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That thought clearly in mind, she stood up, walked around him to the coffeepot and refilled her cup.
“What’re you talking about?”
“I won’t be going with you to Portugal after all, Jefferson. I’m taking my four weeks’ vacation.”
He frowned and his sharp blue eyes narrowed. “You’re not getting married—why do you need the time?”
“Because I put in for it and I want it.”
He pushed away from the wall and stalked across the room. Stopping right beside her, he picked up the coffeepot, filled a cup for himself and took a sip before shifting a look at her. “It’s not convenient right now.”
Her fingers tightened on the handle of the cup. “Of course it’s convenient. I put in for this time nearly six months ago. Everything’s arranged.”
“Things have changed.”
“What things?” She still had to tip her head back to look at him, and just at that moment, she wished she stood taller than her five feet eight inches.
“You’re not getting married now. Therefore, you’re able to accompany me to Portugal.”
“You don’t need me there, Jefferson.”
Those eyes of his focused on her and she felt the sheer power that shone from the man. “I decide what I need, Caitlyn. And as my assistant, your presence is required.”
She swallowed hard. “Tough.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Setting her coffee cup down—because her hands were shaking—Caitlyn blew out a breath and told herself that if she was ever going to stand up for herself, now was the time to start. “You heard me. I work for you, Jefferson, but I’m not your indentured servant. I put in for that vacation time. It’s mine and I’m taking it.”
He gave her a long, narrowed look. “Take it after the Portugal trip.”
“No. Not this time.”
Damn it, she wasn’t going to cave to him. Not today.
The year before, her bags had been packed, she’d had her plane ticket to Florida in her purse along with the itinerary for the cruise she’d spent three months planning. Jefferson had called just as she’d been getting into a cab, insisting she cancel her plans and accompany him to a shipyard in France. Her cruise to the Bahamas had sailed without her and she’d spent the next two weeks taking notes and in general being Jefferson’s gofer.
Granted, France wasn’t exactly a hardship … though she hadn’t had five minutes to herself to explore the countryside or get into Paris.
And the year before that, her long-awaited trip to Ireland had been cut short when Jefferson flew the company jet into Shannon Airport and insisted she join him for an important conference in Brazil.
So this time Caitlyn was sticking to her guns.
She was going on this trip with her friends, and if Jefferson Lyon didn’t like it … too bad. Caitlyn felt a buzz through her system as she silently declared her own private Independence Day. No more pesky work ethic. No more putting her own wants and needs on the back burner to make sure everyone else got just what they wanted.
I am Caitlyn, hear me roar, she thought, and lifted her chin defiantly as she faced down her boss.
Four
“You’re being selfish.”
“I’m selfish?” Caitlyn repeated, completely flabbergasted that he could even say such a thing. The man who believed the world revolved around him? The man who expected everyone in his life to jump whenever he entered a room? The man who’d ruined every vacation she’d ever tried to take with his own demands? “Are you serious?”
“This isn’t like you, Caitlyn,” he said tightly, his voice dropping to a snarl that usually had his employees in a mad dash for the closest exit.
“No,” she agreed, not even flustered by that snarl. She’d heard it too often to be dismayed by it at this late date. “It’s not like me at all. That’s why I’m doing it.”
“That makes no sense at all,” he pointed out, taking a sip of coffee, then setting his cup down on the credenza beside hers.
“It makes perfect sense.” She threw her hands high, let them drop again and did a quick about-face. Marching away from him for five or six steps, she felt fury rumbling through her, and for the first time in her life, she welcomed it. Stopping dead, she whirled around to face him and pointed her index finger at him accusingly. “You totally expect me to drop everything and do whatever you want me to do. And how can I even blame you for it? My whole life I’ve done exactly what I was supposed to.”
“Admirable.”
“Or weak,” she countered, stalking right back to him. “My parents, my brothers, Peter, you. You’ve all steamrolled over me because I kept lying down on the street and assuming the position. Allowing you all to get away with bossing me around. Well, no more. I’m done.”
“Caitlyn, you work for me.” His voice was deliberately cold. Tolerant. She knew the tone. She’d heard him use it on those who were trying his very limited amount of patience. But Caitlyn wasn’t going to back down.
“I tell you when you take a vacation and when your presence is required,” he said tightly. “I require you with me in Portugal.”
“But you really don’t, Jefferson,” she said, and wondered why she was bothering to repeat herself. He hadn’t heard her the first time; he wouldn’t hear her this time, either. He never heard anything he didn’t want to hear. “The hotel can provide an assistant. Or you could take Georgia with you.”
