Before She Was Mine

by Amelia Wilde

  This is not the way I was hoping to start my time here. Not at all.

  I stand up as straight as I can, trying to will away the color from my cheeks. “I’m Vivienne Davis,” I say, my voice sounding a hundred times more confident than I feel. Play the part, Viv. No other choice now. “It’s my first day.”

  She raises her eyebrows, and I can practically hear what she’s thinking. It’s your first day, and you couldn’t even come in with a clean blouse? But when she answers, her voice is cool and professional, even helpful. “Why don’t I show you to the restroom before I take you back to meet Ms. Lillianfield?”

  This receptionist might be a judgmental bitch, but at least she keeps it mostly to herself. I can’t help but feel grateful. “That would be great.”

  She rises gracefully from the chair and holds out her hands. “I can take that, if you’d like.”

  “They’re for everyone to share,” I say as I awkwardly shuffle the box into a more normal position and place it into her hands. “There used to be more, but I fell on the sidewalk, and then there was a car—” What the hell is happening to me? I never babble like this, and I shut my mouth before Ms. Runway Receptionist actually rolls her eyes. She slides the box onto the surface of her desk and comes around to where I’m standing, cocking her head to one side.

  “The restroom is this way.” Of course, her outfit is also flawless—a navy skirt suit with a champagne-colored shell underneath, matching stilettos, and a delicate silver necklace that hangs gently around her perfect neck—and I look like a clown.

  She steps away, leading me to one side of the reception area and down a discreet hallway, one tall door on either side. We’re almost to the door when she says, over her shoulder, “I’m Portia, by the way. Welcome to Wilder Enterprises.”

  “Thank you. It’s nice to meet you.”

  She nods like she’s a queen, and naturally it’s nice to meet her, and then she pauses in front of one of the doors. “The restroom is in here. I’ll be back at my desk when you’re ready.”

  Five minutes later, I emerge with at least some of the jelly doughnut remnants dabbed away from my shirt, my hair in some semblance of order, and looking a little bit less like a ragamuffin. My knee still throbs painfully from where I smashed into the concrete—my pantyhose are ruined—but at least I’m not actively bleeding. I’ve also broken off the other heel by wrenching it clean off the shoe. My heels are now flats, but at least they’re the same height.

  Portia gives a little nod of approval, and I’m almost overcome by the urge to tell her that I’m an undercover agent, damn it, and I far outrank her. But I smile when she says, “Ms. Lillianfield is ready for you,” and follow her back past some groupings of cubicles to a glassed-in office where a woman with black hair scraped tightly into a bun at the nape of her neck frowns at me from where she’s sitting behind her desk, her back straight and her expression stern. Portia is gone before I know it.

  “Ms. Davis,” she says, standing up and extending her hand. I give it a confident shake as her eyes travel down the length of my shirt. It’s not like I could get all the jelly filling off, and she clearly notices it. “I take it you had some difficulties this morning.”

  I smile and shake my head, trying to project an aura of assurance even though I’m off-balance, even though the memories of meeting Dominic Wilder are somehow still throwing me for a loop. “A little. I brought in doughnuts for everyone, but some of them became casualties of the weather when I had an…um…accident on the sidewalk.”

  Ms. Lillianfield frowns. “How nice of you.” Her tone says anything but.

  Okay—time to move on from the small talk, because clearly she’s not going to be won over by my natural charm. “I’m very excited to get started.” I resist the urge to cover up the jelly stain on my shirt with my hands, resist the urge to turn around and walk back out of here and tell my superior that this job is a disaster already and that nothing is going according to plan.

  I’m going to see this through if it’s the last thing I do. I am not going to lose my standing in the department over a few lost doughnuts and a banged-up knee. I’m not even going to lose it over a chance encounter with the owner of the company. It’s not like I’ll be seeing him much while I’m here, a thought that gives me an unexpected pang of disappointment.

  “Of course.” Ms. Lillianfield gestures toward the door. “I’ll show you to your desk, and Marie can help you get up to speed.”

  I get my very own cubicle, and Ms. Lillianfield gives me a cursory rundown of the computer system, the items in the supply cabinet on the other side of the space, and the hours I’m supposed to be here—in a shocking twist, it’s from nine to five—and then she turns and goes back to her office with a sniff.

  I can hardly help letting my shoulders sag the second she’s gone, but the relief only lasts a moment.

  “Oh, my God, it’s you!” The chirping voice belongs to a red-headed woman poking her head around the side of the next cubicle, and my gut goes cold. Is my cover already blown?

  “It’s me,” I say lamely, covering it with a laugh. “Wait—do we know each other?”

  “I’m Marie!” Her brown eyes dance with delight. “I saw you downstairs. You’re the new girl?”

  “Ha—yes.” Oh, thank God.

  But Marie isn’t done. “I saw you with Mr. Wilder.” Her voice is low, confidential, bursting with curiosity. “How did you pull that off?”

  My entire body goes hot at the thought of him, of his eyes on me, of his hands on me. “My name’s Vivienne,” I say, giving her a pointed look and a little grin.

