Everything You Are (14 page)

She strode into the living room, crossing her arms. “What do you want?”

“Join us.” Mark, who sat on the couch, patted the space beside him.

Her eyes went to Ian, who sat on the shorter end of the L-shaped couch.

Their eyes met and something flashed in Ian's vivid blue irises as his mouth stretched into a sunny smile.

Her breath hitched and warmth washed over her as she stared at him, enchanted by the expression on his face. The love she felt for him was young, timid and fragile, but with each day spent in his presence it was growing stronger. It should have shattered under her knowledge of him, and yet there it was, strong and unyielding, refusing to be plucked out. Now, with her sharing the same roof, and with the way he was looking and smiling at her, as if she was something special to him and as if he was happy to have her by his side, getting over him was going to become even harder.
The charming big oaf. He should at least try to be less sexy
. It had been a mistake to move in with him. Well, wasn’t as if she hadn't known that before she yielded to his persuasion.

“Stop scowling like that,” Mark said.

I'm scowling?
Jane touched the spot between her eyebrows. It was wrinkled. She smoothed it out.

“She'll get better after she settles in.” Mark faced Ian.

“We need to make some ground rules.” Jane glanced around, looking for the tablet. It lay beside her handbag, on the mahogany dining table. She passed the couch and crossed the two-step distance separating her from the table. She picked the tablet, but since she only grabbed the edge of it, it slipped out of her fingers and fell to the ground.

“Like what?” Ian asked.

Hoping that it wasn't damaged, she bent down and picked the tablet. It looked okay. She turned it on. Yes, it was working. She opened a Word document. Whatever rules they decided on, they should be in writing.

“Like what?” Ian repeated the question.

“Like everybody has to clean up after themselves.” She faced the couch and saw Ian shifting sideways, a weird hungry expression on his face. Why was he looking hungry when they had just eaten?

“Haven't you hired a cleaning lady that comes twice a week?”

Her eyes lowered to the socks lying on the coffee table and then lifted to the clothes piled on the armchair. “That still doesn't make it okay to leave dirty clothes everywhere.”

“Okay.” Ian nodded. “Cleaning up after myself, what else?”

“I don't know.” Jane's gaze darted around the room. “Not bringing other people into the apartment.” She had no intention watching him get all sweet with girls, not in the place where she lived.

“Even close friends like Mark?” Surprise was evident in Ian's voice.

“Oh, that's not the kind of friends that she has in mind,” Mark said, grinning.

Jane glared at Mark.

“What kind of friends did you have in mind?” Ian asked.

“Yes, Jane, what kind of friends did you have in mind?” Mark repeated Ian's words in a sweet voice.

She sent a dark glare in Mark's direction. She’d get him later. “Something along the lines of sex buddies.”

“You would date other people even though you're pregnant and living with me?” Darkness flashed over Ian's face.

Her eyes narrowed, the need to stomp her feet overwhelming. “That's not what I meant and you know it.”

“Ian, what she means is that, since you're known for your ways with ladies, she would dislike you bringing them home while she's staying with you,” Mark said.

“So you don't plan to date?”

“No.” Jane crossed her arms.

Ian nodded. “That's good. For a second there...” He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on Jane. “I have no intention of bringing women here, or dating any. Right now you and the baby are my first priority.”

“What now?” Ian murmured under his breath, nodding to Richardson, before he pushed open the door that led into his father's office. He strode inside. “You wanted to see me?”

“Sit down.” His father pointed at the chair before the desk.

Ian lowered into the chair and crossed his legs. “Is this about the submissions?” In the last two months, only one out of the company's six bids had been accepted, which, since they usually had a seventy-five percent success rate, was unusual. They had also learned that in three biddings, the competition had beaten them by a hair’s width, as if they had known exactly what Thornton's bids contained.

“That too, but we’ll talk about that later.” His father glanced at his watch.

“Are you expecting somebody?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

A buzz. “Miss Bennet, sir,” Richardson’s voice said from the intercom.

“Show her in.” Father said.

“What do you want with Jane?” Ian shifted sideways, so that he had a view of the door.

Jane entered the office, her step slow and slightly timid. Her eyes lowered to his. She smiled.

He smiled back and followed her with his gaze. She was beautiful. So beautiful. His sweet little Pukki.

“Miss Bennet.” His father gestured at the chair beside Ian's.

She sat down and glanced first at Ian, then at his father before her eyes returned to Ian, her eyebrows lifted as if she were asking what this was all about.

Ian shrugged.

“Miss Bennet, it has come to my attention that you have moved into my son's apartment.” Ian's father leaned his forearms on the table and laced his fingers. “And that you are pregnant, with my son's child.”

