“What kind of opportunity?”
“A rich mother. A guaranteed job. A wealthy lover.”
She gasped. Anger boiled in her veins. “I see my half brother has been digging.”
Gage’s eyes narrowed. “You have a lover waiting in the wings?”
Okay, maybe Trent hadn’t been snooping through her past and uncovered Whit. Just as well. She didn’t want to explain how stupid she’d been to believe Whit would marry a nobody like her simply because they’d been long-term lovers. He’d dumped her as soon as the right kind of woman came along.
“My personal life is none of your business unless it affects my ability to keep you safe in the air.” She shot to her feet, fists curled by her sides, determined to get as far away from Gage as possible.
“Your accusations are unfounded. I’m a damned good pilot and better qualified than half of HAMC’s roster. Ask your buddy Trent. He’ll verify that, although he’ll probably choke on the words.
“As for not wanting to learn…You’re way off base, Faulkner. My father is dead. Falcon Air is now half-mine. I want to learn everything I can about running it, but I don’t see how trailing after you will benefit me.”
“Because I’m the best at what I do.”
A snort burst from her. “Lack of confidence clearly isn’t an issue for you.”
“Nor you.”
She gritted her teeth on the desire to tell him to go to hell. “It’s Saturday.”
“There are fewer interruptions from employees on weekends. The CEO and a skeleton staff will be on board to provide what we need.” He sat across from her and dug into his food. His appetite clearly hadn’t been killed by the idea of spending a day with her.
The door to the kitchen swung open and Esmé breezed in with a coffee carafe before Lauren could make her escape. Esmé looked at Lauren’s plate. “Oh, good, dear. I’m so glad you have an appetite. I love to cook, and it pains me when the fruits of my labor go to waste. So many of your contemporaries practically starve themselves with that no-fat-no-carbohydrates garbage.”
Feeling trapped, Lauren eyed the mountain of food on her plate and resigned herself to forcing it down rather than disappointing her hostess even though she knew the man across from her was going to give her indigestion. A full day of it.
Lauren stared at the pile of purchasing orders Gage had given her and fought the urge to roll her eyes.
Busywork. Nothing your average twelve-year-old couldn’t do. She certainly didn’t need a business degree to handle what was essentially categorizing and organizing the computer plant’s purchasing history. But she wouldn’t complain. He probably wanted to make her miserable. The jerk. And that was one payoff she refused to give him.
At the other end of the long boardroom table in the windowless room Gage looked engrossed in something interesting. Fighting the urge to wad up a piece of paper and hurl it at him like a snowball, she swiveled her chair sideways so she wouldn’t have to look at him and crossed her legs. Her foot kicked in irritation. She should be out seeing the sights.
Her best bet was to get through this garbage and make him find something else for her to do—preferably something that required brain cells.
She sorted, stacked and tabulated, adding comments on a pad of paper as she worked until she’d finished the pile. Relieved, she shoved it aside and checked her watch. Two hours. Wasted.
“Done.”
He hit her with another one of those intense looks, the kind he’d been shooting at her while she worked, the ones she’d been trying to ignore, then he frowned and scanned the neatly paper-clipped piles on her desk. “You’re finished?”
“Yes. What else do you have for me?”
He lay down his pen, rose and headed in her direction. “Let me see.”
She stood and walked away from the table to stretch the kinks from her spine rather than be near him. The staff had left refreshments for them. She selected a diet soda loaded with caffeine from a mini fridge and popped it open. The cool liquid slid down her throat, reviving her somewhat.
She didn’t mind paperwork, not really, but she’d rather be behind the controls of a plane than behind a desk. Her father had been the same way. That’s why they’d needed Uncle Lou—who was a whiz with numbers.
“You made these notes?”
Gage’s question made her turn. He held the yellow legal pad she’d written on. “Yes.”
He flipped through the pages. “You’ve made a good point. By not forming a continuous relationship with one supplier our client is paying a wide range of prices for the same products and not benefiting from customer loyalty discounts.”
“Your client,” she corrected. “Every business has its own version of the frequent flyer rewards plan.” Falcon always ordered their parts and fuel from the same suppliers.
“I’ll get you something else to work on.” He crossed to a file cabinet and extracted another manila folder. “You’ll find this a little more challenging.”
She flipped through the pages. “The company has an investment portfolio?”
“See which ones you think they should keep and which they should unload.” He returned to his end of the table.
“Gage, if they need liquid cash, why do they have these investments at all? It’s not like the company needs a retirement account. That’s more of a personal thing. Besides, none of these brings in big dividends. In fact, some have lost quite heavily.”
