The next morning …
I braced myself as Caine marched toward my desk, his appearance dark and grim. I was so busy looking at his face I didn’t notice what was in his hand until it was clattering down on top of my desk.
I stared in bewilderment at the Tupperware container. Inside it I could see a piece of pie.
I looked up at Caine in question.
He was clearly pissed off and extremely uncomfortable. “Mrs. Flanagan insisted you have a piece of pie,” he said, teeth gritted.
I opened my mouth, but he cut me off with a sharp “Don’t.” With that he threw open his office door and slammed it shut behind him.
Caine cared enough about his elderly neighbor to follow through on her instructions despite the fact that it almost physically killed him to do so.
I opened the Tupperware box and stuck a finger in. Licking the sweet cream off it, I smiled and settled back in my chair. “Thank you, Mrs. Flanagan.”
And not just for the pie.
CHAPTER 5
I left the conference room as an intern rolled in a tray decked out with pastries I’d bought. It was Friday morning and I’d survived almost an entire week working as Caine’s PA. He had a conference in fifteen minutes and he wanted me to make sure that the room was set up.
I smiled at Caine’s CFO’s secretary, Verity, as I passed. His CFO? a Ms. Fenton, was scary. She was a little robotic—all cold and efficient and superintelligent. There was nothing motherly about her and that was why I was surprised to discover that the reason she was one of the busiest people I’d ever met was that she was also a wife and mother to two kids. Suffice to say we’d spoken fewer than five words to each other. I knew Verity a little better. She was friendly and we’d managed to chat for a brief few minutes when I was at the photocopier, but Caine had me running one errand after another, so I still hadn’t gotten to know any of my colleagues at all well.
For half of yesterday I’d spent the day running around Boston trying to find a doll from a Disney movie for the daughter of some judge Caine rubbed elbows with. The guy was in the middle of a big case and didn’t have time to buy his kid a birthday present, so Caine had offered up my services. The doll the kid wanted was not easy to find. In fact, it was so not easy I found it in this little independent toy store that should probably have been killed by the economy by now. By the time I got back to the office, I was a sweaty mess and Caine was pissed I’d taken so long.
I wanted to tell him that perhaps he shouldn’t loan his PA out, but somehow I bit back my attitude. I wasn’t so sure yet that Caine wouldn’t fire me at the slightest provocation. He was not a man you trifled with.
Four and a half days I’d been working for him.
It felt longer.
As I returned to my desk my phone started ringing. It was in-house. Caine. “Sir?” I asked upon switching on the speakerphone.
“I need you to make a reservation for two at Menton for this evening at eight. Also, have a dozen red roses delivered to Phoebe Billingham, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. I want them delivered this afternoon.”
Phoebe Billingham. Smart. Beautiful. Sophisticated. Wealthy. She was a copy editor for Harvard University Press and a society darling. She really was perfect for him.
I ignored the burn in my chest. “Of course. What would you like the card to say?”
“The card?”
“On the flowers.”
“From Caine.”
I wrinkled my nose, the romantic in me wailing in outrage. “That’s it?”
Caine had apparently been dating Phoebe for eight weeks, which was a long time in Caine’s world. I wasn’t surprised, though. Phoebe had it all, and she had the potential to make him happy. At the end of the day, Caine deserved nothing less.
He needed to step it up to keep her interested.
“Yes,” he replied, the word edged with impatience.
“Don’t you think you could be a little more romantic?”
“I’m sending her a dozen red roses and taking her to dinner at a nice restaurant. That’s not romantic?”
“It’s fine.” It was a little generic, but whatever. “But the card could be a little more personal.”
“I don’t do personal.” He hung up.
Exhaling, I put the phone down and contemplated the note I’d made for the roses. I knew it would be obnoxious of me to meddle, but sometimes you had to be a little obnoxious to do a lot of good. I smiled to myself and picked up the phone to order the flowers.
