by Lucy Lambert
The Billionaire’s Curvy Secretary
Lucy Lambert
Published by Lucy Lambert at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Lucy Lambert
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Under His Protection
Winning Him Back
Kept by Him
Safe with Him
Chosen by Him
Under His Protection
Charlotte really hated corporate life. She hadn’t originally. Not even for the few years she’d already put in. No, it was only after her company was involved in a hostile takeover that she started to hate it.
She stood there, cardboard box in hand, as the Office Policies Enforcer (the “OPE,” as everyone was told to call him) rooted through her desk.
“What’s this?” He asked, holding out a coffee mug emblazoned with “World’s Best Friend” on the side.
Charlotte frowned at him. “A coffee mug?”
This earned her a raise of his eyebrows as he put it in the cardboard box. The mug joined such contraband as a picture frame that exceeded acceptable size by half an inch, several pencils of the wrong variety, and a small poster that read, “Why Keep Calm? Flip Out Instead!”
Supposedly, the rules increased productivity. Charlotte thought they actually increased the desire to jump out of the 16th Floor windows.
“Oh, and no snacking at your desk. A girl your size should know that, though,” the OPE said.
In her head, Charlotte referenced him as the “DOPE.” Still, that comment cut deep. It was another thing she hated about this new ultra corporate culture: the casual misogyny. She knew she was bigger than most of the other girls, and she liked her body. She didn’t like jerks like that guy expecting every woman to be a supermodel.
“Excuse me?” Charlotte said.
She dropped the box on the floor. The mug shattered, and she tried to suppress a wince. She put her hands on her hips.
The DOPE looked around. Everyone else in the office was watching them. He swallowed under the pressure.
“Look, Miss Montgomery, Pierce Technologies is being kind with this takeover. Normally, you’d have to reapply for your job. All we’re asking you to do is follow our simple guidelines—“
“Do those guidelines include blatant sexism?”
The DOPE licked his lips. From the way his face turned red, Charlotte figured he must be counting to ten in his head or something.
“What is going on here?”
The DOPE looked over her shoulder at the speaker. His face went white as though someone had told him there was a death in his family.
Charlotte huffed, turning around. She had to look up into the newcomer’s eyes. He wore what looked like a very expensive charcoal suit. From the way his strong jaw was set, she could tell this was a man used to getting his way.
She didn’t like him, not even a little.
“This guy here says it’s corporate policy to make sexist remarks about a woman’s body,” Charlotte said. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the DOPE, who was doing his best to cower behind her.
What’s with this guy? He thinks he’s something big, then a suit shows up and he goes down ten sizes? Charlotte thought.
“As the Office Policy Enforcer, you should be familiar with the policies against harassment. Get yourself back to head office and have them send a replacement right away,” the suit said.
Like the rat he was, the DOPE scurried from the office without so much as a glance back at Charlotte.
When the suit smiled at Charlotte, all she could see were his perfectly square and white teeth.
“Is there anything else, Miss...?”
Charlotte wasn’t ready to accept some jerk in a suit being a white knight for her. She kept her hands on her hips and turned herself to face him fully.
“Montgomery. Charlotte Montgomery. And yes, and I have something else. I hope this Landon Pierce guy realizes what a huge ass he’s been. How a prick like him can think something like this is okay is beyond me. People care for each other at this office. Doing things like taking away personalized mugs because they ‘reduce productivity’ is a work of idiocy. Anyone who actually knows about management knows a happy employee is a productive employee. I have half a mind to quit right here, right now...” Charlotte said, running out of breath.
The man accepted her diatribe in silence. One corner of his mouth had risen slightly, as though he were trying to resist the temptation to smile, as though he knew something she didn’t.
“That’s the type of spirit Pierce Technologies needs, Miss Montgomery.”
Charlotte had already readied her retort when a woman in a business suit appeared at the other end of the office, speaking into a small earpiece. She looked over at the man.
“Mister Pierce? Your office is ready on the top floor now,” she said.
“Thanks, Mindy. I’ll be up right away,” he replied.
He smiled at Charlotte, winking as he turned and walked away.
Charlotte’s mouth had dropped open. She thought that people only gaped like that in movies, that nothing could ever startle her so much. She had to close her mouth with her hand as she sat.
“I am so fired,” she said, leaning over to retrieve the box with her contraband.
The broken glass rattled as she put the box on her desk. She wondered if she should just load everything else into the box and go right then.
She sat at her desk the rest of the workday, filing her forms and processing admin requests as usual. The entire time, she kept glancing at the matte black phone by her computer monitor.
The call to ask her to go to HR never came. When 5 PM rolled around, she wondered if they were waiting until the next day. Driving through rush hour traffic, normally an infuriating time at best, went by in a haze.
