Who’s the Boss?

couldn’t afford.

This little bubble of stress sitting uncomfortably in her belly was new and entirely unwelcome. So was the apprehension about her future, and the lingering, gnawing wound of her father turning his back on her.

She came to a grinding halt in the fast lane, surrounded by thousands of other idling cars. Never one to obsess about anything, she couldn’t believe she’d been doing just that all morning.

Shaking her head, she cranked up the music, sat back to wait out the traffic and cleared her mind.

JOE’S FINGERS FLEW over the keyboard. Deep in concentration, he’d been working for hours, but he couldn’t stop now. He was so close, so very close, to getting it right.

“Joe.”

Vaguely, he heard a female voice calling him, and just as vaguely, he knew it was Darla.

He ignored her.

All those years, he’d had to work on hardware, designing computers for his bread and butter…but no more. Now, with Edmund Taylor’s generosity in death-Joe’s heart squeezed at the reminder-he could work on his first love. Software. And he was inches away from perfecting the system he envisioned revolutionizing every office in the country.

“Joe.”

Just another few minutes, he thought, stretching cramped legs that were far too long to be shoved beneath a desk for so many hours. A few more minutes and things might click into place. He could almost hear the big software companies knocking at his door. Bill Gates, eat your heart out.

“Joe? Yoo-hoo…”

Without taking his eyes off the keyboard, he growled, waving one hand wildly over his shoulder, his usual sign for Leave me the hell alone! With the ease only the hyperfocused can achieve, he sank back into his thoughts. Just put that command here instead of over there-

“I’m sorry, Joe.”

“No problem,” he murmured automatically, not looking up. Why had he chosen to work in the front office, instead of his own down the hall, which would have given him more privacy?

Because he’d been in a rush, that’s why. Always in a rush. “Go away.”

“Joe,” said a now laughing Darla. “Could you please look at me?”

With a sigh, he straightened, biting back his impatience. He shoved his fingers through already unruly hair and took his gaze off the screen long enough to glare at the only person who would dare interrupt him. “What? What do you want?”

Darla smiled sweetly. “Lovely to see you, too.”

“Great. Nice. Now go away.” He’d already turned back to the computer when she spoke again.

“Joe, could you focus those baby blues this way for just another minute? Pretty please?”

“I’m really busy,” he said evenly, through his teeth. His fingers itched to get back to the keyboard.

“But-”

“This,” he announced, “is why I need an assistant. To keep people out.”

“You couldn’t keep an assistant,” Darla told him, gesturing to the cluttered office, which admittedly looked as though World War III had gone off in it. Papers were everywhere. So were books, files and an entire city of computer parts. “No one but those other crazy computer programmers you’ve got back there wants to work for a perfectionist, a workaholic, a technical-”

“Why are you here? Just tell me that much,” he begged, resting his fingers on the keyboard and eyeing the screen longingly.

“Oh, wipe that frown off your pretty face-I’m not here to bug you for your tax info. Yet.”

Darla’s insulted scowl worked, and Joe laughed. As the only accountant in their small building, the tall, waiflike Italian beauty had taken on all of the other four businesses in the place, his included. Besides handling most of their bookkeeping, she dished out unwanted advice, unsolicited sisterly affection and more than a few good dirty jokes. “And what could be more important than tax stuff?” he teased, and resigned himself to a break.

“Not much.” She grinned, too, making her look much younger than her thirty years. “But remember that assistant you were just mentioning? I think she’s arrived. I saw her roaming around downstairs, scrutinizing the different suites and the business names on the front board as if she had no idea where she’s going.”

“I didn’t hire an assistant.”

“You told me Edmund wrote off his investment in this company, making it effectively yours-as long as you guaranteed his pathetically spoiled daughter a job.”

“Yeah.” Joe rubbed his hand over his chest at the twist of pain. Edmund, gone. Forever.

At the thought of Edmund’s daughter, whom he’d never met, his usually receptive heart hardened. “She never even bothered to show up for her own father’s funeral.” He tried to remember what Edmund had told him about her. A flightly clotheshorse. A party girl. A world traveler-on her daddy’s budget, of course.

Nothing particularly flattering.

“Whoever you saw couldn’t be her,” he stated. “A software company that has yet to prove itself has nothing to offer a socialite.”

Darla shrugged. “Maybe not. But Marilyn Monroe’s here.” She sniffed and gave him a haughty glance that he had no trouble deciphering.

Joe wasn’t ashamed to admit he’d had more than his fair share of women flit in and out of his life, and his good friend Darla had hated most of them. But nothing got her goat more than a blond bombshell. “She looks like Marilyn Monroe?” he asked, unable to contain his wide grin when Darla rolled her eyes. “Really?”

“Barbie meets Baywatch, actually,” she snapped, making him laugh. Darla snorted in disgust. “What is it about that blond, wide-eyed, come-hither look that renders a man so stupid?”

“Ahh…a come-hither look?”

She glowered and straightened, her considerable height accentuating her thinness. “And she’s got huge-”

“Darla,” he said, still grinning as he cut her off. “She’s not looking for me-she couldn’t be. No way would Edmund’s daughter show up.” He hadn’t read all of Edmund’s book-length will, hadn’t been able to bring himself to even open the five-inch-thick file that had been sent to him by Edmund’s attorney, but he imagined Caitlin Taylor had gotten a very nice chunk of change. She’d have no need for a job.

He glanced at his watch. “And anyway, it’s ten o’clock. What kind of an assistant would start work this late?” He happily gave his computer his full attention. “Now go away and let me be.”

“Okay…but you asked for it.”

Breathing a sigh of relief when she was gone, Joe looked at his screen with anticipation. Now he’d get some work done.

He’d simply kill the next person who interrupted him, he decided, and promptly forgot about everything except what he was doing.

In the back of his mind whirled the vision of his program up and running. And for once, thanks to Edmund, that dream was obtainable.

“Ahem.”

Not again! He needed a weapon. Yeah, that was it. A squirt gun, maybe, or a-

“Excuse me.”

“If the place isn’t burning down,” he growled, “then I don’t-” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her; words vanished from his brain. She was petite, luscious and one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. She smiled and his tongue actually went dry.

“Hi,” she said, wiggling her fingers at him.

Trailing behind her, gawking with their collective mouths hanging open, were Vince, Andy and Tim, his three techs. At the moment, they resembled Larry, Curly and Moe. He sent them looks loaded with daggers, and they slunk back, closing the door behind him.

“I’m looking for Mr. Brownley,” the exotic creature said in a sweet, musical voice. “I’m Caitlin Taylor.”

Caitlin Taylor. Professional socialite. Ditzy, spoiled princess…his new assistant.

An imaginary noose settled around his neck. He liked gorgeous women as much as the next guy-maybe even more-but no way could he work with one, especially one with the life-style and attitude this one was reputed to