Caine’s refrigerator depressed me. It really, really depressed me. Mostly because it would be almost bare if it weren’t for a carton of milk, one of OJ, and three eggs.

And I’d just put the OJ and milk in there per his request.

I shut the door and looked around the beautiful kitchen. It was a Saturday and it was the fourth in a row Caine had ruined by asking me to run some errand he could run himself if he weren’t trying to deliberately exasperate me. In the past, if Caine was out of groceries he’d counted on his cleaner, Donna, to run out and get those. She visited twice a week and was paid handsomely for the bonus errands. However, since I’d come along I’d gotten the grocery run. He said it was so he could stop inconveniencing Donna, but I knew it was really just so he could start inconveniencing me.

I’d spent the better part of the afternoon running around dropping off dry cleaning, picking up dry cleaning, getting groceries, and choosing a gift for Mrs. Flanagan’s seventy-seventh birthday.

I got her this gorgeous emerald green and sapphire blue kimono I found in a little boutique on Charles Street, and I’d left it on his bed along with his dry cleaning. I’d also left him wrapping paper, ribbon, and Scotch tape. He was going to damn well wrap Mrs. Flanagan’s birthday present himself.

What got me through the fact that I was running around doing all this personal crap for my boss was that he was a busy guy and usually in the office. But when he’d called me today I could hear Henry in the background asking him when they were going to hit the gym. He wasn’t even busy and he was making me do his crap for him! It was official. Caine Carraway was a sadist.

Leaning against the counter, I took everything in. The penthouse was like something out of an interior design magazine—stunning, yes, but no personality had been injected into it yet. I was tempted to snoop and find photographs that I could buy frames for and then just stick ’em out on display and see what Caine did.

Maybe in a month’s time.

It still felt too soon to enforce nesting on him.

My focus was drawn to a spot of color on the coffee table at the TV area. Curious, I wandered over and raised an eyebrow at the DVD case Caine had left out. When I picked it up I saw it was a foreign movie based on the events that took place during eighties Berlin. Hmm. I glanced over at the cabinet beneath the television. Opening a cabinet wasn’t exactly snooping. Much.

I opened it and discovered something new about Caine. On one side he had a bunch of action movies, and on the other side were all foreign movies.

Action flicks and foreign movies.

Huh.

Smiling, I stood up, adding this new information to the inventory I’d unconsciously started compiling about my boss.

Okay, it was time to let myself out of his apartment while I was ahead of the game. There were still a few hours left of the afternoon. I was sure I could fit in some reading. I mean, it wasn’t like I had any other plans, as my social circle had diminished greatly since I lost my job with Benito.

Not that I cared.

Nope.

I let myself out of the apartment and locked up.

Okay, I cared.

Pouting a little, I strode toward the elevator and pressed the button to go down.

I jolted at a sound behind me and I glanced over my shoulder to find Mrs. Flanagan standing in her doorway wearing a diaphanous orange caftan. She was smiling brightly. “Alexa, I’m so glad I caught you. Come in for tea.”

“Uh …” Go home to an empty apartment or have a chat with a funny lady who seemed to know a heck of a lot about Caine? “Sure, sounds great.”

Mrs. Flanagan beamed and stepped aside to let me pass. I was immediately hit with how different her penthouse was in comparison to Caine’s. It was crammed with traditional, expensive furniture that would probably last for hundreds of years. Photographs cluttered every space, oil paintings every wall, and she had a thick Aubusson carpet taking up most of the floor space in the main room. The layout was like Caine’s except Mrs. Flanagan’s kitchen was more French country than sleek and modern, and there was a partition wall between the kitchen and the living space that gave an illusion of them being two separate rooms.

“Wow.” I grinned at her. “This is amazing.” And it was. I could see her whole life in the place. My attention was caught by a black-and-white photo of a beautiful woman staring off into the distance. It looked like a head shot for an Old Hollywood actress. “Is that you?”

