LITMIR.BIZ

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smile into his voice. “Everything’s back on schedule.”

      “Oh, happy to hear it.”

      “Yeah,” Jefferson said. “I’m sure.”

      He and Max had been competing for years—at everything from racquetball to gross tonnage shipped. Now, with the first of the Lyon cruise ships ready to set sail in just under six weeks, Max was no doubt hoping to beat Jefferson to the prime Atlantic routes.

      “As it happens, I am,” Max assured him. “We can’t really have a competition if your boat never gets off the dock, can we? We’re going to have a month’s head start on you as it is.”

      Jefferson picked up his sterling-silver pen, tapped it against the desktop, then tossed it down. Leaning back in his leather chair, he stared up at the ceiling and smiled. “From what I hear, you should be more interested in what’s happening to your own ship.”

      There was a pause in which Jefferson imagined Max sitting straight up in his chair and glaring at his reflection in the mirror across from his desk. A good image.

      “What do you mean?”

      “Well,” Jefferson said, enjoying himself more now, “my man in France tells me that the new Striver ocean liner is having some trouble keeping its chefs.”

      “Lies.”

      “Uh-huh.” Grinning now, Jefferson said, “You know, if you knew how to treat employees, Max, your new chef wouldn’t be on his way to Portugal right now to check out the kitchen on the new Lyon cruise ship.”

      “You stole him away, did you?”

      “Wasn’t even difficult,” Jefferson admitted. “Seriously, Max, you should have offered to pay the man what he’s worth.”

      A long moment passed before Max chuckled. Then he said, “You win this round, Jeff. But the game’s not over.”

      When he hung up, Jefferson was still smiling. Caitlyn was busy running his office, he’d managed to one-up Max—and it wasn’t even eight in the morning yet.

      Caitlyn’s fingers flew across the keyboard as she typed up one of several memos that would be distributed throughout the company. Amazing, really, she thought, her mind free to race even while she was busy transcribing Jefferson’s pitiful penmanship.

      He didn’t even consider for a moment that she might one day take Max up on his offer of a job. “There’s no way you’d leave, Caitlyn,” she muttered, repeating his words with a bit more snide in her tone, then adding a few more things that he was no doubt thinking but hadn’t said. “You’re just too reliable. You’re like my trusty dog, Caitlyn. Always there. Happy to help. Grateful for a stupid pat on the head.”

      It wasn’t so much that she resented the fact he wasn’t worried about keeping her on as his assistant, she told herself firmly as she turned to reach for the memo as it shot out of the printer. It’s that she resented the fact he wasn’t worried about keeping her on as his assistant!

      Shouldn’t he be worried? Shouldn’t he at least have the decency to say, I hope you never leave, Caitlyn. You’re too important to me. To the company.

      Right. Like that would ever happen.

      She shook her head, told herself she should be flattered that her boss was so sure of her loyalty. But that just didn’t work. Instead, she was really irritated that it didn’t bother him at all for one of his top competitors to continually be offering her a job.

      “See?” she whispered. “This is why you need to take a break. You need that trip, Caitlyn. It’ll be good to get away from everything for a while. It’ll be good for Jefferson Lyon to have to run this place without you for a while. Maybe then he’d show some gratitude. Maybe then he’d notice you and—”

      No. What was she saying?

      She wasn’t trying to get him to notice her as a woman.

      Just as a person.

      So, yes, she should go. Think about herself first for a change and just take off. Be adventurous.

      Yet, even as she said the words, her conscience was arguing with her. There was no point in going away. She wasn’t getting married, didn’t have a honeymoon to go on. So surely she should stay and work. Do the responsible thing. Do the right thing, as she always did.

      Good old Caitlyn. By-the-book, follow-the-rules Caitlyn. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t color outside the lines.

      “God, I’m so boring.” She propped her elbows on the desk and dropped her head into her hands. “Pitiful. Seriously pitiful. Twenty-six years old and I’ve never done a damn thing just for myself. Isn’t it about time, Caitlyn?” Her voice was muffled against her hands and that was probably just as well. “Don’t you owe it to yourself to get out there and see some of the world and let the world see you?”

      Sure, it was an outrageously expensive vacation. But didn’t she deserve a little pampering? Didn’t she owe it to herself to relax and recharge?

      “God, now I’m starting to sound like Janine.” She straightened up and smiled to herself as she remembered how her friend had spent the better part of an hour convincing her and Debbie that they were doing the right thing by going to Fantasies.

      “Who’s Janine?”

      Caitlyn jolted at the sound of Jefferson’s deep voice coming from right behind her. Then she laid one hand against her galloping heart and looked up at him, shaking her head. “You know, it’d probably be easier to kill me if you just hit me over the head, rather than going for the old stop-her-heart routine.”

      “You knew I was here.”

      “You were on the phone,” she pointed out.

      “Not now,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket. The sleeves of his pinstriped white shirt were rolled back to the elbows over tanned forearms and the collar of his shirt was gaping open behind a loosened knot in his navy-blue tie. Leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb, he asked again, “So. Who’s Janine?”

      “A friend,” Caitlyn said, turning her gaze back to the stack of files on her desk. God, how much else had he heard? Had he been standing there the whole time she’d been muttering about how boring she was? Perfect. That was just perfect. “You saw her at the bar last night.”

      “The tiny blonde or the tall spiky-haired brunette?”

      “Her hair is not spiky,” Caitlyn argued, “it’s tousled.”

      “By a Weedwacker.”

      She’d dismiss that one. Why the interest, though? Was he trying to be nice? Because he felt guilty about not even knowing her fiancé’s name? No. That couldn’t be it. Jefferson Lyon didn’t do guilt. So why the friendly banter? Why not just shut himself up in his office as he did every other day? Was it the early-morning quiet of the building? With only him and her there to work?

      Did it even matter?

      “You weren’t on long with Max,” she said in a blatant attempt to change the subject.

      “No.” Jefferson plowed one hand through his hair. His eyes narrowed and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “He only called to goad me about the strike in Portugal and to remind me that his ship will be ready nearly a full month before ours.”

      “Aah.” The competitors were at it again.

      Jefferson shoved both hands into his slacks pockets and said, “But at least I got to remind him that we stole his top chef. Besides, Max is still stung over losing the Franco contract to us last year.”

      Caitlyn smiled up at her boss. That had been a real coup. Nailing down the shipping contract for Franco Technologies had taken her and Jefferson more than six months to complete. “Well, that had to make you feel better.”

      One

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