The next thing Charlotte remembered was lying in her bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. It felt like she did that for a long time until sleep finally came.
In her dream, she was back in her office. It was empty, except for her and Landon Pierce. He smiled at her again, and she found herself smiling back.
She gasped as he stepped forward and grabbed her with one arm. The other hand he used to clear her desk. His hand was on her thigh as she sat up on the desk. His lips pressed against hers.
She felt hot, so hot. Then the wetness came. His fingers slid farther up her inner thigh, moving closer and closer each moment.
“Landon!” Charlotte called out as he touched her.
Her clock buzzed. Charlotte woke to find herself tangled in the bed cover. Her body trembled as she sat up, putting one hand to the side of her head.
“I hate that man so much,” she muttered to herself as she found the strength to push herself from the mattress and start her day.
***
Charlotte turned on her monitor at work to find an urgent message. The little red exclamation point blinked incessantly as she sat down and grasped the mouse. Her eyes moved over the line of text.
“Come up and see Mindy right away. Top floor. LP,” was all the message said.
Charlotte trembled at her desk. Her fingers seemed unable to let go of the mouse. She was getting fired, she knew it. For all her talk the previous day, she h
adn’t really intended on quitting. Not in that job market.
The message seemed to have been sent by Landon Pierce, the CEO of the company himself. She figured she must have really struck a nerve. She stood. For a moment, she wasn’t certain her shaking knees would support her.
Maybe, she thought, he wanted to watch as his prissy-looking secretary fire her. Maybe he’d thought of a good retort that he wanted to deliver, getting the last word in.
Her mouth had gone dry, and she couldn’t swallow the lump in her throat as she took the elevator up.
The top floor looked like the interior of some mansion. There were two white staircases, with dual secretarial desks facing each other nestled between the stairs. Both sets of stairs led up to a landing with double doors of some deeply lacquered wood.
Mindy looked over from her desk as the elevator door opened.
“Miss Montgomery? Please, come over here.”
Straightening her blouse, Charlotte walked over.
Both desks had nameplates on them, though only Mindy was there. Charlotte glanced at the other desk as she went over. It read “C. Montgomery.” She frowned. Landon Pierce had a secretary who shared her last name and first initial, apparently.
Mindy looked rather miffed as she quickly tapped something out on her computer. Her already thin lips had pressed into a line so miniscule that she hardly had a mouth at all.
“I hope you know what you’re doing. I don’t have the time to train you, you know,” Mindy said.
“I didn’t realize that the company offered training for different businesses,” Charlotte said.
“What? I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Your desk is ready, please go over and begin your duties for the day.”
“What duties?”
Mindy pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes for a moment before looking back up at Charlotte. She spoke slowly, as though Charlotte was a special needs child.
“You are Mister Pierce’s new assistant secretary. Don’t you know? He told me he’d informed you himself. I’m not really sure why he took on a girl from this place. Usually he chooses one from back at head office.”
Charlotte put her hands on Mindy’s desk and leaned forward. It was mostly just to hold herself up from the shock, but Mindy leaned back with her eyes wide, as though she was about to be attacked.
I’m not fired, was Charlotte’s first thought. Her second was a sort of wordless fear that expressed itself as a cold feeling deep within her body.
Stammering an apology, she took her seat at her new desk. The lights on the phone indicating new callers were already lit up and blinking impatiently.
She took the calls as best she could, recording messages from people all over the world. Her computer contained only a spreadsheet of Mr. Pierce’s schedule, with a few notes on how to handle changes.
It was overwhelming at first.
Charlotte noticed how Mindy would look at her when she thought Charlotte wasn’t paying attention. Mindy would smile, apparently revelling in watching Charlotte flop around like a fish out of water.
Charlotte used this like she’d used all the other negative feelings other people threw at her: as kindling and fuel. She stoked the fires within herself.
Hanging up after talking with a Chinese man she could barely understand, she sent a baleful glare in Mindy’s direction. The other secretary scrambled to look busy.
She thinks I’ll fold, does she? He probably does too. This is all part of his plan to make an example of me to the rest of the company. He doesn’t want people to know that someone can stand up to him.
Charlotte wasn’t going to let that happen.
By the time the day had ended, she’d optimized Mr. Pierce’s schedule and dealt with all incoming calls.
She felt sore, physically exhausted from the work. All she wanted to do was flop on her bed with the curtains closed and sleep through the rest of the evening and night.
“Ah, Miss Montgomery. I just took a look at my schedule. Excellent work.”
It was Pierce. Charlotte looked up. He was leaning over the banister, looking down at her.
“Come up here. I have some important changes I need to make. Bring something for notes,” he said, turning and walking into his office.