  She covers her mouth with both hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m—” Marie fans herself. “Let’s get started, okay? You can tell me about Mr. Wilder later.”

  She launches into an energetic tour of the scheduling system we’re going to use to assist the executives, and I follow along, my heart beating hard in my chest.

  Forget him, I tell myself.

  No. No. No, beats my heart.

  4

  Dominic

  Vivienne Davis is the last thing I need right now.

  I don’t need any distractions. I definitely don’t need any women hijacking my brain, burning into my consciousness, and making my cock harder than steel and causing a tent pole in my pants. That kind of shit doesn’t end well for anyone, if my father is any indication. It might not have been my mother who distracted him into losing everything, but after that embarrassment—after she died—

  I wanted to push her into the elevator and hit the emergency stop button, trapping us between floors long enough for me to take off her absurd raincoat, lick whatever sweetness is left from the pastry explosion off her neck, and then, when she’s panting breathlessly in my arms, let the elevator continue up past the eighth floor Executive Support department all the way up to the top floor, where I keep a private apartment for emergency purposes, like if I don’t feel like calling for a driver to go back to my penthouse on the Upper East Side, or one of my friends needs a place to crash…none of that shit matters. What matters is that there’s a bed up there, comfortable as hell, and I’d like to spread her out on it.

  But I don’t do any of that.

  I escort her coolly to the elevator, letting her look all around at the elegant lobby of the building for a few moments, and then I turn and walk away the second she steps into the elevator.

  One more moment of looking at her and God knows what would have happened.

  The side effects are inconvenient enough as it is. Around the corner from the regular elevator is a private elevator exclusively for my use. Wilder Enterprises isn’t the only company in the building—there’s no way, with the level of intelligence flashing in her eyes, that she couldn’t figure that out by herself—-but I didn’t mention that I own the entire space.

  The private ride up to my office suite gives me enough time to adjust my erection.

  I don’t have time to think about her—I need to focus on the upcoming meeting, which
is scheduled to begin in ten minutes. I need status reports from everyone at the executive level, and I’m not willing to wait.

  I let out my breath on a deep exhale. They were probably looking forward to the fact that I was going to be out of the office for the next three weeks, but I’m not at all sorry about ruining that for them.

  I was supposed to be on vacation—my first real vacation since I took over the shattered remnants of Wilder Enterprises more than six years ago. In those days, they snickered behind my back. I know the kinds of things they said about me. Any son of Peyton Wilder is already a failure. He’s too young and stupid to manage a corporation of this size, with stakes this high. “These stakes” did prove to be a challenge—government contracts for cutting-edge energy technology, for one, and complicated relationships with a number of suppliers and partners around the world—but I gritted my teeth and pushed away everything else to repair the company.

  And repair it I did.

  No thanks to my father.

  I push Vivienne Davis out of my mind, burying her as deep as I can.

  Focus.

  I was supposed to be on vacation, and I couldn’t hack it. Three days in, I ordered that my private plane be prepared to take me back home. The property in the British Virgin Islands is nice enough, but it turns out that if you work for six straight years, there’s not much waiting for you when you decide to take a break.

  Not that I need anyone.

  I don’t.

  Wilder Enterprises is more than enough of a companion for me.

  But two days of sailing, two days of sitting in the shade on the back porch watching the ocean sparkle for miles, was enough to make my skin itch, and I needed to get back to work. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all slipping out of my hands.

  So I canceled the three-week hiatus from the office and came back.

  To find Vivienne Wilder kneeling on the sidewalk in front of my building.

  I clear my throat, even though there’s nobody in the elevator to hear me, and wrench my thoughts away from her.

  She’s another woman working at my company. That’s all. Nothing more.

  The elevator lets out a soft tone and the doors slide open to reveal a carpeted hallway leading into the study off the main room of my office. The carpet muffles the sound of my footsteps. The closer I get to the office, the taller I stand. When I pull open the door again, I’m back to being the Dominic Wilder who rules meetings with an iron fist, the Dominic Wilder who nobody would ever dare snicker at again—not if they wanted to keep their jobs, which they all desperately do. The men and women on my executive team are paid handsomely. They don’t want to lose all the benefits that Wilder Enterprises offers.

  My personal secretary, Emily, is setting a tray down on the mahogany expanse of my desk when I open the door. She looks up at me with an even smile. “Welcome back, Mr. Wilder.”

  “Thanks, Emily. Is everything in place for the meeting?”

  “Yes, of course. The beverage selection is out—would you like me to call down for any other refreshments?” Emily is blonde, and she has a pleasantly round face that never lets anything show, and her poker-face is part of why I chose her to be my secretary. Everyone who represents me needs to have a good grasp on what they show to the world, and she does.

  She happens to be the opposite of Vivienne Wilder.

  Her name flashing across my mind again is followed by a spike of irritation. I cannot lose control of myself because of a chance meeting with some woman I’ll likely never see again.

  But I could, because she’s down on the eighth floor, walking around right now with those emerald green eyes, that soft voice…

  “No. No other refreshments.”

  Emily gives a nod and goes back out the door to the reception area, and I sit down in the executive chair behind my desk—top of the line and meant to be imposing—and survey the tray.

