A Lyon's Share by Janet Dailey Page A

but the boss is supposed to arrive late and leave early, so I don't inhibit my employees."
    The smile sent thick waves through her system, and she transferred her attention back to the letters. "I suppose it's only natural that we're self-conscious when you're around."
    Deliberately she placed herself with the rest of the company's employees, although she didn't exactly fit. Her closeness to the boss elevated her to some indefinable plateau.
    "Are you self-conscious around me?" The letters were all sealed in their envelopes, but he kept them in his hand.
    "Not as much as others who only see you from a distance," Joan qualified.
    His gaze roamed freely over her face and her slightly guarded expression. "So to you, I'm not some omnipotent god with the sword of dismissal in my hand," he mocked.
    "You are my employer," she dodged.
    Her hand reached out for the letters. There was something omnipotent in his hold over her heart and senses, but she didn't liken him to a god. Almost reluctantly, he handed her the envelopes with their correspondence inside.
    "I'll be off to the party now," she stated, oddly feeling the warmth of his hands on the paper.
    "Not yet." An enigmatic expression in the carved, rugged planes of his face as he rose from his chair and walked around the desk to where she stood. Compellingly, his gaze held her confused brown eyes. "There's something I want to give you first."
    "Give me?" Her echo was weak and barely audible as she watched him reach into his pocket and withdraw a flat jewel case.
    Behind the patient and amused gleam in his eyes was something else that sent her pulse racing. Her hands were extremely uncoordinated as they took the box from him. She could only stare dazedly at the familiar name of an expensive jewelry store scrolled across the top of the leather case.
    "Open it," Brandt commanded.
    His eyes were on her bent head, watching, waiting. In compliance, Joan fumbled for a second with the catch, then snapped the lid open. A white-gold circle of linked ovals winked brightly at her from its bed of olive green velvet. Dangling from the bracelet was a rectangular object of the same shining metal in the shape of a filing cabinet. The drawer handles were diamond chips.
    "I hope you like it," Brandt prompted, twisting his head to the side to get a better angle at her face.
    Joan pressed her lips tightly together, foolish tears of happiness filling her eyes. His gift touched her heart more than she wanted to admit. Since the very first day she had entered his office, the filing cabinet had been a private thing between them, sometimes the subject of disagreements when Brandt would mis-filed something in her absence or create an uproar when he was unable to fathom the system, but it had always subtly been there.
    "It's perfect," she assured him in a choked trying to blink back the tears as she smiled tremulously at him. "Thank you."
    A solitary tear slipped from her lashes. Brandt reached out and gently wiped it away with his thumb, letting his hand remain on the soft curve of her neck.
    "You aren't going to misunderstand my motives for giving it to you, are you?" he mocked lightly. "You're still receiving your regular Christmas bonus the same as everyone else who works for Lyon Construction. This gift is from Brandt Lyon to Joan Somers, with only the Christmas spirit involved."
    For a frightened moment, Joan thought he was warning her that the gift did not imply that his emotions were of a more serious nature. Then she realized he was referring to the scene she had made when he had paid her for the weekend they were stranded at the office.
    "I understand," she murmured, still with a catch in her voice. Her finger touched the smooth chain of the bracelet. "From one friend to another."
    The lines around his mouth deepened into a wide smile, but something held the smile back from reaching his eyes. "Let me help you put it on." he said, and reached into the cue for the bracelet.
    Joan was beyond any