Mrs. Flanagan nodded, smiling. “I was Maria in West Side Story on Broadway.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I moved from Boston to New York when I was fourteen to work on Broadway. Met my husband, Nicky, after a show one night. He was a wealthy industrialist from Boston. We married when I was twenty-three.” She gestured to a photograph of her in a beautiful wedding dress standing next to a handsome young man. “In love right up until he passed ten years ago. Still in love.” She smiled sadly. “Thankfully it was enough because unfortunately babies just weren’t in the stars for us.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Flanagan.”

“Don’t be, sweetheart. I’ve had a beautiful life. I still have.” She grinned and started waving me toward her dining table. “Sit, sit.”

Once she’d prepared tea she returned to sit at the table with me—a table now laden with biscuits and cakes. I helped myself to both.

“So.” Mrs. Flanagan poured tea into the gorgeous china cup she’d put in front of me. “Were you running errands for Caine again?”

I snorted. “When am I not?”

“Tsk. That boy.” She shook her head, eyes bright with humor and affection. “He’s certainly going out of his way to piss you off.”

I gave a huff of laughter. “And I bet you think that’s deserved.”

“Well, you did ambush him at a photo shoot and once again in his office.”

My suspicions were correct: Caine told the old bird everything! Intrigued, I leaned forward. “How did you and Caine become friends?”

“Caine, is it?” She threw me a cheeky smile.

“Mr. Carraway,” I corrected myself, holding her steady gaze and refusing to give anything away.

She chortled. “You can call him Caine, sweetheart. He’s not a god.”

“Do you think you could tell him that? Because I don’t think he knows.”

Mrs. Flanagan threw her head back in laughter. “Oh, Caine was right. You are a smart-ass.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I can’t help it. He brings it out in me.”

“Well, I can see how that might happen, what with him trying to piss you off every chance he gets even though he says he’s not.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with that boy.”

“I can take it,” I assured her. “I get it.”

“You do?” She raised an eyebrow. “Because I don’t think you do. I don’t even think Caine gets it yet.”

“It’s about our history. About my father and his mother.” I was suddenly suspicious. “I thought you knew all this.”

“Oh, I know all about that, and I know it’s not your fault, so get that out of your head right now.”

“I know it’s not my fault, but I get why it’s hard for Caine to separate me from it,” I admitted. “He’s been through so much because of my father and what he did to destroy Caine’s family. I guess it would make me feel better if I could see Caine happy. He deserves to be happy, even when he is being a grumpy, relentless, unbending pain in the ass.” I took a sip of tea. “Did you meet Phoebe?”

Mrs. Flanagan seemed amused by the question. “Oh no. I’ve never met any of Caine’s lady friends. But Caine told me about her.”

“She was perfect for him. He just dumped her,” I huffed. “I do not understand that man.”

“Well, from what I heard she was all wrong for him.”

Shocked, intrigued, I leaned forward. “What did you hear?”

She laughed at my curiosity. “Phoebe was intimidated by him. She downplayed her intelligence around him. Drove him nuts.” She leaned forward, her eyes boring into mine with a fierceness I didn’t quite understand. “What Caine needs is a woman who is not easily intimidated, persistent, and pretty much okay with bulldozing her way into his life. That’s how I struck up my friendship with him. I wouldn’t let him take no for an answer, and now that boy is the closest thing I have to a grandson and I’m the closest thing he has to a grandmother.”

Uneasiness moved through me. “Maybe he wouldn’t want us talking, then. Especially about private stuff.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” She gave me a knowing look. “You’re digging for some reason. Otherwise you wouldn’t be spending your Saturday afternoon with your boss’s kooky neighbor lady.”

I gave her a sad smile. “Maybe I have nowhere else to be.”

Mrs. F looked concerned. “Okay, if that’s true, why haven’t you got anywhere else to be?”

“My social circle grew smaller when I lost my former job. My friends from college all have kids now and …” I shrugged. “You know how it is.”

