Barbara Boswell - Who's The Boss?

His boss. Cade clenched his jaw as his boss approached him. She was twenty-seven years old and she was his boss! The situation was ridiculous, it was unthinkable, untenable. But true.

Gene, how could you do this to me? Cade’s eyes flicked heavenward as he silently invoked his departed mentor. Of course, Gene’s death at sixty-two had been completely unexpected. Given his parents’ longevity—Ma and Pa Brennan had lived well into their eighties—Gene had probably intended to alter his will at some later date, after Cade had bought enough stock to own controlling interest in BrenCo as planned.

But time had run out and they were stuck with the one and only will he’d written, naming Kylie Marie Brennan his major heir. Making her Cade Austin’s boss.

“Hey, Cade!” Bridget greeted the company president the same way she greeted her peers at Club Reek, her favorite night spot along the banks of McClain Creek.

“Hey, Bridget,” he replied gamely. He saw the glimmer of humor in Kylie’s eyes, saw the sudden smile cross her face. Cade inhaled sharply.

Kylie Brennan was blessed with natural beauty: high cheekbones, wide-set china blue eyes, and a heart-shaped face framed by her thick, dark slightly-below-the-chin-length bob. But that smile of hers transformed her classic good looks into something more compelling, more intriguing. She had a wide, generous mouth and a dimple on her left cheek, and when she smiled she appeared both sultry and sweet, wholesome yet enticingly sexy. All in all, a fascinating contrast that evoked an immediate and tangible response from Cade.

He felt the stirrings deep in his groin and was appalled. The woman was his boss! The last thing he—or BrenCo—needed was for him to be turned on by this alluring young woman who had the power to sell the company out from under him. Who could single-handedly wreck his future plans and take BrenCo from him with one crucial decision. Sell.

Damn, why did she have to be so attractive? He studied her soft full lips and imagined...

“So I guess you two know each other, huh?” Bridget’s voice jerked him from the erotic fantasy he’d been drifting into.

Cade was grateful for the reality check. What was happening to him? He never daydreamed while he was working, not unless the subject had to do with environmental engineering, and then it was called brainstorming. Nor was he prone to sexual fantasizing in his spare time; he’d outgrown that puerile pastime long ago. Yet here he stood, conjuring up what was definitely a sexual fantasy. During office hours. Starring his could-be-trouble beautiful young boss! Was he losing his mind?

“Cade Austin,” he said, briskly extending his hand to Kylie. Hopefully, his inner turmoil wasn’t evident. “We haven’t been formally introduced but I saw you at Gene’s funeral.”

“Kylie Brennan.” She put her hand in Cade’s and was immediately struck by the size of it. His fingers were long and strong and closed around hers. “I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch. I received all your company updates but I’ve been very busy...” Her voice trailed off.

It was a lame excuse and she knew it. Cade Austin was a busy man, but he had taken the time and effort to send those business communiqués to her. Reflexively, she lifted her eyes to his. Their gazes met and he raised his dark brows in a gesture she couldn’t quite interpret. Was he merely acknowedging her explanation? Or silently berating or mocking her for it? She couldn’t tell.

And then it occurred to her that he was still holding her hand, that their handshake had lasted longer than the conventional introductory shake, which elevated it to an altogether different realm. When she felt his thumb glide lazily over her knuckles, she felt a sharp thrust in her abdomen, stunning and swift, as if she’d been kicked. Except the sensations jolting through her were pleasurable not painful. Alarmingly pleasurable.

Kylie felt a hot flush of color spread upward, heating a path from her belly to her suddenly very pink cheeks. She quickly removed her hand from his.

What on earth was the matter with her? she wondered, a little frantically. She was twenty-seven years old, not a schoolgirl who hadn’t yet tamed the swirling rush of hormones in her system. Yet she was reacting to Cade with a wild surge of awareness, appallingly similar to her teenage crushes on certain cute boys all those years ago.

There was nothing cute or boyish about Cade Austin, far from it. He was thirty-five years old and six feet four inches of solid masculinity, with a muscular frame and well-defined features. Kylie’s gaze took in his strong jaw and square chin, the sharp blade of a nose and firm, hard mouth.

She was standing close enough to see that his eyes were hazel, flecked with green, and watched her with an alert, assessing intelligence. What if he knew the turmoil he was so effortlessly evoking within her? The possibility made her cringe.

Her mouth felt dry, and Kylie quickly flicked the tip of her tongue over her lips. She felt Cade’s eyes follow the small movement. Kylie took a step backward, then another. Hopefully, putting some physical distance between them would enable her to put an end to her distraction and his domination.

And he was dominating her, with his greater height and strength and sheer virility. Kylie understood body language; she’d made good use of it in court but never before had she been so personally affected by it.

“What brings you to Port McClain at this particular time, Miss Brennan?” Cade asked, his tone impeccably polite.

And yet...Kylie swore she heard a mocking note in his tone, subtle enough to be indiscernible if one wasn’t paying close attention. She met Cade’s eyes again and set her mouth in a determined line. She always paid attention.

