In the quiet study of his Pebble Beach house, Dane slid down into the buttery-soft leather sofa, T. Rex nestled against his side. The mini dachshund grumbled in his sleep, as if he were dreaming of hunting squirrels, and Dane ruffled his long hair. Being such a tiny thing, the dachshund needed a big-dog name, so Dane had dubbed him T. Rex. To him and Cammie, the little guy was anything from T. Rex to Mr. T to just plain Rex. Fernsby always called him Lord Rexford.
Before quitting college to take over as the family guardian, Dane had been on his way to becoming a veterinarian. He’d always loved animals, forever rescuing wild creatures—caring for an injured bird, nursing a chipmunk back to health. His parents’ deaths ended that dream, and now he had the resorts and a dog who traveled with him wherever he went. Cammie, a whiz at everything, had streamlined the procedure, making it easy for him to breeze through Customs in various countries without even a quarantine.
He tapped out a text to his whiz: OK to chat? Cammie was the first person he wanted to talk to about this afternoon’s events.
Sitting back to wait, he propped his feet on a hassock. The study was his leisure room, with a massive flat-screen TV, state-of-the-art audio system, and built-in oak bookcases filled with first-edition classics, hardback bestsellers, genre fiction, business books, and whatever else took his fancy—or Cammie’s. Floor-to-ceiling windows afforded a magnificent view of the ocean, though now the sky was socked in by fog, with not a single star visible.
It still felt odd wandering around the huge house without Cammie here. Or sitting at his office desk without being able to look up and see her typing away on her computer, surrounded by her desk and credenza and the files she was working on.
She got back to him in a matter of minutes, as if she’d been anticipating his text: I’m at your beck and call, Lord Fuzzybottom.
Rolling his eyes, he laughed even though she couldn’t see him. She’d called him Lord this and Lord that since he’d bought the English manor house a few years ago. Bradford Park happened to come with a title he’d never used. Cammie never used the proper honorific, Lord Bradford, but made up funny names instead. He loved that she always ribbed him about it.
On his laptop, he clicked a button for the video chat to Cammie. She answered with a wan smile and drawn features. Seated by her uncle’s bedside—Dane recognized the landscape painting behind her—she was as beautiful as ever, despite the weariness marking her face. Cammie Chandler was a beautiful woman, her wavy, rose-gold hair falling past her shoulders, her eyes the color of jade. But now she appeared drained by the long day and the drive from San Francisco back to San Juan Bautista.
He didn’t point that out. “Hey there, how you doing?”
“Is that my little T. Rex beside you?” As he angled the laptop’s camera, she cooed at the dog. “It was so good seeing you today, you little sweetie.” If dogs could smile, Rex smiled at his favorite woman in the world. “I’ve missed hugging and petting you.”
Dane wouldn’t have minded trading places with Rex and being the recipient of those hugs. Of course, she’d be horrified at the direction of his thoughts—it was against all their rules—so he turned the conversation around. “Thanks for coming today. I really appreciate it. I promise I won’t keep you long. I hope the game and that long drive didn’t wipe you out.”
She denied the evidence on her face and in her tired eyes. “No. But Uncle Lochlan got restless, thrashing about in the bed. It took a bit to calm him down after I got back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You know how he gets.” She shrugged as if her steadfast loyalty and compassion were nothing more than what anyone would feel or act on.
He could have jumped into the business discussion right then, but she had bigger things hanging over her, and he needed to offer his support. Their relationship wasn’t just that of assistant and boss, where all she did was look out for his needs. He cared for her too.
Though her uncle lived at one of Ava’s premier facilities in the Bay Area, he was at his best when Cammie was nearby. Without her, he was often quarrelsome, even combative. She’d been going to San Juan Bautista as often as she could, but Dane had seen the toll it took on her, and last September, he’d finally told her to take family leave.
Now, with Lochlan unable to recognize her, even unable to walk, and sleeping most of the time, Cammie was on the fence, hating to see him suffer but powerless to let him go. It was obvious Lochlan wouldn’t last much longer. And Dane needed to be there for her when it happened.
He hadn’t told her what a mess his work life had become since she’d been gone or how subpar her temporary replacements had been. Adding that burden to her shoulders might have crushed her. And yet, without his saying a word, a few weeks after she’d left, Cammie had contacted her network of personal assistants, and the next candidates had been far more tolerable. But none of them was Cammie. None of them knew him the way she did, anticipating what he wanted even before he said it.
