Maureen Child - A Bride For The Boss

“Temper?” He scowled and shifted his gaze back to the view out the window. He realized it was later than he thought, as he watched Laura hurrying across the parking lot to her car. He sighed when she glanced back at the building uneasily. Hell, he’d be lucky if Laura didn’t desert him, too. Still, he felt as though he had to defend himself. “I don’t have a temper—”

Violet laughed and the sound rolled on and on until she was nearly gasping for breath. “Oh my, Mac. That was a good one.”

He scowled a little as Laura drove out of the lot, then he shifted his gaze to the twilight just creeping across the sky. “Glad you’re having a fine time.”

“Well, come on,” she said, laughter still evident in her tone. “Don’t you remember the roof-raising shouting you used to do at me when I was a kid?”

“Shouting’s not temper,” he argued, “that’s communication.”

“Okay, sure,” she said, chuckling. “Anyway, how’s it going in the office without Andi there riding herd on everything?”

“It’s my business, Vi,” he reminded her. “I think I can take care of it on my own.”

“That bad, huh?”

His back teeth ground together and he took a tight grip on the shout that wanted to erupt from his throat. It would only prove his sister right about his temper. And yeah, she was right about Andi being gone, too. It wasn’t easy. Harder, frankly, than he’d thought it would be. But he wouldn’t admit it. Wouldn’t say so to Vi and for damn sure wouldn’t be calling Andi to ask for help while she sat on some beach sipping cocktails. She’d made her choice, he told himself. Walked away from her responsibilities—from him—without a backward glance.

“Well, when I saw Andi earlier, she was doing just fine, in case you were interested...”

He came to attention. “You saw her? Where?”

“Her house.”

Mac frowned out the window at the darkening sky. “She said she was taking her vacation time.”

“And she’s using it to fix up the house she’s barely seen since she bought it.”

He heard the dig in there and he wouldn’t apologize for working so much. And as his assistant, Andi had been expected to spend as much time as he did at the job—and she’d never complained until now.

“With what I pay her as my executive assistant,” he argued, “Andi could have hired crews of men to pull that house together at any point in the last year.”

“Speaking of points,” his sister said, “you’re missing Andi’s entirely. She wants a life, Mac. Something you should think about, too.”

“My life is just fine.”

“Right. It’s why you’re living in the big ranch house all by yourself and the last date you had was with that airhead model who had trouble spelling her own name.”

Mac snorted. She had a point about Jez. But when a man dated a woman like that, he wasn’t worrying about her IQ.

“You realize you’re supposed to be on my side in this?”

“Strangely enough, I am on your side, Mac. You’re the most hardheaded man I’ve ever known—and that includes my darling husband, Rafe.”

“Thanks very much,” he muttered.

“I’m just saying,” Vi went on, “maybe you could learn something from Andi on this.”

“You want me to quit, too? You ready to take over?”

She laughed and he could almost see her rolling her eyes. “A vacation isn’t the end of the world, Mac. Even for you.”

While Vi talked, telling him all about the new nursery she and Rafe were having designed, Mac’s mind once again focused on Andi.

Why in hell she’d all of a sudden gone off the rails, he still didn’t understand. But if she was here in Texas and not being waited on by hot-and-cold-running cabana boys, maybe he could find out.

He smiled to himself. And maybe, he could convince her that quitting this job was the biggest mistake she’d ever made.

Three

It had been a long day, but a good one.

Andi was feeling pretty smug about her decision to quit and was deliberately ignoring the occasional twinges of regret. She’d done the right thing, leaving her job and—though it pained her—Mac behind. In fact, she should have done it three years ago. As soon as she realized that she was in love with a man who would never see her as more than a piece of office equipment.

Her heart ached a little, but she took another sip of wine and deliberately drowned that pain. Once she was free of her idle daydreams of Mac, she’d be able to look around, find a man to be with. To help her build the life she wanted so badly. A house. Children. A job that didn’t eat up every moment of her time until it was all she could do to squeeze out a few minutes for a shower every day.

Shaking her head clear of any thoughts at all, she sipped her wine and focused on the TV. The old movie playing was one of her favorites. And The Money Pit seemed particularly apt at this moment. The house needed a lot of work, but now she had the time and the money to put into it. It occurred to her that she was actually nesting and she liked it. The smell of fresh paint wafted through the room, even with the windows open to catch whatever the early-summer breeze might stir up. It was a warm night, but Andi was too tired to care. Her arms ached from wielding a roller all day, but it felt good. So good, in fact, she didn’t even grumble when someone knocked on the front door, disturbing her relaxation period.

Wineglass in hand, she answered the door and jolted when she saw Mac smiling at her from across the threshold. He was absolutely the last person she would have expected to find on her porch.

“Mac? What’re you doing here?”

“Hello to you, too,” he said and stepped past her, unasked, into the house.

All she could do was close the door and follow him into the living room.

He turned a slow circle, taking in the room, and she looked at her house through his eyes. The living room had scarred wooden floors, a couch and coffee table and a small end table with a lamp, turned on now against the twilight gloom. The attached dining room was empty but for the old built-in china cabinet, and the open doorway into the kitchen showed off that room’s flaws to perfection.

The whole house looked like a badly furnished rental, not like someone’s home. But then, in her defense, she hadn’t had the opportunity before now to really make a difference in the old house. Still, her newly painted soft green walls looked great.

He sniffed. “Been painting.”

“Good guess.”

He turned around, gave her a quick smile that had her stomach jittering before she could quash her automatic response. “I can smell it. The color’s good.”

“Thanks. Mac, why are you here?”

“First off,” he said, “where the hell did you file the Franklin contracts?”

She hadn’t been expecting that. “Alphabetically in the cabinet marked T for takeovers. There’s also a B for buyouts and M for mergers.”

He whipped his hat off and ran his fingers through his hair. “Of course there is.”

“Laura could have told you this.”

“Laura’s not speaking to me.”

“You scared her, didn’t you,” Andi said, shaking her head.

“I’m not scary.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“Maybe I should,” he muttered, then shrugged. “I’m also here because I wanted to get a look at what you left me for.”

“You make it sound like I’m your cheating wife.” She sighed. “I didn’t leave you. I left my job.”

But she had left him, Mac thought. It didn’t feel like an employee walking out, but a betrayal. Damn it, she’d taught him over the years to count on her. To depend on her for too many things—and then she was gone. How the hell else was he supposed to feel?