Jane laughed.
“You’re sweet.” Her voice dropped and she craned to look down the corridor. “Are they here yet?”
“Oh, crap!” April had managed to forget that she was late. “Probably. Wish me luck.”
“You’ll need it. And if you need a drink, we’ll take you out at lunch.”
Jane disappeared and April walked down the hallway, heart pounding. Now that she was here, she didn’t have any desire at all to go into the CEO’s waiting room. Nathaniel Bryan and Dave Hines were trying at the best of times, and that was when there was an entire table full of board members between them and a team assigned to run interference. Now, the two largest shareholders were going to be in town alone, and the CEO had asked April to show them around town. He’d even asked pleasantly, as if he wasn’t throwing her into a pool full of hungry piranhas.
“Hello?” she called as she came around the corner of the room.
For a moment, she thought it was empty, and a weight lifted from her heart. Then:
“Hello.”
April turned around, and dropped her coffee.
“Oh, my God—I’m—I’m so sorry.”
“Not a problem.” The man stooped to pick up the cup and throw it away, and retrieved a handful of napkins from the sideboard. A few he threw into the puddle of coffee, and with one or two, he dabbed at her blouse.
“Ah, um…I can get that.”
“Let me.” His voice was like velvet, and he looked up from his task to flash sapphire-blue eyes at her.
April tried not to faint. He was hands-down the most gorgeous person she had ever met. His hair was a deep brown, his features looked as if they had been chiseled from stone by a master sculptor, and he had a dimple on his chin. Tall and slim, he nonetheless had broad enough shoulders to taper elegantly under his suit jacket, and the hands presently wiping at her blouse had long, elegant fingers and the faint calluses of someone who played guitar.
And no wedding ring. Interesting.
April told herself not to be ridiculous. She was gorgeous and sexy and utterly charming, but the fact of the matter was that executives never went for women like her. They preferred women like Jane, and frankly, she was fine with that. Executives didn’t make great boyfriends.
Only, it was difficult to breathe around this man.
“So, uh…are you…” Her voice was coming out too high.
“Dave Hines.” He stood and gave a regretful look. “I’m afraid that blouse may not be able to be salvaged.”
And he would know, because he had been very, very thorough. April tried not to blush as she shrugged.
“I think I’m more upset about the coffee, really. Not a great start to a Monday.”
He laughed. He had a wonderful laugh, one that made awareness flare all down her spine, and his teeth flashed white as he smiled.
“Well, let me get you another cup.”
“Oh, no, that’s all right.” Having one of the top shareholders get coffee for the secretary would be exactly the sort of gaffe the CEO had warned her to avoid. “I’m April Thornton, by the way—Mr. Jeffries’s secretary. We’ve touched base over email.”
“You’re April Thornton?” Surprise rang in his voice.
“Yes.” April looked over her shoulder from where she was stirring sugar and cream into her coffee. “Why?”
“You seemed…” He waved his hands, searching for the words. “I guess I would have figured you were farther up the ladder than that.”
“I will have you know,” April said loftily, “that secretaries run all companies.” She grinned at him.
“Oh? Do tell.” He folded his lanky height into one of the leather chairs by Mr. Jeffries’s door and raised his eyebrows, taking a sip of his own coffee.
“I,” April informed him, “am the gatekeeper. I control who sees Mr. Jeffries, who he knows is in town, and whose teams get first pick for the conference rooms.”
“A pity I couldn’t bribe you to keep Jeffries from knowing about Mr. Bryan,” Dave said with alacrity.
April paused. This was the sort of slight she had been expecting, and she wasn’t good at dealing with it.
“Ah, don’t worry—I’m joking.” Even though the look in his eyes said that he clearly wasn’t, he was, just as clearly, trying to set her at ease. He leaned forward with that sparkling smile. “So, tell me. Do you ever abuse your power?”
“Sir, I would never.” But April leaned forward as well, looking down the hallway first to make sure no one was coming. “Maybe once. Or twice.”
“I have to know. I promise I won’t tell.” He held up one hand in a mock oath.
“Well, a few years back, one of the executives was planning to run off to our competitors with a whole bunch of secrets. He kept asking his secretary to get him information for projects he wasn’t on, that sort of thing. When she asked why, he fired her and pretended it was for the same thing he was doing.” April raised her eyebrows. “His last months here were…not pleasant. Somehow, Mr. Jeffries was always busy when he wanted to meet. He kept getting dropped from projects. For some reason, he didn’t know his phone number had changed, and—such an embarrassing mix-up—his company cell phone got cancelled.”
Dave was laughing silently.
“You really did that?” he asked, when he recovered.
“Oh, not only that.” April grinned. “Somehow, in amongst all the other paperwork for the day, Mr. Jeffries signed a piece of paper acknowledging that the secretary had been wrongfully terminated. That’s the sort of thing that would sit in his inbox for six months waiting to be signed while she had to go get a different job. You know, if he had a different secretary.”
“Ms. Thornton, you are a treasure.” Dave lifted his coffee cup. “I won’t even ask what happened to that executive.”
