“Caine?”
His gaze roamed up my body and I shivered at the heat in his eyes. “I told you this party is mostly business. We’re there to rub elbows with clients and potential clients. No one will question the fact that I brought my PA.” He suddenly grinned and it was wickedly sexy. “Although they might question my motives in hiring one that looks like you.”
“Henry’s already suspicious.”
He shrugged. “Henry doesn’t know a thing.”
Hmm, I wasn’t so sure. “And what about my name?”
“We already introduced you as Alexa Hall at the last party.”
“And you don’t think anyone is eventually going to find out that’s not my name? Everyone in the company knows my surname, Caine.”
“Fine.” He sighed. “We just won’t mention your surname. We’ll introduce you as Alexa. Not to be a dick or anything, but no one there will really care what my PA’s surname is.”
Arrogant SOB. “Ouch.”
He slid his hand along the inside of my thigh in a comforting gesture that mostly just turned me on. “The truth is these people, my people, they’re self-important, self-involved, and all they care about is who has the most influence.”
“Which doesn’t include the PAs.” His expression gave me my answer. “You know, I was thinking about a career move. Like … moving into the events management business …”
Caine smiled softly. “You’d be good at that.”
Gratitude rushed through me. “You really think so?”
He nodded. “I know so. But give me plenty of warning.” His fingers moved higher up my thigh and his voice thickened. “You’re the best PA I’ve ever had. It’ll take time to replace you.”
As he touched me I let my head fall back and I savored the physical rush of being with him, but somewhere in the back of my mind his words twisted into something ugly.
Something real I didn’t want to face.
Caine would eventually replace me.
· · ·
I should have known attending the party with Caine was a bad idea. The only other person I knew there was Henry, and he’d brought a date and was much more interested in seducing his date than doing anything to promote “friendship” with other businessmen at the party.
The party was hosted by investment guru Brendan Ulster and his wife, Lacey. Caine said their circle took turns to throw these kinds of bashes throughout the year, and this year it was hosted under the pretense of an apartment warming, as the Ulsters had just purchased a top-floor apartment across the Common from Caine on Beacon Street.
The place was beautiful.
The people … well, not so much.
Among the men, Caine was a man’s man, the kind of guy that other men looked up to and admired. Among the women, Caine was that elusive catch. If the men weren’t attempting to engage Caine in business conversation, they were trying to engage me in flirtation. It was exhausting fending them off, my irritation increasing as so many of them looked at me as if I were easy pickings. I was of course just the PA. And I had the distinct impression that they thought I was the kind of woman who would do anything to be near a powerful man.
They weren’t the only reason I was annoyed. The night had started out well—Caine was attentive and funny as he made dry remarks about some of the snootier people we met. However, as the evening wore on, he began to treat me with a familiar aloofness that was driving me insane. I had no idea what had happened in the space of an hour, but I was biding my time until the end of the party to let him have it.
“You’ve been noticeably absent from society lately, Caine,” some woman whose name I couldn’t remember purred to him as she cut me off from his side by insinuating herself between us. She ran a perfectly manicured nail along his shoulder and pressed her breasts against his arm. “There are rumors that you’re hiding some kind of forbidden dalliance.”
Forbidden dalliance? I rolled my eyes. Who talks like that?
Caine extricated himself from her and looked away in boredom. “There are always rumors, Kitty.”
She fluffed her hair, seeming perturbed by Caine’s aloofness with her.
Yeah, I could relate.
“True.” She shrugged. “People talk. Well …” She stared at him a moment, waiting for him to pay her some attention. When he didn’t she finally glanced at me questioningly. I merely raised an eyebrow at her. She gave a little huff. “Well, if you’ll excuse me …” She sashayed away from us, her elegant figure wrapped up tight in a pale gold dress.
“The women around here certainly like you,” I noted dryly, wishing I didn’t feel that curl of jealousy in my belly. I’d never been a jealous woman until Caine, and I didn’t particularly like that he provoked that aspect of my personality. I did my best to keep it under wraps, using humor to hide behind.
Caine didn’t reply.
“You know, you might have them fooled, but you don’t fool me.”
He slanted a look at me out of the corner of his eye and I could tell he sensed the dark undercurrent of my mood. “Is that right?” he murmured.
“Mmm. They all whisper behind your back that you’re dangerous, ruthless, exciting, giggling like titillated morons. But I know something they don’t.”
Turning fully now to face me, Caine practically dared, “And what’s that?”
Melancholy coiled around my heart like an iron fist. “You seem dangerous because you are dangerous. You walk among them like a surly tiger, and they’re all just prey caught in your paws. They’re so busy looking up at you, oohing and aahing over how beautiful you are, they have no idea that you’re mere seconds from eating them. That you’re just going to chew them up and spit them out.” I looked away, taking a sip of my drink and willing my hands not to shake as I did so.
The tension we’d felt between us all week seemed to expand into this suffocating thing that wrapped around us, shutting everyone else out.
Finally I found the courage to look at him.