by Leigh James
I had no idea how to handle a date. Not with Gabriel Betts.
I made myself focus. I sorted data, analyzed the trends from our recent testing, and wrote a synopsis for my board meeting the following week. Then I reviewed routine documentation: human resources reports, materials reports, and security notes.
I paused when I went through the week’s visitor log. Clive Warren, it read. He’d signed in at ten that morning.
I buzzed down to the security office. “I have a record that a Mr. Warren was on site this morning,” I said, my nerves starting to thrum. “Do you know who he met with?”
“No, Ms. Taylor, I don’t. Our guards from this morning have already changed shifts.”
“Can you show me the feed from the security cameras so we can figure it out?”
A few moments later, I watched the video of Clive signing in. Paragon’s security protocol was highly regimented and fairly simple: guests had to sign in, present photo identification, sign a nondisclosure and consent agreement, and be accompanied to their destination by a security guard. Their whereabouts were filmed by various security cameras strategically placed throughout the building. No visitors were allowed into the labs, and no one was allowed into my private office.
On the tape, Clive showed his photo identification and signed the necessary paperwork. One of our security guards waited next to him.
“Who are you here to see, Mr. Warren?” the receptionist asked politely.
“I’m here to pick up some of my old board of director materials,” he said. “We’re updating my company’s board materials, and I thought they might be helpful.”
“Is Ms. Taylor expecting you?”
“No,” he said easily. “But the materials are mine. I left them here for the interim member who took over for me when I left the board last year. Ms. Taylor recently informed me the interim had been made a full member. He doesn’t need my ‘loaner’ materials anymore.”
His explanation sounded legitimate, but I still didn’t like it.
“Do you know where they might be?” The receptionist was being polite and deferential, which was appropriate. I’d trained the staff to have the utmost respect for our board members.
“The boardroom. There’s a cabinet in there where we kept our materials. Mine are in there. They should be clearly marked.”
“I’ll just send security to get them for you,” the receptionist said.
“That’s fine, but should I accompany him? So that he gets the correct set, and I can be on my way?”
“Of course.” She smiled warmly at him. She nodded at the guard, and they set off at once.
I continued to watch as Clive and the guard walked down the hall, and then I switched the feed so I could watch them in the boardroom. Clive showed the guard the cabinet where the materials were kept. The guard bent down, pulled out a box and a large binder, and the two of them headed back to the front of the building.
Back in the lobby, Clive quickly checked all the material.
“Is everything in order, Mr. Warren?” the receptionist asked.
“It’s perfect,” he said, smiling. I could finally see his face. He looked satisfied.
My stomach turned.
The tape went off, and I hustled down to the security office. “Come with me,” I said. Eddie, the on-site manager, furrowed his brow and followed me down to the front desk.
“Veronica,” I said, interrupting the receptionist. She put her call on hold and looked at me a little nervously. I didn’t often stop to chat. “I just watched the tape of Mr. Warren’s visit here today. Thank you for doing a great job. You followed our protocol perfectly.”
The worried look left her eyes. “Thank you.”
“And Eddie, the fact that we gave Mr. Warren his director materials was fine. That’s also within protocol. But from now on, I want you both to know that he is no longer welcome in this building without my express permission. Do you understand?”
They both nodded.
“He’s no longer on our board of directors, and he’s no longer a candidate for a business partnership with Paragon. So if he shows up, call me first. And don’t do him any favors. Not even coffee. He’s not even a candidate for coffee.”
I paced and fretted the rest of the afternoon, finally giving up on work and going home. There had to be a reason Clive had come to our site, and I didn’t believe for a second that it was just for his outdated board materials.
“Can you relax?” Hannah asked. She was using a curling iron on me, an exercise I found completely frivolous. “Seriously, stop fidgeting, or I’m going to singe you!”
I rolled my eyes as she ran her fingers carefully through my hair. “I don’t care about my hair. I care about my business.”
“You can let it go for one night.” She tried to soothe me. “Why don’t you just call Clive? Ask him why he came by without mentioning it to you?”
“I want to wait and think it through first. I feel like I’m missing something.” I watched in the mirror as Hannah finished with the curling iron and fanned my hair out around my shoulders. “That looks pretty. Thank you.”
She beamed at me in the mirror. “Now, for your dress.”
I started to fidget. “I wasn’t planning on getting very dressed up.”
She’d already subjected me to more eye shadow and mascara than I typically wore over the course of a month. I peered at my face in the mirror as she ran to her closet. She’d done an amazing job. I typically didn’t worry about my looks too much, accepting that I was a woman of average attractiveness. That was fine by me. But the way she’d fixed my hair and did my makeup made me feel special and pretty, as if I were a dusty jewel that had finally been polished.
She came back into the room carrying a black, one-shoulder dress.
I wrinkled my nose. “There’s no way in hell I’m wearing that.”
Hannah set her jaw, and I could tell she was ready for a fight. “Oh yes, there is. Gabriel Betts is a gorgeous billionaire CEO. I also have inside information that you happen to like him. So you are wearing this dress, and you’re gonna look hot, dammit.”
I miserably fingered the thin material. “I can’t wear something like this. I’d look ridiculous.”
