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“Of course.”
“I invited Lexi to join me. I want her to start getting to know everyone here,” Lance said.
“That sounds good.”
“You know her better than I do,” Lance added, thinking of the woman he was going to marry. “I was thinking I should get her a little gift to say thanks for agreeing to marry me. Should I ask Kate, or do you think you could suggest something?”
There was silence on the line and Lance pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure he hadn’t lost the connection. “If you have any thoughts, just shoot me an e-mail.”
“I’ll do that. When are you going to tell Kate that you’re engaged?”
“Already did. Why?” Lance walked up toward the building.
“No reason,” Mitch said.
“Do you think I should have waited until I announced it to the rest of the company?”
“No,” Mitch said. “She’s not like the rest of the staff.”
“I know that. Do you think I should call Senator Cavanaugh to follow up on anything?”
“I’m handling that. Just keep doing what you usually do,” Mitch said.
“And that is?” Lance asked.
“Heavy lifting,” Mitch said.
Lance smiled. From the time they were very little, Mitch had relied on him to do the heavy physical stuff. It only made sense since he was the older brother, and Lance had learned early on that their parents weren’t going to watch out for either of them.
“Will do. See you on Thursday?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Mitch said.
He disconnected the call and stood there for another moment in the hot, Houston sun. It might sound like he was daft to others but he liked the burn of the summer sun on his skin.
The air-conditioning chilled him as he walked through the building. There was always a moment when he almost paused as he entered the office, unable to believe how he and Mitch had brought the empty, run-down company back to this. The lobby was filled with guests waiting to go up to different meetings. There was a full staff of security guards who protected the company.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Brody.”
“Good afternoon, Stan. How’s things?”
“Good, sir. Good to have you back in Houston,” Stan said.
Lance nodded at the man and walked toward the executive elevators. He got on and pushed the button for the executive floor. The ride was quick and he realized he was eager to be back to work. DC was like another world, a place he didn’t fit in. Here at Brody Oil and Gas, he not only fit in, he was in his kingdom.
He walked into his office and Kate glanced up at him. Her normal smile of welcome wasn’t as bright as it usually was.
“Welcome back, Lance. Steve from finance needs five minutes sometime today. I told him I had to check with you first.”
“No problem. I’m free this afternoon.”
“Good. I’ll take care of it.”
“Anything else I need to know about?”
She shook her head, a strand of her thick dark hair brushing her cheek. She looked up at him and her eyes seemed wider, those dark-chocolate orbs that he’d lost himself in a time or two. He shook his head. That was folly. Kate wasn’t the type of woman who’d be interested in an affair.
And despite his engagement, affairs were all he’d ever been interested in. He wasn’t the kind of man who could marry a woman he felt anything for. He’d learned from his father that Brody men didn’t handle lust or love well. They required devotion and dedication from their lovers or else they turned to jealousy. He had experienced it himself during his ill-fated love affair with his high school sweetheart April, when he was eighteen.
“Lance?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
He shook his head. “No, I was thinking about the trip to DC.”
Kate bit her lip and looked down.
“What is it, Katie-girl? Is something on your mind?”
Kate nodded. “I need a few minutes to talk to you in your office.”
“Okay,” he said. “Now?”
“Yes, I think the sooner we get to this the better.”
“Come on in,” he said.
She stood and picked something up from her printer before leading the way into his office. Lance watched her walking in front of him, seeing the sway of her hips and the way the fabric of her long skirt brushed her calves.
Why was he just now realizing that Kate was one fine-looking woman beneath those ugly clothes of hers?
Kate had been in Lance’s office many times before and today she felt a pang at the paper she held in her hand. She had made up her mind that she was going to resign. There was nothing that could change that.
Well, that wasn’t true. She vacillated between being firm that she had to leave, and wanting to stay so she could see Lance on a daily basis.
But then she had to remember that part of the reason she’d lost the weight was because she was tired of sitting on the sidelines of life, and watching other people live while she just went about doing her job and going home to her empty town house in Houston.
That emptiness had started getting to her and she’d contemplated buying a cat. But she’d stopped, horrified at becoming her great-aunt Jean, the spinster and butt of most jokes by the younger generation when Kate was growing up.
“What did you want to talk about?” Lance said. He leaned one hip on the front of his desk and stretched his long legs out.
She stared at him for a minute. How was she going to get over him?
“I have been thinking about my job lately. And I… I’ve decided to pursue opportunities away from Brody Oil and Gas.”
“What?” Lance asked, standing up. “Why now? We need you, Katie-girl.”
Katie-girl. He called her that stupid nickname that made her feel like she was five years old. And like a sister to him. She realized that she’d let the relationship develop that way, happy to have at least some sort of affection from him.
“That’s the problem for me, Lance, you don’t really need me. You might have back in the beginning when you hired me, but now any efficient office manager will be able to handle this. I think we both know that.”
