All He Really Needs

He sighed. “You need vision, Sydney. Work with me here. I find Hollister’s missing daughter, I get the money and Dalton is left with nothing. Which isn’t going to sit real well with him, no matter what he says. So when I sweep in and offer him a fat CEO salary plus major stock options in the company, he’s going to jump at it. Especially if he doesn’t have to deal with Dad’s BS. I’ll put him in charge, let him run things the way he wants to.” He dusted his hands together like it was a fait accompli. “Everybody wins.”

“It’s not always about winning.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Sydney. It’s always about winning. It’s only the stakes and the game that change.”

Which summed up all the reasons she couldn’t be with him anymore. When there was nothing on the line, it was easy to spend time with him and not care about philosophical differences or his lifestyle or the fact that everything really was a game to him.

But now that he was her boss, she couldn’t afford to wear those blinders anymore. She couldn’t afford to let a few minutes’—okay, a few hours’—satisfaction get in the way of her job. She liked her job, needed her job for the money and the sense of self it gave her. There was no way she was going to become one of those women who slept with the boss, her survival dependent on the whims of a man she had no hope of holding on to.

No, a few orgasms—earth-shattering or not—were not worth playing Russian roulette with her whole life.

“You really think this is going to work?” she asked Griffin.

“It’s absolutely going to work. Plus, the good news is Dalton is handing over all his research so far and he thinks he has a lead. So we’re golden.” He winked at her. “Trust me.”

As if. She took a deep breath, blew it out slowly and tried to ignore the fact that she suddenly felt like she was making a deal with the devil. “Fine. I’ll help you find your sister. But that’s it.”

“What do you mean, that’s it? That’s all I need.”

“I mean, if we’re going to be working together, if you’re going to be my boss, this thing between us has to end. No sex, no candlelit dinners, no late-night phone calls. We—” she waved her finger back and forth between them “—are officially over.”

For long seconds, Griffin stared at her like he couldn’t quite comprehend what she was saying. Then he did the most amazing thing. He threw back his head and laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

Three

It was cute really, how annoyed she looked.

She set her jaw as bright pink flushed her cheeks. “I’m not joking.”

He tried to clamp down on his laughter. He really did. “I’m not joking.”

“Then stop laughing.” As if to give herself a better angle from which to glare at him, she pushed to her feet.

But from his point of view, it only brought her closer. She’d been sitting not far from him but still out of reach. Now he was easily able to lasso her arm and pull her toward him so she stood between his outstretched legs.

“I’m serious,” she insisted, but there was no force to her words and—as if she could read his mind—her gaze dropped briefly to his mouth.

“I know you are. That’s what makes it cute.” He widened his stance and pulled her close enough so that she was pressed against the vee of his legs, the juncture of her thighs against the hard length of his erection.

It felt so good having her there, so right. He inhaled sharply and was immediately hit with the scent of her. Sydney never wore perfume, but she favored a shampoo that smelled like coconut and lime. He was used to the smell of her hair, the way it mixed with the naturally sweet smell of her own skin and made him think of eating pancakes in bed on a perfect, lazy Saturday morning. But today she’d showered at his place and instead of her normal tropical, fruity smell, when he inhaled, he got a hit of Sydney layered under the smell of his own soap. Maybe it shouldn’t have been sexy, but it was. He felt it like a punch in the gut. She’d been in his shower mere hours ago. The smell of her only reinforced every instinct he had. She was his. Whether she knew it or not, she belonged to him.

Which made her edict that they stop sleeping together all the more funny.

He gave in to the urge to slip his hand along her jaw and to pull her closer.

Her mouth parted and she sucked in a quick breath. Anticipation. But instead of kissing her, he buried his nose in the hair right behind her ear and drew in a deep breath, just taking in the scent of her because he wanted to remember forever how she smelled in that instant. To burn it into his memory.

