Start Me Up

by Maggie Riley

  I bit back a smile. Even though I was immediately charmed, in business, and in life, I had learned it was best to keep your true thoughts under wraps. It hadn’t exactly been my ex-wife’s favorite trait of mine, but it had served me well when it came to my work.

  Clearing my throat, I leaned back in my chair, trying not to stare at her chest. Or her mouth. Or anything, really. Focus, Willis, I told myself. The last thing you want is for some writer-wannabe to catch you undressing her with your eyes. That was exactly the type of thing I wanted to keep out of the press. So far I’d been successful in keeping my personal life out of the news, but agreeing to do this book felt like tempting fate.

  But even if I decided against doing the book, Libby was here now. The least I could do was interview her.

  “It says on your résumé that you’ve mostly written craft manuals,” I noted, looking over the CV that had been provided for me.

  She nodded. “I would probably consider them more guides than manuals,” she corrected.

  “Is there a difference?” I asked.

  She gave another sexy little shrug. “Manuals just sounds so official,” she explained. “Like suggesting there’s just one way something can be created and completed.”

  “And there isn’t just one way?”

  We clearly had very different views regarding those kind of things. Not only did I believe that there was one right way to do things, but I always made sure that my way was the right way. It was the reason I was as successful as I was. Find the problem and fix it. Find what’s wrong and make it right.

  She laughed, the sound like little bright bells. “Oh no,” she said. “Not when it comes to the things I write about, like knitting and painting and gardening and creative things like that. Though I’m sure it’s different in your line of work.”

  Libby glanced around the office as if looking for something, and it was then that I realized that she had absolutely no idea what I did. Or who I was. Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I found it incredibly endearing. And completely different from all of the other unbearable interviews I’d sat through.

  “Well, we do have different ways of approaching a problem here,” I told her. I kept my comments purposefully vague, wondering if she would own up to her lack of knowledge. Part of me hoped that she wouldn’t. “But in the end, we try to come up with the same result. Doesn’t do us much good if each product is different.”

  “Of course,” Libby’s expression was bright. “It’s very different in the arts,” she waved her hands emphatically. “No one wants uniformity there.”

  “Of course,” I placed my hands on my desk, watching her.

  She blinked at me, and I could practically see the wheels in her head moving.

  “You have no idea what I do, do you?” I asked her point blank. No point beating around the bush for much longer. And I was curious how she’d react. Most people would stutter and immediately deny their lack of knowledge.

  I wasn’t surprised when Libby’s reaction was different. Everything about her was different.

  She laughed, the sound a little nervous and little sheepish. “I don’t, I’m sorry,” she confessed. “I don’t like to come so unprepared, but I’m afraid no one was very forthcoming with details about the job. Just that someone needed a ghostwriter.”

  “Only you didn’t know who that someone was,” I leaned back, watching her.

  I couldn’t help it. There was something about her that captivated me. And I was the kind of man that paid attention when my gut told me to. I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I had if I hadn’t developed a pretty damn good set of instincts. And my instincts were saying that Libby Hanson deserved a closer look.

  Two red spots had appeared on her cheeks. “I’m afraid to say I didn’t know who you were when I walked in. And I still don’t.”

  Even my name hadn’t sparked any recognition. Either Libby had been living under a rock for the past few years or she just didn’t travel in the kind of circles that discussed the latest tech inventions. Or the latest millionaire gossip mill. It was incredibly refreshing. Everyone else I had interviewed for the ghostwriter job had nearly fallen over themselves, quoting other articles or pieces that had been written about me, trying to impress me. And that was if they were men. If they were women, they tended to start batting their eyelashes and making unsubtle attempts to display various body parts. Even though it had been happening for years – ever since my name and photo were on the cover of Forbes – I still couldn’t get used to women throwing themselves at me with such aggression. I’d always been lucky with the ladies, but the fame and the money made it out of control. I didn’t like fawning, I just found it annoying. And I really didn’t want to work with someone who was going to try to flatter and butter me up, even if it was for the sake of the book. A book that I had been loathe to write in the first place. I hated talking about myself. I wanted to talk about the work, about what I wanted to accomplish, not which supermodel I was rumored to be dating or all the money I was making. My personal life was just that – personal. And I intended to keep that side of me out of the press and out of this book.

  Which is why I found Libby’s lack of information appealing, and I saw the opportunity to avoid the usual pitfalls I often found when being interviewed. She didn’t know me, didn’t know my reputation. She would be able to approach this book without any preconceived notions. Without any agenda. It could actually be about the work, and not about me.

  For the first time the book didn’t seem like the worst idea ever.

  “You’re hired,” I told her.

  Chapter 3

  LIBBY

  My jaw dropped open. I was pretty sure that I had heard Jack – or Mr. Willis, as he had insisted on being called – incorrectly. I had just admitted that I had no clue who he was or what he did and his response was to hire me to write a book about him?