She sighed. “He’s been comatose off and on for the last few days, hardly responding.”
Dane detected the tremble in her voice. She’d told him none of this while they were together today. Then again, they hadn’t been alone.
And now he gave her the space to get it all out. “The in-house doctor suggested we could stop feeding or hydrating him.” She swiped at her eyes and glanced away from the camera, obviously looking at Lochlan in the bed. “But I won’t do that. He can’t really eat, so I just dribble things in his mouth. And I put ice chips on his tongue. If I give him too much water, it comes back up. But he gets so restless, his legs and arms moving.”
He wished he could be there to at least hold her. “I’m sure Ava wouldn’t starve someone.”
She shook her head, her hair falling across her cheek. “It’s not Ava. But I understand where the doctor is coming from. It’s like I’m prolonging his agony.”
He reached out, as if he could touch her face. “Of course you’re not. You’re doing everything possible for him. Don’t get down on yourself. You’ve taken care of him for years.”
“I know.” She sighed, but he was afraid she didn’t believe him. “I can never thank you and Ava enough for bringing him here.”
“I’ve told you a million times, you don’t have to thank me.” He’d gotten to know Lochlan, too, after Cammie came to work for him, and he wanted the best for the old man.
When Cammie realized she could no longer care for Lochlan on her own, Ava had opened up space in her five-star San Juan Bautista facility, the closest one to Dane’s Pebble Beach estate. Cammie had balked, knowing she could never pay for it on her own, but he’d convinced her that not taking his offer would reduce Lochlan’s quality of life. Maybe that was dirty politics, but he’d needed her to give Lochlan the best, knowing full well she’d regret it for the rest of her life if she didn’t.
Cammie had him deduct a portion of her salary every month, even though Dane didn’t want the money and Ava had a fund to subsidize the care of those in need. He’d never met a more admirable, caring person in his entire life. Except perhaps Susan and Bob Spencer.
“Ava’s people took such good care of him today,” Cammie told him. “I’m so grateful for that. I talked to her, but will you tell her that for me?”
“Of course I will.” Ava admired Cammie’s loyalty as much as he did.
“It’s been such a struggle for Uncle Lochlan. First, he had to take care of me after my parents died. And then the Alzheimer’s started so early.”
When her parents died in a car crash, Lochlan, her father’s older brother, had taken her in. Unmarried and childless, he was totally unprepared to care for a seven-year-old. Yet he became her surrogate father and raised Cammie to become the amazing woman she was. Dane had lost his parents when he was twenty-one, and though he hadn’t been a child, somehow both of them becoming orphans at a younger age and through tragedy was part of why they’d formed such a strong connection.
The bond had only grown between Lochlan and Cammie when he’d needed more and more care as she grew into an adult.
She’d been lucky to have Clyde Westerbourne, Lochlan’s longtime friend, who became like a father figure to her too. It was Clyde who’d sent Cammie to Dane. When Westerbourne decided to retire to his Caribbean island estate, Cammie couldn’t accompany him, not with her uncle growing worse.
Lochlan reminded Dane of his grandfather, who’d returned from the Second World War a changed man. Dane now knew he suffered from PTSD, but no one had understood that back then, and it was never treated. He’d heard stories of the fun-loving, laughing guy his grandfather had been before the war, but Dane had known only the quiet, withdrawn man he became. Just as the war had changed his grandfather, Alzheimer’s had changed Lochlan. Dane understood how difficult it was for Cammie, but he was also glad she’d had all the good years with Lochlan before the disease took him away.
She tapped her temple, obviously having had enough of that conversation. “Okay, let’s get down to the Mavericks.”
“We can let business take a backseat right now.” Even though he was dying to hear her impressions.
Cammie snorted. “Are you kidding me? I feel like an emotional mess when I’m not working.” Which was why Dane gave her projects to work on even though she was supposed to be on leave. Nothing huge, just enough to keep her mind occupied, like setting up the gallery and museum tour for the Correa painting. “So tell me how the temps are doing,” she said.
“They’re fine,” he said, working his mouth into a half smile. “But it takes three of them to do what you do.”
She smiled. How he’d missed her dazzling smile in the months she’d been gone. “It’s only because we’ve worked together so long. And I’ve watched your business grow.”
