Scandalizing the CEO

“I am. I think as long as you’re circumspect and we keep the focus off Steven, we’ll be fine.”

“Okay. I’ll have to talk to my assistant about which writer we have available to do the XSU interview. Let me call you right back.”

“Just send it via e-mail. I want to know about Malcolm by close of business tomorrow.”

“No problem,” she said. But she had absolutely no idea how she was going to make that happen. Malcolm wouldn’t even return her calls. She knew he also had an estate in Surrey. She’d have to get Steven to take her there today—it couldn’t be that far. The sooner she talked to him the better.

She called her office and gave Cathy a list of things to do today. She hung up just as she heard Steven behind her. He walked out with a tray of fruit salad and juice.

“I had my housekeeper prepare this for us. Do you want something heavier for breakfast?”

“No. This is perfect,” she said. She hated eating breakfast. That was probably part of the reason she tended to overeat all day. So she’d started eating something small. But she still didn’t really like breakfast.

“Do you have anything planned for us today?” she asked.

“Is there something you’d like to do?” he asked.

“Yes. I’d like to meet your biological father.”

Steven shook his head. “Afraid you’re on your own there.”

“Why? Steven, this is important to me. My boss is going to run the interviews with your mothers in our U.S. magazine as well. This is huge. If I get Malcolm to agree—”

“Sorry, Ainsley. I don’t talk to him. You can call his attorney and see if you can work something out.”

She shook her head. “Did you two have a falling out?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

She stood up and walked over to him. “I do. This is important to both of us.”

He shook his head. “Not to me. I don’t need Malcolm Devonshire.”

“Then why are you working for him?”

“So I can show him up.”

She realized that she was making him angry. She didn’t understand why he couldn’t simply call his father…except that he always referred to Malcolm as Malcolm, not Dad.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Why? So you can get some juicy tidbits to add to your article? Or because you care for me?”

“I do care about you.”

“Then let this go,” he said.

“I can’t. It might be the writer in me but I want to know more.”

“What does that matter to you? Isn’t it enough to talk to my mother and Malcolm’s other sons about our business?”

She crossed her arms under her breasts and watched him. “This isn’t about the article anymore. This is about you and me. I want to know why you’re so upset.”

He turned away from her. Placing the tray on the table, he stalked over to the railing. His house overlooked a beautiful plot of land, and she felt as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

But it did. There were bosses to answer to and articles to get published. She knew she should just let him be, but she couldn’t.

She walked over to him, putting her hand on his back. “I’m sorry, Steven.”

“For what?” he asked, glancing down at her.

“For not realizing that Malcolm was just a sperm donor and not a father to you.”

He turned to face her and she wondered if she’d misjudged him. Had she said the wrong thing?

“Sperm donor? That’s brilliant. I’ve never heard him described that way before, but you certainly pegged it.”

“You may have noticed that I’m pretty good at observing people and figuring out what makes them tick.” She smiled, half in relief.

“I am, too, which is why I’m so good as a CEO,” he said.

“You are good as a man, too,” she said.

“You might be the only one who thinks so.”

She doubted that. Steven didn’t let people in. She wasn’t sure that she was the only one who cared for him. As she watched him look out over his property, pretending his parentage didn’t matter, she suddenly realized that she loved him.

Steven knew that he’d made a mistake by bringing Ainsley here. Now that she was here, he wanted to get her back to the city. Anywhere he could put barriers between them. It was fine if they were going to have a relationship. That was something he could definitely handle. But if she was going to keep asking questions about Malcolm outside of the articles she was having written…well, then she had to go.

He never thought about the lack of a father in his life. Men like Roman had long filled the gap as father figures when he’d been a young boy. But once he’d gone off to Eton he’d been on his own. There had been men that he’d learned things from when he’d been starting out in business, but for the most part he was a loner.