At first, Sydney was tempted to refuse. It smacked of charity. She didn’t want a pity job merely because Griffin felt badly about giving her no option but to quit.
“Don’t be ridiculous, dear,” Sharlene had said, brushing aside her protests. “Griffin didn’t call me. Dalton did. He was furious that Griffin put you in this position. Even in the heat of an argument, he should have known better. Dalton wanted to hire you himself, but he doesn’t start with the new company for another three weeks, so I insisted I get first dibs. After all, I know how hard a good assistant is to come by. Besides, I also know what it means to be a man’s assistant. To spend your every waking moment anticipating his needs only to find out he doesn’t need you at all.”
In the end, she had let Sharlene convince her. Not because she really wanted the job, but because it was easier than fighting her. Besides, she did need a job. The pay was nearly what she’d made at Cain Enterprises, and it was nice to go to work somewhere where no one knew that splotchy skin and red eyes weren’t normal for her.
Sharlene’s own assistant, apparently, had been wanting to move to their office in Dallas and so, after a week of unemployment, Sydney started work as Sharlene’s new assistant.
A full week passed while she settled numbly into her new job. It was midway through her second week at the new job when Griffin walked into the office.
Seeing him at work was the one thing she hadn’t anticipated when she’d accepted the job from Sharlene. The sight of him was like a kick to the solar plexus.
It took every ounce of willpower she had to swallow back her tears, muster her professionalism and ask politely, “Is Ms. Sheppard expecting you?”
Griffin looked her up and down without a trace of his normal easy smile. “No,” he said simply. “I’m not here to see her.”
That gave her a moment’s pause. She hoped to hell that he was in the wrong office then because she just did not have the energy to be polite to him when all she really wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry. For about a month. Or even two.
Still, she kept a smile on her face that was at least semi-polite and asked, “Then can I direct you to someone else’s office?”
“No. I’m right where I want to be.” Before she ask what he meant, he pulled a business card down on the desk in front of her. “There. Will that do it?”
“What?”
“Look at the card, damn it.”
His voice was hard and intractable. His face humorless.
She looked from him down to the business card. It had the familiar Cain Enterprises logo on the left-hand side. To the right of that were the words: Griffin Cain. And beneath that: President & Chief Executive Officer.
She stared at the card for a long moment before looking back up at him. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve been working nonstop for the past two and half weeks to convince the board to name me CEO. Permanently. I groveled before my father. I called in all kinds of favors for this. I’m not quitting. I’m not leaving Cain Enterprises.” With that, he walked around to her side of the desk and pulled her to her feet. Then, before she could question him or protest, he dropped to one knee in front of her. He pulled out a ring box and flipped it open. Inside was a simple diamond solitaire. “Now, will you please marry me?”
The sight of him on his knees before her, the sight of the ring, the entire proposal…it was straight out of a fairy tale. And it killed her to have to turn him down.
“Griffin, I…” She started to shake her head, but she could barely talk past the tears.
He must have heard the denial in her voice because he stood, pulling her into his arms and cupping her face. “Don’t say no.”
“I can’t…I can’t say yes.”
“Why not?”
His expression nearly broke her heart. Because he looked like he genuinely didn’t know why she might say no.
She shook her head and pulled out of his arms. “Griffin, you don’t really care about me.”
To her surprise, he laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Of course I do. I love you.”
Her heart felt like it was trying to crawl right out of her and throw itself into his waiting hands. “You don’t.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him. “I do. I know you think you know me pretty well, but you don’t get to tell me how I feel.”
She swallowed her heart back down. She couldn’t meet his gaze, so instead, she stared at the top button of his shirt. “You don’t really mean that.”
“I do.”
“No. You don’t. Look, I get why you might think you love me. But you really don’t. It’s just good sex and familiarity.”
“It’s great sex.” He tipped her chin up so she was looking at him. “And it’s love.”
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “No. It’s not.” His arms felt so damn good around her and the sensation made it even harder to say what she had to say, but she forced the words out. “Things have been very complicated for you the past few weeks. You’re confused. If you think you love me, it’s just because I’m the one stable thing in your life right now and—”
Griffin interrupted her with a bark of laughter. “You think you’re the one stable thing in my life?”