She’d skillfully sidestepped his compliment, but that smile told him how much she liked knowing she was irreplaceable. He’d never had any compunction about telling her—in fact, he enjoyed it. She kept his life on track. Just as Fernsby kept his houses in order.
“Okay, the Mavericks.” He hadn’t wanted to sign any contracts with the Mavericks until Cammie had met them. But she’d given him that nod and a wink right there in the café. “What do you really think about this merger of our two families?”
He included Cammie in that comment. She wasn’t just his assistant. He wanted her opinion as if they were peers, as if he weren’t a billionaire talking to the hired help. What she thought was just as important as his siblings’ opinions. The fact was, Cammie had been personally responsible for many of his big deals. He could take her to an exhibition or an art show, and she’d find a way to turn something they saw into an idea for a profitable business venture or a new feature at a resort. The Mavericks had been one of the few deals he’d found on his own, but only because of their close association with Gideon Jones and his foundation.
Of course, Cammie had brought Gideon’s painting to his attention.
He had to tell her, “Come on, my little idea genie, give me all your words of wisdom.”
She blushed. “Would you stop with that?” she groused at him.
He snapped his fingers. “It’s true. Great ideas come like you’ve pulled them right out of your magic lamp.” He gave her a quirky grin, miming rubbing a genie’s lamp. “Like buying Gideon Jones’s painting.”
As her blush deepened, she made a joke, taking the attention off herself. “What would the Mavericks say if they knew you were Lord Muckety-Muck?” She couldn’t truly accept compliments.
“It’s Lord Bigwig to you.”
She laughed then, the hot color fading from her cheeks. Then she got down to business again. “I’m rubber-stamping what you already know, but this is going to be amazing. The Mavericks will bring new blood to all the family ventures, yours included. Will Franconi said it right—what the Harringtons do complements what the Mavericks do.”
“You might be rubber-stamping, but I wasn’t about to act on it until I talked to you.”
She huffed out another laugh. “But you did act on it before we even talked. You brought up a merger right there at the café.”
He shrugged. “You pinched me under the table, giving me permission.”
She gaped at him. “I didn’t pinch you until after you’d already talked about a merger.”
He grinned. “But I could read your mind, and I knew you thought it was a great idea.”
She shook her head at him, as though he were a recalcitrant child from whom she didn’t believe a single word. “Whatever. I liked them. And I liked all the Maverick ladies. They might’ve married billionaires, but they’re all so down to earth. And kind. They didn’t talk to me like I was just your assistant.”
He jumped in quickly. “That’s because you’re not just my assistant. You’re my girl Friday and my idea genie. I’d be nothing without you.”
She rolled her eyes at him again. “Oh, will you just stop that?”
He didn’t want to stop. With her uncle so gravely ill and close to the end, showering her with compliments was the least he could do for her.
Even if sometimes, especially late at night, he wanted to do far more.
* * *
The house was so damn quiet after they said goodbye, even with Rex snoring softly beside him on the couch. Dane wished with everything in him that Cammie would come home. Because this was her home. The moment she’d decided to sell Lochlan’s house where they’d both lived, Dane had set her up with her own suite of rooms in the Pebble Beach house. He’d wanted to make the transition as easy as possible for her. Searching for an apartment with all the other things on her plate at the time would have been a nightmare. There was the added bonus that it saved her rent and utilities, especially when she traveled so much with Dane anyway.
So he’d cleared out the office space on the San Francisco Peninsula and moved his headquarters to his Pebble Beach estate. He’d had the office there only because it was close to Lochlan’s home and therefore cut down on Cammie’s commute. But Pebble Beach was closer once Lochlan went into the San Juan Bautista memory care facility. And Dane made sure neither Cammie nor her uncle wanted for anything.
He admitted only to himself that Cammie living just down the hall had been seven years of torture. The need to knock on her door sometimes overwhelmed him, and he’d march to her suite with some crappy idea just so he could talk to her, look at her, smile at her. The worst was resisting her lure when the darkness was so complete he could barely see his hand in front of his face. When he’d lain awake for hours thinking of her.
But of course he couldn’t go to her then. He wouldn’t. There could be no excuse for an after-midnight excursion. But damn, it was hard.
Cammie wasn’t just his assistant. She was his best friend, as important to him as any of his brothers or sisters. Cammie had become part of the family unit.
And yet, late at night, the questions plagued him. What if everything about the way they’d met had gone down differently?