  While I gaped at him, he stood up, looking damn delicious in his perfectly tailored black suit and matching tie. It emphasized his broad shoulders and narrow waist while giving a hint of the lean, muscled body beneath the fabric. When he grabbed a briefcase from beside his chair, I could see his biceps straining against his sleeves. He was fricking gorgeous, the incredible physique complimented by a head of thick, brown hair. Hair that was neatly styled but practically begged to be mussed. Adding to that was a square jaw and a sexy little dimple in the center of his chin, and I damn near swooned.

  “Ms. Hanson?” he asked, and I realized that I was basically staring at him.

  And then I remembered that he had also offered me a job. This was shaping up to be a very weird day, but I thanked my lucky thong that it was a weird day that seemed to be working in my favor.

  “Are you sure you want me?” I asked, immediately regretting my choice of words.

  Jack crossed his arms and leaned back, his hips against his desk. Even though I knew I was supposed to call him Mr. Willis, it didn’t stop me from thinking of him as Jack. He would probably hate to learn that. He gave me a long, lingering look, though the expression on his face was impossible to read. It was like looking at a really, really nice statue.

  “Trust me, Ms. Hanson,” he finally said, his voice rich and smooth, “I’m always sure about what I want.”

  Well then.

  Even though I was pretty sure he had not intended for his words to sound as suggestive as they did, they still sent a shiver through me. The man was getting me all hot and bothered without even trying. Without even intending to.

  And I had a feeling that if he knew what I was thinking, he would be horrified. It was very unprofessional, and the one thing I could tell about Jack, about Mr. Willis, was that he valued professionalism over all else.

  But I still had no idea what this job entailed. Or what Jack even did. Still, I followed him out of the office to his secretary’s desk.

  “Mrs. Reynolds,” he leaned over and gave the older woman a heart melting smile. “Please draw up a contract for Ms. Hanson. She’s now tasked with th
e unenviable job of following me around for the next few weeks.”

  I exchanged a look with Mrs. Reynolds. Unenviable task my ass. I was pretty sure that half the women in Manhattan would happily line up to do that job. For free.

  “Talk to Mr. Albertson about appropriate royalties and other publishing nuances, but the contract will be for twenty upon signing and forty upon completion.” He glanced over at me. “Does that seem reasonable to you?”

  “Twenty?” I was pretty sure I sounded like a parrot, but it took me a moment to realize what he was saying. And even then, I couldn’t believe my ears. I glanced down at Mrs. Reynolds desk and saw that she had written down an amount I had never even dreamt of being offered. “Twenty thousand dollars?”

  “Yes,” Jack gave me a look. “Is that not enough?”

  “That’s more than enough,” I blurted out, belatedly wondering if I should have tried to keep my cool.

  Maybe someone else more seasoned would have been able to pretend to be unimpressed, but I was not seasoned and I had absolutely no poker face. Twenty thousand dollars was twenty times what I usually made – in total – for the work I did.

  “Good,” Jack nodded tightly. “And we can talk about bonuses later.”

  “Uh-huh,” I barely managed a nod myself, already thinking of how the money would alleviate my financial problems. I might not have to eat boxed ramen twice a week any more.

  “And please make sure that Ms. Hanson is given a pass that allows her access to the building,” Jack told Mrs. Reynolds who was writing everything down in her neat, perfect handwriting.

  “You have a meeting with the board about the Celero’s release in five minutes,” Mrs. Reynolds told him, handing him a notebook.

  Jack glanced over at me. “Are you available?” he asked.

  “Now?”

  He checked his watch. “No better time to start than the present.”

  “Ok.”

  The agreement was barely out of my mouth before Jack had turned on his heel and was heading down the hallway, his long legs taking smooth strides. He didn’t even glance back to see if I was following him. I rushed to catch up, my significantly short legs requiring me to do a half walk-half run, totally awkward movement until I was at his side again.

  I dug into my purse, thankful that I always had a notebook with me. Everything was happening so quickly. And I still didn’t know what Jack did.

  “What’s the Celero?” I asked, hoping that he couldn’t tell that I was already out of breath trying to keep up with him.

  He was looking down at the material Mrs. Reynolds had given him, his expression focused and serious, but I still caught the faintest hint of a smile playing on his lips. On his really, really great lips. On his extremely kissable, bitable, lickable lips.

  I mentally slapped myself. He was now my employer, and I didn’t lust over my employers. Of course, in the past, my employers had usually been middle-aged women with a penchant for knitting, not a drop dead gorgeous hunk of a man, but still, I needed to be professional.

  I wondered how his female employees did it. As we walked, I glanced around, looking for examples of how to play it cool around such a hot guy. But all the women we passed seemed to have the same star-struck, glassy gleam to their eyes. Clearly even working near Jack on a daily basis wasn’t enough to dull his appeal. Maybe it just amplified it. I could practically hear them all sigh in unison. And I couldn’t blame them at all. I was barely containing my own. Instead, I tried to focus on the work.

  “The Celero?” I prodded as we made our way down the hall.

  A hall he knew so well that he didn’t even have to look up to know where we were going. I, on the other hand, almost ran into a bolster. Twice.

  “The Celero is my latest invention,” Jack told me, handing over the packet he had been reading.

  It was a car.

  Fuck.