He met her gaze again this time with respect and admiration in his dark eyes instead of dislike and distrust. “Good observation. When you’ve finished that, I’ll give you the notes I’ve made on the project thus far, including a transcript of my initial interview with the CEO. Read over them while I finish up for today, then give me two lists. First, the additional data you’d like to see, and second, options you think the company should consider.”
Surprise made her eyebrows shoot up. That sounded almost like…teamwork. Was it another test? Or did he actually want to hear what she had to say? She couldn’t help but be suspicious. “You want my opinion. Why?”
“You offer a fresh perspective.”
“Right. Like that compares to a trained professional.”
“Lauren, you think outside the box. You’re not constrained by knowledge of what has worked or not worked in similar situations in the past the way a seasoned consultant might be.”
That sounded like a compliment.
“Okay.” She’d give him her opinion and then maybe she could still get some sightseeing done.
But if he kept looking at her that way, as if he might actually enjoy having her here, then there was going to be trouble, because she didn’t want him to like her.
And she absolutely did not want the feeling to be mutual.
He’d underestimated his opponent, Gage admitted as he shoved open the beveled-glass front door of the B and B Saturday evening. “Show me your paper.”
Lauren turned on her low heels. “My economics paper? Why?”
She’d worn her black HAMC uniform skirt and a plain white blouse today. The conservative outfit should have made her look prim and stiff, but at some point during the day she’d twisted her hair up on the back of her head and stuck a pencil in it to hold it in place, resulting in a spiky spray. She looked young and fresh and smart. A sexy brainiac.
Gage rejected the idea, but he couldn’t get rid of the reluctant respect she’d earned from him today. He’d expected her to be deadweight and a real pain in the ass. He had a packed schedule and no time or interest in babysitting, but he’d had no choice except to drag her along if he wanted to keep her from contacting her mother.
He’d given Lauren busywork to keep her out of his way. She’d dug right in without complaint and come up with several interesting and intelligent observations. She’d ended up saving him time and giving him a perspective he wouldn’t have considered otherwise. They’d actually worked well together, but their truce was an uneasy one.
Esmé entered the foyer carrying two glasses. “You’re just in time. It’s south of the border night. Have a mojito while I put the finishing touches on dinner.”
She pressed tall glasses of iced clear liquid into Gage’s and Lauren’s hands. Green leaves and slices of lime floated near the bottom and white crystals clung to the rim.
“I’ll see you two in the dining room. Dinner’s in twenty minutes.” She headed back to the kitchen, her loose dress floating behind her like curtains blown by a breeze through an open window.
He focused on Lauren who eyed her glass and then him. “I’m not flying you anywhere until Monday, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then I can have this. I love mojitos.” She pursed her lips and sipped. Her eyes closed and her lips curved upward. “Mmm. Mmm. Minty and sweet.”
A crystal clung to her lip. A pass of her tongue wiped it away. He pried his gaze from her mouth and focused on the cold glass sweating in his hand. The sound she’d made had been close enough to a moan to sound almost sexual. An unwanted image of her face flushed, not in the anger he’d deliberately aroused this morning, but in desire filled his brain.
He blinked to clear his head. “I want to see the paper you e-mailed to your teacher.”
She took another sip, watching him with a skeptical gaze from beneath her lashes. “Why? You think I lied about it?”
He’d earned her antagonism. “Not after today. You had a keen grasp on the subject. I’m curious to see how far along you are in your studies.”
“I have fifteen hours of classes left before I get my degree. I can’t go full-time because of work and…well, money.”
Another reminder of what she stood to gain from her association with Jacqueline Hightower. But Lauren had shown she was a stickler for following rules. Would a rule follower stoop to shortcuts and swindling?
“I want to see it,” he repeated.
Lauren stared at him then sighed and shrugged. “Sure. Why not? Maybe after you read it you can tell my half brother I’m not as stupid as he thinks I am.”
“Trent has never called you stupid. And for what it’s worth, I don’t relay everything to him. What’s between you and me is our business unless it directly concerns him.”
Gage carefully filtered out the need-to-know facts. Thus far, there had been very few worth sharing. Trent had enough on his plate, and Gage always carried out his end of a bargain.
“You’re deluded. The Hightower siblings are convinced I’m a greedy lying witch out to cast a spell on their mother and steal their inheritance.”
He didn’t bother to deny her dead-on assessment.
“What they don’t bother to see is that if I’d really wanted to worm my way into Jacqui’s affections or her wallet, I would have moved into the Hightower castle when she invited me. I wouldn’t have found my own place.”
He filed the info away. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I can’t stand the idea of servants hovering around waiting to cook for me or clean up after me as if I was a child. Besides, I like my space and my independence.” She pivoted and climbed the stairs.