Книга - Crossing the Line

Crossing the Line
Megan Hart


5 Rules for Sexy Play in the Workplace!1. Know the company policy;—You just got an opportunity to finally snag that sweet corner office. The last thing you need is a wicked distraction….2. Don't date your boss–Sure, Jamison Wolfe has a smile that could send a woman into instant orgasmic joy. But more important, he's your strict, control-freakish boss. Your hot, sexy, control-freakish boss.3. Keep PDA out of the office–Okay, so you slipped up. Once. It was just the temptation of having Jamison at your complete naked mercy.4. Prepare for the worst–This can't go anywhere. You know it, he knows it. So why stop now?5. Be discreet–Even when it gets more intense. Even when you push every limit you both possess…







5 Rules for Sexy Play in the Workplace!

1. Know the company policy—You just got an opportunity to finally snag that sweet corner office. The last thing you need is a wicked distraction....

2. Don’t date your boss—Sure, Jamison Wolfe has a smile that could send a woman into instant orgasmic joy. But more important, he’s your strict, control-freakish boss. Your hot, sexy, control-freakish boss.

3. Keep PDA out of the office—Okay, so you slipped up. Once. It was just the temptation of having Jamison at your complete naked mercy.

4. Prepare for the worst—This can’t go anywhere. You know it, he knows it. So why stop now?

5. Be discreet—Even when it gets more intense. Even when you push every limit you both possess...







To those about to read, I salute you.


Dear Reader (#uc29dc95b-2657-5ced-8a00-9f0fb86f9901),

RED-HOT READ!

That says it all, doesn’t it? I’m thrilled to be a part of the Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon venture, bringing short, sexy fiction to readers who want their red-hot reads.

My heroine, Caite Fox, is just the sort of woman who’d like to get her hands on a red-hot read of her own—if she had time to do any reading for pleasure, that is. She’s kept pretty busy chasing after her boss, Jamison Wolfe, as they both try to wrangle a pair of out-of-control clients in their media management business. She’s the kind of woman who knows how to get what she wants, though, and she wants more than just the corner office.

She wants Jamison.

And he’s going to let her have him, even if he doesn’t know it in the beginning, because the sly Miss Fox has everything the big bad Wolfe craves. Smart, sexy, with a great sense of humor, she’s the kind of woman he’s been dreaming about getting on his knees for. Literally.

As both of them discover each other, I hope readers will fall in love with them as I have along the way!

Thanks for reading!

M


Crossing the Line

Megan Hart




Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boonwww.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo)


Contents

Dear Reader (#ucd4e41a1-dbf8-5f28-b41e-65434be8b831)

Chapter One (#ub8c33b46-251b-589c-825d-e924cb5618a4)

Chapter Two (#u3cf7f310-711e-520c-887f-5053afea2cb1)

Chapter Three (#u03e88504-be14-51ca-96cc-8daeb52581e9)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter One (#uc29dc95b-2657-5ced-8a00-9f0fb86f9901)

Jamison Wolfe was shouting again.

He did that a lot. On the phone, mostly, though Caite had heard him hollering in the lobby a few times when some particularly aggressive paparazzi had managed to get past the building security and find their way to the Wolfe and Baron offices in pursuit of a few of the company’s clients. Jamison lived up to his name when that happened, snarling and growling in defense of those he considered to be under his protection.

It was totally hot.

So far, Caite Fox had avoided being the recipient of Jamison’s fury, though she’d often thought about poking him to see if she could taunt him into losing control. The thought of it had been the subject of more than a few late-night fantasies, but she hadn’t done anything about it. First of all, teasing your boss into a hatefuck, no matter how exciting it seemed, was definitely a bad idea no matter where you worked. Second, it was super hard to seduce a guy who barely seemed to notice you existed. She worked mostly with Elise, scarcely saying more than a word to Jamison, despite her constant surveillance of him. So she bit her tongue and focused on staying under Jamison’s rage radar, doing her work the best she could—which was pretty damned well. She could say that and not be bragging. She’d been with Wolfe and Baron for only eight months but had already managed to accumulate an impressive client list of her own even while working on everything else her two bosses had delegated to her. This was the best job she’d ever had. Great perks, decent salary.

