Electric! (19 page)

Yet they still had obstacles to overcome.

“If this were a different situation, Chase… If I wasn’t up
for this promotion too and it didn’t mean as much to me as it does, I’d want
McClellan to make you VP.”

“I know. We’re rowing the same boat, babe. Now… Get some
sleep.”

“Right.” She was about to disconnect, but said, “Wait.”

“Yeah?”

A mysterious sentiment clawed at her throat. She had
something to say, but it didn’t form on her tongue.

Since Cassidy was so used to getting all worked up over
Chase, so used to being sexually charged and secretly desperate to rip his
shirt open and touch and taste his skin, that was the particular sensation she
expected to experience now.

But beyond the fact that he made her hot and restless, he
stirred something inside her. He was patient with her, though knew exactly how
to gently push her beyond her limitations. He was considerate of her goals and
aspirations, the things that meant the most to her. He paid attention to everything
about her, remembering the simplest things like how much she enjoyed champagne
and how much she loved decadent desserts.

Chase saw her the way no one else ever had. And she saw him.

It was funny how love crept up on a person, without them
fully realizing it until the day they stopped fighting it and the emotion
enveloped them.

She had the desire to tell Chase exactly how she felt about
him. How much she admired and appreciated him. How lucky she was that he wanted
her.

That was a conversation to have in person, though.

So she tamped down the burning sensation in her throat and
instead said, “Thank you for tonight. I really needed it.”

“I’m glad it worked out. Call me tomorrow after your
meeting. And just…know that I’m cheering you on.”

A tear filled her eye and slid down her cheek. “You’re the
best, Chase. Really.”

“Sweet dreams, babe.”

“You too.”

She hung up and placed the phone on the end table. Then she
stood and went for her third glass of champagne. Now that she was so relaxed,
she felt as though she could really studied up on E-L and refine her pitch. She
worked until midnight, finishing off the Cristal and falling asleep on the
sofa.

* * * * *

The buzzing in her head couldn’t possibly be from a
hangover. Cassidy rarely got them. Especially off champagne or wine. She had a
pretty high tolerance level, after all.

But it was a distinct and insistent sound that wouldn’t go
away. Cracking an eye open, she took a moment to orient herself. A different
hotel room every night gave her pause when she tried to think of where she was
this morning.

What day was it?

Friday.

Ah, Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh!

Her eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright. And no, her
head didn’t hurt from the sudden movement. That buzzing sound wasn’t internal.
Her gaze flashed to the end table where her phone slowly vibrated across the
polished wood, inching its way toward the edge. She snapped it up and hit the
connect button.

“Meg—” she said.

“Jesus Christ, you had me worried!” her assistant all but
screamed in her ear.

“Calm down. Why are you calling so early?”

“Early? What do you mean
early
? It’s eight o’clock
here. Which makes it ten o’clock where you are—that’s if you’re in Pittsburgh.”

“Of course I’m in Pitts—Oh my God!” Panic shot through her.
“It’s
ten
o’clock?” she shrieked.

“Yes, and you missed your meeting with Pryce Shipley. His
assistant phoned to confirm the appointment had been set for today when you
didn’t arrive. She left a very nasty message on my voicemail. He doesn’t like
being stood up.”

“Oh no,” Cassidy said. She jumped to her feet and stalked
over to the nightstand. Staring at the clock, the numbers didn’t lie. “Oh. No.”
Her jaw fell slack for a few moments as shock and alarm and angst all roiled
through her. “No, no,
no
!”

“Cassidy, what the hell happened?”

“I can’t believe this!” She fought back the tears
threatening her eyes. “I was so exhausted and so relaxed last night that I
slept for
ten
fucking hours? I
never
sleep that much!”

“You didn’t set your alarm?”

“It never even crossed my mind.” Christ, she hadn’t even
thought of phoning the front desk for a wakeup call. One minute, she’d been
patting herself on the back for learning the ins and outs of Epperson-Langley
and the next…she’d woke to the sound of her phone buzzing.

