LITMIR.BIZ

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him anything, Cait. You quit, remember?”

      “Of course I remember, but—”

      “No buts,” Janine cut her off neatly. “He’s working you for a reason, Cait— Michael, for the love of God, go up and wait on customers. If you keep trying to arrange those flowers I’m gonna beat you to death with ‘em.” She blew out a breath, then said, “I swear, if I don’t get to that island soon, this shop is going to be a bloodbath.”

      Caitlyn laughed and it felt good. “You talk a good game, Janine, but we both know you’re just not the violent type.”

      “I could learn.”

      “Caitlyn!” A deep voice called her name and she stopped dead on the sidewalk.

      “Oh, god,” she whispered into her phone as she turned around to watch Jefferson striding toward her. “He found me. Damn it, he tracked me into town and he found me.”

      “It’s a small island,” Janine reminded her. “How hard could it be?”

      “Oh, he looks so good,” Caitlyn said. He’d come to the island in such a hurry he hadn’t packed many clothes. Instead, he’d bought a new wardrobe here in the village. And these clothes were nothing like what she was used to seeing him in.

      Normally, he was a three-piece-suit kind of man. Elegantly cut. Perfectly tailored. The ultimate alpha male in charge of his world. But here on the island he was wearing casual clothing that managed to make him look amazing and all too … approachable. Today, he was wearing summer-white slacks and a short-sleeved dark red shirt, open at the collar to display a vee of tanned skin that had Caitlyn’s fingertips itching to touch it.

      His tawny hair looked a little lighter from all the sun and his eyes looked even bluer than usual. He was clutching a cell phone to his ear, though, and the frown on his face didn’t bode well for whoever he was talking to.

      “Earth to Caitlyn!”

      “Huh?” Janine’s voice shrieked in her ear, but all Caitlyn heard was an annoying buzzing of sound. How could she think about anything but Jefferson when he was walking toward her, spearing his gaze into hers?

      “Caitlyn, get a grip. Don’t let him get to you. You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to—”

      “I’ll call you back,” Caitlyn said, and folded up her phone in the middle of Janine’s tirade.

      Jefferson stopped in front of her, held up one hand to keep her from speaking and said with an exaggerated patience, “The Peterson contracts are in the file, Georgia.” He rolled his eyes, blew out an impatient breath and demanded, “Look again.”

      Caitlyn winced in sympathy. Poor Georgia. The older woman was as nervous as a fire walker when she had to speak directly to Jefferson. No doubt, Georgia’s nerves were making her even more helpless than usual.

      “No,” Jefferson said, and gave Caitlyn a glare that plainly said, This is all your fault for quitting. “I don’t care if you’ve already looked and can’t find them. Look again. The contracts were to be sent to Legal this morning. If you can’t find—”

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake, give me the phone.” Caitlyn wiggled her fingers for it, and when he handed it to her, she said, “Georgia, hi. This is Caitlyn.”

      Instantly, the other woman started babbling about broken copiers, a secretary who was out sick and the three letters she still had to get out before the end of the day. Panic trilled across the phone lines and had Caitlyn sighing.

      “Relax, okay? Everything will get done.” She looked at Jefferson, who was watching her with barely concealed fury. Forgetting about him, she focused on the woman hyperventilating on the phone. “First thing, though, you need to get the contracts down to Legal. The Peterson contracts are in the file, I put them there myself. It’s okay. Go look again and take your time. I’ll wait.”

      “The woman is incompetent,” Jefferson muttered, and shoved both hands into the pockets of his slacks. Irritation stamped on his features, he looked like a king who needed to lop off someone’s head.

      “No, she’s not. You make her nervous.”

      “She makes me crazy,” he countered irritably.

      “That’s because you’re so impati— Georgia!” Smiling, Caitlyn nodded at Jefferson. “Good. You found them. No, don’t worry. Just take them down to Legal yourself. There’s still plenty of time. You’re welcome,” she said. “And it was good talking to you, too.”

      Closing the phone, she tossed it back to Jefferson with a shake of her head. “Crisis averted.”

      He tucked his phone into the breast pocket of his shirt. “Only because you took care of it.”

      “You could have done it, too,” she said, turning away and continuing on her walk up the narrow street. Pausing now and then to look in a shop window, she slanted him a glance. “You just don’t know how to talk to people.”

      “Excuse me?”

      She faced him, tilting her head back to look him directly in the eye. “You give orders, Jefferson. You don’t talk.”

      “I’m the boss.”

      “And trust me when I say everyone knows it.”

      “Everyone but you.”

      “You’re not my boss, anymore,” she pointed out, and ignored the tiny, tiny, tiny twinge of regret that pinged inside her. Then she started walking again, determined to enjoy the sun on her face and the cool ocean wind that rushed through the tidy village.

      “I should be,” he muttered, and shortened his long stride to keep pace beside her. “You shouldn’t have quit, Caitlyn. That phone call only defines the fact that you have your finger on the pulse of my company.”

      She had to admit it was good to hear him say so. Everyone wanted to know that their efforts were appreciated. That their work was noticed. Too bad she’d had to quit to get him to realize it.

      “You belong with me, Caitlyn.”

      “What?” She stopped dead outside a jewelry store and looked up at him.

      He scowled at her. “You heard me. You belong with me. With Lyon Shipping.”

      “Aah …” Idiot, she told herself, turning her gaze from him to the shop window. Of course he’d been talking about her job. He hadn’t meant that he’d wanted her for himself. That’s what all of this was about, she knew it. Whether he was willing to admit it or not, he was here, on this island, tempting her, because he missed his trusty assistant.

      Here she’d been torn over the lusty, needy feelings ripping through her like lightning strikes, and he was simply trying to woo her back to work. Well, she was done. He could do his damnedest, but she wasn’t going back to her old life. This was the new and improved Caitlyn. She wasn’t going to bury her own wants and needs anymore for the sake of everyone else.

      Jefferson watched her expression change from surly to needy in a blink. And he smiled to himself, suddenly feeling on surer ground. Talking to Georgia had had him ready to tear out his own hair. Then watching Caitlyn disarm the situation with almost no effort at all had only served to feed his own conviction that he needed to get her back and he wasn’t making any headway.

      Now, though, he had another idea. “What are you staring at?”

      “Those,” she said, and tapped a fingernail against the glass. Gold earrings dazzling with drops of emerald and topaz shone in the sun, and Jefferson knew exactly what to do. What he should have done from the moment he’d arrived on this blasted island.

      He wanted to seduce her, not annoy her. He should have been pulling the big guns out from the beginning. But it wasn’t too late to start.

      “Come on.” He grabbed her upper arm despite her token protests,

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