by Nalini Singh
"Do the kind of things I've been doing with my rock star?"
Charlotte blushed. "Only in my more insane moments." She pushed up her glasses. "Have you seen how big he is?" Even thinking about his body made her breath catch, and it wasn't in fear.
"Sexy big." Molly waggled her eyebrows. "Also, you shouldn't expect rational advice from me--I brought a man home after meeting him in an elevator."
Charlotte laughed, gleeful. "Now you're about to head off with him for a dirty, dirty weekend." She was so happy for her friend.
Dropping her head in her hands, Molly moaned. "What am I doing, Charlie?"
"I told you, being the brave one." She jumped as her cell phone rang. "It's His Carnivorousness," she muttered after reading the caller display. "Hello," she said in a far more professional tone. "Charlotte speaking."
"Ms. Baird, where the hell are you?" came the growl down the line. "Do you not realize I pay you to be available when I need you?"
Charlotte's hands itched for that jug of ice water. "Yes, I realize that," she said, managing to keep her tone polite. "However, I did work well beyond my contracted hours yesterday."
"What? Ermine complaining already?" A snort. "Don't tell me you're pacifying your boyfriend when you should be at your desk."
Charlotte saw red. "Yes, I am," she said, her mouth moving ahead of her brain. "In fact, we're about to check into a hotel." Stabbing the End key, she turned to find Molly staring at her.
"Did you just tell your boss you were about to check into a hotel with Ernest?" her best friend asked in an awed whisper.
Charlotte froze, suddenly realizing what she'd said. "Oh God!" It was a mortified wail, her breath stuck in her lungs. "I told you he was driving me insane."
Molly nudged Charlotte's head between her knees. "Breathe, Charlie."
Charlotte tried, but she could tell her face was still bright red when she sat up. "I can't go back to the office now." How would she even face Gabriel Bishop? "I'll have to quit." Interviewing for a new position couldn't be any harder than trying to explain to the boss that she hadn't in fact been about to check into a hotel with her boyfriend who wasn't really her boyfriend.
"No, you don't." Hooking her arm through Charlotte's, Molly dragged her to her feet and escorted her to the Saxon & Archer offices.
"Be brave," Molly mouthed when Charlotte paused in the doorway, breathing choppy again and her heart thumping.
Charlotte had never been brave, but she couldn't let Molly down, especially when her best friend was trying to aim for her own dreams. Be brave, she mouthed back, and forced herself to the elevator.
The walk down the corridor to her office was as bad as the day she'd thought she was about to be fired. Even when Brent Sinclair caught her in passing to say a heartfelt thank-you for her part in getting his idea in front of the boss, it didn't stop the sick feeling in her gut.
Not only had she thrown a stapler at the boss's head, she'd hung up on him after saying she was heading out for some afternoon delight.
Wanting to whimper, she walked through the doors to her office and took off her coat while placing her handbag aside. Then she cleared the messages on her phone and sat down to finish up work she'd left half-complete when she'd gone out for lunch. Taking it into T-Rex's office, she placed it on his desk.
He looked up, a gleam in his eye. "Nice lunch?"
Feeling her cheeks turn tomato red, she managed to say, "Yes."
The T-Rex didn't bite, his attention back on his work. "I need you to set up a conference call at four with Sydney and Queenstown. Make sure it's attended by the entire management team at both locations."
Stunned at having been let off so easily, she said, "I'll get started now."
She'd almost made it to the door when Gabriel Bishop said, "Looks like Egor is a quick draw, Ms. Baird. There are pills for that, you know."
Goddamn it, where was that jug of ice water?
7
The Infamous Slave Clause
Charlotte was surprised to find on Friday afternoon that she'd survived almost an entire week working for T-Rex. Earlier that day, he'd fired her, then in the next breath asked her to track down someone at a regional branch office. When that happened a second time, she ignored being fired and kept on with her job--though she might have glared daggers at his back a time or two.
As for the gourmet passion fruit and dark-chocolate French macarons that appeared on her desk after she'd worked through lunch, she bit into one with relish, imagining it was a particular carnivore's head.