She considered the chance to surreptitiously ogle Jamison Wolfe one of the perks, and since he barely gave her the time of day, she had a lot of chances to check him out without him noticing. Now the rough, deep rumble of his voice rose through the office walls and sent a shiver creeping deliciously through her, and for a moment, Caite sat back in her chair to see if she could catch a peek at him across the hall. He often paced while he hollered, and she wasn’t disappointed now when he passed by his open door. Today he wore the charcoal suit with the deep pink shirt and silver-and-pink tie. One of Caite’s favorites.

Jamison pivoted on one perfectly shined black shoe, running a hand through his dark hair and rumpling it as she watched. When he turned, the light caught the glint of silver at his temples. With the phone clamped to his ear, his brow furrowed, he looked both formidable and regal, even when he started shouting again. That was the thing about him. Unlike a lot of men, who sputtered or turned red-faced and ugly in their fury, Jamison Wolfe never looked anything less than perfect.

“Caite?”

Startled, Caite swiveled in her chair to fully face the door, where her other boss, Elise Baron, had appeared. In contrast to Jamison, Elise looked anything but perfect. Her fair hair, usually pulled into a sleek French twist, had come loose around her face with pieces stuck lightly to her glistening forehead and cheeks. In the past month, her pregnancy had really begun to show, and her maternity suit wasn’t as tailored or flattering as the ones she usually wore—now her blouse had come untucked from the elastic waistband of her skirt. She’d taken off her shoes to reveal swollen feet and ankles, and her pale skin looked not only threaded with blue and red varicose veins but also oddly dimpled, as though she’d poked a finger into rising bread dough and left behind an indentation that was only slowly filling in.

“Elise. Hey. Are you okay?”

“No. I don’t think so.” Elise swallowed heavily and gripped the doorframe as she swayed. “I don’t feel well at all.”

“Sit.” Caite was up at once, taking Elise by the elbow to lead her to the futon across from her desk. Elise gave a grateful sigh as she sank onto it. “What’s going on?”

“I woke up with a headache today, but I figured it was just my normal sinus stuff going on. Allergies. But it’s been getting worse and I’m noticing a lot of swelling in my ankles.” Elise blinked rapidly, her normally implacable demeanor shaken. “I should call Steph.”

“You sit. I’ll do it. I think I should call your doctor, too. You don’t look good.” Caite knelt in front of Elise to chafe her hands. Elise’s cheeks, plump with pregnancy, nevertheless looked hollowed, her skin gray and clammy. Caite didn’t know much about pregnancy beyond the fact she had no desire to get in that condition herself for a long time, but something was clearly not right. “Let me get you some water, too.”

With a nod, Elise sat back against the futon’s rigid cushion and closed her eyes. Caite got up and went to the water cooler in the hall. She drew a paper cup of cool water and paused in Jamison’s doorway on the way back, but he was still on the phone facing away from her. He’d moved beyond the yelling to the coldly determined negotiating portion of the conversation, which meant he was almost finished. Poking her head around the corner to the reception area, Caite motioned to Bobby, who was busy at the front desk dealing with the mail.

“Hey. Get Steph on the line, Elise isn’t feeling well. Get the number of her doctor, too. I’m going to go back and sit with her, make sure she’s okay. She looked really bad.”

Bobby looked surprised. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Don’t know. Phone, Bobby,” Caite said firmly. For a guy who worked for a company that dealt in handling the media affairs of celebrities, he hadn’t yet mastered the art of not being nosy.

She took the water to Elise, who didn’t look any better but sipped slowly from the cup. Caite looked her over, cataloging the symptoms she could see so that when she got the doctor on the phone, she’d be ready to describe them. The phone on her desk rang with the distinctive one-two beat of an internal transfer. That would be Steph.

“Hey,” she said, wasting no time with a greeting. “It’s Caite. Elise isn’t feeling well. She asked me to call you.”

Steph reacted immediately. “What’s wrong? Is she sick? Oh, God. Is it the baby? Is the baby coming early?”

“I don’t think so.” Caite quickly described the symptoms she’d noted, listening to the rapid sound of Steph’s breathing. She was going to hyperventilate at this rate. “Did you give Bobby the doctor’s number?”

“Yes. Oh, God. It sounds like it’s preeclampsia. I told her not to go into work today!”

“It’s going to be all right.” Caite looked over at Elise, whose color was slightly better, but nothing else seemed to have changed. “Do you want to talk to her?”

Elise opened her eyes then and shook her head with a small smile. “Bathroom,” she mouthed.

