Rules of Engagement

“Tell me the truth, Kat.”

He reached out and took her by the shoulders, his piercing green eyes glittering dangerously. “You didn’t love me five years ago. You played with me. You found me vastly entertaining, but that’s all it ever was for you, right?”

“That’s not true.” The pain of that day when he’d gotten on a plane and flown out of her life radiated through her now.

Nate snorted derisively and dropped his hands from her shoulders, as if he couldn’t stand touching her. “Sure, you loved me so much you weren’t willing to sacrifice anything.”

“You asked me to be someone I’m not. But I did love you. I loved you like I’ve never loved anyone before…or since.”

And she still loved him. But it didn’t matter. He hated her and she loved him and the duration of her stay in Boston promised to be sheer heartbreaking torture.

Dear Reader,

I’ve put together a list of Silhouette Romance New Year’s resolutions to help you get off to a great start in 2004!

 Play along with our favorite boss’s daughter’s mischievous, matchmaking high jinks. In Rules of Engagement (#1702) by Carla Cassidy, Emily Winters—aka the love goddess—is hoping to unite a brooding exec and feisty businesswoman. This is the fifth title in Silhouette Romance’s exclusive, six-book MARRYING THE BOSS’S DAUGHTER series.

 Enjoy every delightful word of The Bachelor Boss (#1703) by the always-popular Julianna Morris. In this modern romantic fairy tale, a prim plain Jane melts the heart of a sexy playboy.

 Join the fun when a cowboy’s life is turned inside out by a softhearted beauty and the tiny charge he finds on his doorstep. Baby, Oh Baby! (#1704) is the first title in Teresa Southwick’s enchanting new three-book miniseries IF WISHES WERE… Stay tuned next month for the next title in this series that features three friends who have their dreams come true in unexpected ways.

 Be sure not to miss The Baby Chronicles (#1705) by Lissa Manley. This heartwarming reunion romance is sure to put a satisfied smile on your face.

Have a great New Year!

Mavis C. Allen

Associate Senior Editor

Rules of Engagement

Carla Cassidy

CARLA CASSIDY

is an award-winning author who has written over fifty books for Silhouette. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times for Anything for Danny. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from Romantic Times.

FROM THE DESK OF EMILY WINTERS

Two

Six Bachelor Executives To Go

Bachelor #1: Love, Your Secret Admirer

Matthew Burke—Hmm…his sweet assistant clearly has googly eyes for her workaholic boss. Maybe I can make some office magic happen.

Bachelor #2: Her Pregnant Agenda

Grant Lawson—The guy’s a dead ringer for Pierce Brosnan—who wouldn’t want to fall into his strong, protective arms!

Bachelor #3: Fill-in Fiancée

Brett Hamilton—The playboy from England is really a British lord! Can I find him a princess…or has he found her already?

Bachelor #4: Santa Brought a Son

Reed Connors—The ambitious VP seems to have a heavy heart. Only his true love could have broken it. But where is she now?

Bachelor #5: Rules of Engagement

Nate Leeman—Definitely a lone wolf kind of guy. A bit hard around the edges, but I’ll bet there’s a tender, aching heart inside.

Bachelor #6: One Bachelor To Go

Jack Devon—The guy is so frustratingly elusive. Arrogant and implacable, too! He’s going last on my matchmaking list until I can figure out what kind of woman a mystery man like him prefers….

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter One

Nate Leeman stood at his office window and watched as big, fat snowflakes drifted lazily down from an overcast sky. It always surprised him when somebody mentioned how beautiful Boston could be in January.

As far as Nate was concerned, snow meant only one thing…longer commutes to and from the office. Many a wintry night he had camped out at work rather than fight traffic and inclement conditions. Of course most nights he’d just as soon be here as at home.

Here, was his office at Wintersoft, Inc. As Senior Vice President of Technology, he commanded a large office outfitted with a wet bar he’d never used, an ornate armoire containing a television, stereo and DVD player he’d never touched and a sofa sleeper he’d never unfolded.