“Hurry up. Mister Pierce hates people who are too slow,” Mindy said. She looked Charlotte up and down. Charlotte felt like she was being appraised as if she were livestock.
Mindy was so thin, and quite pretty. The exact type of secretary a person might expect a wealthy man to have. Again, Charlotte felt self-conscious about her body.
She almost forgot her notepad, having to come back down the stairs to grab it. By the time she got into Pierce’s office, she was huffing from running up and down the stairs so much.
Pierce didn’t seem to mind. He sat behind his desk, his fingers steepled in front of his face as he regarded her.
He didn’t offer her a seat.
“Please come more quickly. My time is extremely valuable, which is why I have employed you and Mindy to keep track of it. Right now, I am trying to make my newest acquisition, your former corporate employer, rise to my standards. That is why I am here instead of at Pierce Tower. Now, as for my schedule...”
For the next thirty minutes, Pierce rattled off names, places, and times. Charlotte recorded them all, flipping page after page of her notepad over as she filled them with scribbled handwriting.
By the time Pierce stopped, her hand had cramped. She didn’t have the time to do anything but listen and write as he spoke, but now that she did have a moment, she found her dislike for the man still alive and well .
He looked at her. She waited for the glance up and down, that appraising glare of judgment. It never came. Her hatred wavered for a moment, replaced by confusion.
“You may go. When I’ve finished speaking that means you can leave.”
Her cheeks burned as she realized she’d been staring at him, dumbfounded. She turned and walked away, feeling his eyes on her until she closed the door behind her.
Mindy had already left. Charlotte took that as a sign that her day was actually over and left as well.
***
It was five in the morning when her phone rang. Rubbing at her eyes and sitting up in bed, Charlotte stared groggily around her dark bedroom. She had dreamt of Landon Pierce again.
Her first thought after pushing his image from her mind was that someone had died. Why else would she get a call that early?
With trepidation, she picked up the receiver and put it to her ear.
“Hello?” She said, her voice cracking a little from the dryness of her throat.
“Miss Montgomery? This is Mindy. Be at the entrance to your building in your best work clothes in twenty minutes. There will be a car waiting. And please, Miss Montgomery, don’t forget your passport.”
“Passport? What?” Charlotte said.
But Mindy had already ended the call.
Charlotte ran around her apartment, half a bagel in her mouth, getting ready. She was still chewing on the final bite as she hurried toward the entrance to her building. Sure enough, there was a black Town Car waiting outside.
The driver didn’t speak to her as they moved through the city. It was so early that the highways were not yet clogged with the morning commute. Charlotte watched the sun rise in the east. It was a giant red eye, bringing heat and light back to the world even as it stared unflinchingly down at her.
They came to a large fence. A security guard opened it as they approached. It took Charlotte a moment to realize they were at the airport.
Minutes later, the car rolled to a stop beside a sleek jet with the merged letters of the “LP” logo emblazoned on its tail.
As the driver let Charlotte out, she noticed Mindy standing at the top of the stairs leading to the plane. She had a pinched looked of irritation on her face that Charlotte thought made her look more constipated than upset.
“You were given twenty minutes to get ready. You
took twenty-three. Please, stop being late. Come in, we’re behind schedule.”
Mindy and Charlotte sat in a different part of the plane than Pierce.
Without prompting, Mindy said, “Mister Pierce was requested for an emergency meeting. We’ll be landing in Taiwan. He will be going to a microchip factory he owns there. You will accompany him. I will be making certain the rooms at the hotel are prepared.”
Charlotte nodded. All she knew about Taiwan is that they made computer parts, and that it was hot. Very hot.
She also figured that going with the boss was less than desirable because of said heat. She imagined they would find Mindy testing out the hotel’s pool and other amenities when they returned.
Arriving in-country was a whirlwind. They went through some sort of express customs for important people. The guard with the ominous-looking gun barely glanced at her passport before letting her through.
True to her word, Mindy took a separate car to the hotel. The air outside the airport slammed against Charlotte, suffocating her like some warm, wet blanket. She ducked into the limousine so quickly that she almost fell into Pierce’s lap.
“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered, too hot to be angry.
“Mindy has gone to check on the hotel, yes?” Pierce said.
He sat with his back straight against the seat, his hands lying flat on his thighs. There was not a twitch of nervousness to the man. Despite his suit, he seemed immune to the heat as well.
“Yeah, I’m sure she’s checking on the pool as we speak,” Charlotte blurted out before she could stop herself.
Her eyes widened as she looked at her boss. The corners of his mouth curled in that slight smile of his again.
“She’s a good secretary. Her attitude is not the best, but she makes up for that. She was a model before, you know.”
“I see,” Charlotte said, trying to sound interested. The windows were so tinted that she could barely see anything on the other side of them.
