by Adams,Claire
Let me know how to proceed.
Sincerely,
Lilah Maxwell
I drank the last of my protein shake, skimmed over the message one more time, and smiled.
“You've made the right decision, Ms. Maxwell,” I said to myself. “You've definitely made the right decision.”
I dictated a quick reply, which my speech-to-text program converted to type.
Lilah!
So glad you've decided to accept the offer. I suspected you wouldn't actually need that week. I'll email your supervisor regarding the situation and will personally arrange the transfer. Wrap up whatever you need to in your current department; three days should be enough to take care of that. If anything's left unfinished or simply can't be done in that time, no worries. I'll have your supervisor complete it himself or have your replacement take it over depending on the urgency or lack thereof of the task.
I'll arrange an office for you on my floor. It will be ready shortly. Tell me, would you prefer a city view from your window or an ocean view? I've got vacant offices on both sides, so the choice is yours. You should be moved into your new office by the time I return and we will then have a chat about your new responsibilities and projects. Your primary focus for the time being will be the Harry Winston campaign, of course, which you have fantastic ideas for. We'll get those in motion ASAP.
I look forward to having you on my team!
See you in three days.
Asher
I stood and stretched, still feeling the burn from the morning's workout, which had been particularly intense. It wouldn't be the only workout for the day, though. Between board meetings, I had a private Thai kickboxing session booked with a master instructor. If things went really well with my sessions, I'd planned to be fighting in a ring in a month's time in a local league—under a fake name and identity, of course. I'd always valued my privacy immensely, just as my grandfather had taught me to do, and headlines about a business mogul fighting in a brutal Thai Kickboxing League would not do. Marketing was my business, and I knew that wouldn’t be an effective way to market myself or my company.
The cuts and bruises from the ring would be easy enough to explain away. Most people who knew anything about me already knew I had a penchant for extreme sports, but publicity was another thing altogether. I'd always avoided it at all costs, and I wasn't about to start getting into it now.
As I stretched, I looked down the long dining table—at which I was, as usual, the only person—and my gaze fixed on the painting perched above the antique fireplace. It was a heavy, somber oil painting of my late grandfather, founder of The Sinclair Agency. He had been the one to purchase this home in Hong Kong. I had fond memories of having breakfast with him at the table that was now so empty.
And, as I always did, I gave those severe eyes a respectful nod. My granddad had been my hero, my pillar of strength growing up. He'd been a hard man and, in addition to his success with The Sinclair Agency, he'd been a war hero. Despite his tough exterior, he had always been a fair and just man. Most only saw his cool, intensely-focused demeanor, but he had had a warm and affectionate side, as well. Everything I had grown up to be was almost entirely due to his influence, and not a day went by that I didn't miss him.
“I hope you're proud of me, Gramps,” I said to the painting. “I really do.”
With that, I headed off to take a shower and begin what was set to be a very busy three days in Hong Kong.
***
I stood in front of the mirror in my private bathroom, checking my hair and straightening my tie. I wasn't sure why, but the thought of interacting with Lilah Maxwell had me a little off balance.
“Come on, Ash,” I said to my reflection as I pushed a hand through my hair in an attempt to calm myself. “Yes, she's pretty. Yes, she's fiery…and yes, you do like those things, you really do. But, come on. You're the CEO of one of the most powerful PR firms on the continent. What are you feeling weird about? Get it together.”
I adjusted my tie and ran a finger over the deep cut across my right cheek—a souvenir of the previous morning's sparring session with the kickboxing master. For a fifty-five-year-old, he could still move as fast as a teenager and I suspected his punches, kicks, knees and elbows were just as devastatingly powerful as they had been when he'd been a younger man.
“Okay, let's do this,” I encouraged my reflection, and with that, I turned and headed to the office three doors down from mine and knocked on the door.
“Just a moment,” came a voice from inside: Lilah's voice.
“Sure,” I replied.
The door opened, and there she was, dressed in a pale-blue business suit that more than complemented her striking eyes. Her hair was pulled back, but in a softer style than the day I’d met her. She beamed a warm smile at me and extended a hand, which I shook firmly, but pulled away the moment I was sure I felt a tingle pass between us.
“Good morning, Mr...Asher,” she corrected herself as our eyes met briefly. “How was your trip to Hong Kong?” she asked politely.
“Good morning, Lilah. It was productive. Thank you for asking. So, how do you like the new office?” I asked, stepping inside.
“Oh, it's beautiful!” she exclaimed. “I wouldn't have imagined that I'd be in an office this amazing so quickly. I was prepared for it to take me a few years to work my way to an office view like this.”
“When you've got talent and drive, sometimes things happen faster than you think they will. But, of course, you will need to prove yourself in order to maintain the view.”
My grandfather always said you had to keep a decent amount of pressure on your staff to keep them on their toes; nothing excessive, but enough to remind them that nothing was set in stone. Complacency doesn’t move a company forward. Hard work and ambition does. I could not–and would not–tolerate complacency in my firm. Lilah, like every member of my staff, needed to realize this.
