In Bed with the Boss's Daughter

The answer used to be simple. K.G. had given him all the breaks he deserved and then some. Where else could a kid who’d left school at the minimum age make it to a corner office on the eighteenth floor? Who else would put a tradesman without a fancy business degree in charge of multimillion-dollar projects?

He lived with K.G.’s peremptory attitude because the son of a b…knew the construction business like no one else, and ever since he’d taken Jack under his wing, he’d been free with that knowledge. In return he expected hard work and loyalty. Jack gave him both and then some…but not for much longer.

A matter of a few short months—less, if he was lucky—and he was gone. The leaving came two years later than he’d planned, and there would be no more K.G.-manipulated delays. It was time to get back to the blueprint for Jack Manning’s life.

At the end of his long driveway he turned left onto the deserted early-morning road and set off at a steady lope. He would rather be at his “sweatbox of a gym” pounding a punching bag instead of the tarmac, but this morning he’d slept through his internal alarm. He didn’t much enjoy running, but he owed his body the exercise, and he always fulfilled his obligations. He ran, and he thought about the satisfying thud of leather against leather and the even more satisfying release of frustrated energy.

Yeah, pounding a punching bag would feel real good this morning. Much more satisfying than pounding his pillow the way he’d done for the two nights since the Acacia bash, since Paris Grantham sashayed back into his life with her nose stuck in the air and her plastic smile and her cool eyes.

And her leg warming your hand through the smooth silk of her stocking, and her fingers gripping your jacket, and her lips soft and yielding under yours….

Jack swore and punched out at the crisp morning air with a left-right combination.

Why the hell had he kissed her? What had he been thinking?

Simple.

He hadn’t been thinking; he’d been reacting. To deep-seated disappointment, to long-term frustration, to an intense desire to wipe that synthetic smile from her lips.

He’d reacted to the futility of a memory he could no longer brick in behind that carefully constructed retaining wall in his mind, a memory that haunted his dreams and stole his sleep. A dream-memory where she danced on a table in a tiny skirt and knee-high boots, watching him through her wild tangle of hair with eyes not steel cool but smelter hot. And while the crowd yelled encouragement, she unbuttoned her shirt, her eyes fixed on his, daring him to stop her.

He did.

He dragged her from the table and felt her body mould itself to his, soft and pliant and accepting. Dream memories of her lips, wide and smiling, against his neck. Her soft laughter, warm and sweet against his skin. Her words, her honesty, his inability to absorb it all.

He’d been pinning some kind of loopy expectations on a six-year-old memory. What a fool!

He jabbed at the air again, but without much conviction. After all, she was a Grantham, and the more like her parents she turned out to be—cold like her mother, manipulative like her father—the easier it would be to remember she had no place in his life.

As he topped the long uphill rise and lengthened his stride toward the intersection, he tried not to think about her parting thrust and K.G.’s early-morning phone call, or the fact that the two might be related.

He told himself the queer feeling in his gut was hunger. K.G. wouldn’t do it. Milson Landing was too big a project, its success too important to the company’s bottom line to risk on a whim, even if that whim belonged to his precious only daughter.

Jack slowed to take the corner into Sycamore Road and automatically started scanning for the Ridleys’ deranged fox terrier.

There was no connection between K.G.’s summons and her threat to seek out a job in Jack’s office.

The foxy came out of the shrubs at the front of lot nine, but Jack dodged the open jaws with ease and sprinted out of range. The mutt didn’t even get close.

He kept up a punishing pace for another two Ks, until the sweat ran freely down his back and the breath rasped harsh in his throat. Only then did he slacken off.

The uneasiness in his stomach didn’t.

Three hours later it churned like a cement mixer when he caught sight of the woman crossing Grantham’s car park. Not because of her long-legged stride or the skirt that drew attention to it, but because it was Paris Grantham.

Jack bent to pick up the keys he’d dropped and told his stomach not to jump to conclusions. Two people arriving at the same building at the same time didn’t necessarily mean they were there for the same meeting. Could be coincidence.

On a Saturday morning, with the car park all but empty? Yeah, right!

He pocketed his keys and headed for the lift bay, where she waited in her little yellow dress, smooth bare legs and strappy high heels. But when she turned and smiled, the action was quick and not quite smooth, as if driven by nerves.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said brightly.

Jack punched the lift button and decided he’d been way off beam about the nerves. She looked too cool and polished to be nervous. His cement mixer switched to turbo.

“Princess,” he greeted her evenly. “Looks like you’ve got the jet lag beat.”

“Yes. And my feet are back to normal size.”

This time her smile was real and ripe with early-summer sunshine. It took Jack a count of three to control his light-headed dizziness, and he jibbed himself about sunstroke in a dim basement. It was more likely a result of terminal tiredness. To avoid that smile, he looked down at her feet. They arched inside her sexy shoes, and the way his body reacted, she might as well have arched them right over his….

Don’t even think about it, he told himself, lifting his gaze quickly. “Is there any reason why you wear those things?” he growled, annoyed with himself as much as her.

Her smile dimmed, and irritation sparked in her eyes. “They match my dress.”

He noted how the dress was perfectly plain apart from the bright color and the fact that it skimmed every curve of her body and ended a good six inches above her knees. His gaze kept on sliding downward, and about halfway to her ankles he decided the legs were a perfect match for the dress, forget the shoes!

And then he remembered why she was here and why he was here, and his eyes snapped back to hers. “Are you here to see your father?” he asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. He asked me to come in. It’s about this job he has for me.” The elevator pinged its arrival, and she ambled past him, holding the doors when he didn’t follow. “Coming?”

He stepped into the lift, and she pressed the top button—K.G.’s floor. Jack swore beneath his breath. “Tell me you’re working for your father.”