“Well, I—”
“Sydney, you make me crazy. You are maddening and delightful and you make me feel things no one else has ever made me feel. You tempt me beyond reason. The one thing you are not is stable.”
“I—”
“You’ve driven me crazy ever since I first met you. Don’t get me wrong, you are right about a lot of things, and you were totally right about me needing to stay on as CEO. But you are not right about why I’m asking you to marry me.”
“I’m not?”
“I’m not asking you because I want stability in my life. I’m asking because I want you in my life.”
“But…you don’t really love me.”
“What on earth makes you think I don’t love you?”
“If you love me,” she challenged, “why didn’t you ever tell me about Hope2O?”
“If you love me why didn’t you ever tell me about Sinnamon?”
For a moment, she stared at him, openmouthed. And then she realized she didn’t have an answer for that.
Slowly, he smiled. “Hey, we both kept our secrets longer than we should have. We’re both really private people. This crazy search for the heiress did turn everything upside down. But that’s not a bad thing. If this hadn’t happened, we probably would have taken a lot longer to get here. But I don’t have any doubt that we still would have gotten here. I love you, Sydney. I think I’ve loved you ever since we first met. And if that doesn’t convince you, then consider this. I spent the past two weeks flying all over the country, meeting with each member of the board to convince them to name me CEO. All so that I could make this proposal perfect. I messed up the first time I asked you to marry me. I wanted to do it right this time.”
Again, he dropped to his knee in front of her and held out the ring box.
“Sydney Edwards, will you marry me?”
And suddenly, she was crying again. She, who never cried in front of anyone and would have sworn she was cried out for the rest of her life, was crying. So she never actually said yes. She just nodded until he got the hint. He stood up and kissed her through her tears.
Finally, a long time later, she looked up, smiling a little. “I don’t suppose this is a good time to give you back that key to your condo.”
He frowned, and it seemed to take him a moment to realize what she meant. Then he chuckled. “No. Why don’t you keep that? It might come in handy when we’re planning the wedding.”
She pushed up on her toes and was about to kiss him again when she realized he was wearing a sweater. The same cashmere sweater she had him wear to that first board meeting. “You’re wearing Dalton’s sweater,” she said softly.
“You said I looked good in it. So I made him give it to me. He was happy to donate to the cause. He said he’d give up all his sweaters if I’d just stop moping and come after you.”
She gave his arm a playful punch. “You weren’t really moping, were you? You’re not the type to mope.”
He smiled. “Not anymore, I’m not.”
Epilogue
“Now we know. This is the girl we’re looking for,” Griffin said.
Sydney walked back into Griffin’s living room carrying a tray of coffee mugs just in time to see him carefully place the two photos on the ottoman in front of his sectional sofa. Sydney set the tray of coffee on the end table. Griffin reached for his mug immediately, sending her a grateful smile as he did.
She felt that familiar little flutter in her heart as she returned his smile. How had she gotten so lucky?
Before she could distribute the rest of the coffees, Dalton handed one to Laney, who sat on the sofa beside him. Laney gave Dalton’s leg a squeeze as she took the coffee from him, but instead of drinking it herself, she carried it over to the window where Cooper stood looking out.
Sydney had met Cooper only that morning, at Laney and Dalton’s wedding. The event had been a quiet affair, done in the backyard of the Cain estate, so that Hollister’s nurse could wheel him out to watch.
For now, because all three brothers were in town for the wedding, Griffin had called this meeting. He’d seemed relived that Cooper had shown up. Laney handed Cooper his coffee, giving his arm a friendly rub. He smiled down at her with more affection than he’d shown either of his brothers.
Laney returned to her spot beside Dalton, curling her feet under her as she sat. Cooper wandered over, sipping his coffee as he looked down at the pictures.
“You haven’t exactly been making lightning-fast progress, have you?”
Griffin shot him an annoyed look. “I’ve been a little busy running the company.”