“Steph, she went to the bathroom. Listen, when... Hold on. Bobby’s putting a call through.” Caite transferred to the other line, where she ran through the symptoms again with the doctor, who determined that it did indeed sound as if Elise was suffering from preeclampsia and who told Caite she needed to be brought into the hospital immediately.

After handing the phone to Elise so she could speak with the doctor, Caite ducked back to reception, where Bobby was busy dealing with an increasingly hysterical Steph. He was good at this aspect of his job, and he handled Elise’s wife with easy efficiency. Fortunately, none of them had any scheduled appointments yet this morning, and the reception waiting area was empty.

“She’s going to come here,” Bobby said with a hand over the mouthpiece.

“No,” Caite countered. “Tell her to meet us at the hospital.”

She could hear Steph’s shriek of dismay all the way from across the room, but there wasn’t any time to deal with that. Caite went back to rap on Jamison’s door. He still had the phone pressed to his ear and gave her an irritated wave, dismissing her. Not sure how important it was to interrupt him at this point anyway—it wasn’t as if the doc were calling for an ambulance or anything, right?—Caite went back to her own office to find Elise on her feet. Unsteady, still pale, but looking determined.

“I need to get my stuff.”

“I’ll have Bobby call us a cab.” Caite put out a hand to help keep Elise on her feet. “It’s going to be all right.”

Elise nodded, mouth wobbling as she managed to find a small false smile. “I hope so.”

Caite had no idea if everything was going to be okay or not, but one thing she was really good at was holding the hands, both literally and figuratively, of nervous people. She took Elise’s hand now and squeezed. “It will be okay. You’ll see.”

* * *

Part of the reason Jamison liked working with Brett Dennison over at Ace Talent was that the other man knew when to stop negotiating. Not that Jamison didn’t love digging down deep to figure out the right angles for the contract and getting the other guy to agree to what was best for Wolfe and Baron and nobody else. Jamison liked the power of getting someone to do what he wanted them to do...but there was also that perfect, sweet moment when the other person at last capitulated, and everything could move on from there.

“I’ll have Caite work up the final agreements and send them over,” Jamison said now. “Good to be working with you again, Brett.”

Brett laughed. “Yeah, yeah, that’s what you say when you’re riding in that Beemer on my dime.”

“It’s not your dime,” Jamison said, not bothering to point out that he did not, and never would, drive a BMW. Jamison had a ’64 Mustang that had been his old man’s. Completely restored. “It’s the blood, sweat and tears of your clients.”

“Fair enough. Lunch next week?”

“Call Bobby. He’ll set it up.”

With the pleasantries out of the way, both men disconnected. Jamison sat back in his chair, finally, to put his feet up on the desk and take a breath. He’d been so caught up in his negotiation with Brett that he hadn’t been paying much attention to the passing of time, but damn, the office had gone quiet. The blinking light on his desk phone told him he had messages waiting, but he didn’t bother to check them. Anyone he really wanted to talk to had his cell number; anyone calling him on the office line was going to have to wait until he felt like checking in.

His stomach rumbled, and the hunger he’d been fending off since lunch, when he’d taken the time only to grab a protein bar, roared into full life. The headache followed after, poking at his temples like a dozen tiny devils dancing. With a muttered invective, Jamison pulled open his desk drawer to grab another protein bar, but the bin held only dust and disappointment.

“Dammit.” He got to his feet and went to the front desk, where Bobby usually kept a basket of candy, but a few mints weren’t going to do the trick.

Where the hell was everyone? Bobby might’ve been out the door on the dot of five, but Elise and Caite certainly should’ve still been finishing up some work. Elise especially, since her plan was to get as much done as she could before she went on maternity leave. She’d planned to work from home for the first couple of months but even so needed to get everything settled before then. Caite, on the other hand... Jamison frowned. The girl had worked in the office for all of a few months, not long enough to start slacking off, in his opinion. And dammit, there wasn’t even any hot coffee in the pot Bobby was supposed to keep fresh for waiting clients. Grumbling, Jamison strode back to his office to shut everything down before he headed out.

He’d missed the ding of the elevator door opening but looked up as the scent of pizza wafted toward him. Not pizza. Stromboli, the best kind, from Gino’s down the street. He found Caite in the conference room, setting out the familiar cardboard takeout box, along with a couple of paper plates and napkins. A six pack of Tröegs Pale Ale, too. She looked up when he came in.

“Hey.”

