by Katee Robert
Because of course.
She couldn’t just have that brilliant little scene where she played it cool and professional and totally unaffected. No, he’d had to come back out here and see her for the mess she really was. Too late to salvage this. Might as well ride with it. “Can I help you with something?” She kept her tone even despite the fact she had her head on her desk and was obviously in the middle of a lust-driven breakdown.
Cameron looked like he wanted nothing more than to retreat and pretend this interaction had never happened. You and me both, man. He finally cleared his throat. “Is everything okay?”
“Sure. Fine and dandy.” Since he obviously had something to say, she sighed and straightened. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Somehow I find that hard to believe.” He shook his head and held up a thin file. “I have a web meeting to finish up a contract with an existing client in an hour. Would you like to sit in on it?”
She cautiously took the file and flipped through it. She didn’t necessarily need hand-holding, but it would be really useful to see how Cameron conducted business—both to see what he’d expect from her and to verify if it was as bad as Aaron seemed to think. But that also meant being in the same room as Cameron, and in close quarters.
It had to happen at some point.
I’m not ready.
You’re never going to be ready.
Wasn’t that the damn truth?
She took a careful breath and smiled brightly. “That would be great. I’ll go over this so I’m up-to-date.” She motioned to the file.
“Great.” He turned and walked away without another word.
Great.
She spent the next forty minutes going over the file to familiarize herself with the account and what Tandem Security did for the client. It was all pretty basic. They’d beefed up the client’s online security and added in a secondary package that was biannual upkeep for any major changes the client wanted. Smart. Keep a long-standing relationship so they come back here if they need more done.
By the time she walked into Cameron’s office, she’d managed to get herself under control. At least until she sank gingerly into the chair next to his in front of the monitor. He’d brought it over so she could be in the camera frame once the video call started, and the positioning put them within easy touching distance. It shouldn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.
To distract herself, she focused on his computer setup. It was more advanced than she’d ever had to deal with, dual monitors showing a variety of programs running that might as well have been Greek for all Trish understood them. She was more than decent with technology, but she’d never come close to what Aaron and Cameron did for a living. It blew her mind a little bit. “Fancy.”
“It does the job.” He hesitated and then tilted the screen so it faced her a little more directly. “This damn client is always late. Every single fucking time.”
Before she thought better of it, she laid her hand on his biceps. “You’re almost finished with this account. Just keep that in mind during the meeting and everything will go swimmingly.”
Cameron’s eyes dropped to where she touched him, and his arm flexed slightly beneath her palm. Slowly, oh so slowly, his gaze dragged up to her mouth, hesitated and then settled on her eyes. “You take positivity to a new level.”
A simple sentence, but the way he watched her didn’t feel simple. It made her stomach twist and ignited the desire she was working so damn hard to keep under wraps. It would be the simplest thing in the world to lean in a little bit, to give him a clear signal that she wanted a repeat of the other night—and more.
He’d kiss her until she forgot her own name, until she wasn’t worried about the future beyond where he’d touch her next. Until she felt the ground steady beneath her feet even as he made her fly. She’d hitch up her skirt and climb into his lap and...
“Trish?”
She blinked, her heart beating too hard. “Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”
Cameron reached up to touch the side of her face, gently guiding her to look at the monitor instead of him. “Client just logged on. I’m going to start the meeting.”
The meeting. Right. She swallowed hard. “Great.”
But he didn’t move back. His breath brushed the shell of her ear, drawing a shiver from her. “After the meeting, we’ll...talk.”
Talk? Or talk?
She stared blindly at the monitor, reality sinking its claws into her and digging deep. The attraction she felt for Cameron wasn’t going away—if anything, it was getting worse. Stronger. And if he meant what she thought—hoped, dreaded—he meant about talking, he was getting swept away alongside her.
Oh God, my brother is going to kill me.
Too bad she couldn’t bring herself to care. She’d played it safe for so long and she’d missed her dreams by a mile.
Maybe it was time to throw caution to the wind.
What could possibly go wrong?
CHAPTER FOUR
CAMERON MANAGED TO get through the final meeting without letting his disdain for the outgoing client show—because he was so damn distracted by Trish’s flowery perfume. No, not perfume. It was too subtle. It was probably lotion or shampoo or something, and the faint scent rose every time she shifted. Her hair brushed his shoulders, and his hands clenched against the need to dig into the thick curls and tilt her head back so he could claim her mouth again.
Focus.
He signed off the meeting and sat back, careful to angle his body away from hers. It didn’t help. Cameron had always considered his office obscenely large compared to the amount of space he actually needed to do his job. That was before Trish took up residence in it, filling every inch with her sunny presence. He didn’t know how to deal with it, and commanding her to get the hell out wouldn’t solve anything—and would only make him look like an asshole in the process.
Rightly so.
Cameron cleared his throat. “Did you decide on a color for the boardroom?”
Trish blinked those big blue eyes at him. “That’s what you wanted to talk about?”