All he cared about sat on his enormous desk—his state-of-the-art computer and supporting equipment. The computer and its programs and files weren’t just his work; they were his life and, despite all the security precautions, somebody had violated it.

Now his computer wasn’t alone on his big desk. A second monitor and keyboard sat next to his and the sight of it only served to heighten the irritation that had been with him since the moment he’d awakened that morning.

A knock sounded on his office door. “Come in,” he called and turned away from the window.

Emily Winters, Senior Vice President of Global Sales and the boss’s daughter, entered and immediately sat on the burgundy sofa opposite Nate’s desk. “The forecast is for two to four inches by midnight.”

“What time does her plane arrive?” he asked. Kathryn Sanderson was a private investigator specializing in tech crimes and a part of his past he’d just as soon never encounter again.

Emily looked at her watch. “In an hour.”

“Then there shouldn’t be any problems,” he replied. He hoped his personal feelings about the subject didn’t color his words or tone. As far as he was concerned he wouldn’t care if bad weather kept Kathryn’s plane circling Logan International Airport for days.

He didn’t want her here. He didn’t need her help. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the boss. Emily’s father, Lloyd, was and it had been his and Emily’s idea to hire outside help. It had been sheer serendipity that they had chosen a woman—the only woman with whom he’d shared a tumultuous history.

“I’ve booked her a room at the Brisbain so she’ll be close to the office.” Emily tucked a strand of her shoulder-length brown hair behind an ear, her blue eyes troubled as she gazed at him.

“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this, Nate. We’ve got too much time and too much money tied up in the Utopia program for it to be tampered with and leaked to our competitors.”

“Trust me, I’m as upset about this as you are,” he replied.

She stood and smoothed the skirt of the sapphire dress that perfectly matched the hue of her eyes. “Father and I are confident that you and Kathryn will be able to get to the source of the security breach. You’re two of the best in the business.” She headed for the door. “I’ll send her in as soon as she arrives so you can put your heads together and find the hack who’s creating our problems.” With these words she left the office.

Nate sank down at his desk, a frown tugging his features. It wasn’t just some hapless hack who had managed to breach the main computer and break into the Utopia program and personnel files. It had been somebody with considerable computer savvy.

From his bottom desk drawer he withdrew two magazines. Both were computer tech periodicals and each had an article on Kathryn Sanderson…aka Tiger Tech. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, in the past five years Kathryn had made a name for herself in catching computer criminals. She’d not only worked for big business but had also consulted with several police departments as well.

Accompanying one of the articles was a small photo. Although the picture was a little bit fuzzy, it depicted a young woman with a slender face, large eyes and short auburn hair.

The picture didn’t do her justice. The way he remembered, her face was slender but always animated with an abundance of confidence, laughter and life. There was no way a photo could capture the exact color of her hazel eyes for they were always changing—sometimes blue, sometimes green, and always sparkling.

And that short auburn hair was shot through with sun-kissed highlights that glistened and shone, adding a multitude of dimension to the color of auburn.

He slammed the magazine shut and stuffed it back into his bottom drawer. He’d told her goodbye five years ago and had assumed he’d never see her again. He didn’t want to see her again. She’d been the one risk he’d taken in his life…the one and only gamble he’d been willing to take. He didn’t take risks anymore—the outcome was far too painful.

He frowned and rolled his shoulders to release some of the tension that had taken root in a spot in the center of his shoulder blades.

All he needed was a little more time and he could figure out, on his own, where the breach in the program was coming from.

He punched up his computer, all set to get to work. Maybe he could have the problem solved before Tiger Tech even got off her plane. Then she could just climb on the next flight back to California.

He’d only been working for a minute or two when another knock on his door broke his concentration. “Come in,” he said in frustration.

