Chapter 5

Two Years Later...

Finished with his late-morning meeting, Xavier strode across the hall and into Peyton's office, only to stop short. More than half the room was littered with balloons and flowers. Since her domain was a mirror to his and roughly five-hundred square feet, that was saying a lot. And, best he could tell, she wasn't here.

Just as he was about to search through the rubble to see if she was buried underneath, she walked in. The clack-clack of her black heels hit the floor and he followed the path up her toned legs, past her fitted red dress to her hair. At the office, she always had it pinned up in a severe knot, which made him long for another charity event to see the champagne waves trail down her back.

She glanced over the rim of her glasses at him. "Hey, favorite boss."

He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to ignore the naughty librarian fantasy she evoked. "I'm your only boss and what the actual hell is all this?" It looked like Valentine's Day had thrown up all over. Except it was September.

Taking a seat behind her desk, she put her intercom phone piece in her ear. "It's my birthday. What can I say? Your employees love me."

Who didn't love her? But that wasn't the point. "You're going to get high from the helium alone." Or allergies from the pollen.

"It'll make answering the phone hilarious." She shrugged, her gaze darting around. "This is really nice, though, don't you think?"

Since her tone had a rare melancholy note, he moved to one of the thousand floral arrangements and read the card as a distraction.

Hope our best gal has the best birthday. ~Geek Division, 4th Floor

He sighed. There wasn't a solitary staff member inside Gaines Industries who didn't adore her to death, him included. And this abundance of...happiness was quite nice of them. Peyton had no family and, aside from Xavier or a handful of her friends, her birthday might've gone unacknowledged.

Speaking of... "I came by to take you out to lunch for your birthday."

"Thank you, but I ate with the kids in the daycare downstairs. It was chicken nuggets day."

Chicken nuggets were not a meal. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Why? Is there an issue?"

"Nope. They're fun and I wanted some cheer, is all. I go down there sometimes when I need a pick me up."

Studying her, he shifted to the chair across from her desk and sat. She turned thirty today and all outward appearances indicated she was full systems go, as usual. Her smile didn't seem as bright, though. While she scrolled through her tablet, his gut bottomed out. He hadn't been aware she liked to visit the daycare. They never talked about it, but did she want children of her own?

"Do you plan on having kids?" He could picture her sitting on the floor with a few rugrats, playing dolls or cars or whatever today's youth did. Between her soft heart, her creativity, and her innate organizational skills, she'd make a great mom.

Her gaze drifted to the festive plethora of cheer exploding in the room. "I don't know. I mean, Mark and I talked about it before he died, but..." She shrugged and refocused on her tablet. "Last I checked, I'd need a man to accomplish pregnancy. At this rate, I might dry up first." She tilted her head. "There's always insemination."

And there was another thing. How was it possible some guy hadn't stolen her heart yet? She held every characteristic a man sought and, still, she was single.

Not liking her overall mood, he rubbed the ache in his gut. If he didn't know her so well, he might've missed the dimness in her baby blues or the slight shift in her voice. "Have I been working you too hard?"

She met his gaze and frowned. "No. You're the most undemanding person I know."

Resting his forearms on his thighs, he leaned forward. "There's not an aspect of the company or my life you don't have your fingers in, aside from my wardrobe or diet. You're being pulled in five different directions at once, so yeah, it can be demanding. You're irreplaceable."

"Technically, I picked out that suit." She grinned.

He rubbed his eyes. Curse her adorable charm. "Honesty, Peyton. You promised. Always. Tell me why you're off today." The whole week, really. Minute little things that added to bigger ones.

"Just birthday blues. Not a biggie. I'm fine, X."

She only called him X when they were alone. One of those personal, just for them things that made his heartbeat stupidly flutter. "You must miss Brian." Her brother had been her world. She'd talked about him often enough. Holidays and birthdays had to be the toughest without him.