No, what he wanted to talk about was how she felt about being spread out on his desk so he could kiss her until she was dizzy. Then he’d inch up that tease of a skirt and taste her there, too. Right here. In his office. While they were both on the clock, so to speak.
He was so out of line, it wasn’t fucking funny.
Focusing on work when she was so close he could run his thumb over her full bottom lip was a herculean task, but Cameron didn’t have any other option. He nodded, his voice gruffer than it had right to be. “The ceilings are just as high in there as in the front office, and you’ve already proven you can’t be trusted to follow the instructions on stepladders. Since I doubt you’re going to hire someone to do it, I’ll help you.” There. That was reasonable.
Except her eyes had gone wide and her jaw dropped. “That is the most ridiculous, backhanded compliment I’ve ever heard. I’m not even sure there’s a compliment in there. I am more than capable of doing my job.”
“I never said you weren’t.”
“Actually, you did. Thirty seconds ago.” She shoved to her feet, which put her breasts directly in his line of sight. Cameron jerked his gaze back to her face, but it wasn’t any better for his control. She was gorgeous when she was pissed and trying not to be, her hair moving around like a live thing and her body practically vibrating with repressed fury. She pointed a finger at him, seemed to realize she might be crossing a line and let her hand drop. “Aaron hired me to do this job because he knows I’m capable of handling it. That includes managing painting.” She stalked out the door without another word.
Cameron stared hard at the doorway, walking back through the conversation to figure out where it went wrong. Choosing not to kiss her again was the right call. That, he was sure of. Asking
about the boardroom was a reasonable thing to do. Maybe he’d spoken a little harsher than he intended, driven by the need to keep the lust from his tone, but he hadn’t yelled at her. Telling her to accept his help was only reasonable because she’d about broken her damn neck when she’d tried to do the front room herself. It was possible he could have worded it more carefully, but he’d hardly called her inept. He’d been more abrupt in other conversations and she hadn’t reacted so intensely.
Another replay of the conversation and he thought he had the answer. I am more than capable of doing my job. Well, of course she was. Aaron wouldn’t have hired her if she wasn’t, sister or no. Cameron certainly wouldn’t have signed off on it unless she was qualified. She might not be well-balanced when standing on a stepladder, and her college degrees weren’t an exact fit, but she obviously had an eye for creating a welcoming environment, and how she’d handled herself in the meeting just now had only reinforced that hiring her was the right call. She was fucking perfect for the job.
He’d told her that...
Cameron frowned. Shit, he hadn’t told her that, had he? He’d been so focused on the thought that she might pull another stunt like working after hours to finish the front office—and get hurt in the process—that he’d barked at her over it. He frowned harder. He wasn’t wrong about telling her not to paint without him. He knew he wasn’t.
But...maybe he could have approached it differently?
“Fuck,” he breathed. He wasn’t equipped to tiptoe around another person’s feelings. If he was, he’d have been better at the client-facing part of this business. Trish wasn’t a client, though. He couldn’t just end a meeting and cease having to deal with her. She’d be in this office, day in and day out.
He had to apologize.
Cameron played through his options a couple times, but there was really only one reality. If she was pissed, it would make the office unlivable. What was more, it made her a whole lot more likely to go ahead and paint the damn boardroom—and potentially hurt herself—when he wasn’t around. Since he wasn’t a fan of either option, he pushed slowly to his feet and went in search of her.
Unsurprisingly, he found her in said boardroom. The chairs around the old table had disappeared somewhere, and she stood on the table, in the process of changing out the overhead light fixture. Cameron froze, not sure if he should rush over to catch her in the event that she fell or that damn light fixture came undone and crashed down on her head.
Trish glanced over and gave him a brilliant smile. “This thing is so coated with some gross combination of dust and time that I’m calling it a wash and tossing it.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. A smiling Trish was not what he expected. Was this a trap? “You seem...not mad.”
“Why would I be mad, Cameron?” Her tone was as sweet as honey, but her use of his name might as well have been a hook in the gut.
This was most definitely a trap. He cleared his throat. “Earlier, I didn’t mean to—”
“To question my competence? To treat me like I’m a child in need of tending?” Every single word was that blend of sweet and sharp, until it was a wonder he didn’t bleed out on the floor at her feet. She turned to face him, the light fixture in her hands, as regal as a queen despite the streak of dust over the shoulder of her shirt and what appeared to be a cobweb clinging to her curls near her face. Trish looked down her nose at him. “If you have a problem with the way I do my job, that’s fine. You’re my boss. You’re more than entitled to correct and/or punish me as you see fit.”
He got hung up on the word punish and had to force himself back to task.
She wasn’t done, though. “That said, if you ever talk to me like that again, I’m out. I took this job as a favor to Aaron and, yeah, I kind of need it, but I don’t need it badly enough to put up with that level of disrespect. I get that you don’t handle people well, but at some point you’re just making excuses for bad behavior that’s inexcusable...” She trailed off, her breath coming too fast, and seemed to realize she was yelling at him. Trish clutched the light fixture closer to her chest. “So...there.”
