Maureen Child - Scorned by the Boss / The Texan's Secret Past - Scorned by the Boss

“After you left,” he said, walking across the room toward her, his footsteps silent on the thick, pale blue carpet, “I realized something.”

She scooted back on the bed, keeping her distance, but then thought about being on the bed with him so close and so conveniently naked. Which made her shoot off the mattress as though there was a spring under her behind. “What? You realized what?”

“I needed a vacation.”

“Right,” she said, shaking her head at the ridiculous story. “You’ve never taken a vacation, Jefferson. The closest you came to it was when you were flying around the globe ruining my vacations. Besides, shouldn’t you be back at the office, annoying some minion into finalizing your Portugal trip?”

“You’re exactly right. I have never taken a vacation, so I was more than due. As to ruining your vacations in the past, I’m not here to do that again. I’m only here to join in the fun.”

“Fun?”

“As to the Portugal trip,” he said, swiping one hand through his wet hair, “my rather exceptional admin has everything taken care of already.”

Exceptional .

He’d called her exceptional . Oh, he was up to something.

She only wished she knew what.

“And,” he admitted with another shrug—and he really did have some amazing pecs—“I missed you.”

Caitlyn snorted. Very inelegant, she knew, but she just couldn’t help herself. Oh, yes. Definitely up to something. “You missed me. Sure you did. You mean, you missed having me run interference between you and the company. It’s only been a couple of days, Jefferson.”

A couple of days during which she had missed him. But that wasn’t the point now, was it?

“This isn’t about work, Caitlyn,” he said, his gaze fixed on her so steadily she was pretty sure she could feel heat sizzling in the air between them. “This is about us .”

She just stared at him for a long minute. This was getting weirder and weirder. First, he’s naked in her hotel room. Next he’s missing her. Now he’s talking about an us?

“Okay, I must have somehow slipped into an alternate dimension,” she muttered, shaking her head and fiddling with the cloth belt of her cover-up. No way was she slipping it off to stand in front of him in her bathing suit. The more clothes she had on at the moment, the safer she’d be.

And where was all this sudden, desperate lust coming from? She’d worked for the man for three long years. Sure, she’d been attracted, but she’d never felt the kind of swamping, all-encompassing heat that was boiling in her system at the moment. Was it the fact that they were both away from the business setting?

Or maybe it was just that towel he was wearing.

Her eyes popped a little. Was that towel slipping?

“Alternate dimension,” she repeated numbly. She blinked, tore her gaze from the towel. “That has to be it. The only rational explanation. Well, that or I’m having a stroke. No, not a stroke. Must be the alternate-plane thing. The elevator. I probably got caught in one of those ripples in time. Maybe if I go back down, I’ll get back to my own universe and none of this will be happening.”

“Ripple in time?”

Her gaze snapped to his. “Makes more sense than believing any of this is happening.”

“But it is happening,” he said in a voice that had dropped low enough that the vibrations of it were sizzling along every one of her nerve endings.

“No, it’s not,” she said firmly. No way was she going to get sucked into whatever game he was playing. She wasn’t going to go back to work for him. She was sticking to her guns—and not going to look at that towel.

“Jefferson,” she said, inching farther from him. “Let’s forget for the moment why you came here. How did you get into my room?”

He smiled and she felt her knees wobble. Not a good sign.

“I followed you here.”

“Yeah. I got that.” Frowning, she asked, “How’d you know where I was going?”

“It’s not that difficult for a man in my position to get whatever answers he needs, Caitlyn.”

Probably not, she mused. The man had contacts all over the world and enough money to pay for whatever information he needed. But why go to all this trouble? And even if finding her was no big deal, how the hell did he get into her hotel room?

“Fine. You found me. But who let you into my room?”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and the towel pulled away from one of his thighs, exposing a good bit of tanned, very muscular flesh with just a sprinkling of blond hair. Oh, god .

“When I explained to the front desk that my wife had arrived a few days ahead of me, they were very happy to give me a key.”

“Your wife? ” Okay, that was enough to pull her out of the fantasies her brain was currently indulging in. “You told them I was your wife? And they believed you?”

“Of course.”

Of course .

He said it as a matter of fact. And why wouldn’t he? The name Jefferson Lyon carried enough weight that they probably would have let him into her room even if he hadn’t claimed to be her husband. Money, as she’d learned long ago, didn’t just talk, it shouted .

“Caitlyn,” he was saying, and she forced her overworked mind to focus. “There were no other rooms available. The hotel was completely booked up. So what else was I supposed to do?”

“Go home?” she offered, throwing both hands high in exasperation.

“Not without seeing you.” He casually leaned back and propped himself up on his elbows. The towel slipped again and Caitlyn sucked in air. Now most of his thick thigh was exposed, with the soft blue towel just covering up the essentials.

Closing her eyes, Caitlyn rubbed at the spot between her eyes and told herself to count to ten. When she’d finished, she counted to twenty. Didn’t help. She was still furious and a little shocked and a lot needy.

So not a good combo.

Jefferson watched her and wished he could read her mind. The emotions flitting across her features were fleeting and so diverse he knew that her thoughts had to be wildly entertaining.

While she began to pace, talking to herself, Jefferson followed her with his gaze. Sunlight speared through the open French doors leading to the small private balcony. A soft wind made the sheer curtains dance and wave with languid abandon and the wash of golden light in the room played on Caitlyn’s long, lean legs, tanned to the color of warm honey. Something stirred within him and he scowled briefly as he recalled the desk clerk describing Caitlyn as “the one with the amazing legs.”

Jefferson had to admit the guy had been right. And why had he never noticed Caitlyn’s legs before? Shaking his head now, he pushed that stray thought out of his mind and concentrated instead on the situation. He was here with her and his plan was just getting started.

He could have gone downstairs to find her, but meeting her this way had been so much more…intriguing. He hadn’t had any trouble talking his way into Caitlyn’s room—and if he owned this particular resort, he’d have fired the clerk who’d bowed to Jefferson’s name and money long enough to hand over the key to a guest’s room. But since that employee wasn’t his trouble, he could only appreciate the fact that the Lyon name carried the weight he had needed.

Of course, the fact that Jefferson had bought up the remaining rooms in the hotel so he wouldn’t be able to leave Caitlyn’s room had probably convinced the desk jockey to be more lenient than usual.

“You can’t stay here,” she said finally.

“No choice. There aren’t any available rooms.”