The Boss's Mistletoe Maneuvers (5 page)

She wanted that kiss his lips were promising. Another kiss. A better one, if there was such a thing, especially given that no one, as he said, was there to witness it.

With that thought, Kim knew she was screwed. Chaz Monroe wasn’t merely an intelligent bastard, his actions were highly suspicious. Was he a man ruled by what was in his pants, or did he have some nebulous plan of his own to humble her with?

When his mouth brushed across her right temple, Kim squirmed and glanced up to meet the directness of his gaze. She absorbed a jarring jolt of longing for the closeness she had to repel. Monroe was her boss. No one in the company could condone a relationship with him that might eventually lead to the promotion she already deserved. Rumors were a plague in business. If she were to get a promotion in the near future, some would now say she had slept her way to the top.

Several coworkers had witnessed what happened in the bar. Whereas it might have gone unnoticed if she’d kept quiet, in a moment of panic she had idiotically made sure it hadn’t gone unnoticed. Plan C had been set in motion.

Damn him. Damn you, Monroe.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” she demanded.

His breath stirred her hair. “Obviously, that contract involves personal issues for you that I hadn’t anticipated.”

“Bravo for concluding that.”

“I have no way of knowing what those issues are unless you tell me about them.”

“They aren’t your business. Not something so personal. Leave it, Monroe. I’m asking you to let it go.”

“Or what? A bit of blackmail will back your request up?” He sighed. “I’m concerned, that’s all. Neither of us has to be those people in the bar. We can be friends if you’d prefer that. I’m actually a good listener. We could go someplace quiet and talk things over.”

“Like your apartment?”

He shook his head.

“But you’d like to take me to your apartment,” she said.

“What fool wouldn’t? But that’s not the point here.”

“I’ve asked you to back off.”

He touched the cheek she had slapped. “Right. I got that.”

“And you refuse to listen,” Kim said.

“I don’t tend to take no for an answer when a moment like the one in the bar told me otherwise.”

“Then we can finish this tomorrow,” Kim said. “After we’ve thought it over and had some distance.”

“I’m fairly certain we should finish this now,” Monroe countered. “I’d really like to know what upsets you. I thought you were going to cry.”

His gaze was volcanic. He had nice eyes. Great eyes. Light blue, with flecks of gold. Those eyes wouldn’t miss much, if anything. He would see her cave. Right then, his gaze sparkled with a need to understand what she had been thinking, beyond the possibility of blackmail. Or else maybe he just wanted to know more about the terms of their deal.

Letting Monroe strike a nerve is what had gotten her into this mess. He was too handsome, and too willing to get to know her better. Men like him often used women, her mother had preached. If you gave them your secrets, they’d betray those secrets at the drop of a hat. If you gave them your love, they’d easily destroy it.

Kim wanted desperately to stop hearing her mother’s voice. She would have covered her ears if Monroe had let her.

“If you’re going to fire me for slapping you, go ahead,” she said a bit too breathlessly for the sternness she had been aiming for. “There’s no need for us to further humiliate each other.”

“Fire you? Humiliate you? I wanted to meet with you to avoid those things.”

“Well, you didn’t do a decent job of reaching that objective. Now you do want to fire me, right? You’ll have to, unless I protect myself?”

“That was never the idea, Kim. You’ll have to believe me.”

“Then why can’t you leave me alone? We were doing fine here until you arrived.”

“Fine? This company was sliding, whether or not you knew about the bottom line. It was in serious decline. I came here to help the agency out of that decline. The company’s success means a lot to me because I have a stake in it. I need everyone to work, including you. If you’re one of the best people here, your help is needed in all areas.”

“I’ve been doing more than my share.”

“I know that, and yet I need more. I’d ask you to do things you don’t necessarily want to do because the company requires it right now, and for no other reason.”

“Not because you want to kiss me again?”

“Yes, damn it. I want to kiss you. But believe it or not, I do have some control.”

He leaned closer as he spoke, so that Kim felt every muscle in his body from his shoulders to his thighs, and everywhere in between. Yet his mouth drew her focus: the sensuous, talented mouth that had nearly done her in.

“It’s going to be yes or no,” Monroe said. “You have it within your power to upgrade, maybe even to upper management someday. All you have to do is what I ask, or explain why you can’t.”

Kim shut her eyes.

“Look, Kim. Do this one thing for me, and we’ll reevaluate your position here.”

Kim stopped shaking just as she realized she was shaking. Like the last VP, Monroe was promising her the moon when he had no real capacity for giving it to her. He was the vice president. The only way for her to take over that job was for him to leave it.

“I’d like you to leave me alone,” she repeated.

“The company needs you.”

“Yes. With your body pressed against mine in a public hallway, I can feel how badly you need me.”

