“Wherever you want, Caroline.” He turned his palms up, effectively signaling his hand-off. He was putting the ball in my court. From Mr. Alpha CEO, it was quite a moment.
“So I’m in charge?” The smallest hint of a smile started stealing across my lips.
“You are in the driver’s seat.” One started tugging at the corner of his lips as well.
“This is interesting.” I tapped my fingers together, contemplating my next move. Did I have Colton Kavanaugh, billionaire baron and CEO, sitting contritely before me at my beck and call? A dizzying array of possibilities stretched before me. Which one should I choose?
CHAPTER 21
Colt
I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a shy guy. I’d spent my entire life in the spotlight, the oldest son, groomed and coached and thrust into any number of prominent, high-risk, high-profile roles and responsibilities. I didn’t exactly stand in the corner and shuffle my feet.
Yet that was exactly what I was doing in the kitchen of Caroline’s little apartment. Tongue-tied wasn’t a state I could ever remember being in. But, then again, I’d never wanted so badly to madly, passionately declare, “I LOVE YOU!” How did one work up to that sort of thing, exactly? Especially after one’s company had accidently-on-purpose demolished the one thing she valued more than anything else in the world. “Whoops, sorry” wasn’t going to cut it.
“Can I give you a hand?” I stood, hands in pockets, watching her bustle around adding ingredients to a bowl with speed and assurance.
“I don’t know what to do about you, Colt!” She fumed, exasperated, as she tipped in a cup of sugar. At least I thought it was sugar. I’d never actually been this close to a real, live incidence of baking, so I couldn’t be 100-percent sure.
I could think of some sexy retorts to her exclamation. I could offer some witty, suggestive banter leading her down the path to her bedroom. Or here. We could also stay right here in the kitchen. But the wind that usually puffed up my sails to bursting had vanished. The peacock had his feathery plume down. Ready to get it up, though, at a moment’s notice.
“Add some vanilla to the wet ingredients.” Caroline handed me a teaspoon with the air of an annoyed parent. As if at least I could help with that.
She was assuming a lot with that request. Vanilla...I perused the ingredients she’d assembled on her countertop. Was it a bean I was looking for?
Thankfully, she was too preoccupied to notice my floundering. “New York was a disaster,” she burst out. “I came home to rubble. And now you’re here today with all these plans. And you’re looking at me all apologetic and hot.”
“New York was a disaster?” I turned to her. I knew she’d left a day early, but had she really hated her visit that much? And, wait, what did she say at the end? “So you think I look hot?”
“Pipe down!” She pointed her finger at me. I tucked the start of my cocky grin back into an apologetic and attentive facial expression. But she’d said it. I’d heard it. So all couldn’t be lost, right?
“Yes, New York was a disaster!” She practically threw the next two ingredients into that bowl. I was glad she started using the wooden spoon in her hands to mix instead of hit me over the head. I could tell she was thinking about doing it, though.
“You sent me to that bitchy woman, like I had to change everything about myself so I could fit in with your friends.”
“What? The personal shopper I hired for you?”
“I’ve never felt like such a whale!”
I moved to take my cell out of my pocket. “I know someone who’s losing her job.” A quick call and her employer would know of my displeasure. She’d act on it, too.
“Colt, just listen to me for a minute, OK?” Caroline stopped me.
“Why didn’t you walk out on her? Or tell me about it? Don’t let anyone treat you like that!”
“Colt.” She pointed that finger again. Like a librarian. A naughty one. She’d have on glasses, but then I’d get her in the back room and take them off, take it all off. “Eyes up here,” she reprimanded me.
Sheepishly, I looked away from her curves. So luscious, bursting out of that apron. I could really get into that look, just the apron, nothing underneath. Shit, it was hard to focus around this woman.
“That weekend in New York, I felt obligated. Like I owed it to you to try to do things the way you wanted. So I let that woman boss me around and I met all your bitchy friends—”
“Wait, who was bitchy to you?” How much had gone on that weekend that I knew nothing about?
“It doesn’t matter. Just some creep claiming she was Juliet to your Romeo.”
