The CEO Buys in (Wager of Hearts #1) (19 page)

“Still in your pajamas, I see,” Grandmillie said as Chloe opened the front door. She’d had just enough time to tighten the belt of her robe and take a couple of deep breaths to shake off the effect of Nathan’s attempt to seduce her by telephone. She wondered if he really would have told her what he’d been imagining doing to her.

“You’re looking very snazzy this morning,” Chloe said. Her grandmother wore a turquoise linen suit with a frivolous little hat of net and straw to match. Her slender cane was made of carved oak with a silver handle. She’d told Chloe one should dress well to dine with the Lord in his own house.

As she walked slowly into the living room, Grandmillie spotted the lupines on the table and nodded her approval. “That young man of yours knows how to treat a lady.”

Grandmillie’s description of Nathan made him sound like Chloe’s teenage prom date. She thought of him striding down the corridor of Trainor Electronics in his custom-tailored suit with a phalanx of executive vice presidents marching behind him. Nope, not your average young man. And not
hers
either.

“He sent champagne too,” Chloe said as her grandmother settled into her lounge chair.

Grandmillie’s eyes lit up, her professional interest as a former bar owner piqued. “What kind?”

“Dom Pérignon.”

“A classic. You can’t go wrong with that.” She removed her hat and set it on the table. “Now tell me all about your dinner out.”

“There’s something I need to ask you about first.” Chloe picked up the Crestmont Village folder. “Why did you send for information about this place?”

Grandmillie waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, that. It just came in the mail. AARP must have sold them a mailing list of local seniors.”

Chloe kept her voice calm. “There’s a letter inside that’s addressed to you and thanks you for your inquiry.”

Her grandmother looked away. “It’s a nice place. I put my name on the waiting list.”

Chloe’s heart seemed to twist in her chest. “But we’ve talked about this. You’re doing fine here. And you don’t belong in that place.”

Grandmillie sighed and brought her gaze back to Chloe. “Not yet, sweetie, but I’m afraid the time is coming. I love you too much to be a burden and a worry to you.”

“You’re my anchor. I need you here in my home.” Chloe wiped away tears with the back of her hand.

“You need to live your life, and I like the folks at Crestmont Village.”

Chloe thought about her tour of the elder-care facility a couple of years ago. It was clean and well maintained. The staff was kind and caring. But so many of the residents were in the grip of dementia or stared blankly at a television set. Grandmillie was as sharp as a tack and loved visiting with their neighbors of all ages. She was especially good with the teenagers, who often spilled their troubles to her when they would talk to no one else.

“Is this because I asked Dr. Cavill to give you his emergency phone number?” Chloe had guessed Grandmillie would be annoyed about that. “I did it just to make myself feel better, not because I thought there would really be a problem.”

“Exactly what I’m talking about. You felt guilty, and I won’t stand for that.”

“But I’ll feel so much worse if you’re not here with me.”

Grandmillie looked down at her hands folded in her lap for a long moment before she spoke in a low voice. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but two weeks ago I may have had a very minor stroke.”

“What! When? Why didn’t you call me? Did you go to the hospital?” Chloe couldn’t stay on the couch. She got up and knelt in front of her grandmother, resting her hand on the older woman’s nylon-covered knee, more to comfort herself than Grandmillie.

Her grandmother’s pale-blue eyes went misty. “You are the best granddaughter anyone could ask for.” She put her hand over Chloe’s. “It was two Wednesdays ago. I fell in the hallway for no good reason, so I got out my cell phone and called Lynda to come over. She drove me to the doctor. I would have told you if the doctor had said it was serious, but he checked me over and said everything was good. It was just one of those things. And don’t you go yelling at Lynda. I swore her to secrecy before I would tell her why I called.”

Chloe couldn’t hide the tears tracing hot, salty paths down her cheeks. The idea of Grandmillie lying on the hard wooden floor of their hallway all alone nearly choked her with guilt and distress. She’d been ignoring the evidence of her grandmother’s increasing frailty because she didn’t want to deal with the implications, and that denial had caused her grandmother pain.

“I’m so sorry.” Chloe rested her forehead on Grandmillie’s knee as a sob shook her. “I shouldn’t have left you here alone.”

“And that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you about it.” Her grandmother’s tone was sharp. “I’m perfectly capable of knowing when it’s time to change my living situation, so you’re not going to take the blame on yourself.”

Chloe straightened and rubbed the tears away. She took a deep breath to clear the tightness in her chest. “You’re right. But I don’t agree that it’s time to go to Crestmont Village. You just need someone to be here with you when I’m not.”

“Missy, you know as well as I do how much that kind of care costs.”

“And the good news is that I have a full-time job offer with benefits, so I can afford it.”

Grandmillie looked skeptical. “This is the first time you’ve mentioned any such thing.”

That was because Chloe hadn’t planned to accept the job. She hated everything about it, from the man she would be working for to the sleazy way he did business. She’d spent a week as a temp for Larry Clarke, the head of sales at Brandt Tech, and he’d liked her so much he’d offered her a permanent job as his sales assistant. He’d also propositioned her, right in front of the framed photos of his wife and twin two-year-old daughters.

Chloe could handle the sexual issue; Larry had barely blinked when she turned him down flat. What bothered her more were the false promises Larry made to prospective clients when he wanted to close a deal. So she’d refused his original job offer, only to have him come back with an increase in salary, a signing bonus, and full benefits from day one. She hadn’t said no immediately because it was so tempting financially. Now she felt that fate had been guiding her.

“That’s because I was negotiating for a higher salary and hadn’t accepted it yet. But the new offer just came in, and they added a signing bonus to convince me.” Chloe tried to sound excited.

Grandmillie wasn’t buying it. “Where is this miracle job?”

