Who's the Boss? & Her Perfect Stranger

He looked like a ruffian. A hood. A gorgeous, temperamental hood.

What happened to her old, pencil-laden, calculator-carrying geek? This man was young—early thirties at the most—sharp and, judging by his scowl, tough as nails.

At first he’d seemed sweet and friendly, but no longer. Now he was the complete opposite. And to think she’d been worried about him, and his fear of the wrath of the “boss”!

“Oh, dear,” she whispered. “This isn’t going to work out at all.”

Relief flooded his features, softening them. “Really?”

An audible groan came from the other side of the wall. In a flash, Joseph’s scowl was back. He reached around her with one long arm and yanked open the door. Three guys—at least two of whom fit her computer-geek image to the last microinch—nearly fell into the room.

They recovered quickly, especially with the glare they received from Joe, and mumbling assorted apologies, slunk back down the hallway.

“Sorry,” Joe told Caitlin. “We’re short on excitement around here. You were saying this wasn’t going to work out?”

She nodded, wondering how a computer nerd could possibly have such a low, husky voice, like fine-aged whiskey. “Yes. I’m sorry. But…well, in my experience, I don’t work well with men like you.”

He blinked. “Men like me?”

A sound came from behind the once again shut door. It sounded like a…snicker. Three snickers.

Joe inhaled deeply and ignored them.

Caitlin pictured the three men once again pressed against the closed door, listening with their ears glued to the wood. She might have smiled, were it not for the frown on Joseph’s face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he wanted to know, straightening his wide shoulders. “That you don’t work well with men like me?”

It meant that she was tired of pushing away roaming hands and groping fingers from the kind of man who took her at face value. Tired of being patted on the head as if she were a toy, a pretty, empty shell of a human being.

It had been happening to her ever since puberty, which had come unfortunately early. In her experience, the kind of man most likely to treat her that way stood right in front of her. Cool, collected, knowing, cocky.

“It simply means I’m sorry, Mr. Brownley,” she said. “But this won’t work out at all. It’s clear that you’re a man who needs no one. Certainly not me.” Caitlin turned, got to the door before she remembered something horrifying.

She needed this job desperately.

Without it, she was headed for the poorhouse. It’d been so easy for her to forget that little detail, being a woman completely unused to stress.

Could she find another job?

The idea almost made her laugh. With her qualifications, she’d be lucky to land the front-counter job at Del Taco. Her hand stilled on the doorknob, and she grappled with pride and fear and something even newer…annoyance.

Why hadn’t he wanted her?

“Did you forget where you parked your car?” Joe inquired politely from behind her.

Great. The sexy thug was a smart-ass to boot. “No.” Plastering her friendliest smile in place, Caitlin turned back to face the sternest-looking cute guy she’d ever seen. “I just thought that maybe…” Oh, how she hated to eat crow. “Maybe I judged you too quickly.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his cool eyes giving nothing of himself away. They both ignored the multiple sharp intakes of breath from the other side of the door. “Does this mean you’re not leaving?” he asked finally.

She winced at the unmistakable regret in his tone. “That’s what it means,” she admitted. “Unless I’m fired.”

“From what I know of you, you have absolutely no experience in much of anything, except maybe social studies.”

She stiffened in automatic defense at the disapproval and disgust. “I can do this job.”

He sighed heavily. “Dammit. I can’t fire you anyway. It’s complicated.”

From the other side of the door came a joint sigh of relief that made her feel marginally better. At least his employees wanted her to stay. She relaxed marginally with relief. She hadn’t failed yet!

I’ll show you, Dad. I can do this. But then his words sank in. “You can’t fire me? How come?”

His already impossibly hard jaw hardened even more. “Never mind. What do you know about being a secretary?”

“Uh…” What she knew would fit in her back pocket—if she had one. “I can make coffee,” she improvised, drawing on the one skill she thought she probably shared with every good secretary.

Joe Brownley closed his eyes and groaned.

“And,” she added brilliantly, completely undeterred by his response, “I have a really nice telephone voice!”

Joe was first and foremost a thinker. There was nothing he liked less than to not understand something—and he didn’t come close to understanding Edmund’s daughter. “Tell me this,” he begged. “Why do you want this job?”