“Georgia?” His annoyance shuddered in the air around her.
Okay, fine. That was a cheap shot, she thought. No way could Georgia do the job to Jefferson’s expectations. But the point is, he didn’t need anyone with him.
“The work’s done, Jefferson,” she said, trying for calm, despite the way her stomach was jittering. “You’ve made the offer, the papers have been drawn up and looked over by Legal. All you have to do is sign the papers, take a tour of the ship and slap the Lyon logo on her hull. Why do you need me there?”
“Because,” he said, his voice low and tight, “I pay you to be where I need you, when I need you. This is your job, Caitlyn.”
Her head was buzzing. Her blood pumped hard and fast and her stomach did a couple of weird spins. Her job. And she was the first to admit it was a good one. She made a healthy salary, owned her own home—true, a condo, but still a home—and she did darn good work.
But apparently, somewhere along the way, she’d become a piece of office equipment. Steady, dependable, necessary, but as far as Jefferson was concerned, she had no more feelings than the copier that continually demanded more toner.
She hadn’t expected he would take the news of her upcoming vacation lightly. But she also hadn’t expected him to be such a jerk about it. Other people took vacations. Had lives. Why shouldn’t she?
Jefferson Lyon was a man who expected everything around him to fall into line. He walked through life issuing orders with the expectation that they would be followed. Quickly. And as much as that strength and confidence appealed to her, she was just now understanding how hard it was to live with.
Peter had been the same way, just on a smaller scale. Strong, silent, clearly in charge—and she’d gone along with him just as easily as she had with Jefferson. What in the hell did that say about her? Was she really so willing to lose herself in a strong man?
“You know,” she mused aloud, her voice hardly more than a hush as she talked more to herself than to him, “I should have seen this coming a long time ago. But I didn’t want to.”
“Seen what?”
She glanced at him and noted the confusion in his eyes and the familiar stamp of irritation on his features. What was it about this man? He appealed to her on too many levels. She knew that already. And so, apparently, had Peter. But now that she thought about it, Caitlyn was forced to admit that she’d actually been drawn to Peter in the first place because he’d sort of reminded her of … Jefferson.
Oh, good god.
“Are you in a fugue state of some kind?” he prompted.
“Actually,” she said as her emotional blinders came off and she was nearly blinded by the light, “I think I’m just coming out of one.”
“Good. Then, maybe we can get some work done.”
“It’s the alpha-male thing,” she mused, tipping her head to one side and staring at him as if he were a smear on a glass slide under a microscope. How was it she’d never come to this realization before? How had she allowed herself to just drift in Jefferson’s wake? “It has been all along. Peter. You. Even my brothers.”
“What’re you talking about now?”
“Revelations,” she said quietly, almost amused now, as everything became clear.
“You do realize you’re not making sense, right?”
“Oh, this makes perfect sense, you’re just not getting it. Big surprise. And let me tell you,” she said nodding for emphasis, “it took me long enough, but I’ve learned my lesson. I’m through with you alpha types. Give me a nice, easy-to-get-along-with beta guy. No more strong, silent, take-charge types for me. I want someone nice. Sweet. Sensitive.”
His lips twisted. “Sounds more like a golden retriever.”
“You would think that, of course.”
“Look,” Jefferson said, dipping his hands into his pants pockets, “somehow, we’ve gotten way off the subject. And believe it or not, I’m not really interested in your personal life. You can date whoever you want to as soon as we get back from Portugal.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
“Now that we have that settled,” he said, dismissing her as completely as if he were swatting away an annoying gnat, “there are a few more things I need you to do before I leave for the airport. Call the pilot, tell him to be ready in an hour. Then, when you’ve done that, contact the Florida office. Tell them I’ll be there Friday. And cancel my appointments for the next two days. I don’t know how long I’ll be in Seattle and—”
She watched him as he turned for his office, plowing right ahead with the world according to Jefferson. He’d moved on and assumed she had, too. Absolutely nothing she’d said had penetrated his thick head. Her back teeth ground together, and before she could bite back the word and swallow it, she said simply, “No.”
He stopped dead, turned to look at her and lifted one eyebrow. “No?”
Caitlyn took another deep breath because if she didn’t she might start hyperventilating. Everything in her was demanding she sit down and wait calmly for this firestorm of emotion to fade away. So to make sure she didn’t listen to that annoying, logical instinct, she moved fast. Shaking her head, she opened the bottom drawer of her desk and grabbed her purse. Slinging it over her shoulder, she snatched up her suit jacket and tossed it across her arm. “That’s right. I said no.”