Jamison paused in the doorway. “I thought everyone was gone for the night.”

Caite straightened and put a hand on one hip, her head tilting to study him for a second, lips pursed. “And you were pissed off, huh?”

“No.” Well, he had been, hadn’t he? At least a little. “Okay, annoyed.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You have no idea, do you?”

“About what? That everyone else around here seems to think that it’s okay to skip off, whatever, just because the clock says it’s time?” He frowned at her, trying to remember what they’d gonoe over in her initial interview, but Elise had handled most of that. “I thought we made it clear when we took you on that this wasn’t going to be a nine-to-fiver.”

“For your information, Mr. Wolfe,” Caite said coolly, going back to setting out the food, “I was a little busy this afternoon, helping Elise.”

“And that’s an excuse?” The words spilled out of him, tasting irrational, and he knew it, but still a little high from his fierce negotiations with Brett, Jamison was having a little trouble coming back to the world of getting along with other people.

“You skipped lunch today, didn’t you.”

Jamison frowned harder. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“I had to take Elise to the hospital because she was having preeclampsia and possibly going into an early labor,” Caite said, voice hard, “which you’d have known if you paid any attention to what goes on in here aside from ragging on people for not living up to your kind of asinine expectations. But if you’d eaten lunch today, I bet you’d have at least asked me what was going on before you launched into a tirade about my lack of work ethic, so sit down and eat something before your blood pressure gets too high.”

He froze. “Elise? What? Is she all right? What the hell? Why didn’t someone—?”

“Sit. Down,” Caite commanded in a tone that sliced right through him. “Now.”

Jamison sat.

They stared at each other for a moment before she pushed a plate of stromboli toward him. “Eat.”

He dug in, tearing off a hunk of soft bread and gooey cheese and chewing rapidly before taking another bite. He was starving, and she was right. He was an asshole when he was hungry. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care about his partner.

“She’s fine,” Caite said before he could ask her anything else. She picked daintily at her own stromboli, cutting it neatly with her fork and knife and letting it cool before taking a bite. “They put her on some meds and are monitoring her overnight. Steph’s with her. But they’re not sure when she’ll be back to work. Definitely not tomorrow, anyway.”

“Tomorrow’s the big meeting with that bunch of yahoos from that reality show. The one about the house.” Jamison reached for a beer and passed her one. He cracked the top and took a gulp, relishing the crisp flavor of the ale. “Elise was point person on that one. She knows how I feel about working with those types.”

“Those types,” Caite said, “are willing to pay a lot of money for our services.”

Jamison paused, stromboli halfway to his mouth. He set it down. “Do I detect a note of disapproval, Ms. Fox?”

“Just truth.” Caite gave him another one of those assessing looks. “They’ll bring Wolfe and Baron a lot of attention, too. It’s why Elise took them on.”

“And she was supposed to deal with them. I’m the guy who dots the I’s and crosses the T’s. She’s the one who deals with the clients.” After the words came out, he realized he sounded unsympathetic and kind of like a dick.

Caite cracked the top off a beer for herself and tipped it toward him. “She was worried about how you’d handle it, to be honest.”

“Dammit.” That didn’t sit well with him, not at all. “But she’s going to be okay, right?”

It must’ve been the right thing to say, because instead of frowning, Caite gave him another slow grin. And good goddamn, that girl could smile. It lit her entire face, and Jamison couldn’t understand how he’d never noticed it until just now. Maybe because this was the first time since the initial interview that he’d actually spent more than a couple minutes talking to her. It had been Elise’s idea to hire her, and Jamison hadn’t paid much attention beyond signing the extra paycheck.

“She’ll be okay.” Caite gave a firm nod, then looked hesitant for the first time tonight. “I have to believe that, anyway. Power of positive thinking.”

That didn’t make him feel better. “Should I call her?”

“Not anymore tonight. Steph was going to stay with her and promised she’d call with an update in the morning. She’ll be okay,” Caite repeated, sounding more convinced this time. “Finish your dinner, Jamison.”

He was already feeling better after having consumed just half the piece she’d given him, and he settled back in his chair with the beer. “Can we reschedule?”

“We don’t have to. I’ll take it on.”