I gritted my teeth, channeling the most patient me possible as I tried to discuss the changes to the list of costs the interior designer Caine had hired had sent him. He’d hired her to revamp the summerhouse he’d just bought in Nantucket. The week was almost over and it would have been so much better if I could have ended it on a high note—not arguing with a cocky she-witch of a designer.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” she said in this nasally voice that, along with her bad attitude, made me want to punch her.
I refrained from verbally punching her. “The problem is you’ve sent over a new list of costs for this refurbishment and it’s fifteen thousand dollars more than the original that Mr. Carraway signed off on.”
“Style takes cash, darling.”
“That’s the thing. I’m going over the lists and I can’t see where that extra fifteen thousand is going …” I suddenly became aware I wasn’t alone and glanced to my right to see that Caine had come out of his office and was standing over me, eyes blazing in annoyance.
I cast him a wary look but continued to haggle with the irritant on the other end of the line.
Suddenly Caine’s large hand appeared and he pressed the mute button on the phone. The jerky movement suggested I was right about him being annoyed, and I looked up at him wondering what the hell I’d done. “I can afford an extra fifteen g. Get off the phone. Now.”
I tsked. “Just because you’re loaded doesn’t mean you should let people take advantage.” I hit the mute button. “No, I’m still here,” I responded to her frantic twittering. “Where was I …? Oh yes, unless you want it getting around that you’re an incompetent idiot trying to screw over your clients, I suggest you stick to the original budget.”
“Well, I … How … I never—”
“Okeydokey, then.” I hung up and looked up at my irate boss. “Why is there a vein popping out on your forehead?”
“What the hell did you put on that card?”
“Card?” I said innocently.
Caine’s angry countenance ramped up to murderous. “I just got a call from Phoebe. She thanked me for the flowers, said my card was so sweet, and that she was looking forward to seeing me soon too.”
So I’d known changing the message on the card with the flowers was forward of me, but I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. Apparently it was. Caine appeared to be excessively irritated and I had to admit that made me more than a little nervous. “Well … I just thought … Well, I thought it was more appropriate to sign the card with a greeting of some kind.” I smiled up at him hopefully.
“Alexa,” he warned.
“You know you can call me Lexie.”
Caine actually growled.
“Okay,” I hurried to explain, “I had them write ‘Phoebe, I look forward to seeing you tonight, Caine.’ And”—I almost closed my eyes in preparation for his reaction—“I may have put a little kiss at the end.”
The air around him seemed to swell with annoyance. “What?”
“An X. You know … a kiss …” I trailed off, wishing I was back in Hawaii with a mojito.
Quite abruptly Caine put his hands on the armrests of my chair and shoved it against the desk as he bent down to level his face with mine. He was so close I could actually see the chocolate coloring in his eyes that stopped them from being entirely black, and his mouth … his mouth was but an inch from mine.
I held my breath from the shock of his sudden movement and his closeness.
“First of all,” he said through clenched teeth, his hard stare holding mine in its grip, “do I look like a man who would ever put a kiss at the end of a message?”
I didn’t have to contemplate the question long. “Not really.”
“Not really.” He nodded, and pushed in closer, his breath fanning my lips and causing me to swallow a gasp. “Second of all, if you ever meddle in my personal life again I will annihilate you. Understood?”
“W-well, annihilate is—it’s pretty final,” I stammered, “So—so yeah.”
His eyes flashed. “Alexa.”
I fought past my physical reaction to him in order to attempt an explanation. “I was just trying to help. I thought it would be more romantic. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“You weren’t helping,” Caine hissed. “Contrary to popular belief, I give a shit about the women I date. That means I don’t want to hurt them. And one way I avoid that is by never making a woman feel like she has more of me than she actually has, because inevitably it won’t work out and I don’t want to be the bastard that led her on. What you did with Phoebe will make me that bastard.”
That was kind of honorable in a fucked-up way.
“But why will things end?” I whispered, confused. “Phoebe Billingham is perfect for you.”