"Hey, Charlie." Tuck came in right then. "Got the mail for you."
Seeing him eye the macarons, she held out the box. He grinned and took a couple, bit into one. "Wow, these fancy cookies are pretty great." A gulp and the sweet confection was gone. "Want to go on coffee break together?"
"Sorry, Tuck. Have to work."
"It is so awesome that you got this job." He beamed at her. "You're like my favorite person in the entire building."
Charlotte smiled at him as he headed out with the mail cart. "We'll do lunch together next week, okay?"
Tuck gave her a thumbs-up, the doors closing behind him.
"Cheating on poor Ebenezer, Ms. Baird?"
Charlotte didn't jump at the deep voice from the open office doorway--the tiny hairs on her arms had risen a second before he spoke. As an early warning system, it was infallible.
"Ernest," she gritted out, pushing back in pure self-defense. "His name is Ernest." As long as she didn't look at the man who was driving her insane, she'd be fine. But as she couldn't totally ignore her boss, she did finally angle her chair toward him.
"I'll be sure to remember that," he said, that dangerous gleam back in his eye.
"Did you need me to do something?" she asked, busying herself at her desk once more because staring at Gabriel Bishop for too long had a way of adversely affecting her nervous system.
"I need you to come in to work tomorrow." A faint scrape of sound that told her he was rubbing his jaw. He always ended up with a five-o'clock shadow around four and kept an electric shaver in his desk drawer in case he needed to attend a late meeting or business dinner.
He hadn't shaved last night when he'd actually left at a reasonable hour in order to make a personal dinner. His dates probably didn't mind the stubble. Charlotte didn't--and God, that was a singularly improper thought. Not just because he was her boss, but because he'd spent the day infuriating her in myriad ways.
"You also need to book us return tickets to Queenstown on Sunday," he told her before she could respond to his first request. "I want you with me for the lunch meeting I'm having with a number of hotel managers there."
"On Sunday?"
Another rub of his jaw, his voice grim as he said, "Saxon & Archer boutique contracts are coming up for renewal, and it's going to be a hard sell to get them to give the company another shot after Hill's idiocy." That shark smile again. "Might as well ply them with champagne before I get them to sign on the dotted line."
"I'll organize it now. Is it overnight?"
"No. Back on Sunday night--latest flight you can get."
"Okay." Having somehow reined in her rioting thoughts, she got up and handed him a piece of mail she'd seen at the top of the pile Tuck had dropped off. "It's marked personal."
His expression darkened as he took in the plain white envelope, the writing in front elegant and full of flourishes. "Thank you."
Charlotte almost asked if something was wrong, if the letter was connected to the phone calls he'd received over the past two days from an older-sounding man. However, he'd turned to head back to his desk by the time she parted her lips to speak. Closing her mouth on the words, she'd begun to book the tickets when it hit her.
He wanted her with him in Queenstown.
The city was famous for its skiing, water adventures, and breathtaking alpine scenery, the Saxon & Archer boutiques there as important to the company's bottom line as the flagship stores. Each was located in the heart of
a five-star hotel and was meant to function as a designer haven for well-heeled travelers.
As a representative of Saxon & Archer, she'd be expected to look the part.
Spots appeared in front of her eyes, her heart pumping hard and fast. She'd known she'd be expected to accompany him to meetings, but the reality of it was nerve-racking enough that she took off for a walk the instant she'd finished booking the tickets. Once out on the street, she called Molly.
Her best friend was out of the country but picked up quickly. "Charlie? What's up?"
Charlotte wanted to ask Molly how everything was going with Fox and the concert setup, but in full panic mode now, she said, "I need help!"
"To seduce the Bishop?"
"Molly." Her stomach twisted at the thought of being so close to all that raw male heat, desire entangled with a fear that seemed woven into her bones. "No," she said to her best friend. "Clothes, I need help with clothes."
"You're changing your wardrobe?" This time the question was gentle, hopeful.