That did it. Enough was enough. No more squirming. No more playing around. Chaz Monroe had finally done it. He had just buried himself.

Smiling grimly, Kim reached into the purse hanging at her side. She pushed Monroe away and drew out the small tape recorder she kept there. With a precise movement of her finger, she clicked the gadget off.

He glanced at her in surprise, then looked down at what she held in her hand as if not quite believing what he was seeing.

“My lawyer will be talking to your lawyer in the morning if there is any further mention of my contract,” Kim said, slipping out from beneath his arm. “You have heard of sexual harassment, being number-one boss man and all?”

He was staring at her as though he’d just felt the arrow of doom pierce his heart dead-on, and also as if he had been betrayed. His arms dropped to his sides. His expression smoothed into something unreadable.

The elevator pinged as the door rolled open. Kim walked inside and turned, wearing a smile she had to struggle to maintain. Her insides were in knots. Both hands were shaking. She hid her sadness and the urge to throw the recorder at Monroe. She felt like sinking to the ground.

He just stood there. He didn’t look angry, only disappointed. He had been bushwhacked, broadsided. Did he fear what would happen to him if this conversation were to fall into the wrong hands? Did he now fear for his job?

Monroe had a casting couch, pure and simple, and she’d nearly been flat out on top of it. So what if she had liked the kiss and his hard body pressed to hers? It was best not to think about those things now. The guy, gorgeous as he was, charming as he could be, shouldn’t have taken such liberties. The vice president should have known better.

With a stern bite to her lower lip, Kim used her purse to snap the button inside the elevator that would close this case once and for all. Was she proud of how she’d accomplished this?
No.
Happy about it?
Absolutely not.
She felt dirty. Yet she had remembered the recorder at the last minute and done what had to be done.

Monroe wouldn’t fight her. Nothing good ever came of a lawsuit. So, the hope she maintained right that minute was that he would realize this and stop bothering her to change the terms of her contract. Life as usual would be the result.

The dark clouds she had been trying so hard to shake off drifted over her. She pictured her mother smiling. In reaction, Kim felt her face blanch. She swayed on her feet, truly hating what she had done and the memories that wouldn’t stop invading her mind, all because of her mother’s far-reaching influence.

This night was over, and it was too late to take anything back. She had made her bed, but at least Monroe wasn’t in it.

“Good night,” she said to him with a catch in her throat.

He stood in the corridor, motionless, his eyes on her as the elevator doors finally closed.

Five

W
ell, well...

Kim had called his bluff. She thought she’d done pretty well in this game, and he had to hand it to her. She’d hung in there and had been fairly creative about it. Still, the result was a disappointment. He hadn’t figured she would go so far in the wrong direction.

As the elevator doors closed between them, Chaz shrugged his shoulders. He knew that Kim had to be feeling a little guilty after hearing him state his case. She wasn’t dense. The telling detail about her current state of mind was that aside from the tape recorder, she hadn’t slapped him again.

Hearing the clink of rapidly approaching heels on the marble floor, Chaz turned and said, “That wasn’t remotely close to what we had discussed.”

Brenda Chang strode up to him wearing a frown. “I don’t feel very well. I feel like I’ve just stabbed my best friend in the back because—oh wait—
I have.
”

“You left us alone out of the goodness of your heart,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but you didn’t pay me enough to betray her.”

“I didn’t pay you anything at all.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“I had to try to reach her. I did try.” Chaz shook his head, eyeing the elevator.

“You have no idea how much she’d like to capitulate. She’s just not ready,” Brenda said.

“There’s no way to help with that? You won’t tell me what her problem is?”

“Not for love or money. Wild horses couldn’t drag Kim’s secrets from me without her permission.”

Chaz ventured another lingering look at the elevator.

Brenda’s voice sounded small. “What next?”

“My hands are tied. She wants to be left alone.”

“You already knew that.”

Chaz shot her a look that indicated quite clearly that he wasn’t in the mood to prolong this discussion.

“All right,” Brenda said. “But you’d better turn out to be a good guy, that’s all I can say, or you’ll have problems added onto problems. That’s a promise.”

Chaz leaned back to read the numbers on the elevator panel above the door. “If she’s going back to the office, will she stay up there long?”

Brenda shrugged.

“Does she need your shoulder to lean on?” he asked.

“I doubt it. Besides, she’ll probably get out one floor up and use the stairs to leave the building, knowing she’d get past you that way.”

Brenda’s eyes widened when she realized she’d said too much.

“That shrewd, eh?” he asked.

She blew out a sigh. “Every woman knows how to do this, Monroe. Avoidance is coded into in our genes.”

“So what will she do after that?”

“Simmer awhile, most likely, and then start thinking.”

