Married to His Business / Six-Month Mistress: Married to His Business

His head snapped up at her announcement, and his bittersweet chocolate eyes went flinty. “Kendall, I thought we’d already talked about this.”

“We have, sir, several times,” she agreed. “Which is why it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Now that your wedding to Miss Conover is off—”

“Look, just because Lauren and I canceled our plans,” Matthias interrupted, “that doesn’t mean I don’t still need you to take care of things.”

His now-defunct wedding to Lauren Conover had just been the most recent reason he’d used for why Kendall couldn’t leave his employ yet, but she was still surprised he would try to use it again. Technically, the wedding hadn’t been canceled. There had just been a change of date and venue. Oh, and also a change of groom, since Lauren was now planning to marry Matthias’s twin brother, Luke.

“Anything left to do will be taken care of by Miss Conover and her family,” Kendall pointed out. “If there’s anything left to do.”

And she doubted there was. Matthias hadn’t spoken much about his broken engagement, but Kendall hadn’t been surprised when she’d heard the news. Well, maybe the part about Lauren’s falling in love with Luke Barton had been a little surprising. Okay, a lot surprising. But even without Luke’s intervention, the marriage, as far as Kendall was concerned, would have been a huge mistake. Matthias had proposed to Lauren Conover only because he’d wanted to merge his business with her father’s, and Lauren Conover had accepted the proposal only because…

Well, frankly, Kendall was still trying to figure that one out. She’d met Lauren only a few times, but she’d never gotten the impression that Lauren was in love with Matthias—or even in like with him. Obviously she hadn’t been in love, because she wouldn’t have fallen for his brother, identical twin or not, if she had been. Personality-wise, Luke and Matthias Barton couldn’t be more different from each other—save the fact that Luke was as driven professionally as his brother was. At least, that was what the office scuttlebutt said. Kendall had never met the other man in person.

There was no question that the match between Luke and Lauren was indeed a love match. With Matthias, however, any life he’d envisioned building with Lauren had been more about business than pleasure, more about ambition than affection. There were times when Kendall wondered if the man could care about anything but building his business.

Matthias said nothing for a moment, only met Kendall’s gaze levelly. “But there are other things I’m going to need you to—”

“There is nothing,” she quickly, but firmly, interjected, before he had a chance to create and/or fabricate a host of obligations that anyone could see to. “We’re coming up on the slowest time of the year for Barton Limited,” she reminded him. “I have you up to speed on everything for the next month. Now that the Stuttgart trip is out of the way, you don’t have any international travel scheduled until the fall. No conferences until September. Nothing pressing that whoever you hire to take my place won’t have plenty of time to prepare for. And since you’ll be spending the entire month of July at your friend’s lodge, anyway, that makes this the perfect time for me to—”

“I’ll need you more than ever at Hunter’s lodge,” Matthias interrupted. “Even with all the preparation I’ve done—”

You mean I’ve done, Kendall thought to herself, since it had been she, not Matthias, who’d made all the arrangements.

“—it’s still going to be difficult, being away from the office for that length of time. It’s essential that I take someone with me who knows what’s going on.”

“Then I’d suggest you take Douglas Morton,” Kendall said, naming one of Barton Limited’s newest VPs.

“Morton needs to be here,” Matthias said. “You need to be with me.”

So now he was going to use the mysterious month at the mysterious lodge to keep her on her leash, Kendall thought. She knew his upcoming trip to his friend’s lodge on Lake Tahoe was much more than a trip to his friend’s lodge on Lake Tahoe, even if she had no idea exactly why. All she knew was that, in January, he’d received a letter out of the blue from some law office representing the estate of a friend of his from college. The man had passed away, but before going had imparted a dying wish he wanted fulfilled by his old friends. They were each to spend one month in a lodge he owned on the lake.

Why? Kendall had no idea. But Matthias had driven her crazy for weeks, trying to rearrange his spring schedule so that he could spend his assigned month of April in Lake Tahoe. Then, when he’d been unable to reschedule a trip to Germany in April, he’d driven her even crazier rearranging everything she’d spent weeks rearranging so that he could switch months with his brother Luke—whom he hadn’t even spoken to in years at that point—who had been assigned July.