What would have happened if Clyde Westerbourne had never sent her to him as a job candidate twelve years ago? What if, when Dane had met the beautiful young woman on the golf course the day before his interview with Clyde’s assistant, when he had no clue who she was… what if there’d been no interview at all the next morning? What if, after that sexy golf game they’d shared, after he’d made love to her in his condo all night long… what if he’d never had to let her go?
What if there’d been no impediments to a relationship?
But there’d been so many impediments. He’d seen his own shock mirrored in her eyes the following morning when she’d walked into his office. The morning after one of the most incredible nights of his life. His one and only night with her.
They’d both had to agree their one-night fling could never happen again.
He’d badly needed an assistant who would take his work life in hand and keep him on track. Not one of the umpteen secretaries he’d been through could handle it. Fernsby had been ready to desert him if he didn’t do something. Then Clyde Westerbourne had called, swearing that Cammie Chandler could do the job. Dane had never met her, had no idea what she looked like. He’d actually imagined someone matronly, in her forties or fifties. Because how could a person Cammie’s age be such a paragon? All he’d cared about was that she’d totally organized Clyde’s life. If Clyde could have taken her with him on his permanent move to the Caribbean, he would have. But Cammie badly needed a good job in the Bay Area, where she could take care of her uncle, who’d been going quietly downhill.
The fact that she and Dane had both been on the same golf course at the same time just one day before the interview was a fluke. They could have exchanged names and changed everything. He would have known immediately that she was off-limits. But they hadn’t. Was that a fluke too? Or was it the universe granting them that one night?
The next morning, during that strange job interview, they’d both had good reasons to agree never to indulge their fantasies again. So they’d made their rules. No inappropriate touching. No longing looks. No sneaking away for a night of passion. He honestly hadn’t known he’d never experience another night like that with any other woman. Not then.
Over the subsequent years, his belief in the rules had grown only more solid. She turned his chaos into order. He relied on her good sense. She was the one who made sure he added heart to his ventures. They couldn’t risk screwing up their perfect work relationship. Romance was out of the question.
Besides, if he ever made a move, ever pushed for anything more, he would totally lose her. And he could not bear to ever lose her.
She’d dated. Of course she had. She was gorgeous, funny, smart, and men flocked to her. But he was so damned glad none of those relationships had come to anything. They were all jerks who weren’t good enough for her anyway. And that one creep who’d let her down so badly? Dane could have pummeled the guy into the ground. Truth be told, he could even have pummeled his brother Troy for asking her out. For God’s sake, she’d been his assistant for four years at that point. What had Troy been thinking? Still, Dane didn’t like to remember how he’d completely lost his cool that day, accusing his brother of harassing his employees, and a lot worse. Especially when he learned Cammie had turned Troy down.
Of course, he’d only ever wanted to protect her from jerks who’d screw her over. Sure, he had thoughts. But he never acted on them. He didn’t even want to. He liked his life just the way it was. He absolutely wasn’t one of those jerks.
But sometimes at night—not every night, mind you, maybe once a month, or once a week—with the darkness surrounding him and her room just down the hall, he remembered the softness of her hair, the scent of her skin, the sweetness of her lips.
And he regretted every damned rule they’d set up between them.
* * *
Cammie sat in the chair next to her uncle’s bed, his hand securely tucked in hers.
Sometimes it seemed as though he was in a coma, others that he was only sleeping. She put an ice chip against his lips, and he opened his mouth, taking it in. She wished he would open his eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually looked at her. She talked to him, and sometimes he would mumble an answer she couldn’t understand. She’d tell him a joke, and once in a while, he would make a noise that sounded like a laugh. Or she’d tell him she loved him, and he’d grunt as though he had so much more to say. But he never opened his eyes. Somehow that was the worst. She wanted him to see her. Even in his last few days, or even hours, she wanted to know that he’d seen her, that he knew she was here with him.
But it had been such a long time since he’d even known who she was, though somehow, having her close calmed him.
She’d felt guilty leaving him today. But God, it had been good to get out. To see Dane. And how she’d missed Rex. When he’d bounded to her across the soccer field and barreled into her lap, all she’d wanted to do was hug him close and drink in his doggy scent while he slathered kisses all over her face. She missed her work. She missed her suite of rooms in Pebble Beach. She missed Fernsby’s cooking. She even missed Dane knocking on her door in the late evening to share an idea that had suddenly come to him. The feeling was something like homesickness. For Rex, for Fernsby.
And maybe most of all for Dane.