Biting down on her lower lip, Charlotte fisted her hands. "I can't go to a major meeting like this." She waved a hand over the baggy black dress she had on, forgetting Molly couldn't see her. "Mr. Bishop--"
"Mr. Bishop?" Molly repeated. "I'm your best friend. I know you don't think of him as Mr. Bishop."
The teasing was just what she needed to get back on an even keel. Making a face over the phone line, she said, "I was going to say T-Rex has been very patient." Unexpectedly so. "He could've ordered me to get a better wardrobe the day he gave me the promotion." She scowled. "The day he forced a promotion on me."
"That job was always yours. He just made sure you're getting paid for it now."
Charlotte rubbed her hand free hand over her face. "I just don't know if I can do it." Her messed-up psychology wasn't that complicated; she knew exactly why she wore what she did. Knowing that clothes made no difference, wouldn't have changed what had happened to her, didn't alter anything. The clothes she chose made her feel invisible, and even if that was a lie, it was a lie she needed to function.
"You know it wasn't your clothes that made Dick do what he did." Anger thrummed through her friend's voice. "You could've worn a potato sack every day or a high-powered suit or a miniskirt, and it wouldn't have changed the fact that he's a vicious asshole."
Charlotte knew that if Molly'd had her way, she'd have found and kicked the living shit out of Richard. "It's not logical," she admitted to the best friend who had always, always been there for her, "it's about control. I just feel like I'm doing something to protect myself when I dress this way, even when I know what I'm actually doing is hiding."
"Hey, you know my rule--no putting yourself down."
"I wasn't. I was being brutally honest." She blew out a breath. "It's time I faced my neuroses head-on."
"A little neurotic behavior makes us interesting."
"Who said anything about a little?" Glancing at her watch, Charlotte walked quickly toward a small store that usually had a good petite selection; she wasn't sure she'd get a chance tomorrow and they had an early flight to Queenstown on Sunday. "I'll send you photos from the changing room." She could do this, could lose her cloak of invisibility and survive.
Going backward was no longer an option.
Not when she'd fenced with a T-Rex and come out alive on the other side.
Having shredded--unread--the letter from the man who thought he should have the right to call himself Gabriel's father when he'd done fuck all to earn that right, Gabriel called the man who was his father, though they shared no DNA. It was Joseph Esera's heritage that Gabriel wore on his body, the design drawn by his stepfather and inked by a stepuncle who was an artist specializing in Samoan tattoos.
Every line had a meaning, a history.
Each part of the overall design had been given to him as a gift on a momentous occasion in his life, starting from his rugby selection at eighteen. Some of the tats had hurt like a bitch, but Gabriel's pride in honoring his stepfather--in being embraced so absolutely as Joseph's son--was deeper than any fleeting pain.
"Hey, Dad. What did the doc say about Danny?" His youngest brother had been benched to make sure he healed properly from a hamstring injury that had occurred in an earlier game. Though only twenty-one, Daniel Esera was already making a name for himself as a halfback to watch, and his coach had taken the "better to be safe than sorry" approach. It was the right decision, but Danny had been itching at the bit for the past two weeks.
"Cleared him." Joseph's response was jubilant. "He'll be on the pitch tomorrow."
Gabriel grinned, making a mental note to message his baby brother in congratulations. "Are you and Mom still doing that movie thing?"
Joseph and Alison had found one another when Gabriel was eight and his brother, Sailor, six. A marriage as soon as his mom's divorce was final, two more kids, and more than two decades later, they were still nuts for one another. Enough that Joseph, a big man's man who'd earned a name as an enforcer on the rugby field, had agreed to "romcom date nights" with Alison, regardless of the fact he'd rather have rusty metal spikes driven into his eyeballs.
"Of course we're doing the movie thing," Joseph said now. "You think we're about to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary because I'm an idiot?"
Laughing, Gabriel talked with his stepfather for a few more minutes before ending the call and messaging his brother. The twin interactions wiped away the anger he'd felt at seeing that letter, that ridiculous handwriting that was all flourish and no substance, just like the man who'd formed the words.