Carmella Lopez, Executive Assistant to Lloyd Winters, entered carrying a fruit basket tied up in pretty cellophane. She smiled, her natural warmth radiating in the depths of her chocolate-brown eyes.

“Mr. Winters thought it would be nice if you’d give this to Ms. Sanderson when she arrives.” She set the bountiful basket on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

“How nice,” Nate said, trying to ignore the irritation that rose inside him. Maybe he should just roll out a red carpet. Certainly everyone in the entire place seemed eager to make Kat feel welcome. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

“We appreciate her coming all the way out here to help us,” Carmella replied.

Nate knew he was being rather childish, but he couldn’t help it. Utopia was his baby, and Lloyd and Emily Winters were telling him to hand over his baby to the woman who’d once broken his heart. Of course, nobody knew about his former connection to Kat and he didn’t intend to share the information with anyone.

Carmella glanced out the window where the snow was falling at a faster rate than last time he’d looked. “They’ve changed the forecast to four to eight inches by evening. I hope Ms. Sanderson knows how to dress for winter weather.”

It was just like Carmella to worry about such a thing. She was always fretting over somebody. She often made Nate rather uncomfortable by straightening his tie or brushing lint off his jacket. He wasn’t accustomed to being touched.

Carmella looked out the window once again and muttered something in Spanish beneath her breath. He looked at her quizzically. She smiled. “I said, beautiful but treacherous. And now I’ll let you get back to your work.”

When she left, Nate stared at the basket of fruit. The staff of Wintersoft, Inc. could welcome Kathryn Sanderson to the fold all they wanted. But they didn’t have to work with her, he did.

Beautiful but treacherous. That not only described the snow falling outside the window but could also apply to Kathryn Sanderson.

He walked over to the window and drew a deep breath, steeling himself for the experience of seeing her again.

Emily Winters was waiting for Carmella when she stepped out of Nate’s office. She grabbed the attractive Hispanic woman by the arm and pulled her into an empty conference room.

“What’s wrong?” Carmella asked.

“I think it’s time we stopped our little research plot. With Kathryn and Nate trying to find our hacker, we just can’t risk accessing any more personnel files.”

“Whatever you think is best,” Carmella agreed. “We only have two men left anyway.”

“And the odds of Nate Leeman and Jack Devon getting married anytime soon are astronomical,” Emily replied. Nate Leeman didn’t seem to realize women existed and Jack Devon always had a different model babe on his arm at company functions.

The two women parted and Emily went into her own office and closed the door. She sank down at her desk and thought about the scheme she’d hatched with Carmella five months before.

It had been Carmella who had overheard Emily’s father in a phone conversation indicating that he meant to hint to the bachelors in the top positions of his company that it might be a good idea to take an interest in his daughter.

Emily had been appalled, especially since she’d already married a company man and the end result had been a divorce more than four years ago. To counter her father’s plans she and Carmella had devised a plot of their own.

It was a crazy plan. Carmella had agreed to research the six bachelors in top company positions and it was Emily’s job to find them the perfect match.

So far their plan had worked unbelievably well. Four of the six bachelors had found love, leaving only the loner Nate and the elusive Jack unattached.

But now she had bigger problems than her father’s matchmaking. She didn’t want anyone to know it had been her and Carmella who had accessed the personnel files in order to marry off the men. She would be humiliated if that information became common knowledge.

It wasn’t as if what they had done had been illegal. Certainly it was within Carmella’s job description to have access to the personnel files. But, she and Carmella had snooped and, even though everything had turned out well for everyone so far, Emily didn’t want to press their luck any further.

However, more important than any humiliation she might suffer was the genuine threat to the company by a hacker who had managed to access some of the Utopia files.

Utopia was the working name for a revolutionary financial software program that Nate had been developing on behalf of Wintersoft, Inc. It had been in the works for months and months and the projected date for completion was fast approaching.

She only hoped Nate and Kathryn Sanderson could find the hacker who threatened to destroy not only months of work but the company’s reputation and financial platform.