“She doesn’t really have a case you know,” he said. “There’s no one to remove me or waggle a finger over a kiss.”

Brenda nodded. “I know that, and who you really are. You might have changed your name if being undercover here is your game, because I just looked your family up online. Kim doesn’t know yet because I didn’t get to it until now.”

“You looked me up?”

“The internet is a marvelous thing,” Brenda said. “Your family’s business dealings are plastered all over it.”

“Then you know why I’m here?”

“Yep.”

“You’ll tell her?”

“I would have already, if you hadn’t followed her to this hallway. Just so you know, friends don’t usually allow each other to do anything they might regret.”

“When she knows about me, and without her little blackmail scheme getting her the office she wants, will she leave the company?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. What would you do, in her place, if you found out that the man you were going to resort to blackmailing was in fact the owner of the agency?”

“I’d take the damn Christmas gig and get on with it,” Chaz said.

“Yes, well you have millions of dollars to fall back on, and no female hormones. Kim has a tiny apartment she can barely afford as it is, close by because she’s here working most of the time.”

Chaz gave her a sober sideways glance. “Point taken.”

“Is it?” Brenda countered.

“Quite.”

“She’s not putting you on, you know. She has been dealing with holiday stuff for years. Very real issues. Serious setbacks.”

Chaz looked again to the elevator, which had indeed stopped two floors up. He then glanced to the revolving doors leading to the street. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where her apartment is?”

“The name is Chang, not Judas.”

“I want to keep her, but I’m running out of options, Brenda. I’d like to tell her about my real position here, myself, before she does anything stupid.”

“So you’ll show up on her doorstep?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“I think that might be going beyond the call of duty. Unless there’s another reason you want to keep her here, other than her ability to work her tail off.”

Chaz thought that over, deciding that Brenda was right. He was letting an employee dictate his actions, actions that might appear as desperate. As for a reason for wanting to keep Kim, beyond chaining her to her desk...his body had made it pretty clear that he was interested in more than her work ethic. The intensity of their attraction that had led to the kiss couldn’t be ignored, and hadn’t lessened one bit.

It was a double-edged sword. If he went out of his way to keep her at the agency, his actions tonight might hurt her reputation. If she walked out, taking those big clients with her, the agency might tank.

This was an impossible situation that he had to try to put right.

“You’re right,” he said to Brenda. “She has to decide for herself, without further interference, what she will do next. Feelings have no place here.”

Brenda thought that over with her head tilted to the side. She searched his face. “Feelings, huh?”

He shrugged.

She sighed loudly and opened her purse. Removing a piece of paper and a pen, she scribbled something and handed the paper over.

“If you tell her I gave this to you, I’ll tell her you lied. Three guesses as to whom she will believe.”

After a hesitation, she handed him something else. It was a tiny tape recorder just like the one Kim had used to record their conversation.

Chaz glanced at her questioningly.

“I taped something in case Kim and I needed a laugh later,” Brenda said. “You might want to listen to the tape before finding her. It might help with that lawsuit business and save everyone some serious damage.”

Chaz pocketed the recorder. “Does this mean you’ll trust me to set things straight?”

“Hell, no. It’s bribery for you to leave me out of whatever happens from this point on.”

Chaz decided right then that he really did like Brenda Chang.

“Will she shoot me if I show up at her place?” he asked.

“I would.”

He smiled. “I suppose following her seems desperate.”

“Completely.”

“Okay then, wish me luck.”

“Boss, you are so going to need it,” Brenda declared as Chaz headed for the street.

* * *

Kim’s feet were killing her. Stilettos required a lot of downtime and motionless posing, not trotting down New York sidewalks, contrary to what TV shows might have everyone think. The shoes were impossible, especially on the icy sidewalk.

She waved down an oncoming taxi, waited until it stopped, then ran in front of it to cross the road, assured of not getting hit when the taxi blocked traffic. The driver grumbled, and might have extended one finger in a rude gesture. She didn’t wait to see.

Thankfully, her apartment was around the corner from the agency, at the end of the block. Though close in terms of actual distance, she’d still have to soak her feet when she got there, and also work with her fractured ego.

The heels made sharp pecking sounds on the sidewalk as she threaded her way between other pedestrians. She’d left the office without her coat, and the red dress garnered a few stares and catcalls from men she passed.

“Imbeciles.” What kind of man gave a woman a whistle on the street that she could hear?

She was shivering, but she’d had to get out of the agency building. Since Monroe had followed her into the hallway, he might have continued to the office. If he had pushed his way into the elevator with her, filling the tiny, confined space with his musky, masculine maleness, there was no way to predict what might have happened. Plus, there were cameras.

Any more time spent in Chaz Monroe’s sight would be bad, and how much worse could she feel?

