Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86020 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“It’s Lord Bigwig to you.”
She laughed then, the hot color fading from her cheeks. Then she got down to business again. “I’m rubber-stamping what you already know, but this is going to be amazing. The Mavericks will bring new blood to all the family ventures, yours included. Will Franconi said it right—what the Harringtons do complements what the Mavericks do.”
“You might be rubber-stamping, but I wasn’t about to act on it until I talked to you.”
She huffed out another laugh. “But you did act on it before we even talked. You brought up a merger right there at the café.”
He shrugged. “You pinched me under the table, giving me permission.”
She gaped at him. “I didn’t pinch you until after you’d already talked about a merger.”
He grinned. “But I could read your mind, and I knew you thought it was a great idea.”
She shook her head at him, as though he were a recalcitrant child from whom she didn’t believe a single word. “Whatever. I liked them. And I liked all the Maverick ladies. They might’ve married billionaires, but they’re all so down to earth. And kind. They didn’t talk to me like I was just your assistant.”
He jumped in quickly. “That’s because you’re not just my assistant. You’re my girl Friday and my idea genie. I’d be nothing without you.”
She rolled her eyes at him again. “Oh, will you just stop that?”
He didn’t want to stop. With her uncle so gravely ill and close to the end, showering her with compliments was the least he could do for her.
Even if sometimes, especially late at night, he wanted to do far more.
* * *
The house was so damn quiet after they said goodbye, even with Rex snoring softly beside him on the couch. Dane wished with everything in him that Cammie would come home. Because this was her home. The moment she’d decided to sell Lochlan’s house where they’d both lived, Dane had set her up with her own suite of rooms in the Pebble Beach house. He’d wanted to make the transition as easy as possible for her. Searching for an apartment with all the other things on her plate at the time would have been a nightmare. There was the added bonus that it saved her rent and utilities, especially when she traveled so much with Dane anyway.
So he’d cleared out the office space on the San Francisco Peninsula and moved his headquarters to his Pebble Beach estate. He’d had the office there only because it was close to Lochlan’s home and therefore cut down on Cammie’s commute. But Pebble Beach was closer once Lochlan went into the San Juan Bautista memory care facility. And Dane made sure neither Cammie nor her uncle wanted for anything.
He admitted only to himself that Cammie living just down the hall had been seven years of torture. The need to knock on her door sometimes overwhelmed him, and he’d march to her suite with some crappy idea just so he could talk to her, look at her, smile at her. The worst was resisting her lure when the darkness was so complete he could barely see his hand in front of his face. When he’d lain awake for hours thinking of her.
But of course he couldn’t go to her then. He wouldn’t. There could be no excuse for an after-midnight excursion. But damn, it was hard.
Cammie wasn’t just his assistant. She was his best friend, as important to him as any of his brothers or sisters. Cammie had become part of the family unit.
And yet, late at night, the questions plagued him. What if everything about the way they’d met had gone down differently?
What would have happened if Clyde Westerbourne had never sent her to him as a job candidate twelve years ago? What if, when Dane had met the beautiful young woman on the golf course the day before his interview with Clyde’s assistant, when he had no clue who she was… what if there’d been no interview at all the next morning? What if, after that sexy golf game they’d shared, after he’d made love to her in his condo all night long… what if he’d never had to let her go?
What if there’d been no impediments to a relationship?
But there’d been so many impediments. He’d seen his own shock mirrored in her eyes the following morning when she’d walked into his office. The morning after one of the most incredible nights of his life. His one and only night with her.
They’d both had to agree their one-night fling could never happen again.
He’d badly needed an assistant who would take his work life in hand and keep him on track. Not one of the umpteen secretaries he’d been through could handle it. Fernsby had been ready to desert him if he didn’t do something. Then Clyde Westerbourne had called, swearing that Cammie Chandler could do the job. Dane had never met her, had no idea what she looked like. He’d actually imagined someone matronly, in her forties or fifties. Because how could a person Cammie’s age be such a paragon? All he’d cared about was that she’d totally organized Clyde’s life. If Clyde could have taken her with him on his permanent move to the Caribbean, he would have. But Cammie badly needed a good job in the Bay Area, where she could take care of her uncle, who’d been going quietly downhill.