“What exactly did he tell you, and when?”

“I don’t really know if it’s any of your business,” she shot back at him. Why was he so angry with her? She didn’t understand it, but she felt her temper rise with his.

As quickly as a cat springing, he reached out for her and pulled her face near to his. “Anything about this bank is my business!”

“But Mitch doesn’t have anything to do with the bank anymore, does he?” she asked rhetorically. “You took care of that!”

She felt his closeness, the warmth of his hand against her chin, the light pulse in the tip of his fingers, the heat and magnetism that seemed to radiate from him.

“Why don’t you tell me about ‘your friend,’ Mitch,” he coaxed, and suddenly the fingers that had been rough became gentle. His thumb persuaded her to relax as it moved sensually along the line of her chin and jaw, stopping just short of her throat.

“There’s nothing to tell,” she whispered, trying to think coherently and disregard the intimate persuasion of his hand.

His eyes, flooded with passion, cooled. “Just how good friends are you?”

“Good friends—just that,” she managed, and seeing the clinical hardness on his face, pushed his hand away, adding, “Nothing more. And I resent the implication.”

“Implication?” he mocked.

“That I sleep with him. That is what you were getting at, isn’t it?” she asked with a bitterness she couldn’t conceal. “Not all successful women sleep their way to the top!”

“I didn’t mean to imply…”

“You certainly did! I really don’t understand what all of these suggestive questions are about. I came in here to get some work done!” Erin began gathering the loose papers on her desk as she attempted to stem her anger. She knew it wouldn’t do anyone any good to let her temper surface, but she couldn’t help but feel a deep-seated resentment toward the man who had fired Mitch. She wondered fleetingly about her conflicting reactions to the man—his touch, his words—but she pushed those provocative thoughts aside as she snapped the desk drawer shut, locked it and retrieved her car keys from her purse.

“I’m only trying to find out firsthand how the staff of this bank works,” he explained.

“So that you can fire us all?” she rifled back at him.

A twinkle lighted his steel-colored eyes. “Is that what you’re so upset over? You’re angry because I let Cameron go?”

How could she explain that everything about him upset her, threw her off balance. “It’s really none of my business,” she admitted, her poise and professionalism back in place.

“If it makes any difference to you, I have no immediate plans for—how shall I phrase it—restructuring the personnel of the bank. At least not until I see firsthand exactly how efficiently each department runs.”

“Except in Mitch’s case,” Erin prodded, still confused.

“Cameron was different, and as you so aptly stated, ‘it’s none of your business.”’

Kane pressed his hands together and his lips thinned. “Do you make a practice of working here alone?”