“This can’t be happening,” she said, panicked anew. “Please,
please,
please
tell me I’m dreaming. This is one of those stupid
first-day-of-school dreams where you forget your pants or where homeroom is.
Right?
”

“Cass…” The empathy in Meg’s voice tugged at her. “I’m so
sorry.”

“This is unbelievable.” She sank onto the edge of the
mattress.

“It gets worse.”

“How?” she demanded.

“I called Shipley’s assistant. He’s on his way to Milan,
with other back-to-back travel and no availability for another month. And…not
interested in rescheduling a meeting with you. Or anyone else at MII.”

Her stomach completely bottomed out. “What have I done?” she
muttered. McClellan would hear about this and he’d be furious. More than that,
once he learned she’d
overslept
and missed the meeting, he’d fire her.
No two ways about it. “This is bad. So very, very bad.”

“What do you want me to do?” Meg asked, ever supportive.

“What
can
you do? What can anyone do? I spent an
entire evening indulging in fruit and crème brûlée and champagne and a massage
and—”

“My God, how could you not have been so relaxed you slept
like a baby?”

“Chase arranged it all. He thought it’d…help.”

Help who?

“No,” she whispered as her dread morphed into something more
powerful. Something painful. Something disturbingly close to betrayal.

“What is it?” Meg asked, concern in her tone.

Cassidy shook her head. “How could I even think such a
thing?” Her voice remained low. She shot to her feet and paced. “He wouldn’t
intentionally…sabotage me.”

“Cass!” By her tone, it was obvious Meg was equally shocked.
“Chase would never do anything to mess with your career!”

“I know, I know. It’s just that… He’d heard about my meeting
with Shipley. He knew it was first thing this morning. E-L is
his
big
fish that got away. Why
last
night, of all nights, did he send champagne
and a masseuse to my room?”

“Oh shit.”

Cassidy reeled. “What am I saying? Chase knows how much this
promotion means to me.”

“Yeah, but… I mean…
What if?
” Meg sounded rocked to
the core of her being that her thoughts followed the direction Cassidy’s had.
“He wants it just as much, after all.”

“It’s purely coincidental, Meg. He had no way of knowing I’d
be so out of it that I’d forget to set an alarm. Besides, no one ever said I
had to drink the whole damn bottle. That’s on me for being so stressed out that
a bubbly buzz hit all the right notes.”

“But worse timing ever on his part,” she bristled. “He
couldn’t have waited until you got home on Saturday?”

“Meg. Don’t forget how much you like Chase.”

“And don’t you forget how much you’ve invested in getting
this promotion. You’ve worked your ass off since you started with the company.
I know that more than anyone!”

“No one’s to blame for this but me, Meg,” she insisted. Then
she sighed. “I need a shower and… I don’t know. I need to change my return
flight. Spend the weekend in Hartford instead of going back to Scottsdale. Can
you rebook me? Bring me into town Sunday night instead of Saturday?”

“Of course. Whatever you want, Cass. Spend time with your
family and you’ll feel better on Monday.”

“When I’ll have to face McClellan,” she added with panic in
her voice. Her shoulders bunched as tension seized her. “Look, I’m really
sorry. This doesn’t bode well for you if—”

“He’d be crazy to fire you,” Meg simply said.

“Still—”

“Don’t worry about me, Cass. Just try to relax and move on.
You still have a meeting this afternoon in Philadelphia.”

“Right.” Though it was with a boutique hotel that wouldn’t
impress McClellan on the level landing E-L would have.

Damn it.

How had this gotten so fucked-up?

“Thanks for picking me up,” Cassidy said to her brother as
she gave him a hug curbside at the airport.

“Anytime, toots.” He squeezed her tight, then hefted her
suitcase and tossed it into the cargo space of his Range Rover. They climbed in
and he pulled away, saying, “I thought you were going back to Arizona this
weekend.”

“Yeah me too. Except that it’s kind of the last place I want
to be right now.” Her gaze slid to the side window and she stared out for a few
moments.