Jane's face become tomato red and her shoulders curled inwards.

“Who told you that?” Ian asked.

“Mother.”

“I specificity asked her not to tell you.”

“Did you really believe that she would be able to keep such important information to herself?”

Now that Ian thought about it, “No.”

“Am I going to lose my job?” Jane asked.

“No.” The old man focused on Jane. “But you will be transferred into our secretarial pool. From now on, you'll be working under Richardson's supervision.”

“No. Jane is staying with me.” Ian shifted at the edge of the chair.

“This is not a punishment.” His father ignored Ian, his gaze still on Jane. “But you have to understand that in the light of the circumstances I don't think it’s wise for you two to continue working together.”

“I understand,” Jane said.

“Well, I don't.” Ian stood up. “She's my assistant --”

“Whom I hired,” his father said sharply, then sighed. “You won't change my mind, Ian, so you better not even try.”

“Is that all?” Jane asked.

“No.” A smile lit Ian's father’s face as he leaned closer over the table. “My wife and I are quite excited about the prospect of a grandchild. My wife expressed the desire to learn more about you and spend some time with you, that's why she hopes you'll come for a two-day visit this coming weekend.”

His mother hadn't mentioned anything to him. If she wanted to see Jane, she should have told him, not his father.

“This weekend?”

“Yes.”

“I can't. I'm going to visit my parents.”

“What about next weekend?”

“I'm free.”

“Good. Good.” His father nodded.

“Anything else?” Jane asked, her face betraying that she would like to be out of his father's office as soon as possible.

“No. On your way out, stop by Richardson's desk. He'll show you your new work space.”

“Yes, sir.” Jane rose. She gave a troubled gaze to Ian and then left the room.

Ian waited for the door to close behind her before he stepped closer to the desk. “You can't take her away, not like that.”

“Yes, I can and I just did. Sit down.”

“I refuse.”

“Don't sulk; you're too old for that.”

“I want Jane back.”

“You should have thought about that before you slept with her.”

“It was not on purpose.” He frowned. That sounded wrong, as if he had never had any interest in Jane, when she was all he could think about.

His father shook his head, disappointment in his eyes. “You really aren’t able to keep it in your pants, are you?”

“It's different with Jane, she's special.”

“Since she's the mother of my grandchild, I would hope so.”

Despite his twenty-nine years, his father's words could still reduce Ian to a child. “I plan to make her my wife.”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes,” Ian said with conviction in his voice. He loved that slip of a girl; he wanted to have her by his side forever.

“That's good.”

Ian turned on his heel.

“Ian, we're not finished yet. Southern sent me his findings and I would like for you to look over them. Sit down, please.”

With locked jaw, Ian lowered himself back into the chair. He shifted the chair closer and stretched out his hand.

His father gave him the folder.

Ian opened it and leafed through the papers.

“I understand that you are not pleased with the turn of events.”

“That's a mild way of putting it. I don't want a new assistant. I want Jane to continue managing my correspondence and my schedule and preparing reports for me.” A scowl wrinkled Ian's forehead. “There's no common denominator. Nobody was aware of all the projects.” He lifted his gaze to his father's face before it was back on the papers. “Did we mistakenly put on the list projects that were not sabotaged? That the danger of failure was a result of negligence and not of sabotage?”

“That thought crossed my mind too. But it's not likely. Our employees are too well-trained and too good at what they do to allow that kind of incompetence,” his father said. “I'll notify Richardson that Jane will keep some of her tasks, and to divide the others among his subordinates.”

“I would like a new office. Something closer to yours.”

“I'll ask if there's anything that can be done.”

“Isn't there an empty office two doors down? I want it.” Ian looked at the papers again. “What do you plan to do with this?” He lifted the papers.

His father tiredly sighed. “Any suggestions?”

Ian looked at the papers again and read the names of the projects and deals. Thornton Enterprises was a big company, with many divisions; he, as his father's right hand, had knowledge of only about two-thirds of the projects and deals on the list. He doubted that even his father knew about all of them. He put the list on the table and pushed it toward his father. “Do you know all the projects on this list?”

“Of course.”

“Did you know about them before they ended up on this list?”

“Yes. Why is that important?”

“I think we just found the common denominator,” Ian said. “You.” But since there was no way his father would have sabotaged his own company, the fact that only his father knew about all the projects directed suspicion at the man who was always by his father's side. “And Richardson.”