“I wanted to visit my relatives and to be brought up-to-date on BrenCo. This month seemed like the perfect time to come here to—”

“The perfect time to come here,” Cade echoed. There was no mistaking the taunt in his tone this time. “Yeah, sure. March in Ohio is a veritable paradise, especially when a place is as close to Lake Erie as Port McClain. We’ve got the notorious take-effect winds, temperature and record snowfalls. Port McClam, the perfect place, the perfect time. Wonder if the Chamber of Commerce could pitch the town as the newest winter vacation destination?”

“We get enough snow in Port McClain to be a ski resort,” Bridget stated. “Except it’s totally flat here. We don’t even have a hill. But it would be cool to have a ski lodge anyway, wouldn’t it, Cade?” She completely ignored Kylie.

“What’s the point of a ski lodge without any skring?” Cade was clearly not taken with Bridget’s idea.

“It could be like a Club Reek with a fireplace,” Bridget explained. “Sort of an antiski lodge.”

“An antiski lodge, hmm?” Cade echoed, smiling.

Or was he grimacing? Kylie found it difficult to differentiate. “Let me rephrase from a perfect time to visit to a convenient time to visit,” she suggested quickly, before Bridget went off on another tangent.

“And has your visit been convenient so far?” Cade asked.

He sounded so unctuously solicitous that Kylie guessed he was aware that so far her visit had been anything but convenient. “No,” she admitted grimly. “No, it hasn’t.”

“You arrived in Port McClain last night, I believe? And planned to stay in Gene’s house,” Cade prompted.

“Uncle Gene’s house is currently uninhabitable.” Kylie was sure she wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. “I’d written to both Uncle Guy and Uncle Artie two weeks ago and asked them to have the electricity, water, gas and phone service turned on in the house and to hire a cleaning service to prepare the place for occupancy.”

“Let me guess, nothing had been done,” Cade surmised. “Your first mistake was asking both Artie and Guy, and then letting them know you’d asked them both. You unwittingly set up a Brennan double play. Artie and Guy could each claim that he thought the other was taking care of the house, while each did nothing. Meanwhile, both your uncles could enjoy a hearty laugh imagining you showing up at Gene’s place, which has been vacant since his funeral.”

Kylie thought of her phone calls last night to her two uncles who had each claimed he thought the other was handling her requests. It had seemed a logical, albeit annoying, slipup. But to think it was premeditated, that they’d relished the idea of her standing in the creepily dark, cold, damp and musty old house...

“That’s an awful thing to say,” Kylie scolded, rejecting his premise.

She glanced at Bridget, expecting her to second the objection. After all, Cade had insulted her father and their mutual uncle Guy.

Bridget merely shrugged. “So where’d you stay last night? Not at Uncle Gene’s Haunted Mansion, I’m sure.”

“I stayed at the Port McClain Hotel.”

Cade and Bridget looked at each other and laughed.

“That place has all the ambience of the House of Usher. And you must’ve been one of the few guests who rented a room for the night, instead of by the hour.” Cade’s eyes gleamed. “You’d have done better to stay at one of the motels off the interstate exit.”

Kylie thought of the sounds she’d heard last night in the room above her, the steady traffic through the halls. Cade’s remarks explained a lot. She shuddered. “When I talked to Aunt Lauretta last night and asked her where to stay, she said the Port McClain Hotel.”

“Wow! She deliberately sent you there?” Bridget laughed harder. “Chalk one up for Aunt Lauretta.”

“You should have contacted me about the house,” said Cade. “I would’ve taken care of all the arrangements and the place would have been ready for you. I suggest that you rely upon me, not the Brennans, while you’re here in Port McClain. Now, would you like me to have my secretary Donna make those calls to the utilities and a cleaning service for you?”

“I’ve already done all that from my hotel room this morning.” Kylie was irked by his condescending, paternalistic attitude. Did he think she was incapable of making a few phone calls? “And I intend to rely on myself while I’m here in Port McClain,” she added coolly.

“Is it true you lost your job, Kylie?” Bridget suddenly interjected. “That’s what my brother, Brent, heard from my dad who heard it from Uncle Guy. They all think you’ll be glad to sell the company ’cause if you’re out of work, you’ll need money, right? That’s what they’re hoping for. They want to sell real bad and get big bucks for their shares. Aunt Lauretta and Ian are really pushing for it, too, and—”

“Bridget, this is company time and you’re wasting it.” Cade interrupted her, his tone stern, all signs of friendliness gone. “Get back to work right now.”

Bridget smoothed her hands over her short, spiky black hair. “I didn’t say anything that everybody doesn’t already know,” she said defensively. “Why would Kylie be here if she didn’t want to—”

“Bridget, if you’re not gone by the time I count to three, your pay will be docked, one hour for each number I reach.” Cade’s voice was calm but steely enough to send Bridget heading down the corridor before he even uttered “one.”

Kylie shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve never found bullying to be an effective tactic to use in dealing with—”

“You’ve obviously never had to deal with your relatives. I’ve found it effective in dealing with some Brennans, at times the only effective method of dealing with them.” He folded his arms in front of his chest and stared down at her.