"Ms. Baird," he said, going to the doorway so he could playfully needle his PA--who was starting to no longer quiver in his presence... and who was getting more and more attractive every day.
Her desk, however, was empty.
Charlotte was zipping up a dress in deep magenta when her cell phone rang, a familiar name flashing on the screen. "Mr. Bishop?"
"I can't find the damn Baxter file." It was a snarl.
"I put it on the left corner of your desk."
A pause.
She took the chance to check out the dress in the mirror, was shocked to realize the vibrant color looked good on her. Not that she could wear it yet. It was one thing to remove the cloak of invisibility, another to shout her presence.
"Got it." Gabriel's voice back in her ear. "I need you back here ASAP."
"Why?" It was much easier to dig in her heels when she wasn't face-to-face with him.
He growled--actually growled down the line. "Because you're my damn PA."
"I didn't see a slave clause in my contract." Charlotte had no idea where this was coming from. "I didn't take a lunch break, so I'm having a short break now." She went to unzip the dress, stopped when she realized he might hear her.
"Eat fast."
She dressed and undressed fast instead, sending Molly photo after photo. Fifteen minutes later and she had a couple of new outfits. Making plans with her best friend to do some further shopping once Molly returned to the country, she girded her loins and returned to work. To find T-Rex's door shut.
Wondering what was up since he didn't have anything scheduled, she sat down at her desk and decided to take the time before the inevitable confrontation to check her e-mails. The routine task would calm her the same way the other routines did in her life.
Except the e-mail at the top was from Gabriel Bishop, complete with an ominous subject line: Changes to the terms of your employment.
Clicking it with her heart in her throat, she got ready to be penalized for snapping at the boss... and burst out laughing. A hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, she glanced at Gabriel's closed door. The man was lethal.
Turning back to the screen, she read the e-mail again.
Dear Ms. Baird,
As of today, you do have a slave clause in your contract. It means you do everything I say. Under no circumstances are you to eat, sleep, take breaks, or check in to hotel rooms with men named Eggplant.<
br />
Sincerely,
Gabriel Bishop
Hitting the Reply key, Charlotte typed a message and sent it before she could second-guess herself. Afterward, she printed out both his e-mail and her own and put them in her handbag.
8
Oh, Those Red, Red Roses...
Gabriel walked Viv Grimes to the door, having just spent an hour discussing her options with Saxon & Archer. The previous CEO had misused the intelligent supply manager to the point that she'd been about to resign when Gabriel came on board. He'd just convinced her that she could trust him to watch her back. Which he would.
Unlike his predecessor, Gabriel understood the value of good people.
He glanced toward Charlotte's desk as Viv left. Seeing her chair pushed back and an open file beside her computer, as if she'd stepped out for a quick minute, he wondered if his suddenly mouthy assistant--he grinned at the memory of that phone call--had seen his message.
Before he could check his e-mail for a reply, she walked into his office with a bottle of water, a foot-long sub, and a scowl on her face. "Since I know you didn't stop for lunch." She put both on his desk.
"Where's my coffee?" he said, needing the hit.
"You mainline it," she muttered. "Drink some water for a change." With that, she turned and left.
He decided he liked her back view as much as the front.
Except for the fact her ugly sack of a dress hid every feminine curve he wanted to see. Whoever Ernest was, he was a damn idiot if he hadn't taught Charlotte that she was sexy as hell.
Gabriel wasn't going to hit on a vulnerable employee, even when he wanted to more every damn day, but he was allowed to admire her when she couldn't see him. It probably wasn't behavior HR would agree with, but Gabriel wasn't exactly planning on telling them.
Since he was starving, he ate the sub and drank the water in the five minutes he had before leaving for a meeting with the board. It was a waste of time as far as he was concerned, and he was annoyed enough today to tell them.
"No more fucking meetings," he said, bracing his palms flat on the table.
The men and women around the table flinched. "Mr. Bishop, we hired you and--"