About Last Night.... Michele Dunaway
Lindy replied. She shifted her weight, and Shane stepped closer to her. Lindy blinked.
“Oh Lindy, be honest. Do you think I wouldn’t figure it out?”
“You know?” Panic covered her face, sending powerful emotions flooding into her big brown eyes.
“Of course I know.”
“I didn’t think you’d…I mean, I didn’t tell you because—”
“I’m not a fool, Lindy. So tell me, did you enjoy your meeting with my grandfather?”
HIS GRANDFATHER. Lindy wanted to laugh with the irony of it all. She’d been thinking, she’d thought, oh, thank goodness. He still had no memory of Friday night.
Lindy took a calming breath to still her racing heart. “Yes, I met with your grandfather.”
“And?” Shane leaned closer.
Lindy sidestepped Shane and put her briefcase on the coffee table. Obviously Cleo had been in to clean already. The place was spotless. She turned back to face Shane. Might as well get it over with. “With Megan’s announcing her pregnancy and her decision that she wants to stay at home after the baby, your grandfather plans to do some reshuffling of employees. When the time comes he’ll fill Megan’s spot with someone from his Jacobsen Stars upper-level-management program, but right now he thought I would be perfect for a midlevel position that is currently open.”
“I see.” Shane ran a hand through his hair. “Just as I expected. He said as much when he came over here Saturday. You do realize that this is all just a ploy to get me into the company? Steal the assistant so the grandson will follow?”
After working for Shane for three years, Lindy knew the entire family situation. But it didn’t matter. “I told you I have career aspirations, Shane. There are a lot of benefits to working for Jacobsen. Not that I don’t enjoy working for you, but at least at the broker’s office I came into contact with other people.”
He frowned. “We get a lot of requests for money from the foundation. You’re in contact with people all the time.”
“Sure, on the phone. I have no work colleagues that I do things with.”
“You have me.”
That, of course, was the problem. Lindy took a calming breath. “Besides you.”
“Is there something wrong with working in a small office?”
Yes! We made love all night! “No, but it’s not enough. Not anymore.”
Shane again raked his hand through his blond hair, a sure sign he was agitated. “I don’t understand you, Lindy. Everything was fine Friday afternoon and today it’s night-and-day different. What the hell is going on? Has your roommate been on your case about me again?” He paused, his blue eyes searching her face. “I can see from your expression that she has.”
Adopting a defensive posture, Lindy squared her shoulders. “Tina’s only looking after my best interests.”
“And you don’t think that I am?”
Not in the way she needed. But she couldn’t tell him that. Thus, for a moment Lindy paused, remembering the conversation she and Tina had had. Tina had called Shane a playboy who would never grow up. Then she’d said, “Lindy, you’re a personal assistant to a man with too much money. He’s never had to do a day of work in his life. That’s not a job. In my book, that’s called baby-sitting. Heck, because of this man you can’t even have a real relationship with anyone. Craig’s a nice guy and you’ve never really given him a chance. Just a few odd dates here and there.”
No, for three years Lindy had given Shane the best of her, never once asking for anything in return. All other men paled when judged by the Shane factor.
Lindy looked at Shane, whose expression still showed that he was waiting for her answer. She searched desperately for the right words, finally settling on, “I think that I need more.”
Shane moved across the room and stood close to her. “More what? Money? Done. You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had. I’ll pay you—” he named a figure that was astronomical, and more than what Grandpa Joe had offered earlier. In less than a minute he had practically doubled her salary.
“I—” Lindy choked as she tried to speak. The salary he’d offered would allow her to save for the down payment on a house. She’d be able to move herself into a comfortable financial position, one that would secure her future. Money was her absolutely weakest spot because she’d grown up with hardly any.
So, was she prostituting herself if she stayed? Could she stay with him for a short while longer? Resolve filled her as her mind overrode her emotions. She should take Shane’s counteroffer back to Grandpa Joe. That’s what she should do. She steeled herself. Yes, that’s what any good businesswoman would do.
He must have sensed her indecision because he stepped forward and took her hands in his. Heat and warmth from his touch immediately spread through her. His gaze gently held hers. “Lindy, I need you. Stay.”
Emotions poured through Lindy, overriding the common sense and mental control she’d been struggling to hang on to. Her ability to reason and think flew out the window. It had always been like that with Shane. All he ever had to do was touch her or look at her with those blue eyes, just as he was doing now, and she’d be swept away. She couldn’t resist him.
He was her downfall.
“One month.” The words escaped from her mouth, buying her time. “I’ll decide at the end of a month. I’ll give you at least one more month, and then decide after that what I’m going to do.”
A jubilant smile lit up Shane’s face, and Lindy turned her head away. He dropped her hands, allowing her a fraction more self-control as the heat from his touch subsided. “You know I’ll convince you to stay longer.”
“We’ll see.” She struggled to calm her racing heart.
Shane, however, was now back to business. “Since we have at least a month, can we now get things back to normal between us?”
She doubted things would ever be normal between them again. But what was one more lie? “Sure. Now I’ve got a lot of work to do. Those foundation requests that you were expecting arrived in today’s mail. As soon as I process everything I’ll get them ready for you.”
“That sounds fine.”
Lindy gathered her things and headed into the office. Up until today she’d always thought it was overly large. But now, with Shane’s desk so close to hers, the space seemed impossibly small. How could she work right beside him?
One month. She could do one month. That would give her time to renegotiate the job with Grandpa Joe, and then make a move to Jacobsen Enterprises. She’d give herself one month to begin to heal her heart and say her final goodbyes to Shane.
“I REALLY DON’T THINK you should go to work today.” Tina stood in the doorway to the apartment’s hall bathroom. “Whatever you’ve got, Lindy, you’ve got it bad.”
Lindy wiped her mouth on the wet washcloth that Tina handed her. “Really, I’ll be fine. Those chicken taquitos we had for dinner yesterday just didn’t sit well. I was burping them up all night.”
Tina leaned over, averting her eyes as she flushed the toilet for Lindy. “Well, there they go, or at least their remnants.”
Still clutching the washcloth to her lips, Lindy got to her feet. “I feel funny. Do I feel warm?”
Tina put her hand on Lindy’s forehead. “No. No fever. I think you probably just had food poisoning.”
“That’s what I think, although I don’t know why it didn’t claim you, too.”
“I only ate one of them. You had like six or seven. Anyway, why don’t you go back to sleep? I’ll call Shane and tell him