“Well…that’s a long story.” A shrug lifted her petite shoulders and her not so petite breasts, which were already straining against her sweater. “I doubt you’d understand.”

“I’m of average intelligence,” he said dryly. “Try me.”

Curious now, he crossed his arms and leaned back against the door frame. “You’re rich as sin, princess. And I know for a fact your father had you in a beachfront condo, and a fancy car.”

She laughed shortly, her doe eyes looking a little wild.

“So why do you want a job like this?”

“I just do.” She licked her lips. “And the will says you’ll give it to me.”

She was right, and the reminder of it was a slap in the face. Edmund had given Joe everything, everything, and in return he’d asked for only one little favor.

It was time to stop griping about it and accept the facts. For better or worse, he was stuck with his new assistant.

At least until she quit.

“Okay, Ms. Taylor,” he said wearily, rubbing his temples. “Here’s how this is going to work. I’m in the middle of something pretty important and hate to be bothered. I guess I could use someone to handle the phones.”

A cheer went up on the other side of the door; Joe hauled it open. Again, the three young men stumbled awkwardly into the room. Immediately, they all straightened, tried to look casual.

Disgusted, Joe said, “These yo-yos are my techs,” he told Caitlin. “Huey, Dewey and Louie.”

Two of them were identical twins. One of the tall, skinny, dark-haired twenty-odd-year-olds stuck out his hand, a wide grin on his face. “Hi. I’m Andy.” He pumped Caitlin’s hand so enthusiastically, she feared he might pull her arm right out of the socket, but his expression was so kind, so sincere, she just smiled back, relieved beyond speech by the friendly face.

“I provide tech support to our customers,” he said. “As well as keeping Joe here human by dragging him out of here every night.”

Human? Could have fooled her.

“I’m Tim,” said the other twin. He, too, grinned from ear to ear. “I also help with tech support, but basically Joe couldn’t function without me because I have all the charm and personality.”

Joe rolled his eyes.

Tim nodded. “It’s true.” He looked at Caitlin, his eyes shining with good humor. “And you’re really great.”

“Thank you,” said Caitlin smiling, thinking they were pretty great, too.

The third, a medium-built redhead who looked to be in his early thirties, smiled shyly and kept his hands firmly in his pockets when he introduced himself. “I’m Vince. I work in product development with Joe.”

“We’ve been wanting a new secretary,” Tim said into the awkward silence. “Really bad. Ever since the last one…uh…left.”

Andy nodded emphatically. “Joe scared her off, and—” He broke off at the look on Joseph’s face.

Another awkward silence. Tim bit his lip. Andy stared at his feet. Vince watched Caitlin send a curious, cautious glance to Joe. “She, uh…didn’t work out,” Vince said diplomatically. “It wasn’t really anyone’s fault exactly.”

Joe scoffed. “No need to mince words, Vince. You can tell her the truth.”

Whether it was loyalty or simple resistance to Joseph’s tone, Vince remained silent, stubbornly buttoning his lip.

“I’ll tell her,” Tim piped up in a stage whisper that everyone within three miles could have heard. He looked at Caitlin and confided, “Joe scared the last three women off. You don’t scare easily, do you?”

“I…” She thought of her bills. Of the creditors. “No.”

“Joe’s not all that great with women,” Tim said.

Vince laughed softly when Joe shook his head, disgusted.

“We begged him to get someone in here to do the filing and answer the phones. And to lighten things up a bit. You know—someone to have fun with. That’s all. No offense, you understand,” Andy said quickly.

“None taken,” Caitlin assured him, delighted with her sweet new workmates.

“But the longest any of them lasted is about three hours,” admitted Tim.

Looking into the frowning, incredibly handsome face of Joe Brownley, Caitlin had no problem imagining why. “You don’t say.”

Vince laughed again, and some of the tension dispersed. “He’s all bark, no bite,” he assured her, but some of his amusement faded when Joe glared at him.

“Why is everyone talking about me as if I’m not standing right here?”

Vince ignored him. “Sort of like a terrier,” he elaborated. “Loud and gruff. Then passive as a kitten.”

“Really?” She eyed the very annoyed Joe. The long, lean lines of his body were stiff. His eyes like ice. Passive was the last word she would have used.

