Tanya Michaels: "Who Needs Decaf?"

She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling under her sweater in a way he wished he hadn’t noticed. “I’m in charge of Hammond’s public relations depart—”

“You’re HGS’s PR man?” She couldn’t be further from a man, but for once Nathan didn’t care about semantics.

Well, he’d certainly been a pompous idiot to think even for a second that she might be a…what? Hooker? As though anything about the straight, sophisticated cut of her hair, her china-delicate skin, or the classy clothes that clung just softly enough to her slim curves to be sexy, suggested an illicit lifestyle. Apparently, his years of reporting about the worst in people were taking their toll on his judgment.

The only reason he could possibly have had for instantly linking Sheryl with sex was the attraction he felt to her. His immediate and appreciative masculine response to her physical appearance had only been heightened by their teasing in the elevator, the single potent touch they’d shared, and the way her interested gaze had brushed over his skin. He firmly ignored that attraction now to follow what she was saying.

“…to discuss those columns you’ve been writing.” Her expression, if not actually frosty, was cool, her tone all business.

He matched her demeanor, folding his arms across his chest. “I have no intention of retracting a single word I’ve written so far, and if any new information surfaces, you can be sure there will be more columns. I’m sorry you wasted a trip across town.”

“Maybe if we could just go in your office and talk—”

“If you wanted to talk, you should have made an appointment,” he interrupted, pointing out the polite, professional course of action. “I’m a busy man, and I’m afraid I have a schedule to keep.”

He wasn’t born yesterday, and he had no intentions of letting her ambush him, as so clearly had been her plan. Manipulative. She’d arrived, scheming to surprise him, catching him off guard, but he’d turned the tables on her before she’d even stepped off the elevator. Nice irony, even if it had been unintentional.

Besides, though he did technically have his own office, the tiny room was actually smaller than some cubicles he’d seen. He wasn’t prepared to be alone in that tight space with Sheryl and the light, teasing tang of her perfume.

Determined to sound in control of the situation, he invited casually, “Feel free to call the receptionist, though, and see if there’s a way to squeeze you in next week. Maybe we’ll talk then. Have a nice day, Ms. Dayton.”

Her eyes sparked green flame, but she’d yet to form a reply when he spun on his heel and walked off, cheerfully whistling a Christmas carol.

“SO WE’LL TRY AGAIN,” Brad said from behind the metallic-looking monstrosity that was his desk. Meka had almost had a stroke when he’d insisted on it, and Sheryl personally thought that it looked like a reject from the Star Trek prop room. But Brad seemed to feel the sci-fi aura of the piece was in keeping with running a company known for technological successes in the new millennium.

“Try again?” Sheryl banged a fist on the desk, too angry to care that she’d probably just broken a couple of fingers. “May I remind you, I was against this the first time. The man wouldn’t even let me into his office, and you want me to go back for more abuse?”

Her ego was still smarting from the earlier encounter. All the polished words she’d practiced in the car on her way to the Sojourner building had been reduced to her gaping outside an elevator when she came face-to-face with the man. But, considering the face in question, who could blame her?

Not a fan of conflict, Brad fidgeted, his pale blue eyes nervous. Now that she thought about it, even though his looks were classically handsome, his coloring, from his eyes to his platinum-blond hair, was all pale, not at all warm and vibrant like—

She snapped the thought in half like a dry twig.

“Uh…Sheryl, sweetie, did you just growl?”

She winced, but blasting Brad for the unprofessional endearment probably wasn’t the best way to reassure him she wasn’t rabid. “Course not. Cleared my throat.” She did so now for emphasis. Ahem, ahem, hack, hack, hack. See? Sick, not psychotic. “I may be coming down with a cold or something.”

“I could have Iris order you some chicken soup from the deli for lunch,” he volunteered, concern in his gaze.

With a shake of her head, Sheryl reflected that he really was a nice guy. “That’s all right.” Sensing an opportunity to escape before he ordered her into a second round with Nathan Hall, she stood. “I have some cough drops in my desk and—”

“I’ve got some right here.” He pulled open the slanted top drawer of his hybrid architecture/science-fair project and passed her a handful of honey-eucalyptus drops. “You just help yourself, and we can finish discussing this.”

It had been worth a try.

She sat with a thud. “Brad, you hired me because you said you needed me, needed the advice that I and others have to give you. You’re a brilliant man, but everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and you pay us to balance yours out. So, please consider my advice when I tell you—”

“I considered your advice yesterday, Sheryl, when we had this same conversation. But we need this man to be our friend.”

“It doesn’t work that way! He doesn’t want to befriend us, and we don’t ‘need’ him, he’s just one guy. Let’s focus on—”

“Just one guy! I can’t believe my public relations person just blew off a journalist with a direct pipeline to the public’s opinion. You’re a helluva lot smarter than that, so why are you being so stubborn about this, Sheryl?”

Because about two minutes before he introduced himself and subsequently kicked me out of the office, I was thinking I wouldn’t kick him out of bed?

Hardly a professional answer, and she had other objections, too, dammit, she just couldn’t remember them all right now. The entire time she and Brad were dating, she’d wished he’d develop a bit more of a backbone. She was proud of him for doing so, but did he have to pick now to do it?

“Well. You are the boss,” she finally conceded.

“I’m so glad somebody remembered,” he said. “I think you all see me as a little boy playing executive, but this is my company, you know?”

“I know.” She glanced down guiltily, remembering the virtual shack in which he’d started his business four years ago and how far he’d already come—how far he’d taken all of them—with his ideas. There had been a time when the tiny company was so informal, it had been more like a club, and while that briefly had been fun, an enjoyable work atmosphere, she was proud of all they’d done to make Hammond Gaming Software the “real” business it was now.

Though she wasn’t yet being paid a third of the salary Brad had said he envisioned for her future, no one else would have hired a woman with her limited experience for a position at this level. With a few notable exceptions, most of Brad’s employees were young, well-trained, eager executives who wouldn’t be able to find their current levels of autonomy elsewhere. The trade-off was that Brad had only recently begun to afford anything close to equitable salaries—luckily, the majority of his young execs didn’t have families to support.

But he’d offered them a piece of his vision, combining their collective business acumen with his software smarts and wide-eyed optimism. He wanted to give them all a shot at the big time, and until a fantasy writer from Colorado with an obscure Web site had filed a lawsuit, Brad’s master plan had seemed to be running smoothly.

She sighed. “What do you want me to do? Just say the word.”