by Alice Bello
~*~
Getting to quit McDonald’s and not having her family know was a blessing. It afforded her the necessary spare time to drive to San Bernardino every day, do some essential shopping, then have dinner with Gabriel in his very large, very cold office.
Not that the room was cold, literally. It was just the décor. And since Gabriel was always late, held up with business meetings and phone calls and e-mails and text messages, Lucy had quickly become intimate with his office.
A sleek black desk was neatly stacked with file folders and a laptop. No pictures—except for the one of Lucy that he’d snapped with her standing by the window of his office, and had printed and slapped into a generic black plastic frame his secretary, Laurel, had found in stock in the supply cabinet. Lucy liked the photo. The window had bathed her in a most flattering light, and the confusion that he wanted a picture of her had conjured in her had lent a kind of innocence to her expression that Lucy had never seen in a picture of herself before. She just couldn’t stop looking at it. She wondered if Gabriel ever looked at it. It was on his desk… but Gabriel was always on the move. A hands-on kind of CEO, Gabriel was always checking on things in the company personally.
So Lucy, having passed bored while waiting for Gabriel in his office, took it upon herself to change the cheap black plastic frame with a sleek, chic pure silver frame that she charged to her Enoch Industries charge card.
Unfortunately, the rest of the office was just as cold and impersonal. Expensive, though glacially boring, black leather chairs finished the minimalistic extent of furnishings. Well, there was a matching black leather couch, and compared to the stiff confines of the chairs, it was a comfy alternative.
That was where she spent most of her time waiting on Gabriel to show up. She did her homework, down loaded songs to her iPhone, and stared at the few framed photographs on Gabriel’s walls.
At first Lucy had discounted them for business contacts, like trophies. She’d seen those kinds of pictures hanging in the offices of every Lawyer her father had worked with… including her father’s office. Only one photo had sat on his desk, and that was one of the whole family, posed in their living room, groomed to the nines, photographed by a professional and airbrushed to perfection. She’d known Seth had had a zit on that day, yet it was missing when the photo showed up on her Daddy’s desk.
But boredom leads to curiosity, and before she knew it Lucy was examining the collection of wall memorabilia. To her relief and amusement, they weren’t just the typical family and business acquaintance photos. The people in the shots were dressed casually—including Gabriel in the few he was actually in—and they all looked ridiculously happy. Not posed, but like you took a candid snap shot at a really fun party where everybody knows everyone, and they all like each other.
She’d heard of such parties, but had long ago chalked them up to legend and Hollywood fantasy. But the people who were in Gabriel’s pictures were different. Whether his family or his friends (she was surprised he had any,) these people were having the best time, and they all seemed to really adore Gabriel.
Looking harder at the shots with Gabriel in them, she was startled at how little that person seemed to resemble the all-business all-the-time business suit clad man she’d gotten to really loath in the last few days.
She was standing on the couch, balancing herself with both hands against the wall, peering wide eyed and entranced at a particularly strange shot of a shirtless Gabriel—she couldn’t get over how beautiful and unbelievably well built he was… and the deep dark tan he had didn’t hurt either—leaning against the railing of a sail boat. On one side of him was a gorgeous young woman in a bikini top and cut off denim shorts. Lucy recognized her as her shopping partner for the last week, Elaina. On the other side of Gabriel was another stunning specimen of young male erotic fantasy. At least four inches taller, lighter complexioned, yet sporting his own wonderfully tanned, shirtless torso, the other guy had longer, shaggier hair that obscured some of his face, and a smile that just radiated playfulness. He had his arm draped over Gabriel’s shoulders.
Lucy had discounted her original assumption that Gabriel was gay when Elaina had let slip about his girlfriend Delia. But just seeing the two very happy, smoking hot guys in such a pose, she couldn’t help speculating again.
“You’re going to fall.” Lucy jerked with the shock of hearing Gabriel’s voice coming from right behind her. She’d slipped her high heels off when she’d mounted the leather couch, and when she whirled around her feet slipped and she fell over into Gabriel’s arms.
He held her steady, his face only inches from hers, but he didn’t seem the least bit disturbed.
Glacial really is the word to describe him.
Lucy, on the other hand, was feeling her pulse rate start to take off, feeling the dense musculature of Gabriel’s chest through his alarmingly conservative silk dress shirt. He even smelled good.
His gaze never wavered as he gently set her down on her bare feet, then gave only the faintest of smiles as he moved to his desk and hit the intercom.
“Laurel, has my order from Szechuan Garden arrived?”
“Yes, Mr. Enoch. Should I bring it in?”
“Yes please…” He gave Lucy a sly sort of look. “And could you scrounge up a step ladder? Lucy is finding some parts of my office vertically challenging.”
“Of course.”
Lucy felt herself blush with embarrassment. Vertically challenged! “You’re just too tall,” she retorted lamely.
“Obviously.” Gabriel moved over to her again, his smile becoming a little more evident. He reached up over the couch and took the photograph Lucy had been admiring from the wall and handed to Lucy.
“You know Elaina.” Lucy nodded. “And that big lug next to me is my brother, Micah.”
“Brother…” Okay, Lucy thought. This family has a very nice gene pool, so far. Then a pissy snit came over her. “Don’t you think telling me you have a brother would be a good idea?”
“Truthfully, I pretend he doesn’t exist.”
Lucy snorted. Gabe has a sense of humor?
“I just mean, he’s younger and really immature, and ever since I took over the CEO position from my father, he’s been pissed with me.”
“Because he’s jealous?” she asked.
Gabriel actually laughed, and Lucy stared at him in stunned silence.
“No, he wants nothing to do with the family business…” Gabriel’s features softened as he seemed to fall into his own thoughts. “He just misses…” He looked to Lucy embarrassed. “He misses how things were before I graduated college and…”
“Became a tight-assed corporate shark?” Lucy offered.
Gabriel grimaced. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”
Lucy enjoyed getting a reaction out of Gabriel, even a snarky one. She looked at the picture in her hands again, and felt sorry for Gabriel and his brother. Especially his brother.
“He just misses having a playmate,” Gabriel said bitterly.
Lucy locked her gaze on Gabriel’s face, really looking at him. “He misses his brother.”
They stood there for a moment in a strange, comfortable silence.
Gabriel shook his head and took the photo out of Lucy’s hands and replaced it on the wall, centering it perfectly. “When did you get all insightful?” he said when he turned back to Lucy and gave her a surprisingly wide smile. But his eyes were still leery.
“Oh, I’ve got loads of exceptional qualities,” Lucy said, backing away from him and feigning interest in the huge bag of Chinese food Laurel had just brought in and placed on Gabriel’s desk. She also had a shiny red metal step stool in her other hand.
“Will this do?” Laurel asked, holding it up for Lucy and Gabriel’s inspection.
Gabriel looked to Lucy and raised his eyebrows.
“Y-yes,” Lucy stammered. “Thank you very much.”
Laurel left the red stool righ
t beside the black leather couch. It was by far the brightest thing in the room, and just looking at it filled Lucy with an odd sense of triumph.