Page 22 of Turning Up the Heat

CHAPTER TEN

ITWASFRIDAY and even though it was after 7:00 p.m., Tom was still in his office. He was unimpressed with the current numbers on the pages in front of him. He studied a graph that had shown profits of the past five years. Cain Rum was once the top of the pack, one of the preeminent rum brands in the country. But they’d been complacent, and they’d stagnated. And with the influx of other high-end, handcrafted brands—Rexford, especially—they’d begun their decline.

He cursed his father’s decisions, his resistance to change and edict to just perform at the status quo. He didn’t understand how the business and the market had changed. Would he listen? Of fucking course not. He was happy to do nothing until he retired. Tom looked over the numbers again, and the graph he’d made that charted Rexford’s latest success. They were beating them handily, and Gemma’s rum was why. She put care and attention in her craft, and one could tell from just a sip. If he had a master distiller of Gemma’s caliber working for him, Cain would be unstoppable. He frowned. If he couldn’t turn it around, there would be no Cain Rum Distillery left for him to fix when his father retired.

He turned in his chair and looked out the large window behind him. A light snowfall was blanketing the city. He thought back to the Monday of the week before, when he’d gone to Miami to see Gemma. He wanted to be back there with her. The weather had been hot—but it had been Gemma who had burned herself onto his skin. They’d spoken a couple of times during the week, shared some innuendo-laced text messages. But a phone call was no substitute for being with her in person. Since that night in Jamaica, they’d formed some sort of connection—it wasn’t a relationship, but it was fun.

Tom’s phone, which was on top of his desk, buzzed and, as if she’d known he was thinking about her, he saw it was Gemma calling for a video chat. He couldn’t fight the smile that formed on his lips as he accepted the call. Her gorgeous face filled the screen. She didn’t normally wear much makeup, but he saw her lips were covered in cherry-red lipstick, paired with dark eyeliner and false eyelashes.

“You look great,” he told her. “Got a hot date?”

She laughed. “Maybe.” Tom tried to swallow the lump of jealousy that had formed in his throat. Whether Gemma had a date or not was none of his business. They weren’t exclusive, and he had no claim on her. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Still at work, unfortunately,” he told her.

She frowned, and the red lipstick left him transfixed. “Everything okay?”

He wasn’t about to confide in her that he was worried about the state of Cain Rum. He might like her, but she was one of the reasons his family business was in such trouble. He shook his head casually. “Just some things to catch up on. Someone’s been distracting me lately.”

She pursed her lips again. “I guess you need to start prioritizing,” she told him. Tom smiled. Even though he had a pile of things to address on his desk, he already was prioritizing. Time spent with Gemma was better than any minute he spent at the office. “How much longer do you have to be there tonight?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Maybe another hour or so.”

“It’s Friday—shouldn’t you be out having fun? Happy hour with your friends, hitting on women or something like that?”

He’d thought of doing just that, minus the hitting on women, but he hadn’t been interested. “I’ve got enough to do tonight.”

“Maybe you need a little pick-me-up.”

Well, now we’re talking. He smiled. “What do you have in mind? Is that why you look so done up?”

“You caught me, I guess.” He watched her look around. “One minute.”

Tom settled back in his chair, holding his phone, and his breath, as he waited for whatever illicit thing she had in mind. There was a knock on his door. He didn’t know there was anyone else in the building. Who was knocking? Goddammit, he wanted to see what Gemma was going to show him. He didn’t want to deal with whoever was about to come into his office.

“Hold that thought,” he told her. He pushed up from his desk and walked across his office. Whoever was on the other side of the door knocked again, impatient. “Jesus,” he muttered. “I’m coming,” he called out. He opened the door and was surprised to see Gemma standing on the other side.

“You’re coming?” she asked, and her lips, still bright red, pursed as she looked him up and down. “It doesn’t look like you are yet.”

Tom was speechless and stepped out of the doorway as she walked into his office and he closed the door. He could fully appreciate her outfit as she walked away from him farther into the room. She was wearing thigh-high boots and a wool coat that came to midthigh; to the casual observer, she might appear covered. But he had a feeling that underneath that coat, she would be downright indecent. He was surprised, flabbergasted and looked at the phone in his hand he’d used to video chat with the woman he thought was in Miami, hoping at best for a racy video, and then at the woman who stood in his office.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, mimicking her reaction when he’d turned up at her distillery. “How’d you get in here?”

“What kind of welcome is that?” she asked, walking closer to his desk with slow, purposeful steps, not even looking at him.

“A shocked one.” He turned the lock on the door and followed her farther into his office. She was the last person he’d expected to see here.

She stood in front of his desk. “You weren’t kidding about doing work, huh?”

“Oh, I never kid around about work.” He walked around the other side of the desk, and as he straightened the papers he’d scattered on top, his eyes landed on the Rexford graph. He quickly covered it with another and pushed all of it into the top drawer.

“Sit down,” she commanded.

“What?” he asked, caught off guard.

“I told you to sit down,” she ordered again, her hands on her hips, assuming a dominant posture.

Tom wasn’t usually one for taking orders, but he surprised himself when he obeyed, eager to see what she wanted to with him.

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