That was hardly a state secret.
“I want you to know,” Trevor added in a tone that dripped sincerity, “that if you ever need a hand, I’m here. Being thrown into the vice presidential position at only twenty-eight has got to create an immense amount of stress on you. I’ve got the legal know-how to give you backup anytime you need.”
It was a good thing no one from Crafty Corners’ in-house crack team of sharks was present to hear Trevor’s offer—she wouldn’t have given him high odds of survival in that situation. “Thanks,” she said, deciding to take his words at face value. It was possible he was genuinely trying to be helpful and nice. Maybe she shouldn’t think of him as a blackhearted villain just because he checked all the boxes.
Probably she should feel bad about mentally naming him Trevor the Creeper. But just like ivy crept over a wall until it smothered it, Trevor was on a campaign to creep all over Jacqueline and Crafty Corners.
He touched ísa on her lower back.
She elbowed him hard enough in the gut that he spluttered out an “oof” of breath. “You shouldn’t startle women,” she said calmly instead of apologizing, because she was Jacqueline Rain’s daughter and her mother had taught ísa never to apologize to men who were attempting to force their way into her space.
Every so often, when meetings or conferences or networking events didn’t interfere, Jacqueline had been one hell of a mom.
Still a little breathless, Trevor held up his hands. “Sorry, my fault,” he said with a dental-commercial-worthy smile. “I was just going to suggest we should have dinner together. Our parents are married, and yet I feel I don’t know you at all. How about it, stepsister?” He made the last word sound vaguely incestuous.
Ew.
“I’m sure we’ll get to know each other over the summer,” she said rather than answering his invitation. “Mother’s been talking about having more family dinners.” Actually, it was ísa who’d been talking about family dinners—but she hadn’t been thinking of Trevor at the time. She wanted her mother to pay attention to her other two children.
Catie, the child to whom she’d given birth.
Harlow, the son whom she hadn’t birthed but into whose life she’d blasted at a critical point.
When Trevor opened his mouth again, ísa beat him to the punch. “I’ve got to head up and make a start on work. Have a great day, and I hope you manage to catch up with Jacqueline.” She deliberately made sure the door locked behind her after she entered.
With it being so early, there was no one else around to let him in.
And oh, oops, she’d developed temporary hearing loss and couldn’t hear him knocking.
Devil ísa grinned.
After reaching her office, she got immediately to work. It was about an hour and fifteen minutes later that she got up and went to see if Ginny had arrived; she needed the other woman to find some records for her.
Ginny’s computer was up and running, but ísa couldn’t spot her.
Detouring to the staff room, ísa grabbed a mug of coffee before wandering back into her office. A little potted plant sat in the center of her desk. She blinked, glanced over her shoulder—and saw Ginny coming back from the photocopier.
“Did you see where that potted plant came from?” she asked her assistant, her heart thumping triple time.
“Apparently it was dropped off at reception by that hunky blue-eyed contractor. Looks like he wants to make nice with the boss.” Mischief in her expression, she added, “James said he was wearing khaki work shorts and a sand-colored T-shirt. There was also mention of a thigh tattoo.” She pretended to melt into her chair. “I wish I’d seen him. Such a dishy sight to start off the day.”
Cheeks threatening to blaze, ísa made some vague statement before shutting herself in her office. And surrendering to memories of the first time she’d seen adult Sailor—he’d been wearing his work shorts then too, a gorgeous, sweaty man who looked good enough to lick.
ísa shivered as she made her way to her desk. The potted plant was another miniature cactus, this one tiny round balls with a thin “fur” of spikes. Tiny yellow flowers erupted from the tips. It was adorable.
But what she was really interested in was the message.
17
Operation Catch the Redhead—Stage One
PUTTING DOWN HER MUG, íSA plucked out the note tucked into the soil. It proved to be a small envelope. The envelope was homemade… Very badly homemade.
It was like he’d never been near a Crafty Corners store in his life.
Lips curving, she tore open the well-glued and duct-taped miniature envelope to withdraw a piece of notepaper that had been folded multiple times. Inside, she found a message written in neat writing with generous loops. It said: I have spike-resistant gloves. Just FYI.
ísa couldn’t help her smile.
Even though Sailor Bishop was a big, sexy distraction from her goals, a charming man who was threatening to derail all her carefully laid plans.
And why exactly was she even thinking about this?
She had work to do, blackmail to pay, playful men with blue eyes to forget.
* * *
SAILOR WASN’T SURPRISED NOT TO hear from his redhead. Whose name, he’d discovered, was ísalind Rain. Unique and exotic and as pretty as her. Well, ísalind could be stubborn all she liked. Sailor could out-stubborn a goat.
And he was still in stage one.
“You’re not getting away this time,” he murmured as he hefted a bag of soil… and thought about lifting ísa up to his mouth for a kiss so deep it was sex. She was gloriously, lusciously naked in his fantasy—the end goal of Operation Catch the Redhead.
He was adding fine details to the fantasy when his phone chimed with an incoming message. It turned out to be from Jacqueline’s assistant—she was confirming the meeting he had later today with one of Jacqueline’s people. It was, he saw, to be their VP.
The name beside the title made him blink… and then begin to cheerfully whistle. His day had just gotten monumentally better.
* * *
íSA MANAGED TO FORGET ABOUT the cactus for the next few hours; okay, she was lying through her teeth—she never forgot it, but she managed to ignore it for long enough to get the work done. It was two hours after lunch when her cell phone chimed with a rock ’n’ roll ringtone from the eighties.
“Catiebug,” ísa said with a smile. “What are you up to today?”
“We ran out of money,” her thirteen-year-old sister muttered. “Dad got hold of my bank passbook. It’s like he’s one of those money-sniffing dogs they have at the airport.”
That, ísa thought, was giving those hardworking dogs a bad name. “He cleaned you out?”