Maureen Child - A Baby For The Boss

“I’ll see you at the office?”

“Yeah,” she said abruptly, cutting off her own thoughts before they could lead her down completely ridiculous paths. “I’ll be there.”

“All right, then.” He turned away to grab his jacket off the floor. Shrugging it on, he looked back at her and said, “In honor of this new cooperation between us, I’d like you to go to Laughlin with me in a week or so. Check out the new hotel. I want to walk the property, get a feel for it before we start the renovations.”

“Good.” She forced a smile that she hoped looked more convincing than it felt. “It would be good for me to get an on-site idea for the placement of the murals.”

“Okay.” He tugged the jacket into place. “We’ll go out a week from Monday. Figure to stay at least overnight. I’ll have Linda make reservations at the River Lodge.”

Her stomach jittered. Laughable really, because what virtue was she suddenly so worried about? But the two of them were practically combustible, so was it really wise to invite more temptation? “Overnight?”

He shrugged. “We’ll take the company jet into Vegas, and drive into Laughlin from there. I want enough time to explore the place. Staying over is the only solution.”

“Right.” Overnight. Did that mean they’d be sharing a bed again? Was he expecting that? Well, if so, he was doomed to disappointment. Jenny wasn’t going to let this spiral into an affair that would leave her broken and miserable when it ended. Better to end it now. And much better to let him know just where she stood on this before they went any further.

“I won’t be sleeping with you again.”

One dark eyebrow winged up. “I didn’t say you would be.”

“Just saying,” she went on, shaking her head, “I’m not interested in an affair and I’m not going to keep sleeping with my boss.”

A dark scowl marred his face briefly. “This wasn’t about boss and employee. It never was.”

She shivered under his steady stare, but lifted her chin to ask, “Then what was it about, Mike?”

“Need,” he said simply, biting the single word off as if it tasted bitter.

There it was. Plain and simple. He didn’t care about her, Jenny told herself. Probably didn’t much like her. He certainly didn’t trust her. She hated to admit that he was right about this, but she knew that hunger had drawn them together and then that same vicious desire had pulled them back in when they’d both believed it was done between them.

So no more. Of anything. They would have to work together for the next few months and sex—especially great sex—just complicated everything.

* * *

Over the next few days, Jenny almost convinced herself that nothing had happened between Mike and her. She spent her days concentrating on the art ideas for the new hotel. Using the photos and 360-degree videos provided by the real estate company, Jenny laid out her plans for the work to be done. But she couldn’t really be sure of anything until she saw the place firsthand.

“Have you got the sketches for ‘The Wild Hunt’ done yet?”

She glanced up from her computer screen to look at Dave Cooper, the new head of graphic design. When her old supervisor, Joe, had left to take a job with one of the big Hollywood studios, they’d all missed him. But Dave had slid right into the position as if he’d always been there.

“You’ll have them by tomorrow,” she said. The next game they were working on was already taking shape and so far, Jenny loved doing the art for it. A wild hunt, complete with faery warriors, pookas and the supernatural beings that hunted them. No doubt, it would be another winner for Celtic Knot and she really enjoyed being a part of it.

“I think you’ll like them.” She’d been refining her sketches for the past few nights, polishing them so no one could say she’d neglected this project in favor of the art for the new hotel.

Dave grinned, eased one hip against the edge of her desk and pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. In his late thirties, he looked like a typical computer geek—tall, thin, with big brown eyes behind thick, black-rimmed glasses. He had a generous smile and a puppylike enthusiasm for the work. “I always like your stuff, Jen. I read your notes on the ideas you have for the drawings and I think they’ll be great.”

He was so nice, Jenny thought. It was a damn shame that all she felt for him was friendship. Life would have been much easier if only she’d been attracted to someone like Dave.

“Thanks.” She smiled at him. “I’m glad you stopped by. There’s something else I’d like to run past you.”

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“You know in ‘The Wild Hunt,’ there’s the magical wolf terrorizing the village?”

“Yeah.” Joe grinned wider and nodded his head eagerly. “Early renderings are awesome. Eric Santos worked it so that when the wolf transforms into a Black Knight, he retains the teeth and the yellow eyes. Truly excellent.”

Eric did great work. He had an eye for detail that skipped most artists as they usually looked at the big picture and left the so-called inconsequential bits for the interns to fill in or expand on. Eric didn’t work like that, though, and neither did Jenny, so she had a lot of respect for him.

“Sounds really great,” she said, meaning it. “Can’t wait to see it. But what I wanted to ask you about is, I’ve got this idea for another hero in the game program.”

He frowned a little, clearly puzzled. “Another hero? We’ve already got Finn MacCool as the hero. He’s the ancient Irish warrior. What’re you thinking?”

Actually, she’d done a lot of thinking in the past few days. Trying to keep her mind busy and off Mike Ryan, Jenny had indulged herself with searching out Irish myths and playing with possible story lines. She’d even turned a few sketches into an abbreviated storyboard to pitch to Sean and Mike at some point. But her idea for “The Wild Hunt” was just a little something extra and if she ran it by Dave first, he’d let her know if it merited being presented to the Ryans.

“I was thinking that even a legendary hero like Finn MacCool could use a little help.”

“Okay.” Dave pushed his glasses up higher as they slid down his nose. “What’ve you got?”

“I was thinking it might be a nice twist to have a Wise Woman in the mix.”

“Wise Woman?”

“You know, it’s what they called witches back in the day.”

He laughed. “Really? Interesting. Okay. Tell me.”

Encouraged by the way he was giving her his complete concentration, Jenny started talking. Reaching into her top desk drawer, she pulled out a few sketches she’d made the night before. Handing them to Dave, she talked while he looked through them.

“She can live in the village. Almost like an Easter egg surprise, she wouldn’t be activated unless the gamer hit a certain point on the quest.”

Jenny paused, waited and was rewarded when Dave said, “Keep going.”

“Okay.” Tapping one finger on a storyboard of “The Wild Hunt,” she said, “Here, in the timeline of the story, Finn finds a sword in a cave at the base of the cliffs. The gamer has to collect twelve rune clues to free the sword.”

“Yeah...”

“Well, I was thinking, what if we laid down fifteen rune clues? Twelve to free the sword and allow the gamer to take Finn into combat with the wizard. But, if he finds all fifteen, then he unlocks the Wise Woman. She could help Finn defeat the forest demons and—”

“Be a love interest that maybe we could carry over into the sequel,” Dave finished for her, studying the sketches of the witch. “That’s excellent, Jenny. It adds another layer and rewards the gamer for collecting all of the runes.” Nodding to himself, he added, “Game rules say twelve unlocks the sword, fifteen unlocks magic.” He laughed to himself again and kept nodding. “Yeah, that’d be great. We make three of the runes really difficult to find so that players have to work for it if they want the extra. Most will just go for twelve and the sword, but the hard-core gamer will want to go for the magic. I like it.” He lifted his gaze to Jenny’s and added, “You should take this to the Ryans. Get their okay. They’ll love it.”