"Something fierce." She chewed her lip. "He used to buy me a gigantic cupcake from our favorite bakery and stick a candle in it." Her smile grew wistfully sad. "He was deployed one year and paid them to deliver the cupcake to me. It was so nice of him, and just like Brian to do something like that."

What Xavier wouldn't give to bring her brother back to her. "Which bakery?"

"Sweetums over on Washington Str" She frowned. "Hold that thought, and don't move. I have to talk to you about something." Before he could respond, she tapped her earpiece to take a call. "What's up, Fern?" She listened, rolled her eyes. "Gah, he's relentless. All right, patch him through. Thanks."

While Xavier waited, she rose. "Marty, it's Peyton Smoke. How's my favorite reporter?" She started collecting balloon strings and gathered them to create a cluster large enough to raise the roof. "I'd love to help you out, but you have a history of going off the rails in interviews." With the balloons tied together and in a corner, she grabbed two vases of flowers and walked out of the room.

Xavier followed her to the lobby. She set both arrangements on Fern's desk and mouthed, for you, to his secretary, who beamed at her.

Peyton winked at Fern, then made her way back to her office, only to grab two potted plants and stride into Xavier's office. "I tell you what, Marty. Because I like you, I'll think about allowing you to see Mr. Gaines if you send me a list of questions for pre-approval." She set one plant on his shelf by a family portrait and the other by the Giants baseball gear she'd bought him two years ago. "Okay, shoot. Let's hear 'em."

Running his tongue over his teeth, Xavier followed her, yet again, out of his office, into hers, and then to the lobby with two more vases. She was like a cyclone. One arrangement went onto a side table and...he bit back a groan. Bent over, her perfect round ass was all his gaze could lock onto as she placed the second arrangement. Damn, that dress was like a glove.

And back into her office they went.

"Nice try. I'll be in the interview. You'll get nothing past me." She swiped the screen on her tablet. "I can get you in for fifteen minutes at three-thirty." Her laugh was light and musical. "Fine. I'll pencil you in for next spring" A roll of her eyes. "That's what I thought."

Since it looked like she'd finally sit down, Xavier walked closer. Except she turned abruptly, running right into him. And didn't move away. With her hand on his chest right over his pounding heart, every single subtle curve of her was plastered to him. The sultry scent of her perfumewhich he hadn't been able to eradicate from his memory for seven-hundred and thirty days straightswirled around them.

Frozen, he closed his eyes and tried to breathe, but that only served to bring his chest in closer proximity to her breasts. He threw his hands in the air, afraid he'd touch her somewhere besides her shoulders.

"Are you flirting with me?"

Shit. Was he? It was a little difficult to form logical thought right now.

He cleared his throat. "No." A) He didn't know how to flirt. Women usually sought him out or he went with the direct route and asked them on a date. No pretenses. And B) Peyton was irrevocably, permanently, absolutely, off limits. Period. No, make that an exclamation point.

She tilted her head up and looked at him, their faces close. She blinked.

Mercy, her eyes. Sapphire and blue fog with a cerulean ring around the edges. He'd gazed into those beauties countless times over the past couple years and it always felt like the first shocking blow each instance.

Not you, she mouthed as if his response had been ridiculous, and thenfinally, blessedlyshe sat behind her desk.

He reeled, did a trigonometry equation to restore a regular heart rhythm, and took a seat, too.

"I'm flattered, Marty, but I have a rule against accepting dinner offers that come up in the same conversation as requests for interviews." She scrolled a few notes on her tablet while Xavier ground his molars. "Perfect. How's your mom, by the way? I heard she was sick." She nodded. "Glad to hear it. See you at three-thirty. Bye-bye."

With a tap of her earpiece and a sound of exasperation, she dropped her forehead to her desk. "I need a bleach shower after that one. Smarmy, that guy."

Xavier strummed his fingers on his thigh. "How did you know his mother was ill?" He didn't even recognize the man's name.

Without lifting her head, she held out her tablet. A Facebook page for one Marty Ferguson of the Bay Gazette was on the screen.