He felt a little shudder go through her and then he couldn’t resist running a trail of kisses up under her ear and across her cheek to her mouth. Then his lips were moving over hers in a soul-searing kiss. The kind that almost ended up with him ripping her clothes off and devouring her until she came apart in his arms.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think sex with his assistant would be a very efficient way to spend his first afternoon as CEO. Besides, even with the door closed, there was always the risk they’d be interrupted.

It was a struggle, but he mustered enough restraint to lift his mouth from hers and nudge her hips away from his before he lost all control. For a long moment she just stood there, face tilted up, lips moistened and parted, like she was so dazed she hadn’t even realized he was no longer kissing her.

He smiled again, purposefully making light of the irresistible pull she held over him. “Well, then, you let me know how that goes for you.”

She blinked. “How what goes?”

“That whole not sleeping together thing you have planned.”

The space between her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Then she backed up a step and jerked her hands away from his hips. “Well, this was hardly a fair test.”

“Right, sweetheart.” He bopped the tip of her nose with his finger. “Let me know if you devise a fairer test than that. Meanwhile, I’ll be in my new office.”

He loved seeing her shocked expression as he sauntered into the office that used to be Dalton’s and shut the door behind him.

Once he was alone in the room, however, he blew out a long, slow breath.

When it came to running Cain Enterprises, he wasn’t nearly as confident as he’d let Sydney believe. He wasn’t worried about the day-to-day stuff, but the prospect of dealing with the board damn near had him breaking out in a cold sweat.

The board of directors that Hollister had amassed for Cain Enterprises was a bunch of vultures. If they knew what had happened in the past couple of weeks, they’d be circling for sure. First, Hollister—who had never displayed any sign of weakness to his business opponents—had made a very irrational decision when he’d sent his sons on this quest. The whole company hung in the balance as a result.

And now that Dalton had resigned, from the outside, it had to look like they’d all lost their minds. The board members weren’t fools. If they knew how unstable things really were, they’d start swooping down to peck out bits of flesh from what remained of his inheritance.

Right now, the company needed strong leadership more than anything. The company needed someone who could command respect. Unfortunately, Griffin knew he wasn’t that man.

He was all too aware of his limitations as a leader. He lacked his father’s cutthroat business tactics and his brother’s stolid determination. Perhaps even more importantly, he had no interest in running Cain Enterprises.

At the moment he had two interests: completing his work for Hope2O and the very tempting new assistant that came along with the CEO job. Apparently, being CEO was going to interfere with both of those pursuits. Which was why he had to get this yoke off his neck so he could get back to his real life. He had to find this damn missing heiress.

He dropped into the chair. Testing the springiness of the seat, he rocked back but there was very little give. Damn, even Dalton’s chair felt stiff and unyielding, much like his brother was.

Griffin glanced down and saw that the chair was actually the same model as the one in his office down the hall. Thanks to an array of knobs and levers, he could easily adjust it to suit his taste. Instead, he rolled the chair closer to the desk, flipped open the file Dalton had given him and started going over the notes Dalton and Laney had made. He left the chair exactly as it was. He wouldn’t be sitting in it long enough to bother changing it.

Sydney stared at the closed door to Dalton’s office, trying to squelch the sinking feeling in her gut. Except it wasn’t the door to Dalton’s office anymore. It was the door to Griffin’s office now. This was not good.

Oh, this was so not good.

Feigning a calm she didn’t feel, she turned back toward the computer at her workstation and mindlessly pulled up her email. If someone came into the office, she wanted it to look like she was busy. And competent. And not sitting here fantasizing about her boss.

Her boss.

Ugh.

She was absolutely not going to be that woman.

Her mother had been that kind of woman. The kind who casually slept with men to get favors from them. As far as she knew, her mother had never strayed into actual prostitution. She’d traded sex for rent, or car care or so her boss would overlook the fact that she was late for the seventeenth time that month. Even if that wasn’t real prostitution, it had cast a pall over Sydney’s childhood. Poverty, drug use and bad decision-making had dominated her life until she’d been taken away from her mother at the age of six. From there, she’d bounced from foster home to foster home for years before finally settling in at Molly Stanhope’s house when she was eleven.