“You don’t want to know, it’s too gruesome.” April sipped her coffee. “I’ll just tell you he doesn’t have a vacation house in the Hamptons anymore.”
Dave gave a guffaw, endearingly out of place with the rest of his well-maintained image, and April found her face softening as she looked at him. She’d read his bio: she knew he was young, successful in business at an early age, a skilled negotiator, strongly in favor of Houston & Co. branching out into the international business community. The secretaries had even whispered that he was gorgeous. But April hadn’t expected anything like this—a man who took her breath away, who was flirting with her as if she was some svelte society beauty, who was laughing as she told him the exploits she’d sworn she would never, ever admit to.
Down the hallway, the elevator dinged, and April craned to look.
“That may be Mr. Bryan. I should go check.”
“Oh, God.” Dave settled back in his chair with a sneer. “I suppose you have to, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” And before she could stop herself, April added, “Behave yourself.”
She froze, but Dave held his hands up in mock surrender.
“As you command, my Lady.” He managed a cheeky smile. “I wouldn’t want to offend the woman who runs Houston & Co. from the shadows.”
April laughed and headed down the corridor, grimacing at her blouse. It was going to be ruined, Dave was entirely correct, and she hadn’t exactly hoped to meet Nathaniel Bryan with coffee all down her front.
“Mr. Bryan?” she asked, peering at the blonde man who was looking into one of the conference rooms.
“Ah. Are you April Thornton?” He turned and stuck out his hand. “How are you today?”
And April found that she had no words at all. For the second time this day, she was standing within inches of a man who made her knees go weak. With the muscles of a professional athlete and the blonde good looks of a J. Crew model, Nathaniel Bryan might just rival Dave Hines for the most gorgeous man April had ever met.
Her week had just got a lot more interesting.
Chapter Two
“So?”
“So what?” April looked up to see Jane poking her head aroun
d the office door.
Mindful of where she was, Jane peeked into Mr. Jeffries’s office, looked around the room, and then crept in to take a seat by April’s desk.
“So, how was it?”
“Oh, with them? Mostly fine.” April, who had just managed to stop thinking about blue eyes and dimpled chins and well-muscled arms, gave a sigh. “It was, uh…”
“What are they like? I’ve met Mr. Bryan, of course—he very nice when he’s not talking about Mr. Hines. And quite attractive, don’t you think?” Jane’s eyes gleamed.
“Quite attractive,” April agreed, shoving down a flare of jealousy—Jane would be just the sort of woman Nathaniel liked, she was sure. “Mr. Hines is…uh, also very attractive.”
“He is? Oh, my.” Jane bit her lip on a grin, but she sobered. “They didn’t walk all over you, did they?”
“No, I…” April fought the urge to sink her head into her hands. “I may or may not have told them to behave themselves.”
“You didn’t!” But Jane clapped her hands delightedly.
“I know, I know…”
“No, I think it’s wonderful.” For the first time that April had known her, Jane looked self-assured. “They think they can just come in here and turn everything upside down because they don’t like each other? It’s rude.”
“Hello? April?” Nathaniel’s voice echoed in the main room, and both women froze.
“In here,” April called.
As Jane edged out with carefully concealed curiosity in her eyes, Nathaniel came around the door with a ready grin. He widened his eyes at April’s outfit.
“What?” April looked down at her dress, a red confection with a peplum waist, set off by gold bangles and an amazing pair of black heels. She was beginning to feel foolish about the full hour she had spent getting ready this morning. “I didn’t spill coffee on myself again, did I?”
“Not at all. You look stunning.” His blue-grey eyes quirked as she bit her lip. “Come get coffee with me?”
“What?” April nearly overset her mug, and swore internally. When she had made sure that all of the documents were safe, she looked up at Nathaniel again. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Come get coffee with me,” Nathaniel repeated.
“I…have coffee.” Stupid, stupid. But really, it was better if she didn’t flirt winningly, wasn’t it? Especially since this must just be a game for him.
“Not good coffee,” he said with surety. He leaned to look into Mr. Jeffries’s office, then jerked his head. “You like coffee? Good. I’ll show you my favorite place.”
“I work around here, you know,” April told him. But her body seemed to be moving on its own, standing and putting on her cardigan and following him into the lobby. “Also, you’re up early.”
“I admit it was by design.” He strolled along beside her, elegantly matching what she suspected was a natural quickness with her high-heeled gait.
“How do you mean?” April pressed the button for the lobby and stood aside as a flood of black-suited employees emerged, all of them engrossed in their morning papers or smartphones. If they replaced the entire office staff with zombies, she wasn’t sure anyone would notice.
“Dave got all the time with you yesterday.” Nathaniel smiled over at her, his blond hair shining in the dim light. “And it’s certainly not fair that he should get all of your time just because his jet landed first.”
“Right. You both have jets.” April looked resolutely at the door. Rich men went for svelte blondes. She needed to remember this.
“What? You don’t like jets?” His grin was infectious, dammit. “They’re very nice, I assure you. The food’s better and the drinks are free.”
“I think that’s included in the price of the jet.”
“Oh, don’t use facts. It’s too early in the morning for that.”
