The Boss's Daughter (13 page)

Ruby gave him a long perusal, then said in a low, seductive voice. “I’ve definitely decided what
I
want.”

Mid-twenties, dark hair a sexy mop that emulated the
Twilight
vampire, the young waiter blushed.

“I’ll have the beet salad with mandarins, pears, and arugula.” Ruby fluttered her eyelashes as if she’d just asked for
him
as the side dish.

He wrote crazily, the tip of the pencil snapping. Ignoring that, he turned to Cassandra.

“I’ll have exactly what she’s having.” And she smiled, too.

He almost tripped over his own feet as he scurried back to the kitchen.

“You’re bad,” Cassandra said with admiration.

Ruby mimicked shining her fingernails on her sleeve. “Yes, I am.” She let her smile fade meaningfully. “And your father knows exactly what I’m like.”

“I’m not asking about you and him. I did that before, and you gave me a straight answer. I’m just asking how you can give up”—she shrugged—“everything you have to give up for a man.”

Ruby sat back and gave her a bit of the same perusal she’d given the waiter. Without the sexual content. “So this man is actually someone special?”

She had no intention of telling Ruby anything about Ward. But she had to admit the truth if she was going to get the answers she needed. “Yes. He’s special.” Her chest felt tight saying it aloud. “But to use a terrible metaphor, I’m not sure this leopard can change her spots.” How exactly did Ruby change hers?

Ruby tore off a small piece of bread and dabbed a smidgen of butter on it. “Basically men are tools.”

Cassandra did
not
believe her father was a tool.

“Then a woman like me meets someone like your father, and she’s suddenly willing to let him direct her. And when she lets go, lets him take over, he makes it perfect.”

What the hell did that mean?

Ruby laughed. “Too esoteric for you?”

“I do believe it is.”

“Let him tell you want he wants. And I bet you’ll find there’s a way to make it what you really want as well.”

The salads arrived. Their waiter had a busboy deliver them. They’d terrified him.

In the few moments that took, Ruby’s incomprehensible logic suddenly made sense. Cassandra had directed everything. She had made all the plans, decided what they would do with whom, when, and even how. She’d dragged Ward along simply assuming he would love it all. He hadn’t. Not
all
of it. But he’d loved some of it. And perhaps, if she didn’t push so hard and gave up the need to direct every single thing, they could find a compromise.

She held up her water glass to salute Ruby. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

Ruby had managed to tell her exactly what she needed to hear without really telling her anything at all.

* * * * *

“Sorry about last night.” Ward didn’t mutter, didn’t drop his eyes, maintained his cool.

“You’re in love with her.” Spence spun his pen on the table until it slowed, then stopped it to point directly at Ward.

The month-end shipping meeting had ended. Only Spence and Ward remained. Spence usually sent his customer service manager, but today, for some reason, he’d chosen to attend. Not
some
reason.
This
was the reason. So they could rehash what had—or hadn’t—happened in the motel room.

Ward didn’t answer the question directly. “It’s impossible to fall in love in less than two weeks.”

“Of course it’s possible.” Spence cocked his head. “Not for someone like me. I’m too cynical. But you”—he stabbed a finger in Ward’s direction—“are a romantic.”

He hadn’t been a romantic since his divorce. “I don’t know what I am.”

“I knew you couldn’t go through with a threesome.”

“So why’d you agree to it in the first place?” It would have been a hell of a lot easier if Spence had just said no.

“Because
you
needed to make the decision.” He picked up the pen, clicked it closed, and slid it into his pocket. “Did you tell her you love her?”

“I said I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

“Are you afraid you can’t meet her needs? Because she’s definitely a hot little number.”

“Je-sus. You’re an asshole.”

Spence merely smiled. “I am. And therefore I would be able to handle a woman like that without getting all tangled up in emotion.”

“A woman like
what
?”

Spence merely raised one eyebrow and shot him a wry smile. “A woman who thinks a threesome is hot. That’s not your typical female.”