Molly’s house had been a haven for the last seven years she was in the foster care system. In fact, Molly was still the closest thing she had to a mother. It was Molly who had been her moral compass since then. It was Molly who would not approve of Sydney sleeping with her boss.

Well, who was she kidding? It’s not like Molly would have gushed with approval over Sydney sleeping with Griffin Cain in the first place.

Sleeping with her boss compromised her position in the company. It meant he wouldn’t respect her. Her coworkers wouldn’t respect her and, worst of all, it destroyed her job security. It threatened not just her heart, but her livelihood.

As far as Sydney was concerned that sort of carelessness was a luxury she couldn’t afford. As a product of the foster care system, she had no one to depend on but herself. If the unthinkable happened and she lost her job, she was on her own. There were no loving parents for her to rush back to. There was no safety net. Hell, she didn’t even have a kindly uncle who could lend her a couple hundred bucks if she needed it. All she had was her cat, Grommet. And even he was kind of grouchy. If she was lucky, he might deign to curl up on her lap if she bumped the air-conditioning up.

She was completely on her own.

If she lost her job, she could lose her savings. Her house. Even her foster-siblings would feel it, because she’d been helping a couple of them with college tuition.

Just to give herself the kick in the ass she needed, she dug through her purse for her cell phone and scrolled through their numbers. Five of them had sort of stuck together because they’d all been at Molly’s at about the same time. She passed over Marco and George. They were both good guys if she needed advice on car care or barbecue, but they’d be useless at this sort of thing. Jen was studying abroad this semester and who knew what time it was in Spain. So Sydney pulled up Tasha’s number.

Tasha answered on the third ring. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” Sydney aimed for a breezy tone but landed somewhere near strained. “Just thought I’d call and see how you’re doing.”

There was a pause of obviously stunned silence. “On a work day? Are you sick?”

“No. Of course not. I’m fine. What, I can’t call you just to check in?”

“On a work day?” Suspicion strained Tasha’s voice. “I mean, sure, I guess you can. You just never have in the past. Oh, my God, were you fired?”

“No! I mean …” Sydney forced a chuckle. “Calm down. Nothing’s wrong. Dalton’s not in today, that’s all.”

Thank goodness she had a handy excuse because apparently Tasha saw right through all her half-truths.

“I just …” Sydney fought the sudden urge to spill the beans. To tell Tasha everything. To share her burdens. Get a second opinion. The problem was, people usually came to her for help, not the other way around. So instead, she asked, “How’re your finals going?”

And thankfully Tasha let herself be distracted.

“Ugh. Just awful. Political Theory is knocking me for a lo op.”

“I thought you liked that one.”

And distracting Tasha was as easy as that. Fifteen minutes of griping later, Sydney was wrapping up the conversation when Tasha inadvertently delivered the wakeup call Sydney needed.

“I just can’t wait for this semester to be over so I can blow off a little steam.”

“Just don’t do anything too crazy, okay?” Sydney said, that familiar need to protect her sister rising up inside her.

“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”

Tasha’s words were like a stab in the gut. If that was the barometer, then Tasha could be in serious trouble.

“Just be safe.”

Tasha chuckled. “I know the drill.”

“Yeah, I know you do.”

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” Tasha asked her out of the blue.

“Yeah. Great.”

“Because you just missed an opportunity to remind me to call you if I needed to.”

“Oh. Sorry. You know you can always call. Anytime, day or night.”

But of course, Tasha never did call. Like Sydney, Tasha was über-responsible, superpredictable and determined to make a better life for herself than the one fate had handed her. She was also the last of Molly’s foster kids Sydney felt really close to. And soon Tasha would graduate from college, get a job and maybe move away. Maybe she wouldn’t need Sydney anymore.

Sydney didn’t like to admit it to herself, but she still needed Tasha. She still needed to be needed.

