Counting the Kisses (Counting the Billions 3)

Leanne whistled under her breath. “Wow,” she said. “That’s big.”

“It is,” I agreed grimly.

“You don’t sound very happy about it,” Leanne said slowly.

“It’s not that I’m not happy about it,” I said, carefully considering my words. “It’s just that I’m not so sure about it. I’m nervous.”

“Talk to me,” Leanne said simply.

I smiled at her and then took a deep breath. “You know that I want to be CEO someday,” I said. “And that’s still true. And I do feel that since I’ve started working for Daniel, I’m closer to that goal. I’m learning valuable knowledge from him, and I do feel like I’m gaining confidence in my ability to make business decisions. He and I are on the same page for a lot of things. And when we’re not, either he makes it easy for me to see his point of view or vice versa.”

Leanne frowned at me. “So you’re just nervous about this?” she asked. “Sounds like you think you could take the job with no problem.”

“It’s not just nervousness,” I said, shaking my head. “Honestly, I just feel like there’s so much that I still have to learn. I don’t think I’m ready for this—not yet anyway.” A wave of unhappiness spread through me as I admitted that to her. I wanted to believe that I was ready for it, that was the thing. After all, hadn’t I worked all through school for a position like this? And I had been chomping at the bit for the years since graduation, sure that I deserved something more.

Something just like this. A job that came with a certain amount of responsibility attached. Yet, here it was, and I was shying away from it, sure that I wasn’t ready for it yet.

Leanne looked amused. “Daniel doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to try to give you a task he doesn’t think you’re ready for,” she said.

I frowned. “What makes you say that?” I asked.

Leanne shrugged. “Well, from what I’ve seen of him, he’s not only crazy about you, but he also appreciates every one of your strengths. I don’t think he’s trying to recklessly tear you down, and I also think he cares a great deal about your happiness and your mental state.”

I blushed, but I couldn’t keep the grin from my face. “Yeah, maybe,” I hedged.

Leanne shrugged expansively. “I can’t tell you what to do,” she said, as though I didn’t already realize that. “But I can tell you, I don’t think you need to worry so much about this. Maybe you’re not 100 percent ready for it yet. But what better learning experience than hands-on trying to run the company? Especially since you haven’t been with them forever and you can’t just do exactly what you think Daniel would do?”

I shook my head. “If this was some kind of classroom exercise, that would be one thing,” I told her. “But as it is, this is a real company. An important one. The decisions I would make as interim CEO could really change people’s lives. For the worse, if I’m not careful.”

“It has nothing to do with being careful, and you know that,” Leanne said, shaking her head. “You’ve got good instincts. We all know that. Daniel definitely knows that. He’s trusting you to make the right decisions on his behalf. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

“It does.” I sighed. “I just don’t know if that’s enough.” I frowned, trying to think of how to explain it to her. But really, what it came down to was that I was scared. I didn’t want to mess things up.

“It’s only temporary,” Leanne reminded me, as though I had spoken out loud. “Whatever you do wrong, Daniel will still be right there to counsel you through it. Or to fix things once his trial is over.”

“I don’t want to mess things up, though,” I said, hating that it sounded like I was whining. But to be honest, hearing how supportive Leanne was of this opportunity, I wondered why I had been so worried in the first place. She had come around to the idea of me dating Daniel, upon my insistence that he was a good guy. Maybe it was time for me to try my hand at being temporary CEO of the company, against my insistence that it might not work out well for anyone.

“I don’t know,” Leanne said finally. “It just seems to me that this is the perfect chance for you to see what being a CEO is all about, without the real high stakes. Like, if you were going to really become CEO of a company, it wouldn’t be with McGregor Enterprises; you’ve told me that. Because you couldn’t just take Daniel’s family company away from him for good. So if it were any other company, you’d be walking in there blind. But at least here, you not only know something about the company ahead of time, but you also have Daniel there at your back in the worst-case scenario.”

“I guess,” I said, starting to see her point of view.

“And besides, if you really screw something up, all you have to do is tell Daniel and he’ll find someone else to put in charge in the interim,” Leanne added. “What’s the worst you can do?”

I cracked a smile at that. “I don’t even want to think about it,” I told her, but to be honest, her words gave me only relief.

Because the truth was, I really did want to take Daniel up on his offer. For the same reasons that Leanne had said, basically: because this was a low-risk way to really try out being a CEO. And I had never backed down from a challenge before. Daniel’s faith in me was flattering, and I trusted him to know what he was talking about.

Not only that, but if I was going to end up in the tabloids either way, I would rather shut them up, give them something other than my relationship with Daniel to talk about. Wouldn’t it be nice to read about my business prowess for once, rather than read about what I was wearing out to dinner?

I wasn’t so naive as to think that every magazine would print the story with that spin on it. Plenty of them were probably going to write that I was a scheming whore, that I had orchestrated the whole incident with Gerrard, that this was all something we cooked up between us to get money from Daniel.

Maybe that was far-fetched, but I could see it happening.

What I’d like, though, was to see just one article that pointed out that I was making the most of a bad situation, and doing a damned good job of it, too. Maybe that was too much to ask. It would have been easier if I hadn’t been there when Daniel first assaulted Gerrard. It would have been easier if we hadn’t just come out to the press with our relationship.

But I could dream, anyway.

“Daniel can’t possibly expect you to be perfect,” Leanne said suddenly. She held up a hand before I could get offended at that. “Come on, we both know that you’re not going to do things exactly the way that he would, and he can’t expect that of you. What’s more, I think from what I’ve seen, he doesn’t expect that of you. He likes that you challenge h