“Alexa, you’re a gorgeous, funny young woman. You should either be able to strike up friendships with other charming women or have a man on your arm showing you a good time at the weekend.”

A man on my arm. Right. “I haven’t had one of those in eighteen months and haven’t even been interested in looking since my mom passed.”

She reached across the table and covered my hand with hers. “I’m sorry about your loss, sweetheart. Caine told me about it after he looked into you.”

What the hell? “Caine looked into me?”

“Yeah. After the photo shoot. Found out your mom had just passed. Boating accident, was it? How are you coping with all that? You okay? It must be tough trying to deal with her loss now that you’re having to deal with Caine.”

To my surprise everything rushed up within me at Mrs. F’s genuine sympathy. It was like she really wanted to know, and I guess I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I needed someone to care. “You know I haven’t been able to talk about it because no one knows the truth about what my father did. The only one who does is Grandpa, and he rarely talks about it. He doesn’t want to.”

She squeezed my hand. “Well, I know the truth. You can tell me.”

I smiled gratefully and put my other hand over hers. “Thanks, Mrs. F.”

She smiled encouragingly.

“I guess …” I exhaled. “It’s been rough because of all the resentment I carried toward Mom.” I went on to tell Mrs. F all about how much I hero-worshipped my absentee father as a kid, and how I clung to that for as long as I could and when I couldn’t anymore I just pretended. “But he shot that to hell when he told us the entire truth. It was Thanksgiving. I was home from college. He sat us down, and he cried as he told us about Caine’s mom. And all his secrets came out because of that. I found out I had been illegitimate, that he’d had a wife and son that I knew nothing about, that my mom was just his piece on the side until he had nowhere else to go after his father turned him away. I was disgusted, betrayed, ashamed. Mom was just quiet. Of course she’d known all about the other family, but she knew nothing of Caine’s mother or how he’d let her die, or even how that was the real reason he’d come back to her. I asked Mom what she was going to do, if she would leave him over it, and she told me she didn’t know. She was shaken up and I had hoped that maybe it would be enough to make her see him for who he really was. My mom spent my entire life giving that man everything he wanted, and he never once tried to give back. I couldn’t pretend that wasn’t true anymore.

“So after a while, after I realized that he felt guilty but not repentant, I told him I didn’t forgive him. I returned to college … and unfortunately Mom went back to him.” I looked up from our hands, tears stinging my eyes as that familiar hurt clawed at my gut. “She put him before me from that moment on. It was always my fault that there was a rift. Never his. I saw her only a couple of times over the last few years, and there was this wall between us we couldn’t breach.” I swiped at the tears sliding down my cheeks. “And then one day she went out on her friend’s boat and a storm hit and that was it. She went overboard and by the time they found her body she was gone. She’s gone and I never made it right. But neither did she.” And it hurts.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mrs. F sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

“I … I keep remembering when I was a kid and it was just the two of us. She was my whole world, you know. I’ve never loved anyone the way that I loved her back then. And now I’m just so goddamn mad at her. And I guess when I walked onto that photo shoot weeks ago and saw Caine, it was an opportunity to focus on something, anything, but the fact that my mom is dead and the most powerful feeling I have toward her is anger. I’m just scared that forgiveness and acceptance might never come.”

Without another word, Mrs. F got up from her seat and came around to me to pull me into her arms, and for the first time since Mom died, I really and truly let it all out.

A bunch of tissues and two more cups of tea later, I smiled gratefully at Mrs. F. “This is going to sound weird, but thank you.”

“For what, sweetheart?”

“For listening.” I shrugged. “I feel lighter somehow, like it helped just to admit my anger out loud. I tried to talk to Grandpa about it a while ago, but he just got so mad and then he let slip Caine’s name and everything else was shoved to the side at that revelation.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t have a good shoulder to cry on at the time.” Mrs. F actually looked mad about it. “But you can come to me anytime, sweetie. Everybody needs somebody.”