“Back to work, guys,” he said stiffly, his wide shoulders tense.

Tim hesitated at the door. “Nice to meet you, Caitlin. I hope you stay.”

“Do you really know how to make coffee?” Andy asked plaintively. “Because—”

“Andy,” Joe said, his voice careful and quiet. “Don’t you have something, anything, to do?”

“Yeah, I guess.” His shoulders slumped. “It’s just that you make really crappy coffee, Joe. And—”

“I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to discuss the damn coffee,” Joe grated out, clearly beyond patience. “I’d really, really like to get to work some time today. Would that be all right with everyone here?”

Vince leaned close to Caitlin, confiding, “He’s only a bear because he’s so close to finishing this project and all this other stuff keeps interrupting him. Phones, paperwork, stuff like that.” He flashed a sweet smile. “Don’t let him scare you off now, okay?”

He was so kind. So were the twins.

She couldn’t remember if or when she’d been shown such simple, untethered friendship. Any friends she’d thought she had were gone. Vanished into thin air because she was no longer a somebody.

But these guys… They’d all looked her in the eyes instead of her chest—another plus in their favor—when they’d talked to her, and while it was obvious they thought she was pretty, they’d treated her with respect.

Caitlin smiled, embarrassed to feel her throat tighten up at reliving their warm, eager greeting. She’d never in her life felt so welcome—the still scowling Joseph Brownley excluded—and a realization hit hard. Everywhere she’d gone, everything she’d done, she’d either been accepted for her looks or for her father’s money.

Never for herself alone.

Everyone left and she was standing here with her boss. She knew darn well he didn’t want her, that he didn’t think she could handle this job. But for some reason, he wasn’t going to refuse her.

He caught her gaze with his, and his jaw went all hard again. Most of her resolve wavered and what little there was left took a bad beating at his next words.

“Okay, princess, here’s how this situation is going to work.”

Where had that nice man gone? The one she’d first spoken with, the one she’d thought was going to be her friend? She looked carefully, but couldn’t see a trace of him. It was almost as if once he had realized he was stuck with her, he’d purposely turned himself into someone she wouldn’t like.

Well, he’d been partially successful, she thought. She didn’t like him, but she wouldn’t run off because of it.

“Last door on the left is my office,” Joe said gruffly, stepping into the hallway to point it out. “I hate to be interrupted, so stay out.” He looked at her expectantly then, a little hopefully. Maybe she’d still run off if he were boorish enough?

As if she’d read his mind, she laughed at him. Laughed. The unexpected sweet sound had Joseph’s stomach muscles tensing.

“Are you waiting for me to cower from such a fierce command?” She shook her head, her short blond bob flying. Her flowery fragrance wafted up, assaulting his nostrils, annoying him because she smelled so damn good he found himself straining for another sniff. “Or maybe, better yet, you think I’ll run off with my tail between my legs.”

Her words put a vivid picture in his mind of what was between her legs.

“Should I remind you whose daughter I am?” she asked, breaking into his startling sensual thoughts.

Her father had backed down to no one. “I know whose daughter you are.”

“Good. And I don’t frighten easily.”

Mad at her, at his techs and at himself, he stalked back into the front office.

“Clearly,” she muttered, “I’m to follow you.”

Why today? he wondered helplessly. Why, when he was so damn close to finishing his program, did he have to deal with this? With a quick glance upward, he grimaced. Thanks, Edmund. Hope you’re getting a kick out of this.

Caitlin passed him in the hallway. “Maybe I would be better off at Del Taco.”

He watched as she sashayed prettily into the main office, her hips swinging in tune to his undisciplined hormones. “I’ll give you a lift to the nearest one.” Then, to soften the words he realized were unkind, he offered the sweetest smile he could.

She shook her head. “Well, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

Her mouth was pouty, lusciously red, and the most inane thought popped into his head.

She must taste like heaven.

The woman was a blond bombshell, with a complete lack of work ethic, designed to torture him. And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d look like spread across his desk wearing one of those come-hither looks.

“So…how many employees do you have here?” she wondered aloud, interrupting his erotically charged thoughts.

“Besides the three idiots you’ve already met, just me.”