Cassandra was anything but typical. He knew exactly what she was. She would never be easy. She would never let him be the boss. No, for her, he would always be the cuckold. She might actually attempt to emasculate him. But he still wanted her. The thought of going back to the life he’d had made his chest ache. If that was love, then he was in love.

“You’re right,” he said. “She’s not typical. But I am. I’ve got a strong suspicion the difference between us is too big to work out.”

Spence leaned back in his chair and propped his foot on his knee. “Have you ever gone on an actual date with her? I mean, dinner, dancing, whatever.”

“No.”

“Why don’t you try that first before you simply throw in the towel after barely two weeks?”

Cassandra wasn’t a dinner-and-dancing kind of woman. She’d be more likely to want him to put his hand up her skirt under the tablecloth. And Christ if that image didn’t make him hot.

Spence was a ladies’ man. He picked them up in bars. He enjoyed one-night stands. He
didn’t
do dinner and dancing, though he wasn’t above wining and dining. He hadn’t done the relationship thing in the three years Ward had known him. But he was right about one thing. Ward had given up in a little over two weeks. All because of this goddamn sense of inadequacy he’d harbored since his divorce, suffusing him with a healthy dose of fear that Cassandra would do the same thing as his wife, leave him for his best friend.

Was that why he’d let Cassandra dictate the terms of everything they’d done? He’d allowed her to plan and strategize his every move. He’d followed her around like the proverbial love-sick puppy. Or a smitten hound dog. It truly was pathetic.

He could remain a dog for the rest of his life, ruled by his fears and inadequacies. Or he could start acting like a man. It was time he made a few plans of his own. Dinner and dancing? He had no clue. Lasagna? He had to laugh at the thought of wooing Cassandra with his cooking.

But there was something else she wanted badly. And he would show her he was the only man who could give it to her.

Chapter Fourteen

Ward texted her Friday morning before she’d decided what she wanted to say when she called him. Her heart actually leaped when she saw his name on the small screen. She’d thought it was something that happened only in romance novels, but for the first time, it happened to her.

“9:00 Hotel Neapolitan in the bar.”

It was the fanciest hotel on the Peninsula. He wasn’t done with her. It was actually a relief. She’d grown used to him and the things they did together, the way he made her feel, the heightened excitement when he watched her with that dark gleam in his eyes. She didn’t want to give any of that up. Of course, he might be planning to dump her—with that thought, her stomach dropped sickeningly—but if so, why meet her in a hotel bar? No. Ward had something else in mind. No man had ever planned anything for her. She was always in charge. She couldn’t wait to find out what he intended.

Ten seconds later, he hit her with another text: “
And put several condoms in your purse.”

Oh yeah, he definitely had something else in mind.

Luckily Holt and Ruby had gone out for dinner—at least that’s what she assumed—and she had the house to herself. She really needed to move everything out of her L.A. apartment soon and find a place up here.

Running a steaming tub, she poured her mango bath salts into the water. It reminded her of the first morning when Ward had found her. The first morning, that’s how she thought of it, the morning when things had changed, even if she didn’t know exactly how yet.

The flashy fuchsia dress she chose was tight in the bodice, long and flowing in the skirt, with a slit straight up the center. When she walked her thighs played peekaboo with the folds of the fabric.

Heads turned as she entered the hotel lobby. Men stopped dead in their tracks. A bellboy nudged his buddy. A group of smartly dressed ladies gaped.

“What a gorgeous dress.” An older yet elegant blonde fawned over it.

“I designed it myself.” Cassandra stopped long enough for a pleasantry and to give each of the four women her card. She never missed a business opportunity.

The hotel was an open, modern plan, with floor-to-ceiling windows, black marble floors, bronze statues reminiscent of Rodin’s Thinker, and huge pots of exotic flowering plants. The wide curving hallways on either side of Registration led to the ballrooms on one end and the conference facilities on the other. Cassandra took the escalator to the mezzanine level where the bar and restaurants were located.

The hotel bar was ultra modern, all black, chrome, mirrors, and brilliantly colored exotic blooms. The bar itself and all the tables were topped with marble.