My sister smiled. “I promise, if you look anything other than drop-dead gorgeous, you don’t have to wear it. Deal?”
I nodded at her, but I felt sweat start to form on my back.
She shoved a bag at me. “I bought you these.”
I peered in, seeing only small scraps of black lace. “Are you serious?” I wailed, sitting down on my bed.
“I’m only trying to help, I swear. A dress like this needs appropriate undergarments…trust me. Now, get dressed.” She looked at her watch. “I’ll be outside for two seconds. If you can’t figure this out”—she pointed to the bag—“just holler.”
I glared at her. “I was accepted as an early admission to MIT. I think I can figure it out.”
I struggled to figure out which way the thong went and then hoisted myself into the strapless bra. Hannah had been correct…it was more difficult than I’d thought. Once I had everything assembled, I looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror. I looked…different. Sexy.
I swallowed hard, worrying that I was going to be sick, and pulled the dress up. It was snug…actually, it was skintight. I zipped it and admired the way it hugged my curves. I went into my closet and selected a pair of black heels that Hannah had given me for Christmas.
She knocked on the door and came in, her jaw dropping. “Sweet baby Jesus. My big sister is a supermodel CEO goddess.”
“Ha.” I wobbled in the heels in the middle of my room. “I admit this looks nice, but I really can’t wear it. I’m not comfortable. I’ll make a complete ass of myself.”
Hannah came toward me and took my hands earnestly in hers. A worried look marred her pretty face. “Gabriel Betts is a big deal. Almost as big a deal as you. I want you to have fun tonight. I also want you to give yourself the best
chance of being successful.”
I sucked in a breath. “I don’t know what successful means in this context.”
She nodded. “I know. And that’s okay. But if you like him, and you want him to like you back, you have to show him that you’re interested.”
“I’m not interested.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You suck at lying, you know.”
“I know.”
Gabe rang my doorbell a few minutes later, which didn’t give me enough time to change or argue much more about changing.
I opened the door, and he beamed at me. “Hello, Lauren.” His eyes raked over my dress. “Wow.”
I felt myself redden. “Wow?”
He brought his eyes back up to mine and smiled sheepishly. “I mean, you look stunning.”
“Thank you. You look nice too.” In fact, he looked handsome and sexy in dark-rinse jeans, a charcoal jacket, and a white button-down shirt that was open at the throat.
Hannah peered past me. “I’ll say,” she whispered.
I elbowed her. “This is my younger sister, Hannah. Hannah, this is Gabriel Betts.”
“So nice to finally meet you!” Hannah exclaimed, shaking his hand and jumping up and down as if she were an excited puppy. “Take good care of my sister!”
“I intend to.” Gabe nodded at her indulgently and turned back to me. “Are you ready?”
I nodded and accepted the arm he offered. “Bye, Hannah.”
“Have fun!” she squealed.
I sighed in relief when we walked down the stairs, away from her. I leaned in toward Gabe, loving the smell of him—clean and masculine.
He leaned toward me, too. “We’re going to Saratoga, in case you want to let your security know.”
“Thank you.”
He led me to his fancy electric car and opened the door for me. “Text them the address in case I drive too fast for them.”
I sighed as I slid in. “You know, even though I’m a scientist, I’ll never figure out that door.”
“I sort of caught on that cars weren’t your thing. What type do you have, anyway?”
I wrinkled my brow. “A BMW?”
He laughed as he pulled out of my driveway. “Are you sure?”
“A BMW…sedan. I think.” I sighed. “My sister picked it out. I don’t—”
“Have time for those sorts of things,” he finished for me. “I get it. Nothing to be ashamed of. Your sister seems nice, by the way.”
“She is nice…even though she’s a little excitable. We live together. She’s my publicity director.”
“I know. I spoke with her when I was trying to set up my meeting with you. She was much more accommodating than you were about that.”
I shrugged. “She’s a lot more carefree than I am, which is a good thing. She should enjoy being twenty-two.”
“What about you? Did you enjoy your early twenties?”
I didn’t answer for a moment. A lot had changed for me in the past few years, including the loss of my parents. Since then I’d felt an urgency to live life to the fullest. For me, that meant finding my life’s true purpose and throwing everything I had into building it.
“I was building my company then, sleeping on a futon in my lab every night. But yeah, I enjoyed it. It was a time of a lot of growth for me, a lot of breakthroughs.”
“I love how passionate you are about your work. But did you relax? Did you have fun back then?”
“Of course not—not the type of fun my sister’s having. I had fun with my beakers and spreadsheets, and she has fun shoe shopping and going to trendy restaurants. But Hannah and I want different things, and I support that. I don’t want her to feel like she has to work all the time just because I do.”
“Have you always lived together?”
“Just since she finished college. Our parents died when I was nineteen and she was sixteen. She wanted to finish high school in Michigan while I was still at MIT. Then I moved out here. She chose to study at Stanford so we could be close to each other. When she graduated, she helped me pick out the house. She said it was time to stop sleeping on a futon.” I didn’t want to talk about this, all of these personal nuts and bolts, but it just came out. Sometimes, it was hard to hide the bald truth.
