Who's the Boss? by Jill Shalvis Page B

didn’t have a mother, and she doubted she would have listened to a mother’s advice, anyway.
    “Ms. Taylor,” the mortgage officer said in her ear, “you can’t expect this company to believe that you’ll be able to make the payments, given your current salary. Not to mention how far behind you are already. I’m sorry, but the lock-out will take place on Friday evening, unless you come up with something else.”
    Lock out.
    As in a huge padlock on her front door. She would have no place to go. “You’re going to put me out on the street because you don’t like my job?”
    Joe, already across the office and halfway out the door, froze. Mortified, Caitlin lowered her voice and her head. “You can’t do this,” she told the jerk on the line. “You can’t. My father—”
    “Is dead,” the man said bluntly. “And hasn’t provided any means for paying the mortgage. You have no experience, no credits to your name and no viable means of providing us what is due, Ms. Taylor. You can’t possibly blame us for this situation.”
    “What can I do to prove myself?” she asked, more than a little desperately. What had happened to her great life? To security? To a full stomach?
    “Marry a rich man,” he advised. “Quickly.”
    Floored, she hung up the phone and stared at it. She’d mistakenly thought her life was starting to be under control. But it wasn’t even close, she realized, and dropped her head down to her desk.
    What could she do?
    Hand still on the office door, Joe stared at Caitlin’s bowed head. Her full hair fell forward, exposing her pale, soft neck. She seemed small, vulnerable. Dammit, no. No, he told himself firmly.
    You aren’t going to worry about her.
    But he let go of the door. Of their own accord, his feet took him to her desk. Not his problem, absolutely not. Run, don’t walk, to the nearest exit. He perched a hip on the corner of her desk. This has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with his promise to Edmund. He’d gone over and above the call of duty so far. Anyone would think so.
    Anyone.
    Instead of running, he heard himself say, “Caitlin? What’s the matter?”
    She jerked upright, flashed him a smile minus her usual megawattage and said with false cheer, “Nothing. Everything’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
    “You’re out of money.”
    “Nothing new.”
    “You’re going to lose your place.”
    Her shoulders sagged. Her smile faded, and in its place came a disturbing helplessness. “It’s not mine anyway.”
    So many emotions attacked him then, he couldn’t think straight enough to sort them out from each other. But leading the way was guilt—guilt because Edmund had taken care of him , a punk kid with no future, yet he’d ignored his own daughter.
    Despite how Joe felt about her, and how he didn’t want to feel about her, she didn’t deserve this. Anger bubbled. Anger at Edmund, anger for Caitlin and anger for himself at being left to deal with the mess.
    He was distinctly uncomfortable cleaning up the messes other people made of their lives. He’d done it for his mother. He’d done it for his siblings. He’d done it for countless “friends” over the years who’d assumed that because of what he did for a living, he had an overabundance of money.
    He didn’t want to do it anymore. “I can help.”
    “No.” Abruptly, Caitlin got up. “I need to walk,” she said, slipping off her high-heeled sandals, replacing them with running shoes. Joe watched, fascinated and mesmerized, as her dress gaped and revealed soft, full, plump breasts rebelling against their constraints.
    He was a jerk, he thought, staring down her dress when she was undergoing a crisis. He told himself this quite firmly. But he didn’t—couldn’t—stop looking.
    When she grabbed her purse, he stopped her, pulled her back. Their thighs touched, but it no longer startled him to feel that inexplicable heat in his body. “Caitlin.”
    “No,” she said quickly, trying to pull back.