Kathryn Sanderson stood on the sidewalk on Milk Street in downtown Boston. Directly in front of her was the fifty-story glass-and-steel building that housed Wintersoft, Inc.

She knew they would be waiting for her arrival, but she wasn’t ready to go inside yet. She couldn’t believe she was actually in Boston, home of Paul Revere’s midnight ride, the Boston Tea Party, baked beans and a little tavern where everyone knew your name.

She tipped her head back and allowed the big, fat snowflakes to tickle her eyelashes, light on her cheeks and melt on her mouth.

Snow was a glorious, wondrous sight and sensation for a woman who’d never been out of California before. The novelty of the weather pumped her full of adrenaline, chasing away the exhaustion left behind by the long plane trip.

She knew it wasn’t the snow alone that had created the new burst of nervous energy. It was a combination of the snow and the anticipation of seeing him again.

Nate. It had been over five years since they’d parted. She’d just turned twenty-six when he’d come to Silicon Valley to take some computer courses she was enrolled in as well.

They’d dated for four months before it had all fallen apart and he’d returned to his life in Boston and she’d continued her life in California.

She looked up at the top of the fifty-story building. She’d been told his office was on the forty-ninth floor. “Senior Vice President of Technology,” she murmured aloud.

Apparently he’d achieved his dream of a position of power in the corporate world. She wondered if he’d also attained a corporate wife to go with his position.

No sense in putting it off any longer, she thought. She had a job to do. She shifted her suitcase from one hand to the other, then headed into the office building. She chose the express elevator and was whisked silently and efficiently to the forty-ninth floor.

A secretary who introduced herself as Mary Sharpe greeted her and accompanied her down a long hallway. “That’s Nate’s office,” she said, and pointed to the door at the end of the hallway.

For a long moment Kat stood outside the door, surprised to discover that what she thought might be pangs of hunger were actually nervous butterflies.

It was ridiculous to be nervous about seeing a man she had dated so many years ago. But it had been more than just dating, a little voice whispered inside her head. It had been your future, and you blew it.

She shook her head to quiet the tiny voice. It hadn’t been her future. Nate had been a dream, an extended dream that had eventually turned into a nightmare of heartache and false expectations. And now he was the man she would be working with to solve a company problem.

With a deep breath to steady her nerves, she knocked briskly on the door. She had no preconceptions about the man he’d become in the past five years, but when he opened his office door his appearance sent a small shock wave rippling through her.

It was like stepping back in time. His hair was as rich and black as she remembered. The brilliant green of his eyes was just the same. The gray suit he wore seemed to love the lean fitness of the body it hugged. He hasn’t changed a bit, she thought with a small sense of wonder.

“Hi, Nate.”

He nodded, his eyes revealing no emotion whatsoever. “Kathryn.”

Kathryn. Not Kat, like it had always been, but the more formal Kathryn. “May I come in?”

“Of course.” He held the door open wider to allow her to sweep past him. His sensual lips were compressed together in a tight, grim line.

“Wow, nice office,” she exclaimed as she stepped in and dropped her suitcase to the floor. She shrugged off her coat and tossed it onto the leather sofa.

It was a beautiful office, the furniture warm in colors of gold and burgundy and rich, highly polished mahogany wood. She stepped to the huge windows and peered out. Through the falling snow, she thought she could see the distant gleam of the harbor.

“I can’t believe I’m really in Boston,” she murmured.

“I can’t believe it, either.”

She turned and eyed him sharply. His tone had betrayed a hint of displeasure, but his handsome features held an utter lack of expression.

“The fruit is for you,” he said, and indicated the large basket in the center of the coffee table.

“Oh, how lovely. Thank you so much. That was very thoughtful.”

“It’s not from me,” he said hurriedly. “You can thank Mr. Winters.”

“Fine, I’ll do just that.” Kat had been in awkward situations before, but never with the kind of tension that filled the air at the moment.

