Not nearly as much damage control as Miranda and Connor had been doing, trying to right the path of Vegas Nightly and the other publications.
“I wanted to work for you, but you made it eminently clear that my talents weren’t needed.”
“You were needed at the Foundation.”
“I didn’t want to work at the Foundation,” she said, and before he could keep going down that track, she changed the subject. “I want to do more with my life than plan parties or attend balls.”
“And you think Las Vegas, with the neon and the gambling and the tourists running around drunk, is the serious work environment that will make you happy?”
Miranda swallowed. He made the town sound like some kind of Girls Gone Wild episode, but Vegas was more than a party town. There was the desert, a growing art scene, and Connor’s brother, Jase, was building one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. She’d done her homework on all three brothers over the past week; she’d had to do something besides obsess about those kisses in Connor’s office. The next tech boom could be in Vegas, but even if it weren’t, there were other opportunities.
“Did you call just to make me feel badly about the choices I’ve made for my life?” she asked, her voice quiet. William would see the question as weakness, but Miranda stiffened her spine. In her heart, she wanted her parents to approve of her choices. They never had to this point, no matter how hard she’d tried. Maybe it was time to stop trying so hard to impress them and simply live her life the way she wanted to lead it.
“I called to tell you to come home. The work we do at Clayton Foundation is just as important as whatever logo you have to design for Connor Reeves.”
“Did you plant a spy at Reeves Pub?” she asked, and for the first time in her life, her father blinked.
He stared at the screen for a long moment, not speaking. His dark eyes narrowed, and his mouth frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said after a moment, and although his voice was filled with as much anger as before she’d asked the question, she thought she also detected a slight quiver. Somewhere deep inside, William was shaken by her question.
Miranda felt her heart break a little. She knew William wanted Connor’s company. She knew how hard he fought to take the things he wanted. She didn’t want to believe he would plant a spy in the enemy camp; that he would embarrass Connor by hacking the Nightly’s websites with cartoon penises and breasts. It was just so juvenile. Her father was supposed to be bigger than that. Undercut advertising? Of course. Throw his weight around? To be expected. Use a junior high hacking trick? Miranda sighed.
“Don’t lie to me, Dad. We haven’t been able to trace the hack to a specific computer, but it had to come from inside the company, because whoever did it accessed the new layout templates, and those were under tight security. No one outside the building would have access.”
“I already told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he blustered. “I’m not interested in hacking.”
“But you’ve been undercutting our ad prices for several months—”
“Our ad prices?”
“Connor is my employer. I designed the new layouts and have a hand in the new online programming so, yeah, our, ad prices.” Miranda leaned the phone against the kitchen backsplash and planted both hands on the granite countertop. “When the price gouging didn’t work, why didn’t you go after our talent? Try to hire our best employees away? What made you so mad that you had to hack our sites with penises and breasts?”
“I will not have this conversation. You’ve crossed the line, young lady.”
Miranda shook her head. “You’re the one who crossed the line, Dad.”
“If you continue working for Connor Reeves, you’ll have no place at Clayton Holdings. Not ever.”
Miranda smiled wryly. “From where I’m standing, I’ve never had a place at Clayton Holdings.” She tapped the end call button, and her father’s face disappeared from her phone.
The man would never admit to planting a corporate spy, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done it. Or that he wouldn’t use the spy again, and maybe the next time he wouldn’t stop at cartoon penises or dancing breasts on a computer screen.
Miranda put her phone in her bag and slung it over her shoulder. It wasn’t her job to go digging into the employee records, but if there was a spy—and she was confident her father had someone inside Connor’s company—they needed to know sooner rather than later.
• • •
“This is something you should be talking about with Connor,” Lila said as she finished the last of her coffee.
She and Miranda had been going over the company’s recent hires for the past few hours, trying to find the spy, but neither knew what they were looking for.
“Connor is putting the last of the new templates online this morning. Besides, you’re the human resources expert.”
“The human resources expert who would like to have a job past tomorrow,” Lila grumbled.
“He knows who I am. Your job isn’t in danger.” Miranda paused. “But speaking of that, how many people know?”
Lila glanced up, her dark eyes shadowed. “Know what?”
“Who I am. My last name.”
“I don’t think anyone has put out a press release.”
Miranda cocked her head to the side. “I’ve heard the conversations stop when I walk into the bullpen, and they aren’t stopping because of my layout templates.”
“One of the investigators came across a picture of you from Denver, with your father.”
“God. And they think Connor should fire me?”
Lila frowned. “Maybe some. The others … are waiting to see what you do.”
Miranda straightened in her chair. If they were waiting to see what she would do, how she would sabotage Reeves Pub next, she would show them just how committed she was to the company. She would find the spy.
“We’re looking for someone new to the company, someone that my father would approve of, and someone who would have access to the computer systems.” Miranda chewed on the end of her pencil. “What about this one?”
“Nathan Burke? He sweeps the floors in the press room. He’s never even been to the second floor, as far as I know.”