God, she was something else. Fired up and willing to put him in his place, though she had to be truly pissed to have let the peppy sunbeam mask slip. Cameron leaned against the doorjamb. “I’m sorry.”
“Why, you—” Trish blinked. “What?”
“You’re right. I was out of line. I’m sorry.” He stepped farther into the room and held out a hand.
Looking dazed, she took it and allowed him to guide her off the table. He finally managed to relax a little once her feet were both firmly on the floor. Trish gave him a suspicious look. “Why are you being so agreeable?”
“Contrary to what your brother thinks, I can see reason on occasion. I was worried about you falling again, and so I overreacted. But you’re right, I’m your boss.” He almost choked over the words—the reminder—but powered through. “Talking to an employee like that isn’t okay.”
“Exactly.” She still didn’t look convinced this wasn’t some kind of trick.
That made two of them.
Cameron...didn’t do this. He didn’t do interpersonal relationships. Too damn bad. Going to have to figure it out as you go, and it’s one hell of a learning curve. He didn’t move from his spot. “I respectfully request that you either hire out for the painting or wait until after hours when I can help you.”
Trish opened her mouth like she was going to snap back but seemed to consider. “It’s an unnecessary expense to hire such a small job out when I’m more than capable of handling it. For that matter, there’s no reason for you to take time away from your...whatever it is you do for leisure...to help me. I have it covered.”
She had it covered all the way to an ER visit with a broken arm. Or worse.
He met her gaze steadily. “When are you buying the paint?”
Cameron could almost see the gears whirling in her head as she tried to find a way out of this. He could have told her there was no way out. He wouldn’t let her paint this room by herself, and her little stunt this weekend had shown her hand—if she thought she could get away with it, she’d do it behind his back to avoid dealing with him.
If she was anyone else, he would have found her independence a relief. It meant he could focus on his job and let her do hers. But Trish wasn’t anyone else—she was Trish. He needed to keep her safe, even if that meant keeping her safe from working herself to the bone.
Finally, she sighed. “I’m going to pick it up after work.”
“Pick it up tomorrow.” He didn’t bother to keep the command out of his voice. If she went and got it after hours, she’d be right back here the second he wasn’t looking.
She’s not a wayward puppy, asshole. She’s a person.
Yes, she was. A person who had excellent work ethic and showed every evidence of being just as stubborn as her older brother—the same older brother Cameron would have to answer to if something happened to her. That was all. It was simple, really. Not in the least bit complicated. He certainly didn’t have any ulterior motives.
Trish narrowed her eyes. “You can’t tell me what to do after hours.”
“It concerns this job, so I sure as hell can. We’ll take a long lunch tomorrow and paint the damn boardroom. You can pick up the paint late morning beforehand.”
For a moment, it seemed like she’d keep arguing, but then she gave him a brilliant smile. “Sure thing, Mr. O’Clery.” Trish turned on her heel and marched out of the room.
Okay, that was definitely a trap.
CHAPTER FIVE
TRISH ALMOST SAID to hell with it and bought the paint anyway. She got so far as to leave her apartment and start in the direction of the store... But common sense reared its ugly head. Cameron might have been kind of an ass with his command for her to wait, but he’d also apologized and he wasn’t being completely unreasonable wit
h wanting to help. It might even be kind of nice for the job to go faster.
Honesty, Trish.
She huffed out a breath and turned in the opposite direction. “The honest truth is that I’m pissed that when he said we’d talk, he meant he’d treat me like a child instead of kissing me again.” She shot a look around her, half expecting Cameron to melt out of a nearby shadow and call her on her idiocy. There was only the normal foot traffic at this time in the early evening, and they were obviously all NYC natives, because they didn’t so much as blink at her talking to herself like a crazy person.
She grabbed dinner from the little Chinese place a few blocks down and carted it back to her apartment. Behind locked doors, she finally sighed. Okay, my pride was hurt. I let it get the best of me. We both agreed that the first kiss was a mistake that shouldn’t be repeated...but that doesn’t stop me from wanting a repeat.
The trilling of her phone drew her out of her thoughts. When Trish saw it was her mother, she almost deliberately missed the call. It had been a long day and she didn’t have the energy to reassure her mother—and through her mother, her father—that she was doing just fine in the big, scary city. She knew for a fact that Aaron hadn’t been subjected to these worried phone calls when he moved here.
She took a deep breath and put as much smile into her voice as she was capable of. “Hey, Mom.”
“Trish, there you are! I was worried when you didn’t pick up.”
That was her mother. The eternal worrier. She’d been born and raised in Lake Placid and had always harbored a hope that her daughters would do the same. Trish’s older sister, Mary, had followed that path. She’d married her high school sweetheart and settled in after college to become an elementary school teacher. Mary was practically perfect in every way. She didn’t keep her mother up at night, worrying herself to death.