He sipped the beer for a moment, thinking about the new clients. He’d argued with Elise about taking them on, money or no, because if there was one thing Jamison didn’t want Wolfe and Baron turning into, it was a babysitting service for douche bags. She’d fought him on it for a few reasons, money one of them. Never enough money, she’d told him, not with a baby on the way and the economy the way it was. The other reason was even simpler—the trio of reality TV stars might be famous only for their stupidity, recklessness and lack of couth, but they were super fucking famous. The biggest-name clients Wolfe and Baron had scored to date.

“You don’t have the experience,” he told Caite flatly. “I’m going to have to head this one.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, not even trying to hide it. Jamison blinked, surprised by both her reaction...and his lack of it. He’d fired people for less than that. A whole bunch of them as a matter of face, which was why he and Elise and Bobby were the only ones working in this place, at least until she’d insisted on hiring Caite. But with a full belly and the beer, his favorite, mellowing him a little, all he did was grunt.

“You’re going to give yourself an ulcer,” Caite said.

Jamison took another long pull of beer. “You have a better idea?”

“I told you my better idea.”

“You’ve been here, what, six months?”

“Nearly eight,” Caite said with another shake of her head that left him feeling uncomfortably ashamed.

“And you think you have what it takes?”

“I’ve been handling clients on my own for the past four months,” Caite said quietly. “Brought some in on my own, too.”

Which he ought to have known. Dammit. He’d been so caught up in his own client list that he’d been letting Elise deal with the “new hire,” who, as it turned out, wasn’t all that new any longer. “I thought we took you on as an assistant. Filing. Copying.”

“Fetching coffee?” Caite gave him another one of those stunning grins. “Relax. I’ve been doing all that, too. But technically, you took me on as a junior account manager. Not an assistant.”

“Elise assigned you other work, huh?” Jamison finished his beer and set the empty bottle on the table. Caite nodded. “She’s a little nicer than I am.”

“More than a little,” came the answer.

Again, from anyone else, the smart-ass reaction would’ve probably sent him into a fury, but something about this girl... This woman, he corrected himself. Because Caite was young but not girlish. Not at all. Something about this woman eased him away from anger. Like taking in a breath of cool air when you’d spent too long in a sauna.

“She must think highly of you,” Jamison said.

“I think she’s been pleased with my work. You’d be pleased, too, if you’d paid attention to it.” Caite sipped her beer and gave him a long look over the top of it. “You should pay better attention, Jamison.”

Something slithered through him then, at that tone. Those words. The calmly assessing look in her blue, blue eyes. Her confidence...and that smile.

“Tell you what,” he said, leaning closer. “If you can prove you can handle it, I’ll let you work on this project.”

“Oh, I can handle it,” Caite said. “The question is, can you?”


Chapter Two (#uc29dc95b-2657-5ced-8a00-9f0fb86f9901)

“You’re a little cocky, aren’t you?” Jamison said with a gleam in his dark eyes that had Caite sitting up a little straighter to meet his gaze head-on.

“Pot, have you met kettle?”

To her relief, because it could’ve gone either way, he laughed. Then tipped his empty bottle at her before tossing it into the recycling bin next to the conference room door. “You’re in for a helluva lot of work. It’s not just setting up a media plan for them, you know. They’re all already on all the sites—”

“I know,” Caite cut in smoothly, thinking of the after-hours work she’d already put in pulling together a media management plan for the three new clients. “It’s not just monitoring their activity but doing damage control, as well as coordinating coverage when they’re booked for gigs and managing that, too. Getting them sponsorships. Stuff like that. I’m not a total newbie. Before I came to work here, I had three years in social media experience.”

Jamison snorted laughter. “You probably don’t remember a time when social media didn’t exist.”

“I’m almost thirty years old, Jamison. I can assure you, I remember a life before Connex.”

He looked thoughtful. “It’s not going to be easy. These kids are hard to handle.”

“Which is why we got them to pay us the big bucks. Nobody else wants them, not even for the notoriety.”

For a moment, she wished she hadn’t said that, even though it was the truth. Wolfe and Baron were not notorious, and there was a reason for that. Jamison had started this business with an eye for clients who traveled in influential circles but didn’t make a scene. Businessmen, politicians, the occasional socialite. Once Elise had come on board, Wolfe and Baron had begun to expand into the celebrity arena but still handled mostly theater actors, artists, classical musicians, not rock stars. Handling these three reality TV stars was totally new ground for them, but Elise had been adamant about taking them on.

Nellie Bower, Paxton France and Tommy Sanders were going to put Wolfe and Baron on the map.