The place was 90 percent full. The chink of glasses on marble and the bark of male laughter accompanied by higher-pitched female voices made a cacophony trapped by the tall ceiling.

Ward was seated alone at a corner table, and her heart leaped again just as it had when she’d received his text. She had it bad. Reflected candlelight flickered in the lenses of his glasses. His shirt was crisply white, his black suit jacket snugly fit across his shoulders. The man was a perfectly complete package. She was wet with anticipation.

He’d ordered her a champagne cocktail, the bitters pinkening the sparkling liquid, a sugar cube still fizzing at the bottom.

“I’m not a champagne drinker,” she said as she laid her evening bag on the table and sat. The slit of the dress fell open over her knee when she crossed her legs.

“You are now.” He slid the flute across the table. Beside it lay a room key on the cocktail napkin.

Ooh. That was the name of the game,
Ward Takes Charge
. And it involved a room. Cassandra didn’t debate her course of action. She didn’t wonder what letting him take control would entail. She simply picked up the glass and sipped. “That’s actually quite good.”

Everything with Ward was good. Every episode between them was better than the last, better than her imagination. Folding the napkin over the key revealed a written number on the underside. She slipped it inside her evening bag.

He smiled, then swallowed a long slug of his expensive-looking lager. “That’s the lesson here,” he said. “Trying things someone else’s way can introduce you to delights you’ve never known.”

Ah, the sales pitch. She already knew she’d sign on the dotted line for him. But it would be fun to hear exactly what he was selling. She tossed her hair back over her shoulder in a go-ahead-I’m-listening gesture.

“I’m in love with you, but if I don’t set up some ground rules ahead of time, you’ll ride roughshod right over me.”

Thank God she’d already put the champagne back on the table or she’d have spluttered it all over him.
Love?
That’s what they were talking about?

He held up a finger. “First rule, don’t open your mouth until I’m done talking.”

The nerve of the man. Cassandra, who never let a man shut her up, closed her mouth. She liked his nerve. She wanted to hear his rules. And her pulse was racing with that word echoing in her ears.
Love
. It didn’t frighten her the way it should have.

“Second rule, I won’t sleep with another woman. Ever. Only you.”

She had to take another sip of champagne to wet her throat.

“Number three,” he enumerated. “I will choose all your men for you.”

She felt lightheaded. She wasn’t sure whether it was the cocktail or Ward. Or the word
love
. Or that rule. He loved her. He’d never sleep with another woman. But he’d choose men for her?

“Rule four,” he went on. By now she wasn’t capable of interrupting even if she wanted to. “I reserve the right to kick the man out no matter what stage of sex you’re at.”

He wanted to keep on playing
her
game, but with his spin on it.

Then he gave up listing the rule numbers. “You won’t fuck any man without me unless I want you to. You won’t fuck anyone without telling me. You’ll always let me watch.” His eyes were deep and dark in the bar’s lighting. “You’ll always need me to watch.” They were finally at the point he’d wanted to make.

She rested the tips of her fingers on the back of his hand. “I always want you to watch me. It isn’t any good anymore if you aren’t there. I need you there.” She let her gaze follow the perfect lines of his face, then back to his eyes. “I
need
you.”

He let out a breath as if he’d actually been holding it the entire time he spoke. He swallowed. “I will say when and how and with whom.” Then he waited.

“Yes,” she said quickly. Every time would be a surprise. She imagined receiving a text in the middle of a busy day, her heart racing, her panties suddenly damp, her breath quickening. She’d go wherever he told her to, do whatever he wanted. Because he always made it better than anything she could have planned for herself. Because it was so incredibly sexy to have him direct. Because there was a delicious freedom in letting him choose for her.

“Then we have a deal?” His voice held just the slightest rise at the end. He wanted her seal of approval.

She had a controlling nature and should have been utterly horrified at each and every one of his rules. But she adored this take-charge side of his personality. She didn’t know about love. She didn’t know how to tell the difference between love and lust. But she’d never felt like
this
. Giddy. Excited. Even her toes tingled. He was giving her everything she could want. No other woman, lots of other men. Surprise. And him. Yes, yes, yes, she wanted it.