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
“It’s okay. It was hard to deal with then because it was sudden. They died in a car accident.”
“That’s horrible, Lauren.”
“You already knew about that, though.” I could hear it in his voice.
“Of course I did. Everyone knows.”
“So, is that one of the things people say about me? That I’m a recluse workaholic whose parents tragically died? I sound like a lot of fun.”
Gabe glanced my way. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who pities you. It is sad about your parents, though. That’s all. And that’s not pity, that’s empathy.”
I knew Gabe’s father had passed when he was ten. He knew how it felt to lose someone. And I’d just practically bitten his head off. “I’m sorry. I know you understand, and I appreciate you asking about them. I’m just…rattled today.”
Gabe smoothly maneuvered through the traffic on the freeway. “Why’s that?”
“Clive Warren was at Paragon this morning for some unknown reason.”
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “What did he want?”
I shook my head, still trying to piece together why he had been there. “I don’t really know. He didn’t ask for me. He wanted some of his old board materials. He got them, then he left. I watched the security tape. It was weird.”
“He’s familiar with the security protocols, right?”
“Yes. We established our most updated systems while he was still on the board.”
“So he knew that you’d see him on the tape.”
I watched the darkening sky fly by, my brow furrowed. “That’s right.”
“He’s sending you a message.”
“That’s what I thought.” I felt a knot of worry in my chest. “But what’s the message?”
“I don’t know, but I told you he was an asshole.”
“Do you actually know him?”
“I’ve had business dealings with him in the past. I was never impressed.” Gabe was silent for a few minutes, lost in his own thoughts. “I don’t like this, Lauren. What exactly did he want to meet with you about last night? Tell me the specifics.”
I explained Clive’s recent patent to him and how he wanted to dovetail his technology with Paragon’s impending launch. “But I could tell, just from his explanation over dinner, that his technology is flawed, and that it wouldn’t be a fit for Paragon.”
“And you told him that?”
“I told him that we weren’t in a position to take on a partnership. I wanted to be upfront. I wasn’t blunt, though. I didn’t share my thoughts about the flaws.”
“It sounds as if he still didn’t like what you had to say.”
I snorted. “Of course he didn’t.”
Gabe glanced at me. “A guy like Clive doesn’t enjoy being told no, especially not from a beautiful woman.”
“The fact that I’m a woman shouldn’t have anything to do with it.” Despite my curt tone, his use of the word beautiful pleased me.
“Think of it as a double-ego whammy. You said no to his technology, and then you went home with me.”
I bristled at the innuendo. Going home with him sounded salacious. “You just gave me a ride.”
“He doesn’t know that.” He grinned some more. “I’m sure that he was extremely angry when we left. He’d be even more pissed if he saw you in that dress tonight—especially since you wore a sweater out with him. Seriously, he would pop a blood vessel.”
I blushed furiously. “I think you’re being dramatic.”
“Don’t underestimate the power you have. That’d be a mistake, and you don’t make mistakes.”
“You’re definitely being dramatic.”
He was still grinning. “We’ll see about that.”
The restaurant in Saratoga, halfway up a mountain, was less ostentatious than the steakhouse but far more romantic with candles on each table and a roaring fireplace in the middle of the room.
Gabe took my coat and handed it to the attendant. With that simple act, I felt exposed beside him. Damn that dress. Gabe put his large hand on my back as we followed the hostess to our table.
When he touched me so close to my exposed skin, I felt sweaty and chilled all at the same time. I would think about the biological implications of that later, when I could form a coherent, scientific thought.
Our table was private, near the wall of windows, with a view of the stars. The lights from the city below didn’t spoil the sky all the way up here.
“This is beautiful.”
Gabe watched me. “I’m certainly enjoying the view.”
I sucked in a breath. Being near him in this sexy dress was much too exciting for me. I suddenly just wanted my lab coat and my laptop, with an army of data marching across it.
Instead, another server was pouring me another glass of wine.
Gabe didn’t try to order dinner for me. Even that small modicum of control was a relief. We read our menus in silence, both of us finally ordering salads and fish dishes.
“You don’t have to eat fish because of me,” I said, although I thought he was sweet. “It doesn’t bother me when other people eat meat. I’ve been a pescatarian since I was eight, so I’m used to it.”
“Why’d you become a pescatarian, then? That’s pretty young.”
“My father was a scientist too, and he was concerned about where industrialized farming was taking the environment.” I shrugged. “We all stopped eating meat in my house after a family meeting where we discussed it.”
“So you were a precocious, concerned citizen of the world even at eight. That’s adorable.” Gabe dug into his salad, and I let myself stare at him. He’d gotten more information out of me in a week than most of my employees did in a year. I didn’t care to share personal details about myself with others, but with Gabe, they just seemed to keep coming out.
I continued to study him. His short-cropped hair was thick. It looked as though it would feel bristly and springy beneath my fingers. He had an ever-present twinkle in his brown eyes, and his face was large and handsome, with a square jaw. He had a strong face. Everything about him looked strong, actually, as if all his muscles were constrained beneath his suit coat. What I liked best about the way he looked, however, was the smile that always seemed to be on deck, ready to come out swinging.
