Single Dad CEO: A Billionaire Boss Romance Page 10

  “Would not.” She insists, stamping her little foot for emphasis. “I want to do work, too! With Jessica!”

  Ohh. That’s what this is about.

  I pick her up with a laugh, spinning her around - my go-to method of turning that slightly grumpy expression into a fit of giggles - and shake my head.

  “Believe me, sweetie, you’ll have lots of time to work when you’re my age.” I glance up as I set Abbie down, meeting Kara’s eyes where she’s standing by the kitchen counter. “Right now, you get to spend all day playing with Kara.”

  “But…”

  “I wish I could do that - you’re going to have so much more fun than me today.” I say, with an exaggerated sigh. “I’d love to spend all day playing with the two of you, instead of going to work.”

  Her eyes light up and she tugs on my hand. “Stay, Daddy! Stay and play with us!”

  The appeal tugs on my heart and I feel the familiar guilt as I give her a soft smile, tussling her hair.

  “I wish I could, Abbie. I wish I could stay here with you forever.” Before she can suggest we do just that, I shake my head again. “But I’ll be back very soon, okay? And you can tell me all about everything you do with Kara today.”

  Kara takes the cue, coming over to crouch down beside Abbie with a beaming smile of her own as she coaxes my daughter away from me.

  “Okay…” Abbie finally relents, letting go of my hand, and I almost feel like a part of my heart goes with her as I lean down to give her a last kiss goodbye.

  “I love you, baby girl—bye bye—have a good day with Kara, okay? Be good for her.”

  She nods, following Kara back to the kitchen, but I still feel bad as I finally walk out of the door.

  It’s times like these when I wish that maybe I hadn’t been so successful - that I had a boss I could blame for needing to go into work, or bills that I wouldn’t be able to pay otherwise. But if I’m honest with myself - as I am every time I leave Abbie in the morning - I don’t really need to work. I’ve got enough money now to be secure for life - if I never worked another day then I’d barely notice it, financially.

  I could sell my company, take the money and retire to spending every moment with the daughter I’m raising. All the stress of trying to balance everything would disappear. It’s something I think about too often - almost all the time - but I can’t quite bring myself to do it.

  As much as I tell Abbie that I wish I could stay with her and we could spend all day together - as much as it’s always the absolute truth when I say it - I’m scared of how that might change if that really was how I spent every day.

  My ambition and work has fueled me all my life, enough that I don’t quite know what I’d be if I didn’t have a job to go to - something to strive for, to push for, to succeed at.

  You’re too scared of how it might affect you, to give it all up for Abbie.

  I don’t know what that makes me. I try to be a good father, but how can I be, if I can’t bring myself to do that for my daughter?

  If I’m that selfish…

  It makes me think that maybe Ashley was right. Maybe I never cared enough about our family.

  Of course, she obviously didn’t either, so it’s not like she can judge. But the words still stick with me anyway.

  I get into work still thinking about how I could work out a potential compromise - something to change the balance a little, so that Abbie and I have more time together, but I don’t completely lose everything that’s driven me to this point. Maybe if I took a step back, let my various department heads run more things themselves and stopped trying to involve myself in every aspect of the business…

  I could cut down a few hours. Maybe work a couple of half-days, or a day less…

  “Kenneth.” Jessica’s voice interrupts my thought process as I walk in, and I look up, stopping by her desk. “Mr. Heath and Ms. Jackson are waiting in your office - they requested an urgent meeting for as soon as you got in.”

  And, just like that, everything I was thinking disappeared - my focus narrowing to the job in front of me right now, the latest business emergency. Not that this one is entirely business.

  I close my eyes briefly. I know exactly what Patrick and Kelly want to discuss. I’ve already had a couple of emergency phone calls over the weekend - the time I do consider sacrosanct for Abbie and I - and it’s really not how I want to start my week.

  But, given the article in the Springfield News-Leader on Saturday - and then the follow up they did yesterday - I also don’t have a choice.

  I take that moment, then nod. “Thanks, Jessica.”

  I step toward my office, then pause abruptly, suddenly wondering whether she’s seen the article too.

  Probably. Who hasn’t?

  I feel the heat start to gather at my collar, and I’m not quite sure whether it’s anger or embarrassment. Probably both.

  I hesitate, wanting to ask - wanting to say something - but not sure how to. One look at her carefully expressionless face has my heart sinking, though, and I know I don’t have time to stick around and work it out. I’m sure she’s seen it. And I don’t know what to say that wouldn’t make whatever she’s thinking worse.

  What is she thinking? Does she believe it? How could she - how could anyone?!

  Damn you, Danielle. Damn you to hell.

  “Kenneth?” She finally asks, and I shake my head.

  “Could you wait with my coffee until after the meeting, please?” I say instead, ignoring the subject completely.

  She nods and I walk into the office, feeling like my mind’s all over the place - like it’s been all over the place for a long time, too.

  Since Jessica appeared as my new secretary.

  Or probably even before that.

  Since Ashley walked out and left me alone with Abbie.

  I try to shake all of that off, focusing on the tough meeting ahead of me - and it’s about as bad as I expect.

