The CEO's Little Surprise(8)

"You can't come in here and throw around pop psychology," she told him,  pleased how calmly she delivered it. "You don't know anything about me,  Gage. Not anymore."

Arms crossed, he watched her from behind her own desk, still wearing a  faint trace of that smile. "Yet you didn't say I was wrong."

She shut her eyes for a beat. Dinner was going to be far more difficult than she'd anticipated.

If Gage was involved in corporate espionage, catching him in the act  was the only way to prove to the others she could lead Fyra through  these difficult circumstances. Plus it got rid of him, once and for all.  His hundred-million-dollar offer wouldn't be a factor and the leak  would be stopped.

He'd get exactly what he deserved.

Then she could get started on getting over him-for real, this time. She  could stop hating him. And stop being affected by him. And stop turning  down every man who asked her out. The chaos inside with Gage's name  written all over it had driven her for so long. Wasn't it time to move  on? That was what she deserved.

"I'm not what you'd call a fun date," she said. "I have a very boring  life outside of these walls. Dinner is a chance to discuss the leak.  Strictly business."

A token protest. She knew good and well it was anything but.

"Is that really what you want, Cass?" he asked softly, as if he already  knew the answer. "Because it sounds to me as if you need a friend."

Of all the things she'd thought he come back with, that was not one of  them. The laugh escaped her clamped lips before she could catch it.  "What, like you're volunteering? I have lots of friends, thanks."                       
       
           



       

But did she really? This time last week, she would have said Trinity  would take a bullet for her. They'd been friends for almost fifteen  years. It still stung that no one had stood up for Cass in the board  meeting, but Trinity's silence had hurt the worst.

Alex's defection was almost as bad.

Cass and Alex had met in a freshman-level algebra class. It had taken  Cass four months to convince Alex she had what it took to be the CFO of a  multimillion-dollar corporation and Cass had been right. Alex's lack of  confidence and all the talk of selling hurt.

Cass was afraid the cracks in Fyra's foundation were really cracks in  her foundation. The last person she could stomach finding out about the  division in Fyra was Gage Branson, and it would be just like him to  sniff out her weaknesses.

So she wouldn't show him any.

"There's always room for one more friend," Gage countered softly. "In  fact, I changed my mind. Let me take you to dinner and you can relax for  a while. Wear a dress and we'll leave our titles at the door."

There he went again, working his magic because that sounded like the  exact date she'd envisioned. He was the last man on earth she should be  envisioning it with, though. "How do you know that's what I need?"

"Cass. I know you. You can't have changed too much over the years. At least I hope you haven't."

Before she could figure out how to respond to that, he rounded the desk  and took her hand to hold it tight in his surprisingly smooth one. For a  guy who'd always spent a lot of time outdoors, his skin should be  rougher. It was a testament to GB Skin and the effectiveness of his  products that it wasn't.

She stared at his chiseled jaw, gorgeous hazel eyes and beautiful face  framed by the longish brown hair he'd always favored and something  unhitched in her chest.

Gage had broken her so thoroughly because she'd once given this man her soul.

That hadn't been an accident. A mistake, surely, but not because she  didn't realize what she was doing. She'd fallen in love with Gage  willingly. He'd filled her, completely. Because he understood her,  believed in her. Taught her, pushed her, stimulated her.

All of it rushed back and she went a little dizzy with the memories of  what had been holy and magnificent about their relationship.

"Say yes," he prompted, squeezing her hand. "I promise not to mention how boring you are."

Despite everything, she laughed, oddly grateful that he had figured out how to get her to.

"Yes," she said. There'd really never been another choice. "But we split the check."

He couldn't be allowed to affect her. The good stuff about their  relationship didn't matter because at the end of the day, Gage didn't do  commitment and never would.

"That part's nonnegotiable," he said with a wicked smile. "I'm paying. After all, I bullied you into it."

Mission accomplished. He had no clue he'd spent this entire  conversation persuading her into exactly what she wanted to do. For that  alone, she returned the smile. "You haven't seen the price of the  obscenely expensive wine I plan to order."

"I'll pick you up at eight," he said, clearly happy to have gotten what  he wanted, though why he considered dinner such a coup was beyond her.  He had an angle here that she hadn't yet discovered.

She watched him leave. That gave her nearly ten hours to figure out how  to keep Gage at arm's length while cozying up to him. Hours she'd use  to figure out how to pump him for information while keeping him in the  dark about her motives.

Ten hours to figure out how to seduce answers out of Gage Branson  without falling for him all over again. All she had to do was focus on  his sins and the rest would be a walk in the park.

* * *

Gage knocked on Cass's door at seven fifty-five.

Nice place. A bit too glass-and-steel for his tastes but Cass's house  overlooked a big lake with a walking trail around it. His own house in  Austin was near a lake. Funny how their tastes in views had aligned all  these years later.

She swung open the door wearing a sheer lacy dress that hugged her body  in all the right places. Cranberry-colored, which was somehow ten times  racier than red would have been, it rendered him speechless. When he'd  told her to wear a dress, he'd fully expected her to wear anything but.                       
       
           



       

His body sprang to full attention. He could not get a handle on her.

"You're early," she said with an amused brow lift. "I like an eager man."

The blood that should have been stimulating his brain into a snappy  response seemed to have vacated for a warmer locale in the south.

Cass wasn't a college student any longer. Not that he was confused. But  he was having a hard time reconciling how much she'd changed. Cassandra  Claremont, CEO, might be the most intriguing woman on the planet. She  was also far more of a challenge because she seemed to have developed  Gage-proof armor.

Dinner was supposed to level the playing field. Warm up that ice so he  could get her used to the idea of selling him the formula because she  recognized what she owed him. She might be willing to talk to the other  ladies about the formula, but he needed her to convince them, not talk  about it. For that, she had to be totally in his corner. How was he  supposed to get her there when he couldn't get his feet under himself  long enough to figure out what game she was playing?

"Uh..." Brain not engaging. He shook off the Cass stupor. "It's only  early if you're more than fifteen minutes ahead. Technically, I'm right  on time."

"Where are you taking me for dinner, Mr. Right-on-Time?" She cocked her head, sending her dangly diamond earrings dancing.

His body was not interested in food. At all.

"I'll let you choose," he allowed magnanimously. "Since you cancelled your previous plans."

Not for the first time, he wondered what she'd told the poor schmuck  she'd ditched, who'd likely spent all day anticipating his date with  Cass. Had she admitted to her date that an old boyfriend had  unexpectedly come to town? A business deal had suddenly fallen in her  lap that she needed to attend to? She had to wash her hair?

It probably didn't matter. She'd be forgiven for breaking the date  regardless. Cass was a gorgeous, sophisticated woman who ran a  multimillion dollar company and she likely had her pick of companions.  Suave execs, successful doctors, cut athletes with Pro-Bowl or all-star  credentials. The dating circles were wide open and she was most  definitely sleeping with someone. A woman like Cass wouldn't be alone  except by choice.

That burn in your gut? Feels a lot like jealousy.

Ridiculous. So Nicolas didn't get it right all the time.

Gage and Cass hadn't been an item for nearly a decade. Sure, he'd  thought about her and wondered what might have been if he wasn't so  averse to being tied down, but he hadn't spent all his nights alone  since then either. Though lately, a couple of hours at the dog park with  Arwen was more fun than wading through the pool of women in his circle.  That was the one downside to guarding your freedom so ferociously-you  went through eligible women pretty quickly.