LITMIR.BIZ

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crouched by the fireplace. Kindling and mid-sized logs were neatly organized in a burnished copper tub to one side of the hearth, and a small drift of ashes and charred wood inside the fireplace suggested it was fully functional, which was very good news indeed.

      Griffin had used some of the kindling to build a neat teepee, with crumpled paper in the center, and a trio of larger logs crossed in a tripod arching over the kindling. The setup, like the hip-check he’d used to open the door, looked practiced and professional, which didn’t fit with the image of the polished businessman she’d spent the past month assisting.

      The Griffin Vaughn she worked for wore custom suits and monogrammed shirts, yet cared little for fashion. His entire focus was centered on VaughnTec. He was seeking to grow the company by shrinking their products even further while increasing the functionality of each unit. VaughnTec, which was part R & D, part mass market, combined cameras, computers, phones, music, video games and a host of other functionalities into small handheld units so simple that even the technologically challenged could figure them out within a few minutes. It was Griffin who’d moved the company in that direction when he’d taken it over from his uncle, Griffin who’d made it into the powerhouse it was today. He was ruthless without being cruel, cold without being unfriendly. But even when he was being his most cordial, she’d noticed, he maintained a thick barrier between him and the world, a reserve that she’d only seen soften when he was talking to his young son, Luke, on the phone.

      Despite the pressures of Sophie’s job situation—i.e. that losing it was a real threat yet absolutely not an option—she had grown, if not comfortable with Griffin’s business persona, at least confident that she knew where she stood with him. He was polite but not terribly friendly, and had made it obvious that he considered her too young and green for the position. But at the same time, he’d been clear about his needs and wishes, and had given her ample room to perform the tasks Kathleen had laid out for her, which had mostly consisted of scheduling his travel and juggling calls, retrieving information and hunting up the occasional meal. All of those things were well within the skills she’d learned in the courses she’d taken for certification, and if she’d fumbled a few times when nerves had overcome training, he’d seemed to let those instances go. All in all, she’d found him a tough but fair employer. Yes, he was far too attractive for her peace of mind, but she thought she understood the Griffin Vaughn she’d been working for.

      However, she didn’t know the Griffin Vaughn who was crouched down in front of the fireplace wearing a fisherman’s sweater and faded jeans, blowing a small ember into a flame, then feeding it strips of kindling until the fire flared up and lit the teepee he’d built so carefully. Logic and what she knew about her boss suggested that he should’ve looked like a man completely out of his natural element. Instead, he wore the borrowed clothes like they were old familiar friends, and he moved with neat economy as he built the fire up, coaxing it to accept the first of the logs. His towel-dried hair was engagingly rumpled, making him seem younger, though his face still gave away little of the man within.

      Illumination from the flames danced across his forbidding features. The warm light was a welcome contrast to the dimness outside, where the world had gone to grayish-white and the day was fading hours earlier than it should have.

      The fire drew Sophie forward, even as nerves warned her not to get too close to this new version of Griffin Vaughn. She stood beside him and stretched her hands out toward the fire, but felt little relief from the cold.

      “It’ll need to warm the brickwork before much heat starts bouncing out into the room,” Griffin said.

      “Were you an Eagle Scout or something?” she asked, unable to help herself, because too many things weren’t quite lining up between this Griffin and the one she thought she knew.

      “Or something.” He rose, dusting the ash from his hands, and wound up standing very near her. Too near.

      She could see the hints of hazel in his green eyes, saw them darken when tension snapped into the air between them. She was suddenly very aware of his height and strength, and the way the smell of wood smoke fit with the sight of him in jeans and a sweater—raw, masculine and elemental. And in that instant, she realized she’d been wrong about at least one thing: Griffin most definitely knew she was a woman. The knowledge was in his eyes, which were more alive than she’d ever seen them.

      Heat flared suddenly, not from the fireplace, but within her. The warmth spread from her core to her extremities, which still tingled with the aftereffects of the freezing conditions, and the danger they’d survived together.

      Maybe it was that danger that had her leaning into him, maybe it was the attraction she’d told herself to ignore all these weeks. Either way, she was suddenly very close to him, and he to her, their lips a breath apart.

      A log shifted in the fireplace, sending sparks. The noise startled her, breaking through the sensual fog and slapping her with a shout from her subconscious. Danger!

      Grabbing hold of herself, she took a big step back, away from the fireplace. Away from the man. As she did so, she was aware that he did the exact same thing, levering himself away. In that moment, she saw the shields drop back down over his expression, distancing him more surely than the floor space now separating them. Suddenly, he was no longer a regular guy starting a fire in the fireplace; he was a millionaire businessman who ate small companies for breakfast, and just happened to be wearing a sweater and jeans.

      More important, he was her boss.

      Heat rushed to Sophie’s cheeks and she berated herself for being stupid, for getting too close to the line with the man who had far too much control over her future, more than he even realized. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have—”

      “I’m going out,” he interrupted, heading for the door, where he grabbed a pair of tired-looking boots and a heavy, bright-red waterproof parka, borrowing more of Erik’s clothing. “I want to look around a little and get the generators going. There are a bunch of outbuildings—barns, a guesthouse, that sort of thing. I want to make sure they’re as secure as they’re going to get before the main force of the storm hits. I’d appreciate it if you’d check the kitchen and see about some food. Do you still have your PDA in your coat?”

      A unit of his own design, the PDAs combined a phone, computer and GPS functionalities into a single small unit.

      Sophie nodded. “Yes, I do. But won’t it have shorted out?” They were seriously useful little machines, but still, they were machines.

      “Sometimes the little buggers come back to life after they’ve gotten wet. Say, for instance, after a toddler tries to flush one of them.” His expression softened a hair at the tangential mention of his son, but his eyes stayed cool on hers, as though he was waiting to see what she would do next, how she would handle herself in the aftermath of the sensually charged moment they’d just shared.

      She was going to ignore it, that was what she was going to do, Sophie decided on the spot. Just as he’d done.

      Plastering a neutral expression on her face, she tried to drop herself back into the executive assistant’s role, even though it didn’t seem to fit quite right under the circumstances. She nodded. “Food and PDA. Got it. If I get the phone up and running, do you want me to call Sheriff Martinez and let him know what happened?”

      Griffin glanced through a window, at the whiteout conditions outside. “Definitely. See if he can get someone out here to pick us up.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s a long shot, but you never know. Maybe this is just a squall before the blizzard.”

      A howl of wind hit the side of the mansion and rattled the windows in their frames, seeming to mock the idea. Somewhere else in the house there was a crashing noise, suggesting that Perry and his work crew hadn’t secured the construction zone sufficiently against the force of the incoming blizzard.

      Griffin winced, but didn’t say anything, just jerked on the borrowed boots, shrugged into the coat and headed for the door.

      He paused at the threshold and looked back at her. “I want you to lock the deadbolt after me, and keep it

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