When he didn’t say anything—because, God, what could he say?—she kept talking.
“You know, if it was me, I might feel guilty that my father treated her so badly.”
“Who said he treated her badly?”
“I inferred it from the fact that your father hates Sheppard Capital and has tried to destroy them financially. If that’s not horrible treatment, I don’t know what is.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, his voice gruff. “Good point.”
She had him so distracted he’d actually forgotten the conversation they’d had less than an hour ago. Or maybe he’d just blocked it out. He wasn’t used to talking about his family with other people.
“Yeah, that’s a nice theory, but I’m well past the age where I feel like I have to justify my father’s behavior. He’s an ass. There’s no point in me apologizing for that.”
“And yet you clearly feel guilty for how Sharlene was treated. If you’re not apologizing for his behavior, then for whose?” She was silent for a minute, then abruptly she swiveled in her seat so that she was looking at him straight on. “You can’t feel badly about how you treated her when she broke up with your father.”
He shrugged, not entirely sure what to say, partly because it hadn’t occurred to him until just then that he even felt guilty about it.
“She was like part of the family. Like my stepmom or something. Then, all of a sudden, she was gone from our lives.”
“You were, what? Nine?”
“Ten.”
“Look, Griffin, your father’s love life is clearly all kinds of messed up. It was wrong that he had a mistress for all those years and acted like it was normal for her to spend time with you and be your friend. It was wrong for them to put a kid in the middle of all that. You were ten. You shouldn’t have even known what was going on between them, let alone felt guilty for not sticking up for her or something.”
“Maybe not. But I knew she’d been treated badly. Maybe I shouldn’t have done something when I was kid. But I’ve been an adult now for twelve years. That’s long enough that I should have found the time to apologize.”
She seemed to be considering him seriously, but then she gave a snort of derision. “If you were acting like an adult at eighteen, then you’re a better person than I was at eighteen.”
He thought about what he knew about her—the things she’d told him and the things he’d learned on his own. “Yeah, I don’t believe that for a minute. At eighteen, you were what? In college, taking eighteen hours a semester and working two jobs to pay your way.”
He knew he’d slipped up the second the words were out of his mouth. Suddenly he found himself wishing the traffic would clear. Mere moments ago, he was glad for the traffic because it allowed him to postpone the inevitable. Now he wished he was already there.
She hadn’t seemed to have realized his gaff yet, but she was smart and—unlike so many people he knew—she actually listened to what others were saying. He figured he only had a few more seconds before—
“Wait a second.”
And there it was.
“Okay, I know I’ve mentioned college. But I never said anything about two jobs.”
He faked causal. “I was guessing. You’re not the type who would want to incur a lot of debt. You’re not the type who would have let your foster mom pay for you.” He glanced in her direction, but her gaze was still narrowed and suspicious. “It was a lucky guess.”
“Were you guessing about me having a foster mom, too? If you had to ‘guess’—” she made air quotes “—what college do you think I would have attended while I was working these two jobs?”
Five semesters at Houston Community College and another four at the University of Houston. “How would I know?”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m wondering. How would you know?”
He kept his gaze on the bumper of the white Ford in front of him. Damn traffic.
After a second, he glanced over at her. “How much trouble am I in here?”
She seemed to be considering him, but there was a playful gleam in her eyes. “I haven’t decided yet. I guess it depends on how invasively you’ve invaded my privacy.”
“What would you consider invasive?”
“Well, I know Cain Enterprises did a background check when I was hired full-time. So, did you just abuse the privileges your name offers you and get access to my file?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“How do you accidentally read someone’s background check?” That teasing light in her gaze had dimmed.
“Dalton had the file in his desk. I saw it this morning. I shouldn’t have read it, but I did.”