There were seven friends in all, Kendall knew, dating back to Matthias’s time at Harvard, all of whom had gradually lost touch with one another after graduating. Matthias hadn’t wanted to talk about it in detail, and Kendall had respected his wishes. She’d also managed the impossible, reworking his schedule and obligations—twice—so that he could abide by his friend’s last wishes and spend his month in Lake Tahoe.

It would have been so much better if he’d been able to stick with the original plan. Not only because she would have saved herself a lot of trouble, but because Lake Tahoe was where Kendall would be going to complete the necessary training for her new job—starting the first week of July. She was dreading the possibility—however remote—that she might run into Matthias there so soon after severing ties with him. He was bound to be unhappy about her leaving. Even more so once he discovered who her new employer was.

“I can’t be with you, sir,” she reiterated. Inhaling a deep breath, she told him the rest. “I’ve been offered a position elsewhere that I’ve already accepted. They want me to take part in a week-long training seminar that starts the first of July—two weeks from today,” she added for emphasis. “And I’ll report for work at the company immediately after completing my orientation.”

Matthias said nothing for several moments, only leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his expansive chest. Then he looked at her in a way that made Kendall feel like her backbone was dissolving. Fast. Finally, he said, “You’ve already accepted a position somewhere else?”

She nodded. And she hoped she sounded more confident than she suddenly felt when she told him, “Um, yes?”

Oh, yeah. That sounded totally confident. There was nothing like punctuating a statement with a question mark to really hammer home one’s point. Provided one was a four-year-old child.

“Mind telling me where?” he asked.

Kendall braced herself for his reaction, reminding herself to be forceful and assertive and end her sentences with a period. Maybe even an exclamation point where necessary. By golly. Or, rather, By Golly! “With, um, OmniTech Solutions?” she said. Asked. Whatever. Oh, hell. “I’m going to be their new VP? In charge of Public Relations?” When she realized she was still speaking in the inquisitive tense, Kendall closed her eyes and mentally willed her age back up to twenty-seven-and-a-half. If she kept this up, Matthias wouldn’t let her have her milk and cookies for snack later.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw that his dark brows had shot up even farther at her declaration. Question. Whatever. Oh, hell.

“OmniTech?” he asked. Using the proper punctuation, Kendall couldn’t help noticing. Unlike some people. “Who the hell recruited you to work for OmniTech?”

Strange that he would assume she was recruited, she thought, and that she hadn’t gone looking for the position on her own. Even if, you know, she had been recruited for the position and hadn’t gone looking for it on her own. “Stephen DeGallo,” she told him. And she applauded herself for finally grasping the proper rules of punctuation. Now if she could just do something about the sudden drop in volume her voice had taken….

Although she wouldn’t have thought it possible, Matthias’s eyebrows arched even higher. “The CEO of the company recruited you to come work for him?” he asked with obvious disbelief. “As a vice president?”

Kendall didn’t see what was so unbelievable about that. She was perfectly qualified for the job. Tamping down her irritation, she repeated, “Yes, sir.”

Matthias narrowed his eyes at her. “Stephen DeGallo never hires from outside the company. He always promotes from within. He doesn’t trust outsiders. He likes to surround himself with people he’s trained to think like he does. You know. Suck-ups.”

Kendall ignored the comment. Mostly because she couldn’t help thinking that, after five years of working for Matthias, she was even better qualified for the job of suck-up than she was vice president in charge of public relations. “Stephen said—”

“Stephen?” Matthias echoed, this time punctuating the comment with an incredulous expulsion of air. “You’re already calling him by his first name?”

“He insisted. Sir,” Kendall added meaningfully, since Matthias had never extended her the invitation to address him so informally, even after being his right-hand woman for five years. Before he could comment further, she hurried on, “Stephen said I had impeccable credentials. And I do,” she couldn’t help adding. “In case you’ve forgotten, I have an MBA from Stanford, and I graduated with highest honors.”