“Very true. I’m glad Caine has you.”

Curiosity entered her gaze. “You really do want him to be happy, don’t you?”

The way she asked it made me wary, like my answer held more meaning than I wanted it to. Finally, though, I nodded.

“Good. Maybe with two of us on the job we’ll get it done.” She glanced over at the clock. “Oh, look at that, it’s dinnertime. And I know the number for a great Chinese. Join me? I have wine.”

I laughed. “I would love that.”

“Fabulous.” She stood up. “Oh, and, Alexa?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re allowed to be mad at your mom, sweetheart.”

Before I could swallow past the sudden lump in my throat long enough to thank her, Mrs. F strode away, caftan fluttering behind her, into the hall. I heard her on the phone before she appeared less than a minute later clutching her cell and a menu.

She thrust the menu at me. “Choose what you want. Caine’s already told me what he wants.”

Um … “Caine?”

“Yeah.” She grinned impishly. “He just finished a squash game at the gym and is hungry, so he’s going to be joining us.”

I did not have a good feeling about this.

I narrowed my eyes on Mrs. F. “He doesn’t know I’m here, does he?”

“Nope.” She pointed at the menu. “Now choose.”

Looking down at the menu, I wondered if I should choose something with peanuts in it and then fake a peanut allergy so I could escape the situation I now found myself in. Then again … it would be a chance to see Caine interact with Mrs. F. I sighed and decided to face his wrath in order to appease my curiosity. “I’ll have the moo shu pork, and a little less matchmaking from you.” I handed her the menu and she burst out laughing. “Mrs. F,” I warned, “you know with our history it’s never going to happen.”

“Call me Effie, dear. And yeah, I thought that too, about your history, I mean,” she admitted, “but you and Caine don’t get what this is all about. He thinks he gets it and you think you get it, but really that’s not why.”

I stared dumbly at her. “That made no sense.”

“It made sense to me.”

Panic transformed into nervous flutters in my stomach. “Please don’t do this.”

Effie patted my shoulder in reassurance. “I would never do anything to make either one of you uncomfortable or upset, but from what I’ve learned from both of you, you’re both dancing around each other and you haven’t really learned a thing about each other that means something. A little time together outside of work will do you both good.”

“He’s very scary,” I pointed out.

She snorted. “To you maybe. To me he’s a sweet, sweet boy.”

My jaw almost dropped at the double use of that adjective. “Sweet? Caine? No, I don’t think so.”

She smiled almost smugly to herself. “You’ll see.”

The minute I heard Effie’s door open, my pulse stopped for a second, and when it restarted it was suddenly going a hundred miles an hour. Effie grinned at me and looked over my shoulder as heavy footsteps drew into the main room from the hall.

They suddenly stopped.

“Effie?”

Huh, so it wasn’t just my name Caine used that warning tone with.

I glanced over my shoulder at him and gave him a little wave. “Hey, boss.”

I was so glad I got the words out before I took in his appearance, because my mouth went dry and my brain stopped processing actual words. Caine was wearing a white T-shirt that sculpted his body. I could see the superb strength in his shoulders and arms. To make matters worse, he was wearing a faded pair of blue-wash jeans that hung on his hips in the most delicious way.

Caine Carraway in a business suit was gorgeous. Caine Carraway out of a suit was sexy as hell.

He also seemed human and normal to me for the first time ever.

Or he would have if he’d stopped scowling at me.

“Caine, come and sit down. Alexa’s joining us for dinner.”

He looked from Effie to me and then back to Effie. “Is that right?” he muttered.

The buzzer from reception sounded in the apartment before anyone could say anything else.

“That’ll be dinner,” Effie said.

“I’ll get it.” Caine strode away, tension stiffening his shoulders.

Once he’d left, I said to Effie, “He’s not happy.”

The older woman just grinned at me.

Caine returned with the takeout, and without saying a word he walked into the kitchen and surprised me by plating up the food and serving it to us. Effie didn’t seem at all shocked by this.

