Which it was.
Shane growled and stood from his desk, pushing his hands through his hair in frustration.
It wasn’t like him to waffle over decisions. He weighed the options, came to a conclusion, and never looked back. Instinct and life experiences granted him a solid gut he could trust. Even in the most difficult of situations.
As he’d been so often lately, Shane was hit with a memory of his father.
It was a Friday afternoon when Shane learned of his father’s lung cancer. He may never have found out if it wasn’t for his father losing his house. Sean August called to ask Shane for a loan to “float him through to the next month.” When Shane asked what happened to the last loan, he found out through a series of shouts and swearwords that it had gone to pay for chemo.
Angry that he hadn’t known sooner, Shane was half tempted to ship the old man off to a care facility and let him be a belligerent pain in someone else’s ass. Over the last twenty years Shane saw his father exactly twice a year, and only because Shane insisted.
Despite their virtually nonexistent relationship, Shane had relented, opening his house to his father, inviting him to live the remainder of his days with him. If Sean appreciated it, he never said. Shane avoided Sean’s side of the house as much as possible, until his father’s cancer progressed. Once he was too weak to speak, Shane sat by his side. Accusations and apologies clogged his throat, but Shane said none of them. His father’s clouded, watery eyes held judgment until the end.
It hadn’t been the easy thing and sure as hell hadn’t been the convenient thing, but it was the right thing. And Shane knew it.
Like hiring Crickitt was the right thing. And subsequently, preserving their professional relationship was the right thing. It was his first decision, the right decision, and he should have stuck with it.
He sat in his chair with a huff and keyed in his computer’s password. “I’m an idiot,” he grumbled.
“You have your moments.”
Lori LaRouche stepped through his open office door and shut it behind her, walking through his office like a model on a runway. She lowered herself into a guest chair and gingerly crossed one lithe leg over the other. “Have a minute?” she asked, her painted red lips parting into a predatory grin.
“You could make an appointment.”
“You could make time for an old friend,” she countered.
He’d never been good at letting people down, especially women. It was one reason he didn’t get into relationships. He didn’t have to end them, or worry that they might end in abject tragedy, if they never started. But Lori was the one to let him down not so gently all those years ago. Lately, he worried he’d have to return the favor.
“I’m here on business, peanut,” she teased with a wink. “You can relax. I won’t pull a Mrs. Robinson cougar thing on you.” She sent an admiring gaze down his body. “Not that we both wouldn’t enjoy it.”
“What can I do for you?” Shane asked, adding, “Professionally speaking.”
Lori’s smile was at odds with the sadness in her eyes. Shane knew she’d never married. And he’d never seen her with a regular companion. He wondered if she was lonely, and if in fifteen years, he’d be just like her.
“Good boy, get down to business,” she said, pulling a notebook out of her handbag. “I have a few ideas regarding my makeup line.”
Chapter 21
The warm trill of female laughter followed by the rumble of Shane’s voice wafted through his closed office door. Crickitt paused on her way back from the fax machine, tempted to press her ear to the wood and find out what was so darn funny. Whoever she was, she sounded dazzled. Shane had his charm-o-meter dialed up to ten.
Another ripple of laughter permeated the air.
Maybe eleven.
Crickitt curled her lip, nearly hissing at the door before stomping into her own office. But she’d had her chance, hadn’t she? She’d been kissing him, and he’d kissed her back. So pleasantly distracted by his clever mouth, she willingly stepped over the line before remembering she’d been the one to draw it.
Besides, she justified, stacking a pile of papers and stapling them with inflated importance, she’d likely spared herself the humiliation following an office fling. Who knew how Shane defined “casual”? Casual to him might mean Crickitt in his bed one night followed by a revolving door of other women.
She rejected the visual of Shane as a billionaire playboy the second she thought it. His little picnic speech never hinted at the fact he wanted to sleep around. He just didn’t want her getting too comfortable. Maybe so he wouldn’t have to dredge up the courage to dump her a decade later like Ronald had.