  She’s brought sparkling water and a bagel, meticulously spread with a thin layer of cream cheese, how I prefer. I sip the water, but I can’t bring myself to eat. All of my muscles are tensed, on edge.

  I stand up and stroll over to the window with its view of Manhattan, obscured by the storm that’s still thundering through the city, filtering everything in shades of dark and darker, and wait for my mind to quiet itself.

  It might be shitty outside, but down on the eighth floor, there’s a bright pink box of pastries and a woman with vivid green eyes, flashes of color to drown out the dreariness of the rain.

  5

  Vivienne

  After my disastrous first day, I don’t have much time to dwell on Dominic Wilder—Dominic Wilder, the smoldering hot billionaire whose eyes lit my nerves and senses on fire—while I’m at the office.

  For two reasons.

  For one, the team at headquarters doesn’t think he’s involved in the transfer of information from his corporation to unfavorables in China. My supervisor, Milton Jeffries, specifically asked me not to concentrate my efforts above the executive level. As far as I can tell, Dominic is the only person that high up in this company. Of course, they couldn’t give me—or anyone else at the FBI—any guarantees, which is why I’m here undercover and not as part of a cooperative effort with Wilder Enterprises. It’s unorthodox for sure, but if it turns out he is involved, that’s above my pay grade.

  Secondly, there’s barely enough time in the day for me to win back all the respect I lost by walking in here with a jelly doughnut smeared on my shirt. It’s a fine line. I can’t be too much of a standout, because once I’m done with this job, I want to fade out of people’s minds, leaving me free to pursue other cases. But I need to be perceived as trustworthy so that I can move up the ranks, at least a little, and gain access to the kinds of information that will tell me what I need to know.

  What that information is, I’m not sure yet.

  But I throw myself into my job, which is like being on an entire team of secretaries. For the first two weeks, they book me solid with the kind of minutiae that I can tell usually goes to the greenest people on staff. I double-check itineraries for executives traveling to various events and conferences and meetings around the globe. I file expense paperwork. I double-check the expense paperwork that other people file. And then I refile it.

  Two weeks and one day after I start at Wilder Enterprises, I’m double-checking more double-checked expense filings, really getting into the flow, half starting to wonder if being in Executive Support is my true calling in life instead of working for the FBI, when Ms. Lillianfield’s terse voice breaks into my thoughts.

  “Ms. Davis.” I swivel around in my seat, a prepared smile on my face. “Am I interrupting?”

  Yeah, but if this is my big break— “Not at all. I was coming to a stopping point. What can I do for you?” I stopped saying “what’s up?” after four days at Wilder Enterprises. Ms. Lillianfield is the gatekeeper, that much is clear, and she is surprisingly old-fashioned for a woman who works for one of the world’s biggest energy companies. The slight downturn of the corners of her mouth told me she hated “what’s up,” so I scrubbed it from my vocabulary, along with “hey” and “no problem.”

  She considers me for a moment or two, taking me in from head to toe. I’ve started to subtly mimic her style, which usually consists of a smart skirt suit and hair played up in a tight bun. I see a flash of approval in her eyes when she gives the bun in my own hair a cursory glance. “You’ve been doing well here.” Approval or not, her voice is still a little begrudging. I incline my head and wait. Ms. Lillianfield also doesn’t like to waste time on pleasantries like being thanked for compliments.

  Another long moment of appraisal. “In view of this, I’d like to reward you with a more complex assignment.”

  She sure plays her cards close to her chest. “I’d love to take on a bigger project.”

  Ms. Lillianfield gives me a sharp nod. “Wonderful. I’ll send you an email in about ten minutes with all the details. Come to me if you have any questions
.” Her tone indicates that if I have questions, I’m probably not cut out for whatever this assignment is.

  “Thank you, Ms. Lillianfield.” By the time the words are out of my mouth, she’s already halfway back to her office.

  My heart beats a little faster in my chest. This could be it—this could be the sign that I’m starting to gain a foothold here, and then I can really get moving on this case. They’d be so impressed if I came in early and under budget on this one, and there’d be no stopping my ascent at the FBI.

  I fly through the rest of the expense reports and wait for the promised email to come in, tapping my foot anxiously against the industrial carpet. Marie pokes her head around the cubicle wall. “Did something happen? I heard Lillianfield in here a minute ago.”

  “Waiting on a new assignment.” Her lips go into a round O, and I smile at her.

  My computer pings—a new email has arrived—and I whip my head back toward the screen. It takes a second to load. “Come on, come on.”

  Ms. Davis—

  I’d like you to coordinate a meeting for executives Feldman, Overhiser, and Childs with the individuals listed below at some point during the Mumbai conference next week. This will need to be slotted into available openings in their schedules, confirmed with all three of their staffs, and coordinated to successful completion…

  I stifle a giggle at “successful completion,” then force my face into a sober expression as I read the rest of the email.

  This is it.

  This has to be it, because there have been rumblings in the cubicle farm about Overhiser and Childs each posting and hiring for chief executive assistant positions in the next few weeks. There’s no way this isn’t a test to see if I’d be cut out for one of those jobs.