To Wear His Ring: Circle of Gold / Trophy Wives / Dakota Bride

“Look, this wasn’t my idea,” Kasie assured her. “I could do it myself if Mr. Callister would just let me.”

Pauline didn’t soften an inch. “You’re trying to get his attention, playing up to those kids,” she accused. “You want him.”

Kasie just looked at her. “I love children,” she said quietly. “But I don’t want to get married.”

“Who said anything about marriage?” Pauline chided.

Kasie averted her eyes. “I needed a job and John needed a secretary,” she murmured as she turned a spreadsheet page.

“Funny. You call him John, but Gil is ‘Mr. Callister.’ Why?”

The younger woman blinked. “John is just a few years older than I am,” she replied.

Pauline frowned. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

There was a long pause. “Well!” she said finally. She pursed her lips and entered a number into the computer. “You think Gil is old, do you?”

“Yes.” She didn’t, really, but it seemed safer to say so. She did, after all, have to work with this perfumed barracuda for the immediate future.

Pauline actually smiled. But only for a minute. “What do I do now?” she asked when she finished entering the last number.

Kasie showed her, faintly disturbed by that smile. Oh, well, she’d figure it out later, maybe.

Pauline went home at five o’clock. By now, she had a good idea of how to use the computer. Practice would hone her skills. Kasie wondered why Gil, who had the lion’s share of the work, only had a part-time secretary.

When he came back in, late Saturday night, dressed in evening clothes with a black tie and white ruffled shirt, Kasie was still in the office finalizing the spreadsheets. She looked up, surprised at how handsome he was dressed like that. Even if he wasn’t really good-looking, he had a natural authority and grace of carriage that made him stand out. Not to mention a physique that many a Hollywood actor would have coveted.

“I thought I told you to give up this night work,” he said curtly.

She spared him a glance while she saved the information onto a diskette. “You won’t let me play with the girls. I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Watch television. We have all the latest movies on pay-per-view. You can watch any you like. Read a book. Take up knitting. Learn Dutch. But,” he added with unnatural resentment, “stay out of the office after supper.”

“Is that an order?” she asked.

“It damned well is!”

He was absolutely bristling, she thought, frowning as she searched his pale blue eyes. She closed the files and shut down the program, uneasy because he was glowering at her.

She got up, neat and businesslike in her beige pantsuit, with her chestnut hair nicely braided and hanging down her back.

But when she went around the desk to go to the door, he blocked her path. She wasn’t used to men this close and she backed up a step, which only made things worse. He was so tall that she wished she were wearing high heels. The top of her head barely came up to his nose.

His pale eyes glittered even more. “Old age isn’t contagious,” he said with pure venom in his deep voice.

“Sir?”

“And don’t call me sir!”

She swallowed. He was spoiling for a fight. She couldn’t bear the thought of one. Her early life had been in the middle of a violent battleground, and loud noises and voices still upset her. “Okay,” she agreed immediately.

He slammed his hands into his pockets and glared more. “I’m thirty-two. Ten years isn’t a generation and I’m not a candidate for Social Security.”

“Okay,” she repeated uneasily.

“For God’s sake, stop agreeing with me!” he snapped.

She started to say “Okay” again, and bit her tongue. She was as rigid as a ruler, waiting for more explosions with her breath trapped in her throat.

He took his hands out of his pockets and they clenched at his sides as he looked down at her with more conflicting emotions than he’d ever felt. She wasn’t beautiful, but there was a tenderness in her that he craved. He hadn’t had tenderness in his life since Darlene’s untimely death. This young woman made him hungry for things he couldn’t grasp. He didn’t understand it, and it angered him.

Kasie was wavering between a dash for the door or backing up again. “Do you want me to quit?” she blurted out.

His teeth ground together. “Yes.”

She swallowed. “All right. I’ll leave in the morning.” She moved around him to the door, trying not to take it personally. Sometimes people just didn’t like other people.

“No!”

His voice stopped her with her hand on the doorknob.

There was a long pause. Kasie turned, surprised by his indecision. From what she already knew of Gil Callister, he wasn’t a man who had trouble making decisions. But he seemed divided about Kasie.

She went toward him, noticing the odd expression on his face when she stopped within arm’s length and folded her hands at her waist.

“I know you don’t like me,” she said gently. “It’s all right. I’ll really try hard to stay away from the girls. Once Pauline learns how to input the computer files, you won’t even have to see me.”

He seemed troubled now. Genuinely troubled. He sighed as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. At that moment, he looked as if he needed comforting.

“Bess would love it if you took her and Jenny to one of those cartoon movies,” she said out of the blue. “There’s a Sunday matinee at the Twin Oaks Cinema.”

He still didn’t speak.

She searched his cold eyes. “I’m sorry that I’ve gone behind your back to spend time with them. It’s not what you think. I mean, I’m not trying to worm my way into your family, even if Pauline does think so. The girls…remind me…of my own little niece.” Her voice almost broke but she controlled it quickly.

“Does she live far away?” he asked abruptly.

Her eyes darkened. “Very…far away…now,” she managed. She forced a smile. “I miss her.”

She had to turn away then, or lose control of her wild emotions.

“You can stay for the time being,” he said finally, reluctantly. “It will work out.”

“That’s what my aunt always says,” she murmured as she opened the door.

“I didn’t know you had family. Your parents are dead, aren’t they?”