Bronwyn Jameson - In Bed with the Boss's Daughter

He wondered if she was thinking about the other night, about how he’d kissed her in anger and frustration. Heat closed around him, along with the drift of her perfume, something unexpectedly soft and warm. He badly needed to loosen his tie, and usually that didn’t happen for at least two hours.

Floor fifteen, he noted. Still four to go.

Why was this lift so damned slow?

He made a mental note to speak to the building manager about having it serviced. Eyes trained on the indicator, he returned to the question she’d so neatly sidestepped. “What is this job, exactly?”

“He didn’t exactly say…”

Eighteen.

“…although he did mention a special PR project.”

Nineteen.

Ping.

Jack knew, without a shadow of a doubt, which project. He’d petitioned K.G. for weeks about appointing a PR person to Milson Landing, with no response. He hadn’t wanted to believe K.G. would do something this shortsighted, this foolhardy.

Taking the three steps out of the lift required enormous effort—maybe it was the weight of all that cement in his belly.

Paris flicked her hair back and started down the corridor, even though Jack was slow to follow. She wanted, so badly, to ask why he was here, what this was all about, but she didn’t want to let on how little she knew. K.G. had done his don’t-you-worry-your-pretty-little-head thing when she’d pressed him for details, and her hopes of earning his respect through a working relationship had plummeted.

Everything with Jack might have changed in six years, but nothing with K.G. had changed a bit.

She didn’t know why he’d asked her to come home, but it wasn’t because he’d suddenly recognized her true worth. The bad feeling in the pit of her stomach intensified. K.G.’s reasons involved Jack—they must, or why was he following her down the corridor? She knew he was there because the back of her neck prickled with awareness, even though the thick carpeting muted their footfalls. On this floor everything was muted, beige, restrained, as if subdued by her father’s personality.

Despite it being Saturday, K.G.’s secretary sat guarding the portals of power. Evelyn inspected Paris over the top of her glasses, her eyes beetling over the yellow dress, her mouth pursing at its length. Evelyn’s disapproval dated back to the day she’d caught Paris feeding papers from her father’s briefcase into the shredder.

Paris’s seven-year-old reasoning had been simple. If there were no papers, then her father would have no work, thus he would come to her ballet concert. Of course Evelyn hadn’t understood her reasoning, and she doubted her father had, either. He’d laughed and indulgently scrubbed her hair, but he hadn’t come to her concert.

Paris lifted her chin. “He’s expecting us,” she stated imperiously as she breezed toward K.G.’s door.

Evelyn bounded out from behind her desk and took charge of the door handle, effectively stopping any unannounced arrival.

“How about you let him know we’re here, Evelyn?” Jack suggested with a lopsided grin that seemed to render the middle-aged secretary witless.

Paris took advantage of Evelyn’s distracted state to push past.

“Good morning, princess.” K.G. came out from behind his desk, and as she offered her cheek for the obligatory kiss, Paris wished her father wouldn’t call her princess in that indulgent tone. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but he was busy shaking Jack’s hand and ushering him to the conference area at the side of his office. Paris shut her mouth and helped herself to a seat.

“I won’t be here long enough to sit,” Jack said. “I’m due down at the Landing.” He might as well have said, get to the point; that was what he meant.

“Good. You can take Paris with you. Show her round.”

Jack’s lips tightened, but he didn’t even glance her way. “No,” he said evenly. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

A moment’s pause. “She’s not dressed appropriately.”

What? Paris blinked and sat up straight. She started to object, but K.G. laughed over top of her. “One thing you’ll learn about my daughter is she never dresses appropriately.”

Paris narrowed her eyes, lifted her chin and wished she’d worn her red slip-dress. Now that little number reeked of inappropriate!

“I don’t intend learning anything about your daughter.”

Jack’s dismissive tone set her blood to slow simmer, but K.G. slapped his thigh, obviously highly entertained. “No? I distinctly remember you asking me to find you a PR rep for the Landing.”

“I need an experienced PR person.”

“Lucky for you my daughter’s been doing public relations work in London.”

“Really?”

Paris’s simmering blood turned cold with K.G.’s announcement, then surged with indignation at Jack’s reply. PR wasn’t quite what she’d been doing in London, but with Jack looking at her like she was incapable of spelling PR, let alone doing it, it was close enough. She looked coldly down her nose at him. “Is that so hard to believe?”

One eyebrow rose to a leery angle. “Who were you working for, princess?”

“I worked in my mother’s business.”

“That being?”

“My mother does parties,” she replied archly.

The eyebrow rose higher. “Drinks for a few close friends?”

“A few hundred. We put together corporate functions and product launches, fashion parades and charity balls—”

“And I’m sure you did them very well,” Jack cut in. He turned back to K.G. “I don’t need a party planner. I need someone with media savvy.”