  Patrick has pulled together a plan for our defense, which is something, but he’s still advising me to try to settle this - and Kelly…well, Kelly is pissed. And stressed.

  She has some good suggestions for how we respond to the article and what our position should be - but then comes out with outlandish suggestions for how to recover our public image that leave me feeling…dirty somehow.

  Donating to charity. Hosting a grand dinner. Volunteer work and corporate citizen initiatives. Announce a new factory that will boost employment.

  None of those are bad things to do, of course. But in response to these accusations?

  It feels like we’d just be trying to distract everyone with cheap tactics.

  She just doesn’t get that I don’t want to distract people or get everyone to forget about this - I want to prove I’m innocent.

  By the time they leave at the end of a long hour of debate, we’re not much closer to agreeing a PR strategy and I feel like I’ve worked a full day-and-a-half.

  “Should’ve stayed with you, Abbie.” I mutter to myself, then look up as Jessica comes in with my coffee.

  “Thanks.” I say again, with more gratitude than I intend.

  She nods and I get a strange feeling of disappointment as she walks out without another word. No smiles. No sparkling eyes or amusing comments. Nothing like the lively exchanges I enjoyed seeing last week.

  I guess all that was just for Abbie.

  I sigh softly, sipping at the coffee even though it scalds my tongue and watching her through the half-closed blinds covering the glass walls of my office. She sits back at her desk with the graceful confidence she’s always seemed to have, her long brown hair flicking over one shoulder and her mouth pursed in concentration as she looks at the screen in front of her.

  Beautiful. Just like she always was, only…more.

  I can’t help the thought - or the slight stirring of desire that comes with it.

  It’s not a good idea, I know that. I don’t even know what it is, exactly, but after the way she was with Abbie last wee
k…it’s all I can see.

  She’s beautiful just like this - working hard and focusing - but it’s the way she was last week that I’m really seeing.

  The way she smiled and laughed as she played with my daughter. It lit her whole face up, took me back to the girl I remember - the sweet, carefree attitude she had back then. Life and energy radiated from her last week, the sort of thing to draw someone in and intoxicate them. I could feel it happening even in the few moments I was around her.

  No wonder Abbie wanted to come back.

  It captured my daughter, that’s for sure. And maybe more of me than I noticed at the time.

  I just wasn’t expecting…it to all disappear again.

  Part of me wonders how she can do that - how she can so easily distance herself like that - but the bigger part is just disappointed.

  “Should have brought you in after all, Abbie. Maybe we’d both be happier that way.” I say into my coffee, swirling it around in front of me.

  There are dozens of things to look at and address on my computer, but right now I don’t feel like any of that. Instead, I’m sitting here having a one-way conversation with the daughter I left at home.

  I lean back with a sigh, stretching my arms over my back as I try to dissipate some of the tension from the meeting I just had - and eventually, I do start working.

  I’m still thinking about Jessica, though, as the day passes. I can’t quite work her out. The hints of the girl I used to know. The hints of the woman she was last week. And yet…nothing. When it comes to me, absolutely nothing.

  I shouldn’t care. It shouldn’t matter. But somehow, it seems to.

  Is the way we left things still affecting her, even after all this time? Enough that she can’t even give me the occasional smile, crack the occasional joke? Or is this just how she works, what it means to be professional to her?

  Whatever she feels about it all, though, my curiosity is stoked. Despite everything else, I want to know more about her. I want to know what’s happened since high school. I want to know what her life is like. I want to know what’s behind that distance she creates around me.

  And I want to understand why I’m suddenly so fascinated. Is it just the past? Or last week? Or…what?

  It plays on my mind all day, and by the time she walks into my office in the late afternoon, to give me an update on everything she’s been filtering through for me, all I can focus on is the way she looks as she stands there.

  The slight gloss on her lips as they move, the straight brown hair that falls down in front of her shoulder, the slight movement of her body as she talks. I don’t hear a word she says. Instead, the interest I felt the moment she first walked into my office after all those years comes right back. Almost as if she’d never been gone at all.

  She finishes her debrief then stands there, obviously waiting for me to say something.

  Does she feel it too? Any of it? Or has she completely forgotten what it used to be like?

  I ignore that, standing and walking around to the front of my desk, perching on the edge of it. I know what I want to say - and I don’t want to be sat at my desk when I do. I don’t want to look like her boss right now.

  “Jessica…” I say softly, and I can see from the sudden tension in her that she registers the difference in my tone. “I never did get a chance to really thank you - for last week.”

  “It was nothing.” She shrugs, not really looking at me. “I didn’t mind - your daughter is a lovely girl.”

  I smile slightly. “Yes, she really is. I’m lucky to have her.”

  There’s a moment of silence as Jessica doesn’t say anything more, making my stomach tighten with a premonition of how this might go - but I’m determined anyway.

  “It’s been a long time, you know, and we’re working so closely together…it would be nice to catch up.” I pause, then finally say what I’ve been thinking this whole time - the unspoken thing between us. “I know it was years ago now, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry…for what happened back then. We were both just kids, but even so, I should have…done better.”