“What’s up?” he asked. “You look like someone kicked your
dog.”

With a humorless laugh, she said, “Someone did.
Me.
”

Gav glanced over at her. “Wanna explain that?”

Cassidy groaned. “I screwed up big time. Like
about-to-lose-my-job big time.”

“
What?
” he demanded, incredulous. “That’s
impossible.”

“I wish. But, Gav, I seriously slit my own wrists. I missed
an appointment with Pryce Shipley.”

His head whipped in her direction. “You had a meeting with
Shipley?”

She cringed. “I heard they dropped your company.”

“Dad.” He all but hissed. His attention returned to the
road. “Is that who you heard it from?”

“Yes. But don’t be mad. They’d already given official
notice.”

“And our old man is none too happy with me that I lost the
account. Still, I didn’t think he’d send them running into the arms of the
competition.”

“He didn’t. He just gave me the heads-up and I took it from
there.”

“How’d you get a meeting so damn fast?”

Another cringe. “Apparently, my reputation for keeping my
clients happy preceded me.” She felt the prickle of humiliation as she followed
that up by saying, “And now I’ve gone and blown that reputation right out of
the water. God, I’m such an idiot.” She closed her eyes and banged the back of
her head against the headrest.

“Come on, Cass. You had a flight delay. That’s
understandable. Happens all the time.”

With a grunt, she said, “Can’t blame it on the airlines. I
was in Pittsburgh Thursday night.”

He shot her a look. “Then what the fuck happened?”

Damn, this was the most painful thing to admit. “I overslept.
Forgot to set an alarm or schedule a wakeup call. I probably would have missed
my flight to Philly too if my assistant hadn’t called me.”

“
What?
” he squawked again. Then said, “You’re totally
shitting me, aren’t you?”

“Nope. It’s the absolute truth. I was wiped out and I had
champagne and a massage and could have slept through the weekend, I’m sure.”

Her brother whistled under his breath. “Christ, Cass. This
is bad.”

“Tell me about it. Worse, I have to explain to my CEO that
the reason I have no status update on E-L’s interest in returning to MII is
because I blew off the meeting. He’s going to fire me on the spot.”

Gav shook his head. “So lie. Give him the flight-delay
bullshit. He’ll buy it.”

“I can’t lie,” she said. “And you wouldn’t either.”

He snorted. “If it meant keeping my job, chances are good
I’d come up with an airtight alibi, toots.”

She doubted her brother would take the easy way out. Then
again…when a job was on the line…

“Shit. This is insane. I’ve put so much effort into this
career only to go and do something monstrously stupid.”

“Being kind of hard on yourself, don’t you think?”

“Gavin,” she said in all seriousness. “This isn’t like
missing a homework assignment and trying to convince your teacher the dog ate
it. There aren’t do-overs when so much is on the line. Who the hell would
promote a slacker to VP—or keep them in a director’s position?”

“You’re hardly a slacker, Cassidy,” he lobbed back.

“I was irresponsible. I missed a huge opportunity. The man’s
company is going to lose out on a huge chunk of business because I was
careless.”

“Yeah, well, Logan lost that huge chunk of business too. Did
McClellan let him go? No.”

“Small difference,” she said. Then let out a hollow laugh.
“Well, not so small.”

Gav stole a glance at her, his eyes narrowing.

“Chase has a penis,” she clarified.

“Okay, sure. He’s a dude and that grants him leeway in our
business.” His gaze returned to the windshield, but only for a second. His head
snapped in her direction again and he demanded, “What do you mean
not so
small
?”

Cassidy rolled her eyes. “Drop it.”

“Yeah right.” He gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter.
“You and Logan?”

“Me and Chase.”

“No fucking way.” He shook his head.

She stared at him, a bit fascinated by the way his knuckles
turned white. “Try not to rip that steering wheel out of the dash. I don’t
think your insurance will cover such extreme operator error.”

“Damn it, Cass. Really? Logan?”

“Why not Chase?” she asked.