And Caite intended to be part of that. She eyed Jamison now. “I can handle them.”

Jamison narrowed his eyes. “What makes you think so?”

“Because I’m good at what I do. I told you. Because I think outside the box. Because I’m young and hip.” She paused with a smile. “Because I’ve actually watched Treasure House, unlike you.”

“Piece-of-shit show.”

“Oh, it’s a shit show, all right, which is why it gets the ratings, and why those three are so popular right now.” Caite shrugged. “Look, it’s no Doctor Who, but there’ve been some decent episodes.”

“You watch Doctor Who?”

Should she be offended at his surprise? “Um, duh. Yes.”

“I used to love that show as a kid.”

“Well, here’s some news for you, Gramps—it’s been updated since then.”

He looked startled at first, then gave her a grudging laugh that sent a thrill all through her. A laugh from her curmudgeonly boss was as rare as icicles in a Texas July. “Some people have lives, Ms. Fox. Like we do things other than watch television.”

Somehow she doubted that he had much of a life. It was all work with him. Hours in the office, hours outside the office. She didn’t know much about his personal life, other than that he had no wife, no kids and seemingly no family. Maybe he’d sprung full-grown from a trumpet, like in that old Greek myth she could never remember—and that would make sense, because he sure had the body of a Greek god.

Hold it in, girl, she counseled herself. He’s your boss and a little too bossy for you even if he didn’t sign your paycheck.

“I have a life,” she said instead, like a challenge.

He took it. She’d known he would. It was in the glint of his eyes and lift of his chin and something in the way his breath shifted. She’d watched him go head-to-head with too many people not to know what sorts of things got him going, but had she deliberately chosen this tone of voice, those words? Caite thought that maybe she had.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said in a lower voice, meeting his eyes without looking away. “A rich, full life that includes time for television, along with lots of other...things.”

Jamison pinned her with his gaze, his teeth bared a little in a predatory smile. “And you think I don’t have a rich, full life? Why? Because I don’t rot my brain with shitty reality television shows?”

“No,” she said on a low breath. “Because you don’t make time for those other things.”

For a moment, she thought he’d reach across the table and take her by the chin. Or, oh, God, fist his fingers in her hair. But of course he didn’t, and wouldn’t, even if he was suddenly looking at her as though she were Little Red Riding Hood and he a different sort of wolf. Still, the look made Caite shift in her seat, squeezing her thighs together, watching him look her over.

“Like what other things?” Jamison asked.

“When’s the last time you went dancing, for example?”

He frowned. “I don’t like to dance.”

She laughed. “I’m not surprised.”

For a moment, it was his turn to look offended. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re not patient enough to be a good dancer.”

“The hell does that mean?” His frown didn’t break his face the way it would’ve on another man. It only emphasized his intense good looks. “Not patient enough?”

Caite shrugged. “It means that even though you’re athletic and in good shape, you don’t have the patience to learn any sort of coordinated dancing. And freestyle would annoy you, trying to keep up with someone who wasn’t zigging left when you wanted to go right. You’d need a partner who understood you better than you know yourself in order to keep up with you.”

His mouth opened as though he meant to speak, but Caite kept up before he could.

“You don’t like crowds with loud music, and though you like to drink, you don’t like being around people who are out-of-control drunk. That’s why you don’t like the new clients, isn’t it? At least part of it?”

“They’re disgusting,” Jamison muttered, cutting his gaze from hers. He wiped at his mouth with his fingertips before looking back at her. “You seem to think you know an awful lot about me.”

“Sorry if I overstepped,” she said, not sorry at all.

Jamison wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “You really think you can handle those three?”

“Yes. I really do.” Confidence was everything; Caite had learned that a long time ago. She smiled at him, hoping to get at least the hint of a grin in return, but Jamison only stared at her steadily. For a long time.

He broke first, finally. “Fine. You’re on it.”

“Hooray!” Caite cried.

He looked taken aback, then shook his head and sighed. “Hooray.”

“C’mon. Say it like you mean it,” Caite said, standing and leaning over the table to put her hands flat on it so she could look him in the eyes. She only meant to tease him—Jamison Wolfe had long impressed her as the sort of man who needed to be teased now and then. But at the way his eyes narrowed and mouth thinned, Caite worried she’d gone a little too far.

Then, watching him watch her, she began to hope she had.