“That’s been true for the last two years. Why are you leaving now?”
She shrugged. She hadn’t thought that Lance would care, to be honest. “It just seems like a good time to make a move. Everything is going well here, you’re engaged and Mitch is spending more time in DC. A new person will be able to transition smoothly.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is anything the matter, Kate? Did I do something I shouldn’t have?”
“Not at all. It’s me, Lance. I keep staying here year after year because it’s comfortable, and I think we both know that isn’t the way to really have a successful career.”
“Is that what this is about? We can promote you into a different role,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. Thank you for the offer but I’m ready to try something new.”
Kate was tempted to say yes to anything that Lance suggested, but she refused to let go of the fact that he was getting married, and to stay here… well, it would be the dumbest thing she could ever do.
“Will you stay until I can hire a replacement?”
She nodded. That sounded fair to her. “Of course I will.”
“Thanks for that.”
“I guess… here is my resignation. I’ll be at my desk if you need anything else from me.”
She turned to leave and felt as if she was running away. A part of her wondered if she shouldn’t try to stay here and make things different between her and Lance. But how?
She’d Googled Lexi Cavanaugh as soon as Lance had told her about the engagement, and there was no way that she could compete with a woman like that.
“Kate?”
“Yes, Lance.”
“I would like to have a cake at the barbecue to celebrate my engagement to Lexi. Can you order one from the bakery for me?”
“Of course,” she said.
It was definitely time for her to leave Brody Oil and Gas.
She realized that she and Lance hadn’t hammered out the details of her leaving the company. “I’ll stay for two weeks.”
“It might take longer than that to hire your replacement.”
“I’d like to try to fit it into that time schedule,” she said.
“Have I done something to upset you, Kate? You know I’m more of a roughneck than an executive,” he said.
She steeled herself against responding to that rough aw-shucks-ma’am charm that he was able to pull off so easily. She liked that he wasn’t as sophisticated and polished as Mitch was. That was why she’d fallen for him. At heart, Lance was a good old boy, a Texas man like her daddy and her brothers. The kind of guy that knew how to charm the pants off any lady.
And he hadn’t had to work hard to win her affections. But she realized now that the charm was just part of his practiced act. It was as much a part of the savvy millionaire as his thousand-dollar cowboy boots and million-dollar mansion. He pulled out the charm when he needed it.
“No, Lance. You didn’t do anything other than treat me like your secretary.”
“Is that a problem?” he asked, his shrewd gaze on her.
“Not at all. But that’s all I am to you and I decided I want more.”
She walked out of his office and closed the door behind her. She knew she should stay and work the rest of the day but she needed to get away. And she didn’t care if it made her seem cowardly. She went downstairs and put the top down on her Miata convertible and drove out of Houston, leaving Brody Oil and Gas behind. She only wished it were as easy to convince her heart to leave Lance Brody in the dust.
Two (#ud9dd060a-43d4-5f31-9c3f-52c0939e1f9b)
Lance was speechless as Kate not only walked out of his office, but left early. He knew he’d missed something important as far as she was concerned. She said she wanted to be more than his secretary—did she mean professionally, or personally?
He started to go after her but realized he had no idea where she went when she left the offices. To be honest, she was always here when he arrived and she stayed until after he left. How was he going to operate without her? Kate was more than just his secretary. She was the most important piece of the office, the person who kept everything running smoothly and kept him in line.
“Damn it,” he said to no one in particular. He hadn’t gotten to where he was by letting things like this go. He speed-dialed her cell phone.
“I can’t talk now, Lance,” she said.
“Then pull over or use the headset I gave you, because you can’t just walk away like that and expect me to let this go.”
“Hold on,” she said. He heard her fumbling around and then cursing, and a minute later she was back. “What do you want to talk about?”
“The fact that you left like you did.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was so unprofessional, but I just didn’t think I could be productive anymore today.”
“I can understand that. Want to tell me why?”
“No. It’ll just make you uncomfortable and make me feel like a big dummy.”
Lance didn’t like the sound of that. “Kate, if I’ve done something, just flat out tell me. I’ll apologize and we can move on.”
“I don’t think we can,” she said. Her words were sad and he wished she were still in the office so he could see her expressions. Kate had the most expressive eyes of any woman he’d ever met.
“You won’t know until we talk,” Lance said. He would fix this problem with Kate—he couldn’t afford to lose her. “Where are you?”
“On the interstate headed toward Somerset.”
“Going to your parents house?” he asked, knowing that Kate had grown up in Somerset, a wealthy suburb of Houston. He had a house there now.
“I guess so. I just got in the car and kind of drove on autopilot. I didn’t realize where I was headed.”
“Katie-girl—”
“Don’t call me that, Lance. It makes me feel like we have a relationship beyond boss-secretary and I know that’s not true.”
He cursed under his breath. “We do have one. We’re friends, Kate. And we have been all these long years.”