“I’ve met him several times, remember? He’s not exactly the
chess club type you’ve always gone for. I’m not particularly thrilled to know
he’s violating my little sister.”

She laughed. “Gav, I’m a grown woman. It’s perfectly
acceptable for me to be violated by the man of my choice.”

“He struts,” her brother said with disdain.

“Yes, he does.” Her stomach fluttered at the thought of
Chase in all his naked glory sauntering through the house she’d rented in
Flagstaff just two weeks ago. Her heart constricted, though, when she
considered how that weekend felt as though it’d been months ago. Distance in
every conceivable capacity seemed to have moved in on them, making her feel a
million miles away from Chase not just physically, but emotionally. Because she
was so torn up about Thursday night.

But she told her brother, “He’s very confident and I find
that sexy. Especially since he backs it up by working as hard as I do.”

Gav shook his head. “Wait’ll Dad finds out. Fuck. You’re
gonna get an earful.”

“And what, he’s going to ground me? Oh my God,” she said
with exasperation. “Yes, I have sex! I’ve even had the seriously dirty kind
with Chase. Deal with it.”

He scowled. “Next time I see him, I’m bashing his face in.”

“Oh sure. Is that before or after you both remove your
designer suit jackets, ties, cufflinks and Rolex watches?”

“Mine’s Bulgari.” Gav raked a hand through his neatly
trimmed dark-brown hair. “And just because I wear designer suits doesn’t mean I
can’t still throw a punch.”

She snickered. “You’ve got the build for a barroom brawler,
no doubt, but you wouldn’t want to mess up those manicured nails.”

“They are not manicured, Goddamn it. I just get them
professionally trimmed. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Whatever,” she teased. But then her dire situation settled
back in her brain and she added, “It doesn’t matter about Chase anyway. I’m
totally calling the whole thing off.”

Saying those words out loud made her insides seize up.

Her brother asked, “Why? What’d he do?”

Treat me like a queen. Spoil me rotten.

Tears burned the backs of her eyes.

“Suffice it to say,” she told him in a suddenly shaky voice,
“I can’t juggle romance and a job like this one. Chase did something really
nice for me, I overindulged and missed the most important meeting of my career.
The one that would have for-sure landed me the VP position. I am clearly not
cut out for work
and
play.”

“Sounds like horseshit to me.”

“Do you talk like this with your clients? Is that why the
CEOs love having cigars and scotch with you?”

“Guys shoot the breeze, Cass. What do you talk about in your
meetings? The weather?”

“No,” she ground her teeth. “Business.
Their
business.”

“
Bor
-ing.”

“And that’s why you eventually lose accounts, Gav,” she
snapped. “You and Chase are great with the pitch and the old-boys’-club
camaraderie, but when it comes to drilling down into your customers’ needs,
you’re on an airplane to try to snag a new client while I’m doing all the
research.”

“At least I set my alarm in the morning, toots.”

“Fuck you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and
bristled.

Beside her, Gav chuckled. “Damn, I’m going to get a lot of
mileage out of this one.”

“You realize I hate you at the moment.”

“Nice try. But let’s get back to this Logan thing. Did he do
something to piss you off?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the real problem, Cass?”

Letting out a long breath, she said, “I’m just not wired to
have it all, you know? Not like Mom.”

“Whoa, hold on there. What the hell does that mean?”

She shrugged, feigning nonchalance, though emotion clogged
her throat, making it difficult to speak. “I’m just saying, she had her shit
together. All the time. And she had everything she ever wanted. She made it all
happen for herself. I’m not the least bit like her. I can’t multitask or divide
my attention. I’ve proven that quite resoundingly with this E-L debacle.”

“First,” Gav said, “you can still pull a rabbit from your
hat and get another chance with Shipley.”

“His assistant told mine he’s not interested in
rescheduling.”

