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“President and CEO.” His gunmetal eyes were as dark and impenetrable as the storm clouds. He was not a man who easily gave away his emotions. “There’s been a change in the company ownership,” he explained.
It took a moment for the enormity of his words to sink in. Without her signature, his position in the company was in jeopardy. He couldn’t do what he’d always done, and he couldn’t be who he’d always been, without her consent on paper.
Something hard and cold slid though her stomach.
It wasn’t right that she had this kind of power. All she wanted was to do her job. She didn’t want to have to sift through her confusing feelings for Zach. And she sure didn’t want to have to analyze the circumstances and decide if they were fair.
They weren’t. But then neither was the alternative.
“Get in the car, Kaitlin,” he told her. “We need to get this signed and settled.”
She couldn’t help but note the stream of employees exiting from the building. Even as they dashed down the rainy steps, most of them glanced curiously at Zach. Climbing into his car in full view of a dozen coworkers was out of the question.
She leaned slightly closer, muffling her voice. “Pick me up on Grove, past the bus stop.”
He gave a subtle but unmistakable eye roll. “You don’t think that’s a bit cloak-and-dagger?”
“I’m trying to blend,” she reminded him. Her plan to rescue her career would come to a screeching halt if people had any inkling that she had some leverage over Zach.
“You’ll get soaked,” he warned her.
A little water was the least of her worries.
Well, except for what it would do to her shoes. They’d been on sale, her only pair of Strantas. She loved what they did for her legs, and they looked great with anything black.
She braced herself, mentally plotting a path around the worst of the scattered puddles.
“Have a nice evening, Mr. Harper,” she called loud enough for passersby to hear as she trotted down the stairs.
She made her way along the sidewalk, surging with the crowd toward the traffic light at the corner. When it turned green, she paced across the street, avoiding numerous black umbrellas in her path and hopping over the gurgle of water flowing against the opposite curb.
On the other side, she negotiated her way to the edge of the sidewalk, raking her wet hair back from her forehead and tucking it behind her ears. She swiped a few raindrops from her nose then extracted her cell phone, pressing the speed dial as she hustled toward the bus stop shelter.
“Kaitlin?” came Lindsay’s breathless voice.
“What are you doing?”
“Riding the bike.”
Kaitlin pictured Lindsay on the stationary bike crammed into the small living space of her loft. “I’m going to be late for dinner.”
“What’s going on?” Lindsay huffed.
As she wove her way through the wet crowd, Kaitlin lowered her voice to mock doom. “I’m about to get into a big black car with Zach Harper.”
“Better send me the license plate number.”
Kaitlin cracked a grin, comforted by Lindsay’s familiar sense of humor. The two women had known each other so long, they were almost always on the same wavelength. “I’ll text it to you.”
A deep, classic-rock bass resonated in the background. A fixture whenever Lindsay exercised. “Why are you getting in his car?”
“He wants me to sign something.”
“Better let me read it first.”
“I will if it looks complicated,” Kaitlin promised. “He says it’s to reconfirm him as president and CEO.” Not that she trusted everything Zach said. In fact, thus far, she trusted exactly nothing of what Zach said.
“It could be a trick,” Lindsay warned.
Kaitlin grinned into the phone. “There is yet another reason I love you.”
“I’ve got your back. Seriously, Katie, if you see the words irreconcilable or absolute I want you to run the other way.”
“Will do.” Kaitlin caught sight of the black car. “Oops. There he is. Gotta go.”
“Call me when you’re done. I want details. And dinner.” There was a gasp in Lindsay’s voice. “I definitely still want dinner.”
“I’ll call,” Kaitlin agreed, folding her phone and tucking it into the pocket of her purse as Zach swung open the back door of his car and hopped out onto the sidewalk next to her.
He flipped up the collar of his gray overcoat and gestured her inside. She gathered her own wet coat around her and ducked to climb in.
“Lunatic,” he muttered under his breath.
