“Cailin Gray,” she told the young redhead behind the desk.
“Hey, Cailin, so happy to see you, hon. We’ve been expecting you. Transferring to the big city, huh?” the receptionist asked with a sweet smile. Her Southern drawl was the strongest Cailin had ever heard, which was saying something considering she’d lived in the South all her life, but she withheld her wince and smiled instead as the woman tucked a loose strand of fiery hair behind one ear and consulted a computer screen to her left. “I believe Mr. Brannigan has an off-site meeting first thing this morning, which will give you a bit of settling-in time. I was fixin’ to get some coffee from the break room, so let me show you around.”
An hour later the receptionist, whose name was Tammy, dropped Cailin off at the senior VP’s office. “Call me if you need anything, hear?” she said, her voice trailing behind her as she hurried down the hall. Cailin waved and stepped inside.
More of those blasted windows. Shuddering, Cailin turned her back on the floor-to-ceiling display and walked over to the desk she figured belonged to her. The surface was dark, gleaming wood, the chair behind it a cushioned showpiece that would have done Captain Kirk proud. Even the drawers opened with barely a whisper as she explored, putting her purse away and familiarizing herself with the supplies available.
She had parked herself in the plush chair and reached to turn on the computer when a noise from the inner office drew her attention. The sound, a long, low moan, whispered around the door Cailin only now noticed was slightly ajar. Concerned her new boss might be ill, she hastily stood and hurried toward his office, the thick carpet cushioning her heels as she ran.
“Sara Beth, please…”
That voice. What was it about that voice that was so familiar? She didn’t know anyone in Atlanta, not really. No one except…
The door slid open with barely a sound, freezing just in time to prevent it from thudding into the ultramodern black suede wall. Cailin froze as well, outlined in the open door frame as she watched the man inside bend down and place a soft, loving kiss against the corner of the lips of the woman he held in his arms. No, she didn’t know anyone in Atlanta, except this man. The man she’d given her body to, the man she’d trusted, the man who’d disappeared like a shadow in the sun while she slept in the bed they’d had sex in.
The man who now held and kissed someone else.
“Alex?” she whispered.
He shouldn’t have been able to hear her, not all the way across the room. Maybe he didn’t; maybe he simply heard a sound and reacted. Either way, he turned his head, hands—those rough, tender, drive-her-to-the-brink hands—still cupping the woman’s delicate jaw, and fastened his gaze on her. His eyes widened with recognition. Confusion. Panic. He jerked his lying ass off the edge of the sleek chrome-and-glass desk it rested on, bumping into her, startling, and jerking back from them both, hands fisted as they dropped to his sides. His hissed “oh shit!” echoed in the sudden silence.
SHIT WAS RIGHT; he was neck-deep in it. Cailin stood in the door to his office, and his wife stood in his arms.
How the hell did she find me?
Sara Beth waited quietly, looking from one to the other of them as if an explanation might eventually become clear, but no sound passed her lips. It was so like her. She assessed situations, drew her own conclusions, but waited to gather all the information before deciding how to proceed. Just one of the few things that made her a successful vice president in a world that favored men. One of the things he loved about her.
And he did love her. His eyes slid closed as the enormity of the situation hit him, the reality that to Cailin, he was an adulterer, the worst of the worst, a bastard. And maybe he was—a bastard, not an adulterer. Rare as it was nowadays, he and Sara Beth had what used to be termed a marriage of convenience, though less than a handful of people knew. The two of them were best friends, not lovers, and never would be. But they did have to keep up appearances, at least for now, and he’d let his dick help him forget that Saturday night. Now that decision was coming back to bite him on the ass. The worst part of it was, he couldn’t explain the situation to Cailin, not without risking Sara Beth’s future.
And standing here like the stupid dick he was wouldn’t solve anything either. Plastering a smile on his face, he moved toward Sara Beth, clasped hands with her, and took the first steps toward the door. Damn, he should have remembered to shut it.
“Cailin, what are you doing here?”
Cailin stammered. The visible effort it was taking to get herself together gripped his heart in a vise. “Today’s my first day.”