* * *

“I’ll be able to call in every day.” Elise, looking tired, plucked at the comforter with a surreptitious look toward the bedroom door, where Steph was likely hovering. She gave Jamison a small smile. “And I’ll have my laptop. I can handle some stuff from here.”

“You should just take it easy.” Jamison settled on the edge of the bed to pat her hand, then had a second thought and twined her fingers in his. He and Elise had been friends since high school and had spent more than a few nights tangled up in the same blankets. Never lovers, always friends, they’d shared probably every dark secret each had ever had. He knew better than anyone how unbreakable she was. And still, looking at her now, so pale and somehow shrunken despite the disconcertingly enormous mound of her belly under the blankets, all he could think about was how close he might be to losing her.

“She’ll be taking it easy.” Steph peeked around the doorway. “If I have to tie her to the bed, she’ll be taking it easy.”

“Kinky,” Elise murmured with a loving smile toward her wife that lit her eyes but didn’t do much to put color back in her cheeks.

“Too much information.” Jamison squeezed Elise’s fingers and stood. “I’m going to head back to the office. I’m glad you’re feeling better, and you take care of yourself. Stay in bed, do what the doctor tells you, you hear me?”

“Jamison, hang on. Stay a minute. Steph, baby, can you bring me some hot tea?” When the other woman had gone, Elise turned to him. “You and Caite have the new clients covered, yes?”

He hesitated, thinking about the conversation he’d had yesterday evening with the wily Ms. Fox. “She says she’s good to take them over.”

“You’re going to have to let her. We hired her for a reason, you know.”

“You’re the one who told me the triplets of destruction were going to be our name makers. And you want me to leave them in the hands of our junior office assistant?”

Elise laughed. Hard. “She’s a junior account manager, and she’s been taking on client work since a few months after she started. Caite has a good strong PR background, first of all. And social media savvy. Which is supposed to be our thing, you know. Remember?”

“I remember.” He’d always been much better at the background aspects of the business. Getting clients and keeping them. Negotiating. Not the day-to-day handling of them, or even of the office itself. That was Elise’s expertise, and now, he guessed, Caite’s.

Elise looked at him. “You can’t handle everything alone, Jamison. You’re going to have to let her do her job.”

“And if she totally screws up? What then?”

“She won’t.” Elise held up a hand to keep him from saying more. “But if she does, look...those crazy kids have their own mess already. It’s not like we could make anything worse for them. If anything, we should pray they screw up, big-time, and soon, so we can actually work to redeem them.”

“You’re good at that.” He laughed, thinking of a lot of the things with clients that had happened over the years. Press releases in the beginning, carefully crafted statements of apology. More recently, well-timed tweets or Connex updates.

“You need to relax.” She eyed him. “You don’t want to be the next one to end up in the hospital bed.”

For a moment, he thought about laughing off her concern, but then he shook his head. Elise had been there with him when his dad died, too young, of a stroke and heart attack brought on by a lifetime of unhealthy habits. “I take care of myself.”

“Sure. You run, you watch what you eat to the point where I wonder if you even like food. But you don’t take care of yourself, honey.” She paused. “I worry about you.”

“You shouldn’t.” Her words sent a flash of heat through him. Embarrassment more than comfort. They’d been friends for a long time, and she could look right inside him, down to his core, but that didn’t mean it ever felt easier to be seen that way. Jamison liked his walls high, strong and topped with iron spikes.

“Well, you can’t stop me. Now get out of here before Steph chases you out with a broom. Dinner next week?”

“Yeah. Here, I presume.” He grinned, ducking away from the pillow she tossed at him. “I’ll bring something good.”

“You’d better.” She sighed as the door creaked open and Steph appeared with a tray laden with tea and goodies. “Even though it looks like I’m going to be thoroughly spoiled as it is. Thank you, baby.”

He turned away as they kissed, another tickle of heat creeping up the back of his neck at the display of affection. It wasn’t that he was...jealous, he thought as he ducked out of the room and headed for his car. Relationships were more work than they were worth. He’d had a few girlfriends over the years, and every one of them had turned out to be jealous, greedy and, eventually, demanding. Even the ones who’d claimed they were only interested in something casual. Which said too much about his taste in women, he admitted as he drove back toward the office. Women were a lot of work, and he wasn’t the sort to be lonely, so why, then, did the memory of the sparkle in Elise’s eyes when she looked at her wife leave him with such an ashen taste in his mouth?