“All the better to fly under the radar.”
“You’re losing it. None of these names look to me like the corporate spying type. Most of them have never been outside Nevada, and your father isn’t the type to entrust corporate spying and sabotage to a person he’s never so much as shaken hands with.”
“There has to be a clue here somewhere,” Miranda insisted, but all the files seemed legitimate to her, too.
“Why don’t we talk about why you’re really doing this?”
She shot a Lila a confused look. “Because I like my job, and my father made it clear that I’m no longer welcome in Denver?”
Lila shook her head. “It isn’t like William and I ever had any in-depth, heart-to-heart talks, but you know he’d take you back in a heartbeat. He’s just angry you finally struck out on your own. This is about Connor Reeves and all the late nights the two of you have been spending in the office.”
Miranda put the file folder in front of her face. This wasn’t about Connor. It was about finding the saboteur. Protecting the company. So her job description said nothing about espionage or detective work. Connor had a full plate, and as VP, even if it was only marketing and not the company as a whole, she had a bit of seniority. She was part of the executive branch.
Lila reached across the desk and with the eraser end of her pencil pushed the file folder down. Her clear, green gaze caught Miranda’s, and Miranda couldn’t look away.
“Connor Reeves. Late nights at the office. This sudden urge to fill your desk with file folders that have nothing to do with your job.”
Miranda laid the file folder on the desk and then crossed to her office window. “My father made it clear—”
“Uh-uh.” Lila shook her head.
“For the past few days, you’ve been either holed up in this one-hundred square foot office or tiptoeing around so that no one can hear you. You told Connor the truth about who you are, and he didn’t fire you. There have been two late nights, and last week the two of you hauled out of here just before noon, and no one saw you again until the big advertiser meeting at three o’clock.”
She tapped her fingers against her upper arms, keeping her gaze focused on the street below. “We were working on the new layout and templates, and prepping for the new sales pitch.” And kissing. She couldn’t forget about the kissing.
Then, at lunch, he hadn’t so much as brushed a hand against hers. His foot didn’t tap against hers under the table. It made it hard to breathe. A week later, and she still couldn’t remember what they’d eaten or talked about. If they’d spoken at all during those two, long hours when all she could think about was how his mouth had felt on hers, and how she wanted to try just one more kiss, to make sure she hadn’t imagined either of her reactions before.
“Fine. Business dinners, business lunch. Connor spends more time looking out his window now than he ever has in the past, and you’re so antsy you can’t sit still for more than two minutes at a time, but there’s nothing going on.”
“I’m not antsy,” she said with a shake of her head.
“You’re making up work, Randa. That’s antsy.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“Playing detective, scoring a path in the hardwood with your heels, and watching his office door from the little window in your own door are not items in your job description.”
“I don’t watch his door from my office.” Miranda whirled.
“Yesterday. Two p.m.,” said Lila with a smug look on her face. “I was in his office for ten minutes. When I went in, you pretended to look through a file, and when I came, out, you were looking at that same file. Standing in that little sliver of a window on your office door.”
“How do you know it was the same file?”
“There was a hot pink sticky note stuck to the back.”
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She hadn’t been watching Connor’s office so that she could run into him. She’d been watching his office to make sure he wasn’t coming out. After that lunch, she twice caught herself looking at him longingly across his desk while he talked about design problems and advertising numbers. Once, she exited her office just as he exited his, and the two of them stood there, half in the hallway and half in their respective offices, just staring at one another.
She was almost positive she’d drooled a little bit over his navy pinstriped suit and wingtip shoes. That was when she started watching for him. Not to be near him, but to avoid him. To put a little more distance between them because he was keeping up his end of the bargain.
No kisses in his office. No looks across the table. Not even the brush of his hand at lunch that day.
Meanwhile, all she could think about was kissing him. Touching him. Smelling that woodsy aftershave he wore that tickled her nose in the most erotic of ways. Before kissing Connor, she never imagined her nose could be an erotic body component.
“Why are you really looking into the employee files?”
Because he hasn’t, and if I find something it will give me a reason to go back into his office, she nearly said. She bit back those words. Lila suspecting she had a crush on their boss and Lila knowing she had a crush on their boss were two very different things.
“I’m just trying to make up for the name thing,” she said, praying Lila would let the subject drop. “He didn’t fire me, and he won’t fire you, but I still feel badly about how I coerced you into helping me and how long I lied to him about my real identity. Now, it looks like my father might actually be behind some of Connor’s business troubles, and I just want to help Connor.”
“Randa, you can’t make him forget who you are. You shouldn’t want to do that. You’re a smart woman who saw the opportunity to change her life for the better and took it.”
Miranda shook her head. “It isn’t as simple as that. Was my life so horrible in Denver? I lived in one of the biggest mansions in the city. I worked when I wanted and messed around when I wanted. I had full access to my parents’ home in Aspen and the beach house in Mauritius.”
“And you were bored silly with party planning and gown fittings. It wasn’t wrong of you to want a career.”