Unfortunately, Chloe had described Larry Clarke’s dishonest sales tactics to Grandmillie while she was temping there. At least she hadn’t mentioned his disgusting proposition. As Nathan had observed, Chloe was a terrible liar, so she told a general truth, saying breezily, “Brandt Tech. They loved me there.”

“Where you worked for the lying dirtbag of a sales manager?” Grandmillie gave her the gimlet eye and thumped the floor with her cane. “No. You will not compromise your integrity for an old woman.”

Chloe knew how to fix this. She pushed up from the floor and stood. “It’s not just about you. I’m tired of not being able to eat out or buy a nice pair of shoes when I want to. This job would give me extra money to spend on myself too.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday.” Grandmillie’s voice was kind. “Sit down, child, and listen to me.”

Chloe sank down onto the sofa with relief, since her knees felt shaky.

“I know you adored your father, especially after your mother died and he was the only parent you had. But my son foisted his adult bitterness on your young soul, and that wasn’t right. If I’d known what he was telling you during those evenings you two spent in his workshop, I would have given him a piece of my mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“All that talk about how terrible big corporations are. How they stole his marvelous inventions and never paid him a penny.” Grandmillie shook her head. “When your father went to work for Lindell, he signed a contract stipulating that they owned anything he developed. He knew exactly what that signified.”

“Yes, but other—”

“Let me finish. Furthermore, he worked with a team. Those inventions weren’t just his; they were the result of lots of brains put together. Not to mention that without the equipment and the laboratory and the marketing support, your father couldn’t have turned his ideas into salable products. Kevin was a dreamer, a brilliant one in certain ways, but not a practical man. Lindell gave him a real-world structure to work in.”

Chloe sat back against the cushions as she tried to absorb this new perspective on her father. In all the hours she’d spent sitting on her favorite high stool, watching him tinker at his worktable, she’d never questioned his claim that Lindell had exploited his genius without proper compensation. Grandmillie was right about the bitterness; she’d drunk it in along with her father’s stories about the drama and excitement of creating a new product that sent the company’s profits soaring but didn’t budge his paycheck.

“But what about paying him a bonus when his idea made them money? Lots of companies do that,” Chloe said.

“He got bonuses, but he thought he deserved more.” Grandmillie fidgeted with her cane. “I wouldn’t say these things about my own son if I didn’t think you needed to hear them. Just because a corporation is large doesn’t make it evil. You shouldn’t limit your job hunt to those fly-by-night start-ups you always choose. Or work for some dishonest salesman. You’re better than that.”

But they needed the money now, and her other applications for permanent employment hadn’t borne fruit yet. As far as she could see, there was nothing wrong with Brandt Tech’s product; it was just Larry’s lies about its capabilities that were the problem.

She rubbed her fingers against her temples, trying to massage away the headache that had begun to hammer at her skull. She would make a few phone calls tomorrow to see if she could goose along the other prospective employers. Maybe Judith had some leads on permanent spots.

“Don’t look so upset, Chloe. Nothing I said takes away from what your father accomplished or how much he loved you.”

“No, of course not. It’s just . . . not the way I thought of him.”

“He was your hero, but he had his human frailties, like us all. He was still a good man.”

It rang true from her adult perspective, but Chloe wanted to cling to her old view of the world and her father. She’d believed in her father with a child’s wholehearted acceptance. After her mother’s death, he was everything to Chloe and his view of the world became hers. Now Grandmillie had pushed her axis off center, leaving her wobbly and uncertain.

Grandmillie’s gaze was concerned. “You’ve got enough to think about for one day. And I still haven’t heard about your date last night.”

Chloe was grateful for the change of subject. “Nathan wanted lobster, so we flew to Maine.” She was curious as to whether Grandmillie would be shocked.

Her grandmother thumped her cane on the floor again. “Ha! Now that’s the proper way to court my granddaughter.”

Chloe was putting the dinner dishes in the dishwasher when her cell phone rang, showing Judith’s number. Not a good sign.

“It’s Judith, my dear. You have a new assignment for tomorrow. Tallman and Hicks Accounting in Midtown. You’ll be helping with a major audit they’re doing. They need papers organized, copied, and filed.”

Disappointment thudded into Chloe like a jackhammer. “I’m not going back to Trainor Electronics?”

“No. HR called to say all their flu victims are well enough to come in tomorrow. I know it’s a pay cut from the executive suite, but I gave you the highest paying of the new job openings.”

“You’re the best,” Chloe said, trying to shake off the blow, and sound as grateful as she should be to her boss and friend. But all she could think about was not seeing Nathan tomorrow morning.

“Just to double-check, nothing awkward happened between you and Nathan Trainor, did it? I know you were finding it uncomfortable to work in his home.”

“Awkward?” Chloe heard the squeak in her voice and swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure what to tell Judith. Now that she wasn’t working for Nathan anymore, her personal life shouldn’t be relevant to Flexitemps. “No, we ended up getting along well enough.”

“Good. That’s a very nice account for me.”

“Um, speaking of accounts,” Chloe said, “I might want you to look for a permanent place for me.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but you know I don’t handle start-ups. There’s not enough money in them.”

“I’ve rethought my position on large corporations,” Chloe said. She lowered her voice so Grandmillie wouldn’t hear. “And I need the job security and the higher salary.”

“I’ll see what I can find. You have a great resumé, but the job market is tight, as you know.” Judith’s voice went from businesswoman to concerned friend. “What made you change your mind? Is your grandmother doing all right?”

“She’s going to need help when I’m not here. But it was some other things too.” Not just her grandmother’s revelations. Knowing Nathan had begun to undermine her negative attitude. How could she disapprove of a big company when the man she was having incredible sex with ran one?