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supposed to show you around
the rig, that doesn’t quite work out. I’ll be going to bed when you go to bed.”
    “I don’t mind,” he responded. When she looked uncertain, he
added, “In fact, I insist.”
    She was still wearing her hard hat, but the angle of her
chin, jutting out stubbornly, gave him the clearest view of her face he’d had
so far. A lovely, golden complexion. That was his first thought. Young was his
second.
    “Does your protocol require wearing the head gear,” he
gestured toward hers, “in the cabin?”
    “No.”
    He removed the hard hat he still had on. “Good. Let’s take
these off.”
    He shrugged out of the windbreaker he’d worn to combat the
brisk temperature of the helicopter and held it up with the head gear. “Which
bunk is yours? Upper or lower?”
    “Lower,” she said through what sounded like clenched teeth,
unexpectedly causing Michael to smile.
    He rarely smiled at an employee during the honeymoon phase.
Reynolds Industries didn’t buy companies unless there was at least a little
reorganization involved. No matter how well run a company—not that he was
saying this one was well run, that remained to be seen—there was always room
for improvement in his book, and in his father’s. So Michael usually focused on
that in the honeymoon phase, with not much to smile about.
    He tossed his jacket and hard hat on to the upper bunk and
turned back to her. She hadn’t taken her hat off. He dropped the smile.
    Even the occasional malcontent didn’t disobey a direct
order. “Take it off,” he repeated, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu. When she
didn’t, still jutting her chin out at him, he said, “I’m assuming Mick or
whoever is in charge of you has laid out the current facts of life, or if not,
that you can read a newspaper. Reynolds Industries has taken over Transcoastal,
for a hefty price tag and with the full consent of the board, right before we
kicked most of its lazy members off it, that is. I run Reynolds Industries and
now I run Transcoastal. So you know what that means?”
    “Yeah. I know what it means.”
    “Good. I’m the boss. So take the hat off.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I said so.”
    “What? Are you going to fire me for not taking my hat off in
your mighty presence? Is it some screwed way to show respect? Because where I
come from, Mr. Reynolds, men earn respect through their actions, not by
snapping their fingers and spending their daddy’s money and acting like some
petty dictator.”
    He was not amused. On the other hand, he was not surprised
either. She was simply saying out loud what most of his employees thought
anyway but were afraid to say to his face. Part of him even admired her for it.
    Of course admitting that wouldn’t help to bring this
particular employee in line.
    “I sincerely hope your entire workforce doesn’t have this
recalcitrant attitude, Miss Donald. I’d hate to have to snap my fingers and fire everybody. It’d be very inconvenient.”
    She folded her arms across her chest. “Well, I sure would
hate to inconvenience you, Mr. Reynolds.”
    They stared at each other, affording him the opportunity in
the fluorescent light of the cabin to notice that her eyes, when they weren’t
narrowed in disdain, were really a quite appealing shade of green.
    She whipped her hat off and held it in front of her, as if
she actually thought he was demanding it in a show of respect. In fact, he had
been trying to get on a less hostile footing with her, although he seemed to be
accomplishing the opposite.
    With the hard hat off, she glared at him. He registered that
she was a blonde.
    And gorgeous.
     
    Vanny took a deep breath. Christ. What was her problem? He
was never going to recognize her as his one-night stand from two months ago. To
reassure herself, she ticked off in her mind the reasons exactly why that was.
Her hair was her natural golden blonde and short and curly now, not long and
brown and straight. The contacts had hidden her