“Lucky for you we’re not having children,” she said over her shoulder as she settled into the seat.
“Lucky for me we’re not buying plants.” He firmly shut the door behind her before walking around the vehicle to get in behind the driver.
She shook the rainwater from her fingertips, smoothing her soaked jacket and frowning at her soggy bag. “Green and Stafford in Yorkville,” she said to the driver, getting an unwelcome glimpse of herself in the side mirror.
“The penthouse, Henry,” Zach corrected.
“You’re not dropping me off?” She wasn’t sure why his bad manners surprised her. Zach was all about his own convenience. His minions obviously didn’t factor in on his radar.
“Henry will take you home later,” he said.
Later? She raised her brow in a question.
“The papers are at my penthouse.”
Of course they were. Having the papers available in the car would be far too simple. Resigned, she plunked her bag into her lap and gave up on trying to repair her look. She was a mess, and that was that.
“Don’t you worry about inconveniencing me,” she drawled. “It’s not like I have a life.”
Henry pulled into the snarl of traffic heading for Liberty and Wildon, while Zach sent her a speculative, sidelong glance. “Stroke of a pen gets you out of this any old time you want.”
She determinedly shook her head. Much as she’d love to sever both their marital and business ties, if she let him off the hook, the man would fire her in the blink of an eye.
He leaned back in the leather seat, angling his body so that he faced her. “What if I promised you could keep your job?”
Rain rattled harder on the car’s sunroof, while the wipers slapped their way across the windshield, blurring the view of the street.
Kaitlin made a half turn in the seat, meeting Zach’s dark eyes. “That would require me trusting you.”
“You can trust me,” he assured her.
She coughed out a laugh. “You ruined my life.”
He frowned. “I made you a very wealthy woman.”
“I don’t want to be a wealthy woman.”
“I say again. You can get out of this anytime you want.”
She made a show of glancing around the interior of the car. “Is there some way to exit this conversation?” she asked him. “Or does it just keep circling the drain?”
Horns honked in the lanes beside them as Henry inched his way through a left-hand turn. Kaitlin swiped at her damp, tangled hair, resisting an urge to slip off her soggy shoes and wiggle her toes into the thick carpet.
“You’re going to find it very inconvenient being my business partner,” Zach warned.
She cocked her head, watching him as she spoke. “Because you’ll go out of your way to make it hell?”
He resettled himself in the butter-soft seat. “And here I thought I was being subtle.”
“This is fifty pages long.” Standing in the middle of Zach’s penthouse living room, Kaitlin frowned as she leafed her way through the document.
“It deals with control of a multimillion-dollar corporation,” he returned with what he hoped resembled patience. “We could hardly jot it down on a cocktail napkin.”
Though he’d had a few days to come to terms with this bizarre twist in his life, Zach was still chafing at the circumstance. He didn’t want to have to justify anything about Harper Transportation to Kaitlin, even temporarily. His grandma Sadie had complete faith in him—at least he’d always thought she’d had complete faith in him. He’d never had to explain anything about the company to her. He’d basically been running the show for over a decade.
But now there was Kaitlin. And she was underfoot. And she had questions. And he could only imagine what kind of monstrosity he’d be left with for an office building.
Dylan had pointed out yesterday that appeasing Kaitlin was better than losing half his company. Maybe it was. But barely.
“I’ll need to have my lawyer look at this,” Kaitlin announced, reaching down to pull open her oversize shoulder bag in order to deposit the document inside.
“Give it a read before you decide,” Zach cajoled through halfgritted teeth. “It’s not Greek.” He pointed. “You and I sign page three, authorizing the board of directors. The board members have already signed page twenty, confirming my positions. The rest is … well, read it. You’ll see.”
She hesitated, peering at him with suspicion. But after a moment, she sighed, dropping her bag onto his sofa. “Fine. I’ll take a look.”
He tried not to cringe as her wet purse hit the white leather cushion of his new, designer Fendi.