I knew exactly who she was talking about. Vivica gave new meaning to the phrase relentless, aggressive pursuit. “I’m sorry she was there at the party. A friend brought her as a date. I never would have invited her.”
“So you know who I’m talking about. How serious were the two of you?” Such hurt burned in her eyes I nearly tripped over myself finding the best, quickest way to dispel any of her misconceptions.
“Never! We were never serious. We went to school together. I think we might have hung out at a dance when we were 14, 15. It was nothing.”
“She staked a serious claim on you.”
“Caroline, no one has a claim on me but you.” I stood next to her now, my hands itching to hold her. “I don’t know what she said to you, but she was jealous. Because she sees how I feel about you. And knows it’s much more than I’ve ever felt for her. Or anyone else.”
Caroline looked at me, those gray-green eyes warming up, wanting to trust. But she still kept that damn mixing bowl between us like a nun’s ruler at a 1950s dance. Keeping us one foot apart at all times.
She shook her head and looked away. “I can’t tell you how awful it felt when I got back and saw my store torn to the ground.”
Groaning, I brought a hand up to my hair where I balled it into a frustrated fist. “I hate thinking about that.”
“I know you told me you didn’t know it was going to happen.”
“I didn’t,” I repeated, wishing there were some kind of automatic truth meter I could apply to the conversation. Like a lie detector app you could install on your phone. Actually, that was a brilliant idea. I should get some people together the next time I was down in Silicon Valley. But not now.
“I googled your company,” she added accusatorily.
I groaned again, imagining the shit she’d dredged up on the Internet. Lawsuits, accusations, dirt. Our legal team worked hard to keep our exterior squeaky clean, but that was hard when people were always slinging around mud.
“Don’t believe everything you see online,” I pleaded. “Especially when you’re looking for the bad stuff. It’s like getting a sore throat and doing a search on it. You’ll convince yourself you have a rare type of cancer.”
“Still, Colt,” she persisted, “I saw some articles about your company doing this kind of thing at building sites in the past. Staking your claim, asserting your dominance. Trying to intimidate and run roughshod over the little guy. Like that woman tried to do me at the party.”
Caroline finally put that big bowl down, but she crossed her arms over her chest, still warding me off. “I don’t like bullies.”
I wanted to keep denying all responsibility. I’d had that training hard-wired into me. Deny wrongdoing, never admit culpability. My father had gone to his grave with a string of affairs plus an out-of-wedlock son, renown for his history of ruthless backroom business deals and habit of stepping over each and every person between him and maximum profits. Yet he’d never apologized for a damn thing.
“I’m sorry,” I started, the words tasting foreign in my mouth. I was sure my father was turning over in his grave. But I’d had enough of doing things his way. It was time to do what I knew was right.
“I’ve done some bad things, some things I’m not proud of.” I forged ahead, ignoring the visions of my legal team having a collective heart attack. “You’re right, my company has bullied
its way through a lot of deals. And my former COO, Leonard—”
“Former?”
I was glad she’d picked up on that. “Former,” I confirmed. “I fired him when I found out what he’d done to your business.”
“That’s good.” A smile started at the corner of her mouth. I resisted the urge to kiss it. I needed to keep going, before I made the mistake of cutting short my full apology.
“It wasn’t always my finger on the trigger, but I empowered the people who did the dirty work. Leonard was the last and worst of them. A holdover from my father’s days at the helm. But I want to do things differently now. A lot of things.”
We stood, surveying each other in the kitchen. She knew I wasn’t just talking about Kavanaugh Investors. I wanted a wholescale shift, whatever it took to set things right between us. Because when I looked around my life, I seemed surrounded by a lot of shiny, bright trinkets and distracting baubles. But the real treasure was Caroline.
“So you want to do things differently?” she asked, a hint of teasing mischief in her question.
“I do.” I could already tell I would like where she was going with this.
“Want to start by finishing up these scones?”
“OK.” Not exactly where I thought she was going. But it was better than her showing me the door.
“You might get messy.” She eyed my clothes disapprovingly.