She laughed, and blushed when she caught him watching her. They strolled across the plaza in front of the building, and April tried to think of something to say. She just knew the correct thing wasn’t to ask Nathaniel how he managed to meld the boyish good looks of an Abercrombie model with the gravitas of a board member. That sounded like…what was it…?
Oh, right. A ridiculous teenager. Still, it was a good question. How could a man look like he raced yachts in his spare time and still manage to convey complete competence?
“You look like you have questions,” he murmured, one eyebrow raised.
Damn.
“Uh…tell me about your career.”
“Easily the least interesting part of my life, but if you insist.” He considered. “To make a very long story short, I was studying a hospital bill and noticed that those little dropper thingies they use—you know, the mini turkey baster things—were ridiculously expensive. I’d seen them. They were just two pieces of plastic melted together at the edges. So I started a company to make them for a fraction of the price and now I have millions of dollars.”
“Droppers,” April said, nodded. He hadn’t been lying about how uninteresting it was, apparently. “So do I get to ask why you were in the hospital?” When he looked away, she crowed with laughter. “I knew I saw something in your face! Oh, come on.”
“I got cut by some barbed wire,” he said, with great dignity.
“Oh, I see. And how, exactly, did that happen?”
“I was running very fast. In the dark.”
“Mm-hmm.” April looked over at him. “And?”
“And I ran into the barbed wire,” he said innocently.
“And why were you running in the dark?” April asked him, grinning.
“Because there was a cow chasing us.”
April had to stop to giggle. When she looked up at him, his expression of wounded pride only made it worse.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Now, why…”
“Because we had tipped over its friend.”
“We?”
“Surely you know the calculations. It takes more than one person to tip a cow.”
“I didn’t actually know those calculations, no. And aren’t cows fairly…oh, placid? I think that’s the word I’m looking for.”
“Fairly. Except when you’ve tipped one of them over. Then it’s nighttime and they’re staring at you in the dark with their eyes gleaming, dozens of them like something out of a horror movie, and then they all start to make these angry noises and…turns out, they can run pretty fast.”
“And lucky for you that they can,” April said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be a billionaire right now.”
“You make a very good point. Maybe I should put that in the brochures.” He stopped by an unassuming little door in the neighboring tower. “Here we are.”
“This is a coffee shop?”
“And a good one.”
“Do they make good mochas?”
“Coffee. Only coffee. But Ms. Thornton, I tell you—it is divine.”
“I look forward to it,” April said, unexpectedly charmed. He actually seemed serious.
“So tell me about your career,” he said after they had ordered. He had insisted on paying—“I’m a billionaire, my dear”—and was now leaning against the back wall of the tiny shop.
“My career? You’re sweet to call it that.”
“I’ve known Jeffries since I was twelve. I say this with all respect due to a business genius, but he must be practically impossible to get from place to place.”
April stifled a laugh.
“You’re not wrong.”
“Ms. Thornton, a secretary is to a CEO what a butler was to a regency household—absolutely indispensable. How the company runs depends in large part on how well a secretary can manage the CEO’s image. Therefore, whether or not the world sees it, a secretary can make or break a company—and you seem to be making it.” He raised his eyebrows. “Ah, good, our coffee. Cream? Sugar?”
“Brown sugar?” April peered at the pot.
“It’s delicious.” He paused with the spoon over her cup. “Try some?”
“Okay.” He passed it to her and April took a sip of the concoction, reveling as much in the gesture as she did the taste. How long had it been since someone had gotten her a cup of coffee? She rather liked it. “That is wonderful.”
“And now you know where to get the best coffee…and disappear for a while.” He led her back out onto the plaza and strolled at her side. “Ms. Thornton, I must thank you.”
“For what?”
“I was dreading this trip. To be honest, I was sure that Hines was only here to mess with my trip. I anticipated three days of fighting. But you have gotten us both—yes, I admit it, both of us—to lay down our weapons. That’s no mean feat.”
“Well, now that you know how much more pleasant it is,” April suggested tartly, “you can doubtless continue without my help.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to.” His smile was suddenly, shockingly intimate. And just as April felt herself begin to blush, the moment was interrupted, the sound of a quiet greeting making them both whirl.
“Good morning,” Dave Hines said. His eyes flicked between them with the mildest expression April had ever seen. He didn’t seem angry in the least.
But she noticed he managed to stand between them on the elevator ride up.
Chapter Three
“So what are you going to do?” Jane asked. She munched contemplatively on a French fry as she watched.
“What about?” I dipped a piece of sushi in soy sauce and chewed. Sometimes I missed the green openness of upstate New York, where I’d grown up, but easy access to sushi and good coffee more than made up for that.
“About them.”
“Well…not much. I mean, there isn’t much I need to do.” I mentally plotted out the next day and a half. “I’ve worked it out so they’ll only be in the same place at the same time for about two hours, and they really have been behaving themselves.”
“Not about that,” Jane said, around a mouthful of sandwich. She swallowed and looked at me curiously. “Wait, do you actually not see it?”
“See what?” Alarm bells went off in my head. I looked around. “What did they do?” My head was filled with images of the two men throwing printer paper and expletives at each other.
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