All He Really Needs(13)

Thank goodness she had a handy excuse because apparently Tasha saw right through all her half-truths.

“I just…” Sydney fought the sudden urge to spill the beans. To tell Tasha everything. To share her burdens. Get a second opinion. The problem was, people usually came to her for help, not the other way around. So instead, she asked, “How’re your finals going?”

And thankfully Tasha let herself be distracted.

“Ugh. Just awful. Political Theory is knocking me for a loop.”

“I thought you liked that one.”

And distracting Tasha was as easy as that. Fifteen minutes of griping later, Sydney was wrapping up the conversation when Tasha inadvertently delivered the wakeup call Sydney needed.

“I just can’t wait for this semester to be over so I can blow off a little steam.”

“Just don’t do anything too crazy, okay?” Sydney said, that familiar need to protect her sister rising up inside her.

“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”

Tasha’s words were like a stab in the gut. If that was the barometer, then Tasha could be in serious trouble.

“Just be safe.”

Tasha chuckled. “I know the drill.”

“Yeah, I know you do.”

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” Tasha asked her out of the blue.

“Yeah. Great.”

“Because you just missed an opportunity to remind me to call you if I needed to.”

“Oh. Sorry. You know you can always call. Anytime, day or night.”

But of course, Tasha never did call. Like Sydney, Tasha was über-responsible, superpredictable and determined to make a better life for herself than the one fate had handed her. She was also the last of Molly’s foster kids Sydney felt really close to. And soon Tasha would graduate from college, get a job and maybe move away. Maybe she wouldn’t need Sydney anymore.

Sydney didn’t like to admit it to herself, but she still needed Tasha. She still needed to be needed.

She’d known this day was coming. She’d even thought she’d been prepared, back before her boss up and quit, back when her job was stable and her life still made sense. Now? Well, in the past few hours her life had unraveled at an alarming rate. But Griffin was right: panicking wouldn’t help anything. What she needed was a plan. Part one: stay out of Griffin’s bed. At least until this was all over with. Part two: find the missing heiress.

Of course, both of those things were going to be harder than they sounded. She’d been helping Dalton look for the missing heiress before he’d gone off the deep end. She’d already scoured hospital records and county court records. So far, she’d found diddly.

And then there was the matter of Griffin. If she had any resistance against him at all, she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

She didn’t need a plan. She needed a miracle.





Four


Miracle or no, she wasn’t going to sit around here just waiting for…for what? For Griffin to come out of the office and pounce on her?

She needed a little emotional distance. A way to remind herself that Cain Enterprise’s new CEO was now her boss. Not her lover. A way to reestablish the professional footing of the boss/executive assistant relationship.

Her very first boss, for example, had always insisted she call him sir or Mr. Thornton. And she’d never once made out with him at her desk. Never mind that Mr. Thornton was seventy-four, humpbacked and mean-spirited. Still, maybe there was something to this formal professionalism.

Maybe if she just focused on the job, she’d be able to push aside her personal desires. So she did the only thing she knew how to do in a situation like this. She did her job.

She started with the basics. She contacted Marion, Griffin’s former assistant, and had her send over his schedule. Marion clearly hadn’t heard anything yet from Griffin because she seemed to think the request came from Dalton.

After that, Sydney generated a short action list. Things that had to get done to ease this transition. When Dalton came back, she wanted him to be impressed as hell by how smoothly everything had run in his absence.

She sent everything over to her iPad and marched to the office door, knocking only briefly before letting herself in.

She found Griffin sitting behind Dalton’s desk, a file open on the blotter in front of him. He didn’t look up when she walked in. His hair—which always looked a little scruffy—was even more disheveled than usual. He held a pencil in his hand, tapping the eraser end against the desk at a frenetic pace. His expression was a mask of intensity and she felt a little shiver go through her. Despite his blasé attitude, he took this very seriously.