Chapter Three (#uc29dc95b-2657-5ced-8a00-9f0fb86f9901)

Bobby, pushing his glasses up on his nose, looked up as Jamison got off the elevator. “Mr. Wolfe. You have several messages, and—”

As if on cue, Jamison’s phone trilled from his pocket. He noted the name of the caller and sent it to voice mail. He waved at Bobby dismissively and kept going. He had stuff to take care of first. Messages could wait.

“And Ms. Fox is in the conference room with the clients from Treasure House,” Bobby called after him.

Jamison stopped in his tracks, spinning on one heel. “Huh? They’re here?”

“In the conference room,” Bobby repeated, standing to point down the hall.

As if Jamison didn’t know where the conference room was.

Before Jamison could sneak into his office, the conference room door opened, and Caite poked her head out. Her face lit when she saw him; the grin that spread from ear to ear was bright and delighted. She gestured.

“Jamison! Hi. I’m glad you’re here. C’mon in and meet the Treasure House clients.”

It was the last thing he wanted to do, even though meeting all their new clients was something he always did. With an inward sigh and an outwardly neutral expression, he stalked down the hall. Caite squeezed his elbow as he pushed past her.

“Deep breath,” she murmured without losing a bit of her smile. “Their management is paying us triple the highest rate we’re currently charging, and we’ve already been mentioned on three of the top five gossip sites. The phone’s been ringing off the hook all day.”

He glanced at her. “Since when was it triple?”

“Since I had a little talk with their manager,” Caite said as her smile widened and she made a sweeping gesture to encompass the three people seated at the other end of the conference room table. “Jamison Wolfe, I’d like to introduce you to our newest members of the Wolfe and Baron family.”

Here we go, Jamison thought. The shit show has begun.

* * *

Nellie Bower and Paxton France had been vociferously denying any sort of romantic relationship, but watching them canoodle on the opposite side of the conference table, Caite knew the pair were shagging like 1970s rec room carpet. Tommy Sanders didn’t seem at all fazed by the way Nellie reached to pluck bits of imaginary lint off of Paxton’s broad shoulders, which meant he also knew the two were involved. Not that it would’ve been easy to ignore, since the three of them had been teamed up for the past two years, contractually obligated to be together both in and out of the house in which a multimillion-dollar prize was hidden. This was the show’s second season, and the stakes had risen from $3 to 5 million. If the three of them could last until the end of the season and sign on for another, the prize would rise to $7 million.

But it wasn’t Caite’s job to keep them together. Or break them up, for that matter. Her job was to spin the exploits of these three into something the public would eagerly consume, no matter how stupid they acted. Or how boring. Using her social media management skills, her task would be to keep them in the public eye without oversaturating the market, as well as make sure that everything they did met the corporate sponsors’ approval.

She loved it already.

“So. Guys,” she said, pinpointing her gaze on Nellie and Pax, who were ignoring her totally for a whispered conversation full of sibilance. Tommy, however, looked at her with the same deadpan stare he’d become famous for. “Let’s talk about this week’s schedule. You’re off from the house this weekend, right?”

The team got weekends free to leave the treasure house and live in the real world while the crew reset the booby traps and clues they’d have to fight and find in the next week’s filming. Pax bore a distinct set of fading bruises on his dark cheek that Caite had already seen covered in a blast of comments on the show’s Connex fan page, though Pax himself had been smart enough not to breach his contract by mentioning what had caused them in anything he’d said. That had only fueled the fire of commentary as fans tried to figure out what had happened, how close to dying he’d come, the extent of injuries they couldn’t see. It had been ratings genius, though Caite suspected it was mostly unplanned on his part. She was having a hard time believing Pax was smart enough to have planned that strategy.

“Yeah.” The answer finally came from Tommy, who gave his teammates a small roll of his eyes. “We got the weekend off. Gotta go back in Sunday night.”

“So tonight it’s parrrrty!” Nellie bounced in her seat and clapped her hands like a toddler promised a pony ride. Her long black hair, dyed beneath with blue and green stripes, flipped over her shoulders. “I’m’a get shit hammered!”

“There’s a shocker,” Tommy muttered.

From his seat, the formerly silent Jamison said, “Contractually, the three of you have to stay together at all times, right? During filming and not.”

“Yeah.” Pax nodded and sidled a tiny bit closer to Nellie, though it was obvious he was trying to make it look accidental. “All three of us. All the time. The Three Musketeers.”





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