As he correctly guessed that the moo shu pork was mine and placed the plate in front of me he must have felt my burning, questioning stare because he asked quietly, “What?”

“You just did something for me. Me. Another person.”

That familiar scowl returned to his face. “I put food on a plate. Shut it and eat.” He sat down and began digging in to his own sweet and sour chicken and rice.

“Caine, be nice to Alexa,” Effie said, “or you won’t get a piece of the lemon meringue pie I made earlier.”

“There’s lemon meringue pie?” Caine and I asked in unison. We shot a look of displeasure at each other.

Effie laughed.

Suddenly my moo shu pork became very interesting to me.

“How was your day?” Effie asked Caine.

His reply was to give me a wary look as he lifted another spoonful of rice into his mouth.

I almost rolled my eyes. I’d never met a person so concerned about his privacy, and so concerned about keeping me in my place. “Right now I’m not your PA. You can even pretend I’m human.”

Caine looked at Effie but pointed his fork at me. “See? Smart-ass.”

“I think she’s hilarious.” Effie raised her glass of water to me and I smiled in thanks.

“You would,” Caine grumbled in this adorably boyish way that caused a little flutter in my chest.

In order to rid myself of the feeling, I just remembered the start to my day. “Well, if you’re not going to talk about your obviously very busy day, I’ll talk about mine and how my boss had me running all over Boston doing personal errands for him on a Saturday.”

Once more Caine surprised me by substituting a glower for a smirk. “Sounds like you need to get yourself a social life.”

“I see no point in that, considering you’ll just endeavor to ruin it.”

His eyes flicked to me and I saw amusement glittering in them.

The fluttering lowered to my belly and then lower still. Oh boy.

Hoping my attraction wasn’t obvious, I glanced guiltily over at Effie, who was staring at us both with something akin to glee on her face.

Damn it.

Sensing my scrutiny, Effie smoothed her expression and addressed Caine. “I’m going to have to get that idiot carpenter out—the railing in my walk-in has come down again.”

“Don’t.” Caine shook his head. “He’s clearly incompetent. I’ll have a look at it after dinner.”

What? I blinked rapidly. “Did you just … You do DIY?”

“When necessary.”

“And you’re good at it?”

His answer was to stop eating and look across the table at me with no small amount of wickedness gleaming in his eyes. “I’ve always been good with my hands.”

My breath caught.

Heat and tingles of arousal shot through my core.

I was trapped in his gaze and the only way I knew I’d be able to breathe again was by escaping. Somehow I forced my eyes down to my plate and exhaled. “I have no response to that,” I said, nonplussed.

When he didn’t respond I looked back up at him.

Caine was grinning. “You’re having an off day?”

He must have known the effect he could have on a woman when he did the whole smoldering thing. Sexy jackass. “I’m just tired after all the errand running I did around town today.”

“If that tired you out we need to get your stamina up. You should have been in the gym with me and Henry.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Um, no. The gym and I parted ways a long time ago. I’m in a relationship with Pilates and we’re very happy together.”

“Dancing,” Effie said, “now, that’s exercise and it’s fun. I’ve never seen the attraction in sitting in some smelly gym lifting weights.”

“Hear, hear,” I muttered.

“And then of course there’s sex. Lots and lots of sex.”

Caine’s fork clattered to his plate. He looked vaguely ill.

The snort I was trying to hold back bubbled up out of me and then Effie started cackling with laughter. It was infectious. I couldn’t stop my own from joining hers.

Caine looked from her to me, his lips pinched together. Finally he settled his irritation on me. “I will eat all of the lemon meringue pie,” he warned.

The thought cut off my laughter. “You can’t. Effie won’t let you.”

“Christ.” He shook his head. “You’re on a first-name basis? I’m fucked.”

Effie chuckled, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “Let me go get that pie.”

His eyes followed her as she disappeared into the kitchen and then he turned his attention to me. He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “Look, I’m not sure I like you spending time with Effie. She’s like family to me. I don’t want my business life mixing with my personal.”