She’d known this day was coming. She’d even thought she’d been prepared, back before her boss up and quit, back when her job was stable and her life still made sense. Now? Well, in the past few hours her life had unraveled at an alarming rate. But Griffin was right: panicking wouldn’t help anything. What she needed was a plan. Part one: stay out of Griffin’s bed. At least until this was all over with. Part two: find the missing heiress.

Of course, both of those things were going to be harder than they sounded. She’d been helping Dalton look for the missing heiress before he’d gone off the deep end. She’d already scoured hospital records and county court records. So far, she’d found diddly.

And then there was the matter of Griffin. If she had any resistance against him at all, she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

She didn’t need a plan. She needed a miracle.

Four

Miracle or no, she wasn’t going to sit around here just waiting for … for what? For Griffin to come out of the office and pounce on her?

She needed a little emotional distance. A way to remind herself that Cain Enterprise’s new CEO was now her boss. Not her lover. A way to reestablish the professional footing of the boss/executive assistant relationship.

Her very first boss, for example, had always insisted she call him sir or Mr. Thornton. And she’d never once made out with him at her desk. Never mind that Mr. Thornton was seventy-four, humpbacked and mean-spirited. Still, maybe there was something to this formal professionalism.

Maybe if she just focused on the job, she’d be able to push aside her personal desires. So she did the only thing she knew how to do in a situation like this. She did her job.

She started with the basics. She contacted Marion, Griffin’s former assistant, and had her send over his schedule. Marion clearly hadn’t heard anything yet from Griffin because she seemed to think the request came from Dalton.

After that, Sydney generated a short action list. Things that had to get done to ease this transition. When Dalton came back, she wanted him to be impressed as hell by how smoothly everything had run in his absence.

She sent everything over to her iPad and marched to the office door, knocking only briefly before letting herself in.

She found Griffin sitting behind Dalton’s desk, a file open on the blotter in front of him. He didn’t look up when she walked in. His hair—which always looked a little scruffy—was even more disheveled than usual. He held a pencil in his hand, tapping the eraser end against the desk at a frenetic pace. His expression was a mask of intensity and she felt a little shiver go through her. Despite his blasé attitude, he took this very seriously.

Did she know him at all? Sure, she knew many things about him. Like that he had a scar on his neck and that he didn’t like chocolate but would eat anything with caramel. And that he watched the Star Wars trilogy every year on Christmas. But was knowing all of that stuff the same as really knowing him?

Confused, she automatically took a step backward, intending to sneak out and then knock, but his head snapped up and he saw her standing there, clutching her notes and her iPad in front of her. She was struck again by his expression. By the fierceness of it.

Then his countenance cleared, a smile slipped back onto his lips and he looked like himself again—all easy, laid-back charm. Nevertheless, she was left with the feeling that perhaps the Griffin she was used to seeing was the mask and the intensely focused Griffin was the real man. God, that was an unsettling thought.

“You need something?” he asked, his voice oozing that kind of breezy cool that she’d been aiming for on the phone with Tasha.

“No … I mean, um, yes. But I can come back later. Dalton never minded if I just walked in. Is that okay? If it’s not, I can just—” Stop talking! she ordered herself. Jeez, she’d never been the type to vomit words when she was nervous. So what was up now? She blew out a breath. This was just another first day with a new boss. Nothing to worry about.

Except, no matter how she sliced it, this was not just another new boss. This was her lover. A man who knew her body intimately. A man who’d driven her to the heights of passion over and over. She’d been vulnerable with him in a way she’d never been able to be with another man. She’d only allowed herself that vulnerability because he wasn’t a part of her real life. He was part of her nighttime fantasy world. Now, the two disparate parts of her life were becoming inextricable intertwined and, frankly, it terrified her.

“Sir—” she began, thinking of Mr. Thornton “—just tell me what you expect from me.”

Griffin slowly leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him and bringing one hand up to stroke his thumb thoughtfully across his mouth, giving her the impression he was trying to hide the fact that he was laughing at her expense.

“Sir, huh?” he asked in a mocking voice.