Clever. "Does that happen a lot? Getting asked out on the cusp of a business transaction?"

Straightening in her seat, she sighed. "Ninety percent of date requests are really ploys to get to you through me. The other ten percent just want in my pants."

He opened and closed his mouth, unsure how to respond. Pissed didn't begin to cover the simmering heat bubbling under his skin.

"Anyway, two things. Are you coming to Hallucinogen with us tonight? Kate needs a head count to reserve the table."

Hallucinogen was a bar Peyton went to on occasion and Kate was her best friend. Normally, he'd decline the offer, but it was Peyton's birthday and he'd feel like crap for bailing. Yet, he'd rather do a press conference naked without her than hang out with Kate. "What time?"

"Seven." Her smile relayed she knew what he was thinking. "Kate promised to be nice. It's my present from her."

He'd bet his bank account that wouldn't happen. For whatever reason, Kate hadn't liked him from the moment they'd met. To paraphrase, she'd called him an uptight, pretentious ass. "I'll be there. Do you want me to pick you up?" That way she could drink to her heart's content and not have to drive home.

"Nope. Joseph said he'd be the designated driver."

What? He frowned. "My bodyguard's coming?"

Her grin widened. "Unofficial capacity. He promised to dance with me."

Hating the visual of her dancing with anyone, specifically Joseph, Xavier abruptly looked away. Joseph was the closest thing to a friend Xavier had, was one of the few people he could talk to with ease, even if the man did work for him. He knew Peyton and Joseph hung out on occasion when he was off duty, but...were they secretly dating? Sleeping together?

Xavier shouldn't care. It was none of his business. "You said there was something else you needed to talk about?" Christ, his stomach was a ball of tangled knots.

"Yeah." She leaned forward, her voice tentative. "For starters, let me say that the only reason I'm showing you this is because of the honesty pact, otherwise I'd ignore it for the nonsense it truly is, okay? Don't flip out. I have it handled."

"Congratulations. Now I'm freaked out."

She swiped her tablet screen. "This is an email that arrived in my box this morning." Chewing her lip, she passed him the device. "I get stupid emails all the time, but that was sent internally, which is why I'm showing you."

He glanced at the screen. And stopped breathing.

A picture of them at a charity event from this past summer was in the body of the message. Save the dolphins or dust bunnies or whatever, he couldn't remember. But Peyton's face was scratched out and a big red X placed over her. Below the picture was text that read: I'm going to kill you, bitch. The subject line said: Die, bitch, die.

The violent implication alone put his pulse near cardiac arrest, but the fact the email had come from their server made his heart relocate ribs. Blood whooshed against his eardrums.

"I have Carson from IT looking into it. What we know so far is, the email was created within our system, sent, then the account was deleted."

He gnashed his molars to dust. "You're getting a protection detail as of today."

She moaned. "I knew you were going to say that. It's just a harmless whack job, X. Do you know how many emails hit my spam threatening me to stay away from you?" She opened a drawer and pulled out a two-inch thick manila folder, dropping it on the desk with a thud. "I keep them all, just in case. Yet, here I am, limbs intact, no gaping wounds. This is part of the territory. You're rich, single, good-looking, and that brings out the crazies. Nothing's going to happen."

"Damn right, it's not. Because I'm putting a bodyguard on you right now." Hell. He got up and paced. Guilt coagulated with sickening worry in his gut. He'd had a few low-level threats before, which was why he'd hired Joseph. Xavier only used a bodyguard when away from home or out of the office. He didn't have one on him at all times.

But her getting threats was another story. And, son of a bitch, from within his own company. "I'll keep Joseph on you tonight. Tomorrow, we'll get you your own detail. You will not drive home, go to the bar, or so much as brush your teeth without him beside you."

"Happy birthday to me." She banged her forehead on the desk and rested her cheek there. "Tonight's his night off, you know."

"Not anymore."

"What if I want to get laid?"