“I understand completely,” she replied, “and I intend to do just that. My goal is to see to it that you have no doubt you made the right decision by offering me this position. But more than that, I want to prove to myself that I can not only do this job, but that I can do it brilliantly.”
I smiled. “Excellent. Ultimately, the only person you should ever need to prove anything to or compete with is yourself. As long as you're bettering yourself every day, you're winning the race. That's my philosophy, at least.”
“It's a good philosophy.”
I walked over to her desk and immediately noticed a picture of her with a handsome, rugged-looking man staring at me from next to her computer. It was completely irrational, but a sudden stab of jealousy shot sharply through me.
“Is this your boyfriend?” I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. It was a stupid thing to ask, but what could I do? It had already been said.
“No, no,” she answered hastily, and I couldn’t help feel a sliver or relief at her quick insistence. “He's my oldest brother, Eddie,” she added. “He's also my best friend.”
I stared at the man in the picture, and it began to make sense. Once I looked closer, the physical resemblance between the two was undeniable.
“I see it now. You two favor quite a bit.”
“Yeah. We get that all the time. He and I both have our mother's looks, while my other brothers all look like my dad.”
“How come you don't have pictures of the rest of them on your desk?” I asked and immediately could tell that I probably shouldn't have. She looked noticeably uncomfortable. There were obviously some family issues there.
“It's just that I'm closer to Eddie than my other brothers,” she replied softly.
“Oh, I see,” I responded, not wishing to press the issue. “Well, tell me a bit more about Eddie then; he looks like an interesting guy.”
She smiled, seeming relieved to have gotten away from the topic of her other brothers.
“Eddie’s great. He's a rather unconventional guy–he was a college dropout, b
ut despite that, he's worked hard and is quite a success in his field.”
“And, what field might that be?”
“He's a musician–the lead guitarist for The Razor's Edge.”
“What? No way. He's seriously in The Razor's Edge?”
She looked surprised that I'd heard of them.
“Yeah,” she smiled. “He's one of the two founding members still in the band.”
“That’s crazy. I've been a fan of theirs for years.” It was true. While I'd been raised on jazz and classical music and, thanks to my mother, had played the piano since age six, my rebellious side had always had a soft spot for punk music.
“I discovered The Razor's Edge in my teens when I'd heard one of their tracks on a snowboarding video,” I continued. “That song Bullet. Man, that tune used to get me amped before my snowboarding sessions.”
“Wait. You were into snowboarding…and punk music?” she said with a laugh that was half amusement, half disbelief.
I smiled. “All work and no play makes Asher a dull boy,” I countered. “And with all the hard work and focus I've poured into my life, I needed some outlets, some escapes. In my teens, that took the form of punk music, snowboarding, motocross, and a few other extreme sports I could sneak in without my mom finding out.”
“Wow,” she said with another laugh and bright smile that was just as stunning as her eyes. “I never would have thought it.”
“There's a lot most people don't know about me,” I offered softly. “A lot.” Suddenly, I no longer felt like talking about myself. Things were getting a little too personal, and so I changed the topic abruptly.
“Anyway, we're wasting precious time here. I have a lot of things on my plate today, so we should get to work. Have a seat and let's chat about this Harry Winston project.”
We sat down in the meeting area off in one corner of her office and started discussing the campaign while I did my utmost to focus on the conversation and ignore her striking eyes and the curvaceous legs revealed so casually from beneath her skirt. This was going to be an interesting working relationship. Interesting indeed.
CHAPTER 4
Lilah
I sat at my desk and stared out through the wall of glass, mesmerized by the Pacific Ocean rolling in the distance. I drew in a deep breath and immediately felt calm. The sight of the ocean had always soothed me, especially in times when I was stressed. It was the main reason I had quickly requested an office with an ocean view. I knew this job wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, and I was going to take whatever stress relief options I could. An ocean view seemed like the perfect place to start.
As I sat there, I began to mull over all that had happened in the last hour. Asher had just left my office after a very in-depth explanation of exactly what would be expected of me in this position—which was a lot. We had also discussed how to move forward with the Harry Winston watch campaign.
This was easily going to be the most demanding job I’d ever had. I'd always been comfortable under pressure, however intense it was. Rarely had I faced a task I could not rise to and conquer. But this, this was more pressure and more responsibility than anything I'd ever faced before. It was going to take every ounce of my focus.
Still, I'd never been one to shy away from a challenge or take the bull by the horns, as Eddie liked to say. And while this was the biggest, fiercest bull I'd ever had to wrestle, I was confident I would fight him to the ground.
If I was being honest with myself, I was more intimidated by the way Asher had been looking at me, how he'd bristled—almost palpably—when he'd first caught sight of the picture of me and Eddie on my desk.
And, I couldn't deny that I'd caught myself staring a bit too long at him a few times while we'd been talking. His perfectly touchable hair, his strong square jaw, and those piercing, amber eyes were hard not to stare at. Not to mention the hard muscles rippling ever so subtly beneath his tailored suit.