Paris’s indignation morphed into anger. She was sick of being treated like she wasn’t in the room. She leaned forward and speared Jack with a steely eyed gaze. “Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you should know I’ve been media savvy since birth.” She shifted focus to her father and smiled sweetly. “Which magazine had exclusive rights to my christening, Daddy? Southern Society, I think.” She switched back to Jack and dropped the smile. “I’m on Christmas-card terms with every society columnist in Sydney and London—and half their editors—and while I suspect titillating snippets of gossip isn’t your job’s focus, I’m sure my contact network could stretch to find the odd serious journalist.”

The room was silent for a count of four before K.G. rubbed his hands together and announced to the room in general, “That’s settled then. Perfect.”

“Perfect…how?” Jack’s delivery was dangerously slow.

“I trust you to look after her, keep her out of trouble.”

Paris swore she heard Jack’s jaw click into inflexible mode. “I don’t have time to baby-sit your daughter.”

“Rubbish,” K.G. boomed. “Lew needs more responsibility. Start delegating. Besides, you’ll fit in with Jack’s schedule, won’t you, princess?”

Baby-sit? Fit in with his schedule?

She exploded out of her chair and fixed on the first thing that came into focus out of her apoplectic blur. “My name isn’t princess, it’s Paris. I don’t know why you didn’t choose something easy like Jane or Kate, but you chose Paris. Please use it!”

K.G. roared with laughter. “Well said, princess.”

She felt like screaming with frustration, but it would do no good. For twenty-four years her father had indulged her, but he’d never listened to her. Why would he start now?

He pushed to his feet and slapped Jack on the back. “I’ll leave you two to sort out the details.”

“Hang on a minute.” Jack looked as stunned as Paris felt. “Nothing’s settled. You can’t leave this—”

“Have to,” K.G. said, checking his watch. “Caroline’s picking me up. We have a flight to catch.”

“Where are you going?” Paris couldn’t believe he intended walking out with nothing settled.

“The Coast. I’ve meetings on the new casino project all next week, but we might stay on, take a break. Head farther north if we feel like it.”

“You’re taking a holiday?” Paris couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d said he was taking an acid bath.

“Have to take one now or I mightn’t get another chance.” He glared at Jack. “Can’t trust just anyone to look after this place, you know.”

Paris didn’t know. She had no idea what the little side play was about, although it obviously meant something to Jack. His eyes narrowed, as if with sudden comprehension. “Is that what this is all about? Some form of punishment?”

K.G. rubbed his jaw. “You consider looking after my daughter a punishment? Shame on you, Jack.”

Both K.G.’s parting words and the echo of his self-satisfied laughter after the door closed behind him convinced Jack he’d called it right. This was some sort of payback for his impending departure and the latest sign of K.G.’s refusal to accept his resignation in good grace.

First he’d delayed Jack’s departure by offering him sole management of the Landing Project…if he saw it through to completion. Then he insisted on keeping the pending resignation a secret until he’d decided on a successor, a move he still hadn’t made. Jack had concurred, because although Grantham’s good word might not make a lick of difference to the success of his new business venture, his bad word could destroy it.

For the same reason, he now found himself saddled with the last person he wanted alongside him as the most important project of his career reached its culmination.

He had to accept it, but he didn’t have to like it.

His right hand fashioned a fist, but he didn’t punch the door that had closed in K.G.’s wake. He squeezed tight around his frustration, containing it within that fisted hand. Then he turned to face her.

“You asked him to give you this job, didn’t you?”

She gave a perplexed little shrug. “How could I ask for a job I didn’t know existed?”

“Come off it, Paris! You asked your father for a job in my office because of the other night, and K.G. didn’t even stop to consider whether you’re suitable or not.”

“What makes you so sure I’m unsuitable?” she asked, and there was something about the way she looked at him, all high and mighty, that really riled Jack. That and the way she totally ignored his mention of the other night. “If you like, I can supply you with a list of my credentials.”

“One, your surname’s Grantham. Two, you have contacts in some dubious sections of the media. Not much of a list.”

Her eyes flared with the impact of his direct hit, but she simply lifted her chin higher and spoke with cool, crisp diction. “Why don’t you tell me what this job entails, and I will tell you if I can do it?”

“The question isn’t whether you can do the work but if you can work with my staff. Frankly, I don’t think you have what it takes to be a team player.”

“What does it take?” she asked with infuriating calm.

“Everyone pulls their weight. There are no servants to run errands for you. You want something done, you do it yourself. We don’t work nine-to-five, we work whatever it takes to get the job done, and I mean done. No half measures.”

“I don’t have any problem with that.” She smiled.

Jack snorted. “You have no idea. You won’t last a week.”

“Why, Jack,” she drawled, “that sounds like a challenge.”

“No. It’s the simple truth.”

She raised one brow. “Based on which facts?”

“The fact that you’re twenty-four years old and still living out of your father’s pocket.”

That stung. He could see it in her eyes, in the infinitesimal lift of her chin and the sudden tightness of her smile. “In my bag is the key to the apartment I’m moving into this afternoon. I won’t be living in anyone’s pocket, especially once I receive my first paycheck. When will that be, Jack?”