And now the details of her life seemed to have lodged themselves firmly into his brain, even though he’d only read the file once. He’d felt vaguely sick to his stomach. His disgust had been partly aimed at her mother because no one’s parent should put their kid through the things Sydney had gone through. But mostly, he’d been disgusted with himself because he should never have even looked at the damn thing. Somehow, despite having been neglected and then abandoned by her mother, despite having bounced around the foster care system before finally landing in a good home, somehow, despite all that, Sydney had developed into a decent human being. And she’d deserved better than to have her past dug up.
She clenched the strap of her purse in her hand. It was a classic navy shoulder bag made of fine leather, just large enough to hold her personal belongings and the company-issued iPad. She massaged the strap with such intensity he half expected to see a wear mark on the leather.
“Do you know about Sinnamon?” she asked abruptly.
“I do.”
Sinnamon was the name Sydney’s birth mother had given her. Her foster mother had filed a petition to have it changed with she was eleven, which was a few years after she’d ended up with Molly Stanhope.
“Do you know about Roxy?” she asked after a moment.
“Your birth mother? Yes.”
“What else do you know?”
“More than I should,” he admitted, keeping his gaze glued to that white bumper as if he could will it out of his way. “The background search that Cain Enterprises did was pretty extensive. After all, you were hired to be the CEO’s assistant. It doesn’t get much higher up the chain of command than that.”
He glanced at her, fully expecting her to be angry; instead, she looked a little bruised but mostly curious. “Do you read the company background checks on every woman you date who works for Cain Enterprises?”
“No! Jesus, this was nothing like that. It was a mistake.” She nodded slowly, but she didn’t lose that hurt look. He was so focused on the background check and her reaction to that that he almost didn’t catch it. “Wait a second. What do you mean, every woman I date at Cain Enterprises?”
“Well, you know…” She gave a little shrug and looked embarrassed. “I’ve seen how you are with women around the office.”
“You think I sleep with everyone at the office I flirt with?” He laughed. “I wouldn’t get anything done at work.”
She pursed her lips as if lost in thought. “What about Jenna Bartel?”
“Down in marketing?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s happily married with five kids.”
“But she’s always flirting with you!”
“Well, yeah. Five kids. She’s desperate for adult conversation.”
“Okay.” She seemed to be scrounging for another name. “How about Peyton in HR?”
He nodded appreciatively. “Oh, she’s great.”
“So you dated her?”
“No, she’s a lesbian. And in a long-term relationship.”
“Okay, what about Chloe Young in R&D?”
This time he cringed just thinking about the disaster that would be. “She’s engaged to Ryan Thomas.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. And he’s one of those medieval Ren Faire types. Owns a broad sword and everything. No way I’m messing with that. He’d kill me.”
“Hmmm,” she mumbled.
“So have I convinced you?”
“Yes.”
“The real question is why you needed convincing.”
*
Sydney hesitated. Well, the answer to that was transparent. It was easy to believe they were having a no-strings, just-sex relationship when she thought she was one conquest out of many. She wanted to be the rule, not the exception.
She felt her cheeks turning pink, and she refocused her attention on the bumpy spot on her purse strap.
“I can’t be the first woman you’ve dated who works for Cain Enterprises.”
“Why not?”
She blew out a breath of frustration. Why not indeed? Because it implied she was more important than she thought she should be. Because it meant maybe this was something special. And she so didn’t need those kinds of thoughts in her head. Instead of going down that twisted path, she asked, “So you’ve honestly never slept with someone from Cain Enterprises before me?”
He snorted derisively. “I’d have to be an idiot to make a regular practice of it.”
“Why do you say that?” Sure, she knew why she thought sleeping with coworkers was a bad idea—despite the fact that she was doing it—but she’d also worked enough places to know a lot of people did it anyway.
Instead of answering outright, he asked, “Do you have any idea how much money I’m worth?” Then he muttered a curse. “Or rather, how much I would be worth if my father hadn’t lost his mind.”
She didn’t know any precise numbers. “Not really. But I can guess, based on what the company’s worth and how much stock your father owns. From working with Dalton, I gather that, before your father’s little trip to fantasy land, he intended for your mother to get ten percent of the company stock and for each of his three sons to get thirty percent.”