“Go out with me.”
“No.”
“Let me put you up on your desk and convince you.” Damn, he wanted to do that so fucking bad he almost had to reach down and adjust his cock. He did appreciate dress pants and the bit of give they had compared to denim. He was going to have to remember that if he was going to have these conversations with Whitney.
“No.” But she swallowed hard after that one.
“Okay.” He took one final step. Now she had to tip her head back to look up at him. “Let me bend you over your desk and convince you.”
This time she had to swallow before she answered. “No.”
He studied her face. Her pupils were wide and round, her cheeks pink, her pulse fluttered at the base of her throat. “You think I’m testing you,” he said as he realized it.
“Are you?”
Well… He nodded. “Maybe a little. But not the way you think.”
“You’re not trying to find a reason to fire me?”
He was legitimately surprised that she thought that. “I don’t want to fire you, Whit.”
“No?” She looked skeptical.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I want you right here, front row, center, watching me and my friends turn this company into so much more than your family ever did with it.”
Emotions flickered in her eyes and he wasn’t sure if he should brace for a fight or… what.
Finally she nodded. “Good. I want all of that to happen.”
Yeah, he hadn’t been expecting that. Not even a mild defense of her family?
“But,” she said lifting her chin. “I want to… I intend to be a part of that. Not just sitting and watching.”
She did, huh? “Because you’re not really qualified to do anything else?” he asked, unable to resist the jab.
Hey, he wasn’t as big of an asshole as the Lancaster men, but he would never deny that he could be one. Unmistakably. Unapologetically, too. Most of the time.
She took a breath. “I’m an asset to you and this company,” she said instead of directly answering the question.
She was.
He nodded. “But you want to stay because you like that big old house you inherited from your grandma and you don’t want to have to move and buy something on your own?”
Did it matter why she wanted to be here? As long as she was and she was a witness to the great work he and his friends were doing here? Yeah, it did matter. She needed to know where she stood with him, but he needed to know where he stood with her too.
And he had a feeling she was going to lay it all out. And that he already knew.
“I do like that house,” she admitted. “This town is also my home. I don’t want to live anywhere else. And I don’t have a college degree to take to another company,” she said, her chin up again, her gaze on his. “And I don’t have any other experience except what my family gave me and I know exactly how that would look on a resume. But”—she took a breath—“what I really want is to take this company to levels my family never did. I want more markets, more products, and to double our bottom line. I want to expand the number of jobs here and to look at a second factory location. And I want to be a part of all of that.” She crossed her arms and took a deep breath. “I want to be a partner.”
He stared at her.
He hadn’t been expecting any of that.
He really hadn’t.
Whitney had always been sweet, dedicated to her family’s company because that had been ingrained since she’d been born, believing that her grandfather and father could walk on water, willing to go along with whatever they wanted or needed from her. She’d been a part of the company up to this point. So why did this all sound like she’d been frustrated and was so determined to grab on to this change in ownership as an opportunity?
“I—” he started.
“Which is why I can’t go out with you and I certainly can’t sleep with you,” she said.
Cam’s eyebrows rose. “Hang on now.”
“For one, it’s ridiculous to even think we should go there,” she told him. She dropped her arms, but she also moved behind her desk, putting the wide expanse of solid wood between them.
Cam knew that wasn’t an accident.
“We broke up ten years ago,” she said. “We are exes who haven’t exactly been friends. Why would you think we should go out?”
“Well, first, we didn’t break up. You broke up with me,” he corrected, unable to help himself.
She just lifted her brows.
“And the fact we’re exes and that you want to be more involved in the company is exactly why we should go out.”
She gave him a really? look. “So if we sleep together you’ll give me the partnership?”
“Girl, if you’re even half as good as you were on that riverbank, I’ll probably give you my shares too,” he said. Again, unable to help himself.
She rolled her eyes.
He was probably lucky that she knew him well enough to know he was mostly just mouthing off. He really could end up with a sexual harassment suit against him with someone else. Of course, he’d never say that to anyone else. He did have some restraint and decorum. Besides, it wouldn’t be true with anyone else.
No one else had ever rocked his world like Whitney had. It hadn’t been because she had been experienced or even all that wild, she’d just been… he blew out a breath… madly fucking in love with him.
“But what I meant,” he went on before he said anything else about sex. For now. “I think we have to date.”
She frowned. “That makes no sense.”
“Of course it does. We’re not the only ones wondering about what’s going on with us.”
“Except that we’re not wondering what’s going on,” she said.
“We’re not?”
That hand went back to her hip. “Are we?”
“I am,” he admitted.