I couldn't deny there was something between us. A chemistry that seemed to lie just beneath the surface. But the fact was, Asher struck me as cocky, almost arrogant, so self-assured in his wealth and power that it felt as if he thought that he could use his status to get anyone to do practically anything. And that set me on edge. I'm a strong-willed and often stubborn person, myself. I could already see the possibility there would be occasions in which we'd butt heads. It was going to be an interesting working relationship.
It certainly had been an interesting few days, that much I couldn’t deny. I wasn't sure if interesting was quite what I needed in my life at that particular point, but interesting was what I was about to get. All I could do was roll with it.
***
I was two days into my first official project and it was all I could do to maintain some semblance of focus. There I was, still in my office at eight o' clock in the evening, and I had only completed two-thirds of the day's work. I felt as if an out-of-control truck had been speeding through my brain, wrecking everything in its path. To say I was exhausted was an understatement.
Still, I'd signed on with full knowledge that this job would be an incredible challenge and that it would mold me into a true force to be reckoned with in the PR world. That was what I wanted, after all.
At least, that’s what I kept reminding myself.
Life was simpler that way, even if my stress levels were at an all-time high. Work stress and emotional stress were two entirely different beasts, and I felt as if I was far better equipped to deal with the former…especially after Jacob and what I had been through with him.
Jacob. The name still sent ripples down my spine, only not in the delightful, weak-at-the-knees way it once had. Those warm and fuzzy ripples had morphed into chills of dread, of anger, of pain.
I shook the thought of him from my mind. I couldn't allow his memory to snake its way into my world. I had to focus on work. And at the rate it was going, it seemed as if I would be there until well after midnight, only to have to start again at eight a.m. the next day. I tried to force my thoughts back to something productive. Just as I was succeeding, however, my phone rang.
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Who the hell is calling me now? How am I going to get all this work done tonight?”
I picked up the phone with the intention of cutting off the call and switching the device off so I wouldn't be bothered again, but then I saw who was calling.
I smiled and answered.“Eddie! How’s my favorite sibling?”
“Great, Peanut, just great. We just laid down an epic track for the new album. I think it could be one of the singles.”
“That's awesome!”
“Yeah, I’m pretty stoked. That’s why I’m calling. I was wondering if you wanted to come out with me and the guys to have a beer or two to celebrate?”
“Aw, Ed, I'd love to, but there's no way I can make it tonight.”
“Why is that?”
“I'm swamped with work. It's seriously looking like I'm gonna be at the office until well after midnight.”
“Oh, bummer. So that's how it's been your first few days of working for the big shot, huh?”
“Well, yeah, kinda.”
“You regretting that decision?”
I thought about this for a moment before answering.
“Actually, no. I wanted a challenge, and a challenge is exactly what I am getting. It's tough, but I feel like eventually things will start to fall into place and it'll feel more like a breeze than a hurricane.”
“I hope so, sis. I know you’re used to stress and pressure, and that you thrive under them, but like anything in life, too much of 'em will kill ya in the end.”
“I know, I know. But I’ve got this. It’s just a learning curve.”
“I know you do. You always do. All right, well, I won't keep you any longer. Good luck with the rest of the night. We’ll talk soon. Love ya.”
“Love you, too, Eddie.”
I hung up the call and turned the phone off. There was no one else I’d have answered a call
from at that time of night, so there was no need to even give anyone the option to distract me.
I glared down at the papers strewn across my desk and drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. I was already feeling like a bit of a zombie, so I decided to go down the hall and make myself a strong cup of coffee in the lounge. I was going to need a good caffeine boost to get myself through the next few hours.
I left my office and headed down the hallway. As I turned the corner at the end, I collided with what felt like a padded wall. I almost lost my balance, but a pair of muscled arms quickly wrapped around me. I immediately looked up and found myself staring into those mesmerizing eyes I’d been trying to forget.
“Asher!” I exclaimed. “You scared the hell out of me!”
He chuckled. “The feeling's mutual! What are you doing here at this hour?”
“I, uh, well…working. There's so much I have to finish before tomorrow just to stay close to on schedule, and if I add tomorrow's workload to this one, it just means I'm not going to be sleeping at all tomorrow night and-”
“Hang on, hang on,” he said, holding up a finger to silence me. “Mind if I take a look at what you've done so far?”
“Um, well, it's not quite finished yet, and-”
“That's perfectly fine. I just want to see what kind of progress you've made.”
I realized I couldn't really say no. He was, after all, the CEO of the company.
“All right, let me just make a cup of coffee, and then I’ll meet you in my office to have a look at it.”
“Hold off on that coffee for now. It's not gonna do you any favors when it comes to later tonight when you're lying in bed wired, unable to sleep, and knowing you have to be back here in a few hours.”
“But, Asher, I need to finish-”
He cut me short again. “Just let me take a look first. I'll be the judge of whether you need to keep going tonight, all right?”