  Her eyes flick up to mine - and then away. I think I might even see something flick across her face, but it’s gone too quickly for me to tell, except that I can see the way she shifts - away from me, slightly, like she wants to get away. I push on before she can try to.

  “Let me buy you a coffee somewhere - to say thank you for last week, at least. I’d like to feel things are good between us.”

  I’d like to get past some of this distance you seem to have.

  I don’t say it, but that’s what I’m thinking.

  I’d thought it was okay at first - I thought maybe it would even be helpful - but now, after I saw so much of the alternative last week? I can’t help it. I want that Jessica here.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She says quietly, shaking her head.

  Is that a tremor in her voice, or am I imagining it?

  She looks so fragile right now, so pale as she shifts just slightly, so that she’s nearer the door. I didn’t want that - don’t want it. I have to resist the urge to walk up to her, to stroke her cheek and bring her face up to look at me - to coax what’s wrong out of her. I get a sudden flashback to all the times I used to do just that, and I have to shake it off.

  Especially since I think what’s wrong might well be me.

  So I try something else instead.

  I give her a real smile, tilting my head and raising an eyebrow as I used to do when I teased her.

  “Why not?” I ask, with the same cocky confidence I used all the time back then.

  It feels almost rusty, but it’s obviously still there. I just haven’t had any reason to use it. That sort of thing hasn’t exactly been high on my agenda since Ashley left.

  It gets a reaction, too - just not the one I was hoping for. Instead, I can almost feel the way she recoils, before her back stiffens, ramrod-straight.

  “Well, for one thing.” She says, defensively. “You’re in the middle of a lawsuit for sexual harassment.”

  The words feel like a slap in the face, coming out of nowhere and hitting me hard enough to almost leave me speechless. That brief moment of cockiness disappears in an instant and I grip the desk with one hand, totally off-balance.

  “I—what—” I shake my head, hard. “That’s not what—”

  Oh god. Fuck. What does she think? That I did that? That this was—damn it, was this—? Fuck.

  I stare at her in horror as I part of me questions what I just suggested. I’ve never—I would never—

  But you can’t deny the way you’ve been looking at her. Or that you just invited her out for coffee. And that she’s your employee.

  Fuck. That ticks pretty much every box for inappropriate. In a way that nothing that happened with Danielle ever was. But that’s not what I meant - not even what I wanted.

  “No.” I say, firmly, before I even work out quite what I’m refuting. “Jessica, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not—I just—”

  But I can’t even work out what I’m just doing. She’s looking at me uncertainly - and I don’t know whether that’s because of the situation, or because she doesn’t believe me, but it stings either way.

  I take a deep breath. “That lawsuit is bullshit, Jessica. It’s a bitter woman’s attempt to cause trouble and get something out of me for it. You don’t…you don’t believe it?”

  The moment I ask her, I hate myself for it - for how weak that sounds. But I need to hear it, too. I can’t stand the idea that she could think that of me - not after everything…not after our past.

  Fucking hell, it could be because of our past.

  But however I might have hurt her when I left, it was never anything like that. I’ve never taken advantage of anyone.

  “I don’t…I don’t know what to believe.” She says quietly, looking at the ground, before that detachment comes back into her voice again. I want to curse her for how easy she makes that seem - all the d
istance I feel none of - as she shakes her head. “Sorry, that’s not—It doesn’t matter. It’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t—I don’t have an opinion, and I don’t need to—”

  “Bullshit.” I say, the frustration seeping into my voice. “Of course you have an opinion. Of course that matters. You can’t work for someone who you think would do that. You can’t. You shouldn’t.”

  This time I do step up closer to her - and I’m more than a little surprised when she doesn’t step back. She never shied away from anything when we were younger, either, but with her body screaming she just wanted to leave earlier, I thought she might have.

  I don’t quite reach out to hold her shoulders, though I really want to. I don’t hook a finger under her chin to make her look at me, either. I’ve got too much sexual harassment bullshit going around in my head right for any of that.

  All I can do is talk, her words echoing around in my mind.

  I don’t know what to believe.

  It hurts. It’s galling. But it’s better than everything else she said after it. At least it was real.

  “I didn’t do it, Jessica. I swear. I don’t know what the article said—”

  “I didn’t read it.” She interrupts, and I let out a slow breath.

  “Me neither. I was too pissed about the whole thing before that even came out. But whatever they’re saying - whatever Danielle is saying - none of it happened. That’s the last thing on my mind these days. I’ve got Abbie to worry about, and the business, and no god-damn time to muster up enough interest to even glance at a woman. My libido fucked off into long-term storage the day Ashley left.”

  At least until you showed up.

  I don’t add that part, though. I don’t think it would help make my point.

  I’m not sure how talking about my libido or general interest in women fits in with the whole sexual harassment thing, either, but right now I’m ignoring all that. Talking to Jessica - especially like this - doesn’t feel like talking to my secretary. This doesn’t feel like a purely professional relationship, not right now.

  It feels more like talking to someone I used to know - an old friend.