All He Really Needs(24)

And she knew, instantly, that she should not have let that image flit through her brain because she could feel her cheeks heating up. And damn it, now he would definitely know what she’d been thinking, even if he was only guessing before.

Hoping to distract them both, she pushed her chair back and stood, walking over to the water cooler beside the credenza on the far side of the conference room and pouring herself a tiny cup of water.

But when she turned back around, it was to find him watching her. His gaze was hot and she could feel the weight of it against her skin as potent as a physical touch. Crap, she’d distracted him all right, but not in the way she’d meant to.

She swallowed most of the water in one gulp, nearly drowning herself.

“Is it too hot in here for you?” he asked, his voice pitched low with innuendo. “’Cause I could turn the air-conditioning back on for you.”

“No, thanks. I know right where the air-conditioning controls are.”

“Oh, I know you do.” He grinned wickedly and she knew he was thinking of the time he’d all but begged her to pleasure herself while he watched. The resulting earth-shattering sex was no doubt seared into both of their minds. “I was just offering to take care of it for you. If you wanted me to.”

Damn, but she did want him to take care of it for her. Right here. Right now.

But that was the very last thing she could do. Because the only thing worse than sleeping with your boss was sleeping with your boss in the middle of the day on the middle of the executive board table.

“Ugh, this is so frustrating. It feels like we’re never going to get anywhere like this.” Especially because the only place she wanted to get was into Griffin’s pants. Yeah, frustrating was the perfect word. Unfortunately. “I wish we could just talk to your mother about it.”

Griffin gave a bark of shocked laughter. “Why?”

She shrugged. Wasn’t it obvious? “Presumably she could tell us exactly who this nanny is.”

“I doubt that.”

“You don’t think she’d remember?”

He gave a snort. “I’d be shocked if she ever knew the woman’s name to begin with.”

“I find that hard to believe.” What kind of woman wouldn’t know the name of her children’s nanny?

“Do you remember Mrs. Fortino?” he asked.

“Yes. She’s Laney’s grandmother. She was your housekeeper for years, right?”

“Exactly. Thirty years. I was fourteen when I realized my mother had been saying her name wrong. With an A on the end instead of an O.”

“So? That’s an easy mistake to make.”

“Yeah, sure. So I corrected my mother. We fought over it. My mother refused to admit she was wrong. Finally, my mother called Mrs. Fortino in and told her that regardless of what her name actually was, from that moment on she was to go by Mrs. Fortina in my mother’s presence. She told the poor women that if anyone addressed her by her real name, she would be instantly fired.”

“That’s absurd. You can’t fire an employee over something like that,” Sydney protested.

“When you’re a self-indulgent narcissist you can do whatever you want if other people let you get away with it. Mrs. Fortino merely nodded and asked if that was all. As soon as she left, my mother told me to never again interfere with the way she ran the household.”

“You think she did it to punish you?”

“She did it because she wanted me to know she was in charge.”

His cold conviction unsettled her. She knew, of course, that he wasn’t particularly close to his family, but she’d written it down as a peculiarity of the rich.

“Well, that’s certainly not very nice, but it has nothing to do with this.”

“I didn’t tell you the story to elicit your sympathy. I told you to explain why I don’t think talking to Mother would make any difference.”

“Surely she’s not that bad.”

“I think they said the same thing about Nero’s mother.”

“Oh, come on.” She sent him a teasing smile. “You’re comparing her to one of the most reviled women in history? Did she commit murder? Are there plots to overthrow the government I don’t know about?”

“Wow, you really know your Roman history.”

“What can I say? I liked I, Claudius. My point is, a simple conversation with your mother might answer many of our questions.”

“First off, there’s no such thing as a simple conversation with my mother. And second, a conversation with her has never made any situation better.”

Sydney stared down at the open file in front of her, gnawing on her lip as she considered her next words. Sure, just asking him was the most straightforward course of action, but she was definitely treading on new ground here. They didn’t have the kind of relationship where they talked about their families or their childhoods. He’d already revealed more to her now than he ever had before. And if it was just human curiosity driving her, she would have let it go. But there was far more at stake here than her fascination with this man. If they didn’t find the heiress, the future of the entire company was at stake. Thousands of people would be out of work, herself included.