“Clayton women handle the family foundation. It’s the way it’s always been.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure that is the same excuse men used when the Suffragettes fought for the vote. ‘Men vote. Women don’t. It’s the way it’s always been,’” she said, a mocking tone in her voice.
“I was bored silly,” Miranda admitted.
“You don’t have to invent work here to make him see you as something other than the socialite you were bred to be. You don’t have to find the spy, if there even is one, and you don’t have to sell a million dollars worth of advertising with this one, new campaign.”
Miranda returned to her desk and sat down, putting her chin in her hands. “I like him, Li. He hired me, and I lied to him, and he gave me a second chance, and I like him. I want him to like me.”
“How could he not?” Lila gathered the file folders, straightened the stack, and picked it up. “You work hard; you’re dedicated to your job. Just give him time to wrap his head around those things, and you’ll see that he likes you,” she said and left the office.
Miranda didn’t bother to correct her friend. It was probably better if human resources didn’t know the VP had a crush on the CEO. It was definitely better if Miranda’s only friend in Las Vegas didn’t know she had a crush on her boss. Lila, who had dated not only other college students, but also two grad assistants and one middle-aged professor, would tell Miranda, who dated only one guy in all of college, to go for it.
That would be the biggest mistake she had made to date. Forget basically running away from home at the age of twenty-eight. Forget lying to get a job. Forget not seeing sleazy Riley as the ladder-climbing jerk he was. If she dated Connor, how could she ever know how he felt about her professionally? It would all get clouded and murky. She’d spent her life trying to become her own person. Wouldn’t dating her boss put her right back under the control of another?
Vegas was the last stop on her map. There were other cities where she could find work, but she wasn’t sure she could start over yet again. Miranda sighed. It had taken all the courage she’d had to walk out of her parents’ home five months before. The thought of leaving Las Vegas, of messing up the fragile working friendship she had begun building with Connor, made little sweat bubbles break out over her forehead.
Chapter Six
Thanksgiving Day dawned clear in the valley. Connor had forgotten to turn his alarm off the night before and was awake before the sky turned from the gray and pink of dawn to the brilliant blue of a November day in Nevada.
His phone bleeped. It was Callie.
Cooking for one p.m.—the early game should be over by then. Come out whenever you’re ready. Jase got in last night. Gage just ordered him out to the barn.
Connor grinned. Trust Gage to get Jase out of bed before dawn on his first day back in Nevada.
Will be out before kickoff. Connor pondered for a moment, and then typed, Okay if I bring someone with me?
Callie didn’t answer immediately. After a full minute of staring at his phone, Connor nearly withdrew the request. Callie wanted a family day. Miranda wasn’t family by any stretch of the imagination. Trusting her to work for him rather than against him wasn’t the same as inviting her to the ranch. But he was tired of watching what he said to her. Of checking the hallway at work before leaving his office, and of abiding by her business-only request.
Hell, at that last lunch, he’d been so stiff he could have been carved from rocks from the Grand Canyon.
He knew Miranda was spending the day alone. Lila had gone to her family’s hunting lodge in Montana for
the holiday weekend. As far as he knew, Lila was Miranda’s only friend in Nevada. No one should spend Thanksgiving alone; it was just depressing. Still, this was Callie’s first try at a big, family event.
He began typing Never mind, but an incoming message interrupted him before he could hit send.
The more the merrier. My parents’ plans changed, and they won’t be here until Sunday, so we have more than enough.
That was that, then. Miranda was officially invited to the Rocking R for Thanksgiving dinner. Now he just had to convince her to come along with him.
A half hour later, Connor pulled his Jaguar into the parking lot of Miranda’s apartment complex. He saw her sporty convertible parked in a reserved spot, and hurried down the walk to her door. He knocked and waited.
A moment later, dressed in flip-flops, denim capri pants, and a brilliant, yellow tank top that read Skiers Do It on the Slopes, Miranda opened the door. Her chocolate brown eyes widened when she saw him on her doorstep. “Hi,” she said after a long pause.
“Hi,” he said, unsure how to proceed. “I’m headed out to the ranch for Thanksgiving dinner. Thought you might be hungry.” Not the most charming of invitations, but it got the job done.
“I’m not dressed for Thanksgiving dinner.” Miranda held onto the door with both hands, as if she might use it as a weapon to keep him out. Connor grinned.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m wearing jeans and a hoodie. Not exactly formal attire.” Before she could raise another objection he said, “We don’t dress for dinner at the ranch. Never have. And you can’t eat a TV dinner on a national holiday. It’s sacrilege.”
“Who said I was going to have a TV dinner? I had plans to casino hop.”
“In capris and flip-flops? Alone?”
“Lila might—”
“Lila’s in Montana, and casino hopping alone is sadder than eating a TV dinner instead of homemade stuffing, roasted turkey, and a pumpkin pie that I’m told has been in the family for at least three generations.”
Miranda licked her lips, and her stomach growled. “You don’t have to take the lonely girl from the office to your family dinner.”
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