She walked with her gaze lowered, having set up her mental block against the windows in the stores she passed that were decorated with December finery. Some of them presented animated holiday scenes. Others showcased giant trees decorated with everything under the sun that could fit on a branch. It was especially important she didn’t view these things in entirety; not after dealing with Monroe.

She was already on edge.

With great relief, she made it down the block without seeing a single Santa suit on a street corner—a sight that would not only have filled her with the old regrets, but also reminded her of what she had told Monroe.

She wanted Santa....

Yes, she had told him that.

Well, okay. So she had been impulsive enough to use Brenda’s ridiculous excuse in a moment of panic and extreme need. Therefore, could she really blame Monroe for thinking her an idiot?

She wanted Santa.
Jeez...

Feeling sicker, Kim rushed on. She nodded to the doorman of her building and whisked by without the usual benign chitchat. Six floors up and down one long hallway, and she was home free. No one had followed her. No pink slip waited on the floor by her door.

Kim stood with her back to the wood as the door closed behind her, only then allowing herself a lungful of air. She really did feel sick. Tonight she had been possessed by her mother’s teachings. She’d been set back a few years with the flick of a tape recorder switch.

“There’s no going back. No taking it back,” she muttered.

The guilt tripled with her second breath of air. Even from the small front room, not much larger than her cubicle at work, she smelled the cookies she had dared to bake the night before.

Christmas cookies.

Her first disloyal batch.

The damn cookies might have been some kind of terrible omen. She had looked up the recipe in secret, and baked them as her first baby step toward freedom. Now her new boss had whispered fantastical things in her ear without realizing how much she’d love to participate in Christmas festivities, and how much it hurt to think of actually doing so.

Elves. Snow. Packages in red ribbons.
She might have given her right index fingernail to join in everything going on around her, and had been slowly inching in that direction.

Then she kissed Chaz Monroe.

She hung her head. Her apartment smelled like a sugar factory. Worse yet, she wanted her place to smell like
him.
Like Monroe, companionship, sex, holiday glitter and all the other things her mother had shunned so harshly. You’d think she’d know better. Someone looking in on her life might expect her to just wipe the slate clean and start over, now that her mother was no longer in the picture. Who from the outside would understand?

If she tossed the cookies, would things change? If she marched into the kitchen and got rid of the little doughy stars and trees, would time reset itself backward so that she’d have another chance to get things right?

Monroe was a jerk. He had to be. Because if he wasn’t, then she was.

Tossing her purse to the floor, Kim staggered to the couch and threw herself onto it, face-first, listening to the side seam in her tight red dress tear.

* * *

Chaz glanced at the paper, then up at the tall brick building. This was it. McKinley lived here, and he was going to trespass on her space and privacy because tonight he felt greedy. He wanted a showdown to get this over with once and for all.

She lived in a place that was a lot like his on the outside. He didn’t know her well enough to gauge her decorating skills, but figured martini glasses wouldn’t be one of her prominent fixtures.

In truth, he didn’t really know Kim at all and was relying on the concept of animal attraction to nudge him into doing what he’d never done before—plead his case a second time.

He offered a curt but friendly nod to the doorman and went inside. The doorman picked up the lobby phone and dialed apartment 612.

“Yes?” she answered after a couple of rings.

The doorman spoke briefly, then handed the phone over.

Hearing Kim’s voice left him temporarily tongue-tied, something so unlike him that he almost hung up. He thought about the napkin with the brunette’s number on it crumpled up in his pocket. Calling that number might have taken his mind off Kim McKinley for a few hours.

So, the fact that he was standing here meant he was either acting like a madman, or a man possessed. Maybe even like a sore loser refusing to give up on the outcome he wanted. Those flaws made him see red. And in the center of that puddle of red was Miss Kim McKinley, the cause of all this.

“Delivery for Kim McKinley, advertising queen,” Chaz said to her over the line, managing to keep his voice neutral. “I can’t be sure, but from the feel of the package, I think it contains an apology.”

A short span of silence followed his remark. His heart beat faster. What was he doing here, anyway? Had he just uttered the word
apology?

“This only adds to the harassment, you know,” she eventually said. “I believe stalking might be a felony.”

“Yes, well, what’s one more year behind bars when there’s so much at stake?”

“None of this is funny, Monroe.”

“No, it isn’t. At least we agree on something.”

“You can’t come up.”

“Then maybe you’ll come down.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you sorry?”

After another hesitation, she said, “No.”

“Not very convincing,” Chaz remarked. “It’s that gap between what you say and what you don’t say that keeps me wondering what you might really be thinking.”

More silence. A full twenty seconds, by his calculation. Chaz lowered the phone to keep her from hearing his growl of disappointment, then thought better of it. With the phone so close to his heart, she might be able to hear how fast it raced. She’d know something was up.