Some might call me stupid to make myself vulnerable to Caine, but I’d just had one of the best afternoons in a really long time and that was because of Effie. I didn’t want to lose that just when I’d found it. “I really like her,” I said quietly. “I can talk to her.”

Caine’s eyebrows drew together, but not in annoyance. There was curiosity in him. Finally he made me feel less stupid about my honesty. “Okay. Just no talking about me.”

I smiled and crossed my fingers under the table. “Deal.”

By the time we’d finished the most delicious lemon meringue pie I’d ever tasted in my life and Caine stood up to clear the table and load the dishwasher, I’d lost count of the many times he’d surprised me that night.

“Effie, you’re running out of detergent for the dishwasher,” Caine called through to us. This was followed up a few seconds later with “And milk. And eggs.”

“I used the last up on the pie,” she called back before taking a sip of the fresh tea she’d brewed.

“I’ll run out tomorrow morning and get you some more. Do you need anything else?”

My jaw practically hit the table.

Effie chuckled at me. “I’m in the mood for an omelet tomorrow. Can you get me some cheese, red and green peppers, and spring onions?”

“Just write down what you need and I’ll get it,” he said, wandering back over to us.

I was choking on my words.

Caine took one look at me and his eyes glinted with mischief.

I stood up abruptly. “I’m going to leave now.” Before I commit homicide!

He grinned evilly as Effie stood up, still laughing.

“It was lovely having you, Lexie. You sure are fun.”

Ignoring the devil, I looked at my wisecracking angel. “Thanks, Effie. I had a wonderful time. I hope we can do it again sometime.”

“Oh, sweetie, you come by anytime you want.” She rounded the table and enfolded me in a surprisingly strong hug.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Caine said as Effie pulled back.

“You don’t have to,” I said, still pissed at him for making me do shit he was perfectly capable of doing himself and clearly was used to doing for himself.

“Alexa.” He used the old familiar warning tone. “You knew what the job was when you took it.”

And wasn’t that the truth? I exhaled heavily, trying to let go of my annoyance. I nodded and then gave Effie a small wave, grabbed my bag, and followed Caine to the door.

We were silent as we stepped into the elevator. Caine pressed the button for the underground parking garage.

“I saw the kimono,” he said as we neared the garage level. “It’s perfect for Effie.”

Yes, I’d definitely lost count of the many times he had surprised me this evening. “Was that almost a ‘good job’?”

We stepped out of the elevator into the coolness of the garage. Caine threw me a quelling look as he led me to my car. “Don’t ruin it by being a smart-ass.”

I grinned. “I don’t think it’s possible to ruin an almost ‘good job.’ A good job, yes, not an almost.”

We stopped at the car and Caine did so with a weary sigh. “Fine. You did a good job.” He leveled me with that heavy, dark gaze of his. “You are doing a good job.”

And there he went, shocking me again.

A smile prodded my lips.

There was a whole other side to Caine, and Effie Flanagan, a seventy-seven-year-old Broadway actress, brought it out in him. He was relaxed, he was funny, and he could even be … yes … sweet. Just like Effie said.

A wary aspect had entered Caine’s eyes, as if he was waiting for me to say something cheeky that would piss him off.

“Thank you.”

The wariness disappeared and he gave me a little nod of acknowledgment that was so much hotter than it should have been.

“I’d better get back to Effie. I promised to fix that railing.”

“So you did.” I smiled and opened my car door.

“Good night, Alexa.”

“Good night, Mr. Carraway.”

Caine responded with a stiff smile and then he slowly retreated and strode off.

I got in my car and drove out of there, wondering why the hell I couldn’t let this go, why I had to push my way into his life, just so I didn’t have to deal with my own. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. The only thing I was starting to predict was that if I did by some miracle find a way to make Caine see who I really was, I was almost positive that I wasn’t going to come out of it unscathed.