She nodded even though she knew her dad couldn’t see her. “Okay.”

Her dad didn’t seem overly thrilled with her short response, but she was having trouble focusing on the conversation with Jesse standing right in front of her. His blue eyes roamed over her, sending beads of awareness darting to all her girly bits. Not exactly something she wanted to be feeling while talking to her father.

“Dad, I need to let you go. I have a lunch…appointment.”

Jesse sent her a questioning look.

“All right. I’ll let you go. But you need to call your mother.” He paused. “And, Cassie, be careful. Office romances can implode on you.”

Any doubt she had about her dad knowing who Jesse was went out the window. But before she could say anything back, her dad disconnected. She lowered the phone from her ear and tucked it in her purse.

“Everything okay?”

Cassie sighed. “Yeah.”

He gave her a once-over, then tilted his head toward the bag he was holding. “I ordered us lunch. I don’t have much time today, but with Dad in a meeting until three, I asked him if we could use his office.”

“I thought I was doing the ordering during working hours.”

“Are you saying you don’t want what I brought you?”

She made sure no one was listening to their conversation before answering. “No, but I would have appreciated it if you’d consulted me before ordering for both of us.”

“Noted.” The smirk on his face didn’t give her much hope this wouldn’t be repeated.

Grabbing her purse, she stood. “Do you think it’s a good idea for us to have lunch in your dad’s office?”

“Are you afraid I’ll ravish you on my father’s desk?”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “No.”

She eased around him and went directly to the small table in the corner Blake used when he needed to go over paperwork with someone. He rarely used it for eating. If he had lunch in his office, he typically ate at his desk.

Taking a seat, she waited for him to join her. She noticed he left the door open, which made her feel a little better.

Cassie hadn’t been lying when she told him she wasn’t worried he’d ravish her on his dad’s desk, but that didn’t mean there weren’t busybodies in the office who wouldn’t imagine that’s what he was doing. She didn’t need to add fuel to the fire. The sly glances she got from people were bad enough as it was.

Jesse removed two bags of chips, two bottles of water, and two sandwiches from the bag. “Turkey or ham?”

“Turkey, please.”

He nodded, handed her the sandwich marked turkey, then took a seat opposite her.

Cassie took a bite and chewed. The sandwich was good. She didn’t recognize the bag, so she had no idea where the food had come from. Where she tended to go to the same tried and true places over and over again, Jesse liked to try new places.

As she ate her lunch, she replayed the conversation with her dad. She wasn’t looking forward to talking to her mom, especially since Bradley had obviously spilled the beans that she was seeing someone. But she could handle her mom. She was more concerned with what her dad had found out about Jesse. It wasn’t so much she was worried he’d found out something he shouldn’t, but was it wrong of her to be curious about the man she was falling in love with?

If her dad had found out something bad, he would have gotten on a plane and been waiting for her at her apartment. Or Jesse’s. Either way, he would have found her.

Her dad was just as relentless as her brother, but he was more calculated. Maybe it was because he was older, but her dad protected his family. It wouldn’t matter who Jesse’s dad was.

“Are you going to sit over there in silence the entire time, or are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

Cassie froze with a chip halfway to her mouth. It took her a moment to realize what he’d asked. “No. Sorry. I was just…thinking.”

“I noticed.” He picked up his water and took a drink. “Did something your dad say upset you?”

“Not really.” She paused. “He told me I need to call my mom.”