She freaking owed him.
Which he was very aware of.
Maybe that was why he was poking. Because he knew she couldn’t give it back. Or maybe because he was hoping to push her to the point where she would lose it and he could fire her.
Whatever the reason, she just had to breathe deeply, smile, let it roll off, and act professionally.
Good thing she’d been practicing all of those things for the past ten years working with her grandfather, father, and brother.
She was a fucking pro at letting male egos and snide remarks roll off.
It was why she drank wine. And kickboxed. And did yoga. More the kickboxing, but still.
Of course, Cam had started going to the morning yoga class she had always liked best, so she’d had to adjust her schedule because there was no way in hell she could be in a room with him for an hour watching him bend and stretch and flex.
“Come on, Whit. Let me see.”
Fine. What she’d learned about the asshole men she’d been working with for the past ten years—yes, all her relatives—was that not letting them know they were getting to her was the most important thing.
She stepped out of the powder room, running her hands over her hips, smoothing the dress.
Cam’s eyes widened as she came into full view.
Yeah, take that.
Hey, she didn’t say the stuff out loud but that didn’t mean she didn’t think it. She schooled her features and just watched him taking her in.
His gaze tracked over her. Slowly. Twice.
Her whole damned body was tingling by the time he was done.
And if she didn’t want him to know that his comments about being her boss and saving the company and how her family had nearly put three hundred and forty-seven people out of work got to her, she sure as hell wasn’t going to let on that his biceps and tattoos and cocky smile got to her. And she was not going to react to him reacting to her.
Because he was. He really was.
His jaw was tight, he was standing straighter, and he looked as if he was putting every ounce of willpower into just standing there and not coming toward her.
She lied to people all day long. For years it had been to her dad and brother and grandfather. She told them she was fine and on top of things and thought things were going well. Those were all lies. She hadn’t been fine, and she’d never felt like she was doing what she wanted to be doing, and no, she’d never liked how her family ran the business. She also lied to her grandmother, telling Didi that everything at Hot Cakes was great and she loved her job.
Didi Lancaster had started Hot Cakes and had worked in the business for the first five years or so but Dean, her husband, had convinced her that it just wasn’t “right” for her to be working in their multimillion-dollar nationally renowned company. She was too good to be working in the factory, and she didn’t know enough about business to work in the business offices or executive suites. That’s where Dean and their son Eric—Whitney’s dad—and later Whitney’s brother, Wes, belonged. They let Whitney have an office too. Mostly because it had kept her under their thumbs.
Of course, she hadn’t figured that out for about three years. But she’d known it for a long time now.
So yes, she was fully prepared to lie to Cam. And the rest of her bosses, for that matter. She was going to tell them that everything was great, that she thought they were doing a great job because working for them could not be worse than working for her own family.
She was also absolutely going to lie to Cam about how she felt about him.
It was just all for the best.
She had wine and kickboxing. It would all be okay.
Whitney said nothing as Cam continued to study her. It was probably really only about a minute, but it felt like she’d been standing there under his hot gaze for a week. Still, she stubbornly stood, waiting for his reaction. Because, by God, he was going to be the one to react first.
Finally he shifted his weight in a clear attempt to look more casual and lifted his gaze to hers. “You’re gonna have to turn around if I’m gonna make a judgment about your ass.”
She cocked an eyebrow. Camden McCaffery was full of himself. Always had been. He didn’t care what people thought of him and he didn’t really care for rules. Like sexual harassment guidelines at Hot Cakes. He just said whatever the fuck he wanted to. She knew how to handle him. He expected other people to say what they were thinking and feeling too. Without getting fired, of course.
Though she suspected she was less likely to get fired for speaking her mind with him than she would be if she lied.
If he knew she was lying anyway.
It was a good thing she was very good.
“But you think I look okay from the front?” she asked, propping a hand on her hip.
He shrugged. Shrugged. And her eyes narrowed.
“Your tits look amazing,” he said. “But I’m not sure this dress is really right.”
Yeah, bosses should not say things like your tits look amazing to employees. Guys should also not say things like that to their exes.
But if Cam thought that sexism and blatant disregard for her feelings was somehow going to give him the upper hand, he was very badly mistaken. She could deal with sexist assholes all day without even rolling her eyes. Visibly anyway.
It was so normal in her world, in fact, that dealing with his three partners—her other bosses, who