Matthias actually smiled at that. “Oh, yeah, I’ll just bet DeGallo’s impressed with your…credentials.” He leaned back in his chair even more, folding his arms now to cradle his head in his hands. It was a position Kendall knew well, one that was meant to lull the observer into a false sense of security before Matthias struck with the velocity and toxicity of a cobra.

“You realize,” he said, “that the only reason DeGallo offered you the job is because he’s competing with Barton Limited for the Perkins contract, and he’s going to expect you to tell him everything you know about the work we’ve done so far to win it.”

The barb hit home, just as she knew Matthias had meant for it to. Instead of reacting to it, however, Kendall only replied calmly, “That would be highly unethical, sir. Possibly even criminal. Not only could Stephen not be expecting me to provide him with any such information, but he must know I’d never betray you that way.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Matthias asked easily.

Kendall gaped at him. Now that was a reaction she hadn’t expected. “Of course I wouldn’t. How can you even ask me something like that?”

She realized then how right she’d been to accept the new position. If Matthias could suspect she was capable of turning on him so completely, so readily, then he truly didn’t view her any differently than he did the phones he tossed out the window. He’d also implied she wasn’t qualified for her new job, even after the countless times she’d proved how valuable an employee she was.

Clearly, it was time to go.

“Fine, then,” he said, dropping his arms and sitting up straight again. “But, Kendall, haven’t you learned anything from me in the time you’ve been at Barton Limited? Big business isn’t the gentleman’s game it was a generation ago. No one’s going to do you any favors. Why should you do any favors for them? For me? When it comes to business, you think of yourself first, others not at all. Feel free to report to OmniTech tomorrow if you want. Since you’ll be going to work for one of my competitors, I can’t risk having you around the office any longer and potentially compromising the work we’re doing here. Your two weeks’ notice won’t be necessary. You’re fired. Clear out your desk immediately. I’ll have Sarah call security and they can escort you out of the building. You have ten minutes.”

And with that, he turned his attention back to the stack of papers requiring his signature and began to sign each without another glance in her direction.

Kendall had no idea what to say. She hadn’t expected this from Matthias at all. She’d thought he would react the way he’d reacted every other time she’d tried to resign, with a seemingly endless list of reasons why she couldn’t go, none of which was in any way legitimate. Never in a million years would she have thought he would fire her, even if she was going to work for one of his competitors. Barton Limited had scores of competitors. She would have been hard-pressed to find a position with a company that didn’t compete with Matthias in some way. She’d thought he would view her acceptance of a new job the same way she did: as business. Instead, he seemed to have taken it…

Personally, she marveled.

Immediately, she told herself that was impossible. Matthias Barton didn’t get personal. About anything. He was just reacting this way because he was worried she would compromise his pursuit of the Perkins contract. That, she thought, wasn’t surprising. That he would think of his business first, and others…well, as he’d said, not at all. She just wished he had enough faith in her to realize that she would never do anything to sabotage him or his work.

Clearly, it was so time to go.

With a briskly muttered “Yes, sir,” Kendall spun on her heel and exited Matthias’s office, giving him the same courtesy he’d extended to her and not looking back once. She wasn’t the kind of person to look backward. Only forward. That was the reason she’d come to work for Matthias in the first place, because she’d been thinking ahead, to a better future. Now that future was the present. It was time to start thinking forward again. And that meant never giving another thought to…

Well. She could barely remember Matthias Thaddeus Barton’s name. Or how his espresso eyes flashed gold when he was angry. Or how that one unruly lock of dark hair fell forward whenever he had his head bent in concentration. Or how one side of his mouth turned up more than another whenever he smiled that arrogant smile…

Matthias looked at the closed door through which Kendall had just exited and silently cursed it for ruining the view. Not that there was anything especially scenic about Kendall Scarborough. With her librarian glasses and those mannish, colorless clothes hiding what was doubtless a curve-free body, anyway, and with her hair always bound tightly to her head, she wasn’t likely to be showing up as a trifold with staples taped inside the locker of a dockworker. Of course, that had been the first thing to grab his attention during her interview five years ago, because the last thing he’d wanted or needed in a personal assistant was someone he might want to get personal with.