“Get clever, Cass. Secondly, no, you are not like Mom. But
that’s okay. I mean, I know you put her on a pedestal—Dad and I did too. For
the record, though, she had a much different job than you. She worked in a
scrapbooking store, Cass. She clocked in at nine and punched out at three. No
one gave her an iPhone and told her she had to be connected to her customers
twenty-four-seven. She didn’t have to solve crises at ten o’clock on a Friday
night or four in the morning on a Sunday.”

He had a point…

“Not to mention,” Gav continued, “she never had to take her
work home. She left it at the store, came and picked us up from school, took us
to the grocery store and had dinner on the table when Dad came through the door
at six-thirty. We helped her clean up and then we did our homework while she
wrote letters to her sisters and parents, and Dad went into his study to do
more work.”

Cassidy had never really thought of the fact her mother was
able to manage all aspects of her life because she wasn’t tied to a job around
the clock. Yet…

“The bottom line is that I choose to be at the beck-and-call
of my clients and my boss. It’s how I ended up a director. If I’m in the middle
of a thousand-dollar-a-plate charity dinner and an insured calls me to say his
oil refinery has just blown up, I’m out of there and on a plane with an
adjuster to the loss site.”

“You don’t always have to go with the adjuster, Cass. That’s
their
job.”

“True, but when my client is freaked to high hell because
he’s just suffered a major catastrophe that could cost him millions—or
billions—I want him to know I’m there to help. To explain everything he needs
to know about his policies and coverages.”

“Which is why you’re damn good at what you do. But you can
have a life too, you know?”

“Oh really?” she challenged as they pulled into his
driveway. “Forget to invite your own sister to your wedding? Wait, no. You’re
not wearing a gold band on your finger—and you’re two years older than me.”

“I don’t have time to get married, Cass.”

“I love it when you make my point for me.”

He glowered. “It’s not that I don’t
want
to get
married. But no woman I’ve ever met is kosher with me being a road warrior.
Chicks want a guy home every now and then. You know, for dinner with her
parents and happy hour with her coupled-up friends.”

“Weekends with the kids?”

“Yeah.”

“We are rather unorthodox, aren’t we?”

He unlatched his seatbelt and got out of the Range Rover.
She followed suit. While retrieving her bag, he said, “There’s no rule written
that says we can’t have a life and a career. We choose not to.”

“No,” she insisted. “I
chose
to try to have both. It
didn’t work! My focus has to be on one thing. I’m literally incapable of
balance.”

With a shake of his head, he led the way up the stone path
to his colonial-style home. “Take a few deep breaths, sis. Have some wine.
Chill out.”

“No wine,” she grumbled.

Pulling the keys from his pants pocket, he said, “Everyone
screws up from time to time. What makes you think you have to be perfect every
single second of the day?”

“I could lose my job, Gav.”

“Maybe. And then you’ll get another one. Come work for me at
Hamilton.”

“I have a no-compete clause, you know that.”

“For a year upon giving your resignation. We discussed this
before you signed your letter of intent with MII. Getting fired nullifies the
non-compete.”

“I didn’t think about that. Then again, I never in a million
years imagined I’d get canned.”

“You haven’t yet.”

He opened the door and she followed him in. She would have
stayed in her old bedroom at her parents’ house, but her dad was out of the
country on business and she wasn’t in the mood to ramble around a big empty pad
feeling lonely and blue. At least the brotherly ribbing she got from Gav kept
her from wallowing in her devastation.

She considered what he’d said about working for him while
she rolled her bag into one of his spare bedrooms. She’d purposely gone to Hamilton
Insurers’ competition to prove she could land a job in industrial risk
insurance without her brother and father putting in good words for her. Having
succeeded at that, would it be so bad to rely on her connections to get an
interview with Hamilton?

Her jaw clenched briefly. Maybe she was getting ahead of
herself.

Then again, maybe not…

* * * * *

Chase paced his living room, cell phone in hand. He’d been
calling Cassidy since the previous evening to find out how her meetings went.
But she didn’t pick up. Now it was Saturday afternoon, and she still wasn’t
answering. He knew better than to assume she’d turned her phone off.
Round-the-clock connectivity was the name of their insurance game. So what was
the deal?