In Bed with the Boss's Daughter

His mouth eased its rough pressure, and for the barest moment Paris savored his gentled caress, the fleeting brush of his thumbs against her neck, the fullness of his lips on hers. And then those lips retreated as suddenly as they’d advanced, leaving her swamped by conflicting emotions. Shocked confusion registered in his eyes, too, but was quickly displaced by the same old fierce-eyed irritation.

Carefully Paris released her grip on his lapels. Casually she smoothed out the creases. Deliberately she coaxed her mouth into a facsimile of a smile. “If that’s a sample of what I missed out on six years ago, I can count myself lucky,” she drawled.

His eyes glinted dangerously, and his hold on her shoulders tightened. “You want to talk samples?”

A disturbing sense of anticipation washed through Paris’s body as his head ducked and his gaze lit on her lips. Her legs wobbled, and she swore that the only thing holding her up was his grip on her shoulders, a grip that felt like a curious mix of support and restraint, holding her up and him back.

But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he slowly and deliberately ran his tongue across her bottom lip, before pulling back and rocking on his heels. He flashed a tight smile and declared, “Yep, tastes exactly like saccharine!”

Paris’s mouth fell open, then slammed shut.

“Now why do you suppose that is? Too much time with Lady Pamela or with poor old Teddy?”

“Edward’s neither poor nor old!”

“No?” He lifted one brow. “Bankrupt, but not poor. An interesting concept. Is that why you dumped him?”

Paris shook her head slowly, hoping to clear the confusion. He was mad because she’d run away six years ago? Because he didn’t like her hairdo? Because she’d dumped her fianc'e?

“You think I dumped him because of the bankruptcy thing?” she asked slowly. Then she almost laughed out loud at the irony.

Yes, she had dumped “poor Teddy” because of his money troubles. Because he’d wanted her money, her father’s money, to rescue his crumbling fortune. That was the only reason he’d wanted to marry her in the first place.

If there had been any easing of the contempt on Jack’s face, she might have told him all about “poor old Teddy.” But his mouth held its tight line, and his eyes brimmed with contempt, so she lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him. “I could have bought Edward ten times over.”

“Your father could have bought him ten times over.”

“If you want to be pedantic.” She shrugged with a nonchalance she didn’t feel.

“Is that why you came home? To play the heiress?”

“I don’t intend playing anything,” Paris said, her tone as sharp as the hurt in her chest. She’d never played the heiress; she’d never played poor little rich girl; she’d never played victim nor victor. “I came home because K.G. asked me to, because he has a job for me.”

Jack snorted. “Doing what?”

Paris didn’t know. She hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on what use she could be in her father’s corporation. It was enough that he’d asked her, that he wanted her help. But she wasn’t about to admit that to the man standing before her, dripping disdain. She lifted her chin. “Maybe there’s a suitable job in your department.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Well, well, well…

“Come to think of it, I’d rather enjoy working in your office. I shall have to speak to Daddy about it.” Paris knew she sounded snooty, but she considered it fair payback for his playing-the-heiress crack.

For a long moment he stared at her, his eyes dark and unreadable. Then he turned on his heel and strode away, only pausing when Paris called after him, “I guess I’ll be seeing you around, Jack. At the office.”

His hand flattened against the back of the door for no more than a second before he pushed through without a backward glance or a final word, leaving Paris itching with dissatisfaction. She wanted to stalk out the door after him, to hurl something at his retreating back, even if it was only a demand that he come back and finish their argument.

Not that she had a clue how to conclude an argument that had no point.

With an exasperated sigh she turned, and when she caught sight of her disheveled image in the full-length mirror she almost laughed out loud, although the laughter would have been harsh and humorless. She looked like an illustration of how her evening had gone.

She looked a mess.

So much for all her mother’s lessons in poise. So much for the slick, sophisticated image. So much for her expectations for tonight. Expectations based on adolescent dreams, she decided with a rueful shake of her head. For in her dreams Jack still had laughing eyes the color of milk chocolate and a quick grin that made her heart flip-flop and her throat squeeze tight.

Had she really expected that four years as K.G.’s righthand man wouldn’t have changed him? No. She had expected changes, and she had feared those changes…and the likelihood they would make no difference: that she would meet his eyes across the room and feel the same earth-shifting connection she’d felt at that party six years ago; that she would fall headlong in love with a man as work-focused as her father. Her worst nightmare.

She swung away from the mirror and lifted her chin. The man Jack Manning had become deserved neither her dreams nor her expectations. What he deserved was to walk into his office on Monday to find her working alongside him.

Nice fantasy, Paris.

The chances of K.G. giving her the job she requested were about on a par with her chances of finding a man who would love her for herself. Nada, zilch and zero.

Two

Jack answered his mobile phone on the first ring, then crooked it between shoulder and ear to pull on his second running shoe.

“Glad I caught you,” K.G. said without preamble. “Thought you’d be in that sweatbox of a gym by now.”

“I slept in.”

“That’ll be the day. You coming into the office this morning?”

“Briefly.”

“Good.” The word wasn’t much more than a grunt. “My office at ten.”

Jack scowled at the dead phone for a moment, then tossed it onto his bed.

No Can you fit in a meeting?

No Does ten o’clock suit you?

Jack shook his head in disgust, dragged on a sweatshirt and headed for the front door. By ten o’clock he should be midway through a meeting with Dan Lehmann, the electrical contractor on the Milson Landing Project. Rescheduling would muck up Lehmann’s day, and the day was Saturday, theoretically part of the weekend. And as he jogged down the driveway he asked himself, not for the first time, why he put up with his boss’s high-handedness.