“Your coat?” he offered instead, holding out his hands to accept it. The coat he’d hang safely in his hall closet before she had a chance to drape it over his ironwood table.
She slipped out of the dripping rain jacket, revealing a clingy, black-and-burgundy, knee-length dress. It had capped sleeves, a scooped neck and a pencil-straight skirt that flowed down to her shapely legs, which were clad in black stockings. Damp as they were, her high heels accentuated slim ankles and gorgeous calves.
Though they’d spoken briefly at the office this morning, she’d been wearing her coat at the time. He’d had no idea what was hidden beneath. Just as well he hadn’t had that image inside his brain all day long.
“Thank you,” she acknowledged, handing him the coat.
“I’m … uh …” He pointed in the general direction of the hallway and the kitchen, making his escape before she noticed he was ogling her body with his mouth hanging open.
In the kitchen, he found that his housekeeper had left a note informing him there was salad and a chicken dish in the fridge. She’d also left a bottle of Cabernet on the breakfast bar. Zach automatically reached for the corkscrew, breathing through the dueling emotions of frustration and arousal.
Sure, Kaitlin was an attractive woman. He knew that. He’d known that from the minute he met her. But there were attractive women everywhere. He didn’t have to fixate on her.
He popped the cork.
No. No reason at all for him to fixate on her.
In fact, maybe he should get himself a date. A date would distract him. He’d been working too hard lately, that was all. A date with another, equally attractive woman would nip this fascination with Kaitlin in the bud.
He reached for the crystal glasses hanging from the rack below the cabinet.
Dylan had offered to introduce him to his newest helicopter pilot. He’d said she was attractive and athletic. She was a Yankees fan, but he could probably live with that. And she had a master’s degree in art history. Who didn’t like art history?
Before Zach realized what he’d done, he’d filled two glasses with wine.
“Oh, hell.”
Then again, he supposed the woman deserved a drink. If she signed the papers, they’d toast the accomplishment. If she refused to sign, maybe the wine would loosen her up, and he could take another stab at convincing her.
He shrugged out of his suit jacket, moving farther down the hallway to the master bedroom. There, he hung the jacket in his closet, shed his tie and glanced in the mirror above his dresser.
He definitely needed a shave. And his white shirt was wrinkled from being worn all day.
He glanced once at the jacket and considered putting it back on. But common sense prevailed. Instead, he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. If this was a date, he’d shave and redress. But it wasn’t a date. And his looks would be the last thing on Kaitlin’s mind.
More comfortable, he returned to the kitchen and retrieved the wineglasses. He moved down the hallway to the living room. Inside the doorway, he paused.
Kaitlin seemed to have made herself at home. She’d kicked off her strappy shoes and curled her legs beneath her, knees bent and pressed together, stocking-clad feet pushing up against the arm of his sofa. Her hair was drying to a wild, glossy halo that framed her smooth skin. And her face was a study in concentration, red lips pursed, green eyes slightly squinted as she read her way through the pages.
She looked good in his living room, somehow settled and at home.
Funny, he’d seen her dressed up, dressed down, dancing with laughter and crackling with anger. But he’d never caught her unaware. And somehow he had the feeling this was the real woman, halfway between Vegas glitter and Saturday casual, her energy turned inward, mind working. He sensed a calm intelligence in her that he hadn’t noticed before.
He must have moved, because she finally noticed him.
“Wine?” he offered, raising one of the glasses, walking forward, pretending he hadn’t been staring.
“You’re right,” she told him, letting the papers drop into her lap, stretching an arm across the back of the sofa in an obviously unintended, sensual gesture.
“Never thought I’d hear you say that.” But there was no bite to his words. He’d meant to mock her, but it came off as a gentle joke.
She flipped the document back to the first page and set it in front of her on the coffee table. “I’ll sign it.”
“Really?” Too late, he realized he sounded surprised. To cover, he handed her the glass of wine.
She accepted the glass and shrugged. “It’s exactly what you said it was.”