She ground her teeth. He was definitely enjoying this. “How would you like me to address you?”

A slow smile spread across his face. “I’ll think about that and let you know.”

“Shall I come back later?”

“It’s fine. Come in whenever you want.”

“I can knock first. Next time I’ll just knock first.” Again with the babbling! What was wrong with her?

“Whatever makes you comfortable.”

Humph. If only that were possible.

She flipped open the cover of her iPad, causing it to flicker awake and reveal the page of notes she’d made at her desk.

“First off, sir, there are—”

“Okay, I’ve thought about it. Stop calling me sir.”

She gritted her teeth, swallowed and tried again for the formal professionalism. “Whatever you wish, Mr. Cain.”

As if he was purposefully baiting her—and he probably was—his smile broadened. “I’d like you to call me Griffin.”

“Fine. There are some things we should go over to ease the transition.”

“Okay. Hit me.”

He flashed her another one of those amused smiles and she cringed. She wished now that she hadn’t made such a big deal about the name thing. Instead of impressing him with her efficiency and professionalism, she was acting like a total dork. “First off, I’d, um … like to go over Dalton’s schedule for the week.”

“I thought Dalton had been focusing on finding our sister.”

“He was, but he still had to run the company.” She looked down at the calendar app. “The weekly officers’ meetings and the—”

“But,” Griffin interrupted her, “I don’t have to be able to do everything Dalton did. No one’s going to expect that of me. At least not at first—and maybe never.”

Sydney had to swallow a laugh. He was right, of course; everyone would expect less of him because of his reputation as a dilettante and playboy.

As if he could read her mind, he flashed her one of his charming grins and gestured modestly to his chest. “I wouldn’t even have this job if it wasn’t for my family connections. So nobody is going to expect much. Everyone knows I’ll need help, especially these first few weeks. I can hand off most of the daily running of the company to someone else while I focus on finding the heiress. Once we find her, the pressure will let up a bit.”

She’d only been thinking about Dalton’s resignation in terms of how it would affect her. She hadn’t skipped ahead yet to the broader ramifications of how it would affect the whole company. When she did think about it, it terrified her. Cain Enterprises was a billion-dollar company. It employed countless people. He’d not only thought about all those ramifications, but also had thought of them quickly enough to start working on a plan.

She nodded. “Okay. In that case, shall I arrange a meeting between you and …” She let her words trail off as she waited for him to supply a name.

“Merkins.”

“Merkins?” She shifted her shoulder as she considered. “Not DeValera?”

Joe DeValera was the chief of operations, so he was the more natural choice.

“No, Merkins has a better head on her shoulders.”

“DeValera won’t like that you’re handing over responsibility to the CFO instead of to him. As COO, he’ll expect to handle things while you get your feet under you.”

“All the more reason he doesn’t need more power. Write up a memo to all the executives explaining the decision. Make sure it sounds like DeValera’s current responsibilities are too important and that no one else can do his job.”

Sydney nodded, quickly taking a few notes for the memo she’d later write and send to Griffin for approval. As she did so, she couldn’t help being impressed by his light hand when it came to managing the executive staff.

Something of her surprise must have shown in her expression because Griffin asked, “You disagree with my decision?”

She finished writing her notes as she shook her head. “No. On the contrary, I think it’s a brilliant strategy.” Griffin looked at her with his eyebrows raised, like he wanted her to say more, so she kept talking. “DeValera is very much your father’s man. He’s a good COO but a bit of a narcissist.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she cringed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I agree completely. And I don’t trust him. With Hollister’s health failing and this stupid quest of his—which, thankfully, no one outside the family knows about—the company was vulnerable enough before Dalton decided to step down. I don’t want DeValera getting any ideas.”

“That’s very smart.” She cringed a little, realizing she sounded like a yes-man.

“Then why do you look doubtful?”

She tilted her head, considering her next words. Just how honest did she want to be here? She never hesitated to give her opinion when Dalton asked for it, but he rarely asked.