Falling for the Billionaire's Daughter - Lori Ryan Page 0,5

the offer.”

Joy put up her hands in mock apology. “Sorry!”

Great, she was charming the hell out of everyone.

And she was walking his way. He didn’t know what it was about her that irritated the hell out of him.

Maybe it was the unnerving way she had of looking at him like she saw just how out of his depth he was with all this.

Joy stopped in front of him. “Kaeden, a few of the group want to stay behind for a glass blowing demo that’s happening at three o’clock.”

He looked down at the sheet in his hand. “We have a hike at three.”

She tilted her head at him and squinted. “Have you had that OCD looked at?”

“It’s not OCD,” he bit out.

She shook her head. “You’re probably right.”

Samantha Page walked up then. The tall dark-haired woman worked at Sutton but she was also one of the world’s leading hackers and the designer of Tangled Legacy, an online multiplayer game that half the world played.

With what she could do with a computer, Kaeden knew she had to be working at Sutton because she loved it, not because she and her husband Logan needed the money. They had more than enough of it.

“Hey, are you being nice to Joy?” Samantha said to Kaeden, putting an arm around Joy. “We like her.”

He might have growled.

Samantha laughed at him. “Down boy, down. You need to play nice.”

“I messed with his schedule when I told you about the glass blowing,” Joy told her and he knew he’d lost this fight if Samantha was one of the people who wanted to see the demonstration.

He plastered a smile on his face and pulled up his phone to make a note. “No biggie. I’ll have the van drop off whoever is planning to hike and then swing back down and pick up anyone who stayed for the glass blowing.” He looked at Sam. “Should I have the van meet you back at this location at four?”

Samantha and Joy smiled. He was screwed.

“That would be perfect, Kaeden, thank you” Joy said but he had a feeling what she was saying in her head was more like, “good boy.”

He was in hell.

Chapter 4

Joy looked around at the people laughing and having fun in the dining room. She had liked the people she worked with before her life had changed so dramatically, but she didn’t really know if she would have had fun on a work retreat like this.

These were people from all levels in the company hanging out with their bosses and their bosses’ families like they actually liked spending time with them.

All except Kaeden O’Shea. He was sitting at a table with a bunch of the people from Sutton, cup of coffee in his hands, but she could see that he held himself somewhat apart from them. It wasn’t blatant. He wasn’t refusing to talk to them and he wasn’t rude or anything, but she could see that he somehow wasn’t letting them in.

As much as she didn’t want to, she wondered what had happened to make him that way. It could be that he had always been that way, but she knew how the last two years had shaped and changed the way she was with people.

She would laugh and joke, but there was always the need to keep things superficial. Not only because she didn’t want to answer questions about her life and her past, but because everything in her world was temporary now. Friends, jobs, cars. All of it was short term and short term only.

But his job with Sutton didn’t sound that way, so what had him keeping himself at arm's length from the people around him?

She shouldn’t be wondering this. The man was obnoxious with his lists and schedules. She was pretty sure she’d seen him check his watch three times so far during dinner.

They had a campfire with s’mores planned during several of the nights they were here and tonight was the first one.

Still, he didn’t need to do anything to get it ready. Carl and some of the high school kids working at the lodge had already stacked the wood and Carl had gone out and lit the fire about an hour ago. She’d be bringing down all the fixings for s’mores after dinner.

But this man and his schedules….

Joy scanned the dining room once more. So far, the group seemed to like the set-up they had going where they were serving dinners family style. Starting tomorrow, they’d be doing breakfast at the sideboard