of getting involved with Connor made her palms sweat and her heart beat faster. That kiss had been amazing, but more than that? It would be madness. How could she ever know if he valued her for her work or simply for her abilities in the bedroom?

  No one in Denver saw her as more than the socialite daughter of a mogul. So far, the people in Las Vegas knew her as a competent marketing executive for a rising newspaper. She couldn’t go back to being the socialite, not even to be the girlfriend of one of the Las Vegas Reeves brothers.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She forced the words past her dry lips and then licked them. “I think we should keep things between us on the business level. We have advertisers to deal with and a new design to implement and readers to win back—”

  Connor held up his hands. “No more explanations are necessary.” He stood. “I need to get the new design uploaded, and then I’ll call it a night.” He returned to his desk, focusing his attention on his computer screen. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he began to work.