#

Ian tapped his fingers against the large U-shaped desk while he watched the presentation with a serious expression. His gaze slid toward the end of the desk where Jane sat among her new co-workers, taking notes and refusing to look in his direction. His fingers slid to his phone. He pushed it closer, turned it on and typed a message:
You look lovely
.

She glanced at the phone she had beside the tablet on which she was typing notes. For a short second her eyes turned toward him, her expression blank, before she faced the presenter again.

Ian's eyes narrowed.

The presenter stuttered.

Ian wrote a new message:
What are you doing later?
He hoped he would be able to take her to lunch today.

A few seconds later he got a reply;
Stop texting me
.

Would be better if I called you?

She fixed a dark, annoyed gaze on him.

He grinned. She looked so cute with a pout on her lips and a scowl furrowing her eyebrows. She was still angry, and not because he was sending her messages. He had driven her to her mother’s on Saturday afternoon. Even though during the drive there she had asked him to keep quiet about her pregnancy, he hadn't respected her request. He had told her mother that Jane was expecting a child with him and that they had been living together. When Jane was out of earshot, he had also confided in Margaret that he planned to marry her daughter, if Jane would have him. To keep from irritating Jane further, he ceased texting her, but after the presentation, he rushed after her.

She was walking across the hallway, with three other people.

“Miss Bennet.”

Jane said something to the people with her, then waited for him while her co-workers continued on.

He reached her.

“Yes?”

“Come to lunch with me today.”

“I already told you that I'm busy today.” She resumed her walk.

He fell into step with her. “Shouldn't you have gotten over your grudge by now?”

“I'm not holding a grudge.”

“Are you certain?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Because to me, it looks as if you're still sulking when you should be glad that your parents accepted the news as well as they did.”

Her mouth narrowed and she gave him a sharp glance. “I asked you to keep quiet and you went and told them anyway.”

“Pukki, darling.” He would have draped his arm around her shoulders and drawn her against his side, but she wished their relationship, as platonic as it was even though they were expecting a child, to stay a secret. Even though he wanted the whole world to know that she was his, since he didn't want her to be subjected to rumours and weird looks, he held himself back. “Don't be angry. I'll make it up to you.”

“Like money can solve anything.”

“Who said anything about money?”

“Knowing you, making it up to me only means you will try to bribe me with gifts.”

She knew him all too well. “What about bribing you with a massage?” His phone rang. He pulled it out of the pocket of the vest he wore over the white shirt and glanced at it. His father's name flashed on the phone's display.

“Yeah, right.”

“I'll have to take this,” he said to Jane before he answered the phone. “Yes?”

“Could you drop by my office, please?”

“What is it?”

“I'll tell you when you get here,” his father said before he hung up.

Ian sighed, his gaze on Jane, who rushed across the hallway as if she was trying to run away from him. They arrived at the elevators, where the crowd that stood before them disappeared inside one of them, leaving the hallway empty. His eyes slid over the sight of the door that heralded the stairway. They came parallel to it and he grabbed Jane's shoulder and pushed her through the door.

“What are you doing?” She shoved his hand away.

What was he doing? He stared down at her, at the pout that still embellished her face. Their living together had started off so well. He was able to enjoy her company, eating her cooking -- she was quite a good cook, who preferred simple, quickly made dishes. And he saw her nightly in that sexy pink shirt that hardly covered her ass. She had two others like it, in blue and in white. But then, after Saturday, she had locked herself in her room and refused to come out. For the past four days, he had seen her less than before she moved in with him. His fingers trailed over her hairline and stopped at the temple of her glasses. “I miss you.”

The grey irises that looked up at him appeared troubled, but it could have been just the reflection of the light against her glasses. She pinched her lips together and averted her gaze.

“Wait for me today, okay?” With a stroking motion, his fingers followed the direction of her hair that was smoothed into a bun. “Come to my office at five.”

“I don't think that's --”

“Or would you prefer I drop by yours?”

She lifted her eyes to his again, her eyebrows furrowed, she scrutinised his face for what appeared long seconds. “You're quite used to getting your way, aren't you?”

“You could say that.” She was so cute, looking so serious through her glasses, so unbearably adorable that the urge to kiss her crashed over him. He couldn't resist anymore, and he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss on her nose. “At five, my office,” he said, then turned around and strode away with long, quick steps, fully aware that if he hadn't, he would have yielded to the need to press her against the wall and kiss her senseless.

He went toward his father’s office, nodding to Richardson, who sat behind the table in front of the office door, before he entered the office. He greeted his father then, without waiting for an invitation, he slumped into the chair by the large desk. “So, what's the thing that you couldn't tell me over the phone? Southern discovered something new about Richardson?”