“And now me,” Caitlin added.

“I’m doing my best to change that.”

Ah, sarcasm. Well, she could understand that. The way he kept his big body so tense, she imagined he was quite uncomfortable. Most men, in her experience, fought unease with a sort of bearish aggression. Her father had been the king of that act, though he’d never used it on her, and she imagined this Mr. Brownley wasn’t much different. “I’m sticking, Mr. Brownley.”

“So you’ve said.”

Her bravado was quickly taking a beating in the face of his stubbornness. Before she caved in completely, she tried small talk. “I thought CompuSoft was huge. According to my father, this place was the future of progressive software.”

Incredibly, Joseph’s eyes softened. His attitude vanished. “He said that?”

It was obviously an illusion that he suddenly appeared so vulnerable. He was about as vulnerable as a starving black bear waking from hibernation. “He was quite proud of this place.”

His throat worked. His voice sounded hushed, almost reverent. “I take that as a huge compliment.”

Her father never complimented lightly, and just thinking about him hurt when she was tired of hurting. He’d rarely complimented her. To combat the thought, she desperately continued her one-sided conversation. “How could you have only the four of you here?”

“This is no longer the huge corporation it was under your father. We’ve been siphoned off, separated from all his other various businesses. We’re on our own, just a few of us designing and supporting software.” He gave her that impenetrable stare again. “You didn’t get a copy of the will?”

Caitlin noticed that whenever he mentioned her father, he watched her carefully. But she could hear his thick disapproval, and her stomach tightened in response to the unfamiliar stress purling through her.

If he only knew how she’d pored over that darn will, wondering what had happened to her nice, cozy life.

If only he had a clue as to how lost she felt in this new, unsafe world, or how much resentment for her father she harbored deep down in her heart.

“Yes,” she managed to answer with her usual cheekiness, refusing to let him get to her. “I got it.”

“If the terms were too difficult to comprehend,” he said slowly, finally succeeding in stirring her rare temper, “you should have asked someone to explain it to you.”

“Contrary to what you must believe about me, I do understand the written word.”

“All of your father’s companies were divested. CompuSoft was half-mine to start with, so he simply willed me the other half.”

Her father could give this man half a company, just hand it over, and he couldn’t leave her a penny. Couldn’t leave her anything but a measly job with a man who couldn’t abide her. It took every ounce of common courtesy she had not to resent Joe Brownley for this.

Well, okay, that was a big fat lie. She did resent him. A lot. “Nice of him.”

“Nice?” He missed the sarcasm and let out a short laugh that seemed harsh. “It was incredible. The most generous thing anyone’s ever done for me—” He stopped abruptly, stared at her. “I have no idea why I’m telling you this.”

She didn’t, either. It hurt unbelievably to know her father had thought so little of his own flesh and blood that he’d left this man more than he had his only child. “Where do I start?”

“So you’re staying, then?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “Fine. This is the reception desk.” He gestured behind him to a wide desk facing the entrance. At least, she assumed it was a desk; all she could see were stacks and stacks of paperwork, files, various computer parts and what looked like an old, forgotten take-out food bag.

“All you have to do is come in on time, which around here is eight o’clock, and answer the occasional phone.” He sent her a long look. “Can you do that?”

“Hmm. I think I can manage.” She was really going to have to teach him a thing or two about manners. As for the ungodly hour, she’d have to work on it. “Surely you have more needs than just answering your phone.”

His light eyes darkened. His mouth curved, making her blink in surprise. Sullen, the man had been beyond handsome. Smiling, he was stunningly gorgeous.

“I don’t think you want to hear about my needs.”

No. No, she didn’t, Caitlin decided as her heart took off running. “Probably not.”

Slowly, he ran his gaze down the length of her, then back up. When he met her eyes with his, an unmistakable heat radiated from them. Caitlin had been on the receiving end of looks like that ever since she’d grown breasts, so she’d long ago learned to tune them out. Yet now, under Joe Brownley’s suddenly hot gaze, as unbelievable as it seemed, she felt herself blush. “Something wrong with my attire?”

“Yeah,” he said in that low, disturbingly sexy voice. “In this office, you’ll need something a little…more.”

She’d known it! Her clothes were all wrong. “More?”