  I knew nothing about cars. Except that you didn’t need one in Manhattan. I hadn’t owned one since I moved from Ohio to New York, and even then, all I knew about my beat-up old Honda was that putting the key in the ignition turned it on. And I didn’t even know how that happened.

  We arrived outside a large glass meeting room. I saw a roomful of people waiting for Jack. All of them were wearing black. Without thinking, I grabbed Jack’s arm. And got a good handful of all those muscles I had been ogling before. Hel-lo biceps.

  He looked down at me, eyebrows raised. Immediately I let go of him.

  “Mr. Willis,” my voice came out a little more-high pitched than usual. I cleared my throat, my fantasies of ramen-free meals going poof in my brain. “I don’t know if I’m going to be the right person for this job.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he held open the door for me. “I hired you, and I’m never wrong about these kind of things.”

  It was obvious he was a man that wasn’t used to be contradicted.

  “But I don’t know anything about cars,” I hissed.

  Unfortunately I said it just as we were walking into the conference room, and I quickly realized that the acoustics in there were incredible. So incredible that my whispered statement was practically shouted across the room.

  “Dammit,” I muttered and had to clap my hands over my mouth when that word echoed just as loudly.

  Jack shot me a look and gestured for me to sit off to the side. I sank into a chair, knowing my face was bright red. I watched as Jack strode to the front of the room and slapped the report down on the table.

  “When the Celero is released next month, it will be the most eco-friendly car on the market,” he said, his voice calm and confident. Immediately everyone in the room sat up straighter and focused their attention on him. It was impossible not to.

  “It will also be the fastest and the most efficient vehicle on the road. Our marketing team has been doing an amazing job with the lead up to the release, but I want to do something big as our last push, and I want your ideas.”

  He sat back, crossed his arms and pointed at the young man closest to him.

  “I want something brilliant,” he said. “Go.”

  An hour later my head was spinning, my heart was pounding and my lucky thong was, well, wishing that I did not have a rule against sleeping with an employer. Because if I had thought Jack was hot during our interview, it was nothing compared to how hot Jack was when he was leading a meeting.

  He was definitely a man who knew what he wanted. He had listened carefully to every idea that his employees and board members had thrown out, but he was blunt with his assessment. Not cruel, but he didn’t sugarcoat anything. If an idea didn’t work, he said so and the meeting moved on.

  But if he liked an idea, I noticed that he would get really quiet. He’d lace his fingers together and lean back in his chair, the gears in his head clearly spinning. It was like watching a computer work. I couldn’t take my eyes away from him, and the whole room seemed to hold its breath.

  “Good,” he’d said several times in the meeting, and from the way the person offering the suggestion beamed at the response, it was clear that it was the highest compliment one could get from him. And if it was a woman, that smile was usually accompanied by a blush. If Jack noticed, he seemed to be used to it and didn’t even blink. Guess playboy billionaires were used to that kind of breathless fawning on a regular basis.

  I had pages and pages full of notes. There might have also been a few sketches of his eyes, whose intensity I couldn’t quite capture. I wasn’t an artist, per se, but when inspiration hit, I let it.

  “That was incredible,” I told Jack as the room emptied.

  He barely glanced up from his own notepad, everything written in clear block letters. His handwriting was neat and efficient – just like the man himself.

  “Just another Tuesday afternoon,” he said, his head down.

  But I felt adrenaline racing through me as if I had been the one at the head of the table instead of sitting to the side taking notes.

  “You must get such a thrill fr
om these meetings,” I offered, and he looked up at me, blinking as if he had forgotten I was there. As if he had forgotten who I was.

  “I suppose,” he glanced back down at his notes, all business.

  I stood there, not sure what to do next. This was nothing like the jobs I’d had before, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed. I still wasn’t convinced I was the best person for the job, but I wasn’t going to try to convince Jack otherwise (not that I was sure I could).

  God, he smelled amazing. Like something earthy and clean. I didn’t realize how close I was standing to him until he got up from the table and nearly knocked me over.

  “Were you sniffing me?” he asked, a wry look on his face.

  “You smell good,” I said, even though I should have denied it.

  “Thank you?”

  I couldn’t tell if he was amused or horrified. Dammit, the man was impossible to read.

  “It’s a compliment,” I confirmed. “Not all men understand the importance of smell.”

  His eyebrows went up. Shut up, Libby, I told myself, but my mouth just kept going, my nonsense echoing in the now empty room.

  “The olfactory nerves are quite sensitive, you know. People make a lot of decisions based on their noses.”

  “I’m sure they do.” Jack was looking at me like I was a lunatic.

  I forced myself to stop talking, pressing my lips together.

  For the briefest moment it seemed like he was smiling at me, but then he looked at his very expensive digital watch which had given off a tiny little pinging noise.

  “I’m late for another meeting,” he told me. “If you don’t have anywhere to be, you can keep shadowing me for the rest of the day.”

  “Sure,” I said brightly, knowing that I would be sitting in most of those meetings wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into.

  “Good,” he said. “The sooner we start this book, the sooner we can finish it.”