“Caitlyn, I’ve taken all I’m going to take for one morning.”
“And I’ve given all I’m going to give,” she snapped. Temper spiked inside her, pushing aside all those annoying rational thoughts—and maybe that was for the best. Because, if she calmed down, took a moment to actually think about what she was doing, she’d never do it. “I’m done.”
He laughed.
He actually laughed.
Then he asked, “What are you talking about?”
“I quit.”
He couldn’t have looked more surprised if she had announced that she was about to give birth to a Martian. “You can’t quit.”
“I just did.” She blinked, laid one hand on her racing heart and felt her insides slowly calm, as though someone had poured oil on a choppy sea. Strange. She waited for a jolt of panic, but it didn’t come. As much as she had always loved her job, at this moment, she knew she was doing the right thing in quitting. “Wow. I actually did it. I quit.”
“This is ridiculous.” He took a step toward her, and she backed up just for good measure. She wasn’t sure where she’d found the courage to tender her resignation, but she wasn’t going to risk him talking her out of it.
Where was all of this newfound sense of spirit and independence coming from? She had no idea. Maybe it had started with Peter ending their engagement. Or maybe it had been when her fiancé had suggested that she was really in love with her boss. And maybe it was that one startling revelation that had just come to her moments ago. Whatever the reason, though, Caitlyn knew in her bones that this was the right thing to do.
She needed a fresh start. With her life. With her career. And she’d never get it if she stayed close to Jefferson Lyon. The man was too powerful. Too magnetic. Too damn sexy.
Peter was wrong about her loving Jefferson. She firmly believed that. But she wasn’t foolish enough to deny the attraction she felt for the man. And how could she ever straighten out her own life when she was so near the man who could make her knees go to jelly?
“No, this makes perfect sense,” she told him, rounding the edge of her desk.
“All of this over a vacation?”
“No, Jefferson,” she said, feeling the swell of righteous indignation fill her. “It’s about working for a man who never sees me as anything more than a convenience.”
He frowned at her, his blue eyes going dark and narrow, and just for a minute, Caitlyn’s courage waned. Then the phone on her desk rang and she instinctively reached for it. “Lyon Shipping.”
“Caitlyn, love, it’s Max again. I’d forgotten something I wanted to tell your boss.”
Gritting her teeth, she said, “He’s not my boss anymore, Max, but here he is.”
“What? What?” Max’s voice came through loud and clear as she handed the receiver to Jefferson.
“Caitlyn,” Jefferson said, hanging up the phone without talking to his old friendly enemy. “I won’t allow you to simply quit.”
“You can’t stop me, Jefferson,” she said, and then left before she could stop herself from walking away from him.
A few hours later, Jefferson stormed around the perimeter of the huge room in his father’s Seattle house. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in the old man’s study, the sky was gray and spitting rain on the city as if it held a personal grudge. Trees bent in the wind coming off the Sound, and the patter of rain slashing against the windows sounded harsh in the stillness.
“If you’ll sit down, we can sign these papers and finish this,” his father said, following Jefferson’s progress around the room. “I’ve got a golf game in an hour.”
“Golf?” Jefferson said, stopping to wave a hand at the weather. “In this?”
Harry Lyon shrugged in his oatmeal-colored sweater. “I’m meeting friends at the club. Your mother’s gone to New York for the week and—” He stopped talking, watched his son for a long moment, then said, “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”
“Caitlyn quit this morning.”
“Your secretary?”
“Assistant.”
Harry waved a hand at the distinction. “Why would she quit? She’s very good at her job.”
“I know,” Jefferson said, shoving both hands into his pockets and turning to the window to glare at the rain.
He’d been thinking about nothing else for the last few hours. On the short flight to Seattle he’d gone over and over their argument and he still didn’t understand why she’d suddenly quit. It just wasn’t like her.
But then, he’d seen a whole new side to Caitlyn that morning. She’d never lost her temper with him. She’d always been the soul of professionalism. Seeing indignation and fury sparking in her eyes had caught him by surprise—something that wasn’t easy to do.
“What’re you going to do about it?” his father asked.
Jefferson turned his head to look at the older man. Since retiring, his father had never looked happier. Despite—or maybe because of—the heart attack he’d experienced a few months ago, Harry Lyon was determined to enjoy his life.
Which, it turns out, is why the old man had wanted Jefferson to fly up for the day. Harry was turning over the reins to the family company. Stepping out completely. Ordinarily Jefferson would have been pleased as hell about it. He’d worked hard for this moment for years. Now, though, his mind was too full of Caitlyn’s abrupt treachery to really take it all in.
