Six months might as well be an eternity, but Cal had been right about another thing: I wouldn’t quit. I needed the money, and I enjoyed a challenge.
That, and I’d never felt as alive as I did when the whole weight of his attention was bearing down on me. With trembling hands, I unpacked my new laptop and got to work.
EIGHTEEN
CALLUM
The emails started flooding in aroundone o’clock that afternoon. “ATTN ALL,” one of them read in the subject line, “NEW STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE FOR REQUESTING FLIGHTS.”
She’d copied in the whole company.
Slightly incredulous, I opened the enclosed document and saw that Deena had scrapped all the checks that I normally did on our company’s travel arrangements, and instead moved all the managerial tasks to her own desk. She didn’t want me to have any oversight whatsoever. She was insane.
I stood and was at her door within seconds—and I stopped short.
Taped to the outside of her office door was a copy of her employment contract, with one section highlighted: “EMPLOYEE shall have full managerial control to oversee and amend procedures with relation to travel and accommodation.”
I ripped the document off her door and shouldered my way inside. Deena sat behind her desk, click-clacking her new laptop’skeyboard, her eyes on the screen. “I’ll be with you in just a moment,” she said, then dramatically pressed a button and looked up to give me a beaming smile. My pocket buzzed a millisecond later.
I held her gaze for a moment, then pulled my phone out to see another email with her name on it. “SURVEY: All staff to complete enclosed document and return to Deena by COB.”
“That’s so I can get a sense of everyone’s preferences, so I can work that into their profiles to streamline the booking processes. I noticed that you don’t have a database with everyone’s information.”
“You can’t just change things without telling me, Deena.”
She tilted her head, blinking innocently. “I think I can, actually. It says it right there in my contract. The one you’re holding in your hands right now.”
Our gazes clashed. She was doing this on purpose to push my buttons. Grinding my teeth, I crumpled the contract into a ball and tossed it in her wastepaper basket.
“Rude, but okay.”
“What’s your game?”
“Game?”
“You’re doing this to drive me crazy.”
“Do you think it might be possible that not everything is about you?”
I arched a brow.
She smiled in response. “Maybe your current process is clunky and inefficient, requires too much manual oversight by you, and as a result leads to missed connections, overbooked hotel rooms, and clients being poached right out from under your nose.”
My chest burned with the truth of her statements. “I want to be involved.”
“I know you do, honey,” she said, turning back to her screen. “That’s why I copied you on the email.”
I was at her desk without even realizing I’d moved closer. “That’s not what I meant,” I told the top of her head. She didn’t look up from her laptop, and I found myself staring at the twists of rich chestnut and glints of blond tumbling in waves down her back. A tendril of hair had fallen against her cheek, and she brushed it aside before typing something.
From my vantage point, I could see the way her pants pulled across the hips, and how the light filtered through the gauzy fabric of her blouse to reveal the shape of her shoulders and arms. She’d worn that on purpose to torture me, I was sure. I was like a bull, losing control at the sight of red.
I thought hiring her would give me the chance to break her down and win her over. It was a hunt, and she was my prey. But now I didn’t know who was in control anymore.
Deena finally blinked up at me, uncowed. “You hired me because you needed help, Mr. Frost. If my particular brand of helpfulness is too much for you to handle, feel free to terminate my contract.”
“And pay out six months’ salary.”
She smiled. “No hard feelings, I promise.”