“Shapeless. Like a potato sack.”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in a potato sack.”

“You’re distracting.”

“Your techs were refreshing and charming. I don’t think I’ll have a problem here with them.”

He turned and started back down the hall, his long legs churning up the distance in just a few strides. “I wasn’t talking about the Three Stooges, princess,” he called back.

Oh.

Oh.

3

THE BUILDING THAT housed CompuSoft was small for downtown, Caitlin thought. But it was brick and glass and strangely cozy.

There was a small coffee stand on the lobby floor, complete with doughnuts, croissants and mouthwatering pastries. Caitlin couldn’t resist stopping there before getting on the elevator, if only to drool.

After all, if she had to suffer mornings, then she needed junk food.

A lovely brunette woman, about Caitlin’s age, wearing an apron and a harassed smile came up to her. “Can I help you?”

Caitlin thought of her last dollar drowning in the bottom of her purse. “How much is that chocolate thingie over there, last one on the row?”

“In calories or cents?”

Caitlin laughed. “Either way, I’m sure it’s too expensive. Besides, I shouldn’t. Oh, man, I really shouldn’t.” Ruefully, she tapped her curvy hips.

The woman let out a reluctant smile, which softened her entire face. Her green eyes sparkled with life that hadn’t been there before. “This is what I tell myself every morning.”

Caitlin eyed her spectacular figure—all willowy and slim. “How many do you eat?” she asked doubtfully.

She shrugged. “Depends on how rude the customers are, which varies. The more annoying jerks I serve, the more I eat.”

Caitlin sighed and thought of Joe. “I’m afraid if I stopped here every time my boss annoyed me, I’d be busting out of my clothes in a week.”

The woman laughed now, and gave Caitlin a much more genuine smile. “You’re new here. I’m Amy.”

“I’m Caitlin.” She dug into her purse to appease her rumbling stomach, and accepted the huge chocolate pastry.

Amy grinned, removed her apron and grabbed a pastry for herself. “Just in case the crowd gets crazy later, I’ll take my break now.”

They pigged out together.

* * *

BY THE TIME he got to his office the next morning, Joe was high on adrenaline, his mind racing ahead, thinking about his software program.

With a little luck, he figured he could make real headway today, if he got in the good ten to twelve hours he needed.

As previously arranged, he had first stopped at one of the local banks to meet with a loan officer, hoping to start the preapproval process. He wanted to be prepared when his program was complete, so he could properly promote and sell it. To do that, he’d need money—a lot of it.

Despite the hassles ahead, he grinned and silently thanked Edmund for the thousandth time. Without the old man’s generosity in deeding him CompuSoft, Joe wouldn’t even be thinking about this for himself. Edmund had provided the means for Joe to spend the time needed to work on his program. With Edmund’s death, that could have all ended for Joe, but it hadn’t.

It was a dream come true.

Whether it was just his own bad luck or his unique ability to actually forget absolutely everything but his work, he entered his office and, completely unprepared, stared stupefied at the front desk.

It had been cleaned off, or rather cleared off—everything was on the floor. Amazing piles of important-looking stuff surrounded the base of the desk.

As he took a step into the chaotic room, he tripped and nearly fell flat on his face—over a pair of ruby-red four-inch pumps.

Empty pumps, he noted.

Which would explain the barefoot woman on all fours, facing away from him, affording him the best view he’d seen all morning. Apparently, both Tim and Andy felt the same way, because the two techs, who normally couldn’t be budged from their computers, were on the floor, as well, making neat little stacks of God only knew what.

Caitlin’s head popped up when he shut the door behind him, and she craned her neck around from where she’d been pulling out more stacks of paperwork from beneath her desk.

Hard as it was to imagine, Joe had completely forgotten about his new secretary.

“Good morning,” she said in a sexy, cheerful voice that reminded him he still needed a cup of coffee.

Badly.

Tim and Andy leaped to their feet, faces red.

“Hey, Joe,” Andy said quickly, sticking his hands in his jean pockets. “How’d it go at the bank?”

“It wasn’t as exciting as it appears to have been here.” Joe lifted a brow as Caitlin stretched her lush, petite body as far as it would reach to get a file that had been shoved beneath the far corner of her desk.