She sank onto the burgundy sofa and looked up at him. “So, how have you been, Nate? You’re looking well.” That was the understatement of the century. He looked better than well. He looked fantastic and she was shocked to feel an old familiar spark ignite within her, a spark she mentally doused with cold water.

“I’ve been fine…good actually…great, in fact.” His voice was still cool and he seemed to be looking at everything in the office except her. “The only blight in my life at the moment is the hacker who has been wreaking havoc with my program.”

She didn’t miss the fact that he’d managed to deflect the conversation from anything personal back to the business at hand. “Then I guess we need to start with some information. When Emily Winters contacted me she was rather vague about the specifics.”

“She would have been vague on the phone,” he replied. “The program has been kept under the tightest of security.”

“It can’t be that tight if somebody got in,” she replied wryly.

He was obviously not amused by her observation. He shot her a dirty look and sat down in his chair behind his desk. “I started work on Utopia a little over two years ago. My idea was to come up with a financial program that would streamline cross-functional business processes, eliminate islands of automation and seamlessly integrate enterprise-wide and mission-critical data in real time.”

“I thought that was already what Wintersoft, Inc. was offering its clients.” She crossed her legs, aware that for the first time his features held an expression other than vague displeasure.

“It was—it is—but Utopia does it all more quickly and efficiently.”

As he told her about the features of the beta software program he’d been working on, his features came alive, making him impossibly handsome, making her remember a time when his face had lit up with life just for her. He got up from the desk, pacing as he spoke.

“If time is of the essence, then I guess we should get to work,” she said when he’d finished.

There were a million questions she wanted to ask him and none of them had to do with the program he’d been working on. She wanted to know if he still buttered his toast with the precision of a surgeon. She wondered if his favorite color was still blue, if he was still driven by demons she’d never quite understood.

She wanted to know if he had found happiness. If he had a loving wife and maybe a little boy or girl waiting for him at home.

More than anything, she wondered if he ever thought of her and those wonderful, crazy, intense days and nights they had spent together.

She had a feeling the answer was no. She’d always figured that for Nate she had been like a new computer game, and when he realized he couldn’t program her he’d closed the file and had never opened it again.

“I just want you to know up front, I’m not accustomed to working with anyone. I’m not used to sharing my space.” For the first time since she had arrived, his gaze locked with hers. Emanating from his green eyes was a coolness that blew through her like a wintry wind.

She forced a carefree grin. “Then get used to it, sweetheart, because I’m going to be in your space and in your face until we get this problem solved.”

She stood, straightened her sweater and plopped down in the biggest, most comfortable chair at the desk, the one he had just vacated.

Chapter Two

He couldn’t stand her. At that moment he couldn’t think of what on earth had possessed him years ago to believe himself in love with her.

As she wiggled into his leather chair, he wondered if she’d worn the blue sweater on purpose, if she’d remembered that he’d once told her his favorite color was blue.

The sweater was one of those fuzzy things and looked as if it would be soft to the touch. He also couldn’t help but notice that the sweater emphasized the thrust of her full breasts.

The more he thought about it, the more he was sure she’d worn the sweater on purpose, just to irritate him.

“You’re in my chair,” he said crisply.

“Does it matter? There are two chairs and two computers.” She looked up at him innocently.

“Yes, it does matter. I need to be on my own computer. There are things on it I need to work on that you won’t be able to access, things that have nothing to do with the Utopia program.”

“Oh, okay.” She got out of his chair and sat in the one next to his.

Again settled in his own chair, he couldn’t help but smell her. It was the same way she’d smelled years ago—a blend like sunshine and citrus, fresh and clean and just a bit tangy.

He remembered watching her one morning as she spritzed herself with the scent, amazed to see her spray the perfume not only in the hollow of her throat and behind her ears, but also behind her knees. She’d explained to him that fragrance always drifts upward, thus the spray behind the knees.