Semi-Sweet On You (Hot Cakes #4) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,1
her shit together. She couldn’t lose her temper. She couldn’t snap at him—or even glare at him, honestly. He was her boss. He was one of the reasons the company was still standing. That she had a job at all. That her family’s name wasn’t a curse word in this town.
She freaking owed him.
Which he was very aware of.
Maybe that was why he was poking. Because he knew she couldn’t give it back. Or maybe because he was hoping to push her to the point where she would lose it and he could fire her.
Whatever the reason, she just had to breathe deeply, smile, let it roll off, and act professionally.
Good thing she’d been practicing all of those things for the past ten years working with her grandfather, father, and brother.
She was a fucking pro at letting male egos and snide remarks roll off.
It was why she drank wine. And kickboxed. And did yoga. More the kickboxing, but still.
Of course, Cam had started going to the morning yoga class she had always liked best, so she’d had to adjust her schedule because there was no way in hell she could be in a room with him for an hour watching him bend and stretch and flex.
“Come on, Whit. Let me see.”
Fine. What she’d learned about the asshole men she’d been working with for the past ten years—yes, all her relatives—was that not letting them know they were getting to her was the most important thing.
She stepped out of the powder room, running her hands over her hips, smoothing the dress.
Cam’s eyes widened as she came into full view.
Yeah, take that.
Hey, she didn’t say the stuff out loud but that didn’t mean she didn’t think it. She schooled her features and just watched him taking her in.
His gaze tracked over her. Slowly. Twice.
Her whole damned body was tingling by the time he was done.
And if she didn’t want him to know that his comments about being her boss and saving the company and how her family had nearly put three hundred and forty-seven people out of work got to her, she sure as hell wasn’t going to let on that his biceps and tattoos and cocky smile got to her. And she was not going to react to him reacting to her.
Because he was. He really was.
His jaw was tight, he was standing straighter, and he looked as if he was putting every ounce of willpower into just standing there and not coming toward her.
She lied to people all day long. For years it had been to her dad and brother and grandfather. She told them she was fine and on top of things and thought things were going well. Those were all lies. She hadn’t been fine, and she’d never felt like she was doing what she wanted to be doing, and no, she’d never liked how her family ran the business. She also lied to her grandmother, telling Didi that everything at Hot Cakes was great and she loved her job.
Didi Lancaster had started Hot Cakes and had worked in the business for the first five years or so but Dean, her husband, had convinced her that it just wasn’t “right” for her to be working in their multimillion-dollar nationally renowned company. She was too good to be working in the factory, and she didn’t know enough about business to work in the business offices or executive suites. That’s where Dean and their son Eric—Whitney’s dad—and later Whitney’s brother, Wes, belonged. They let Whitney have an office too. Mostly because it had kept her under their thumbs.
Of course, she hadn’t figured that out for about three years. But she’d known it for a long time now.
So yes, she was fully prepared to lie to Cam. And the rest of her bosses, for that matter. She was going to tell them that everything was great, that she thought they were doing a great job because working for them could not be worse than working for her own family.
She was also absolutely going to lie to Cam about how she felt about him.
It was just all for the best.
She had wine and kickboxing. It would all be okay.
Whitney said nothing as Cam continued to study her. It was probably really only about a minute, but it felt like she’d been standing there under his hot gaze for a week. Still, she stubbornly stood, waiting for his reaction. Because, by God, he was going to be the one to react first.