by Lily Cahill
Catalina clicked out of the rest of her notes and closed the document she was working on. Everett focused on her.
"Someone else's job? Isn't everything I do around here someone else's job?" She smiled as she cocked her head at Everett.
Catalina was an attorney, but Everett relied way too heavily on her for much law to be practiced. She looked at him pointedly, waiting for him to respond, and crossed her arms over her chest. It only accentuated her ample bosom, and Everett made himself drop his gaze. He had first taken notice of Catalina when she came to work at Bowen part time. She had been a paralegal then, but she stood out from the drab lawyers. She had an energy and a way of carrying herself that drew Everett in. He was still being drawn in. Today, her high-waisted suit pants accentuated her curvy hips, and her silk, V-neck blouse tapered in at the waist, creating a glamorous hourglass. She was stylish, fun, and professional all at the same time--and it was sexy as hell. That was the real reason Everett had offered her a full-time job before she'd even passed the bar. Although her smarts and work ethic only made her more irresistible, she was too valuable to the company for Everett to ever try anything with her.
The thought of running Bowen without Catalina Flores at his side doused any lingering attraction he harbored for the woman.
"Maybe I should fire some people," he joked.
"Hardy, har, har. Unless you invent a way to make the days longer, I don't think that will work."
"I don't know if I'm smart enough to do that, but surely I can figure out a way to clone you. Just make an army of Catalinas. But then how would I keep them straight? You'd all have to start wearing numbers. You can be number one, of course."
"Of course." She shook her head at him. "Don't you have work to do?"
"My office feels too big today." He looked at her with wide eyes and his lower lip jutting out, pretending to pout.
"Fine, but I have work to do, so keep quiet over there."
Everett grabbed his laptop and cell phone and set up in Catalina's office, chugging down his coffee and feeling like he could tackle the world.
#
"Lunch?" Catalina asked, rubbing her eyes. They'd both been going full throttle all morning, and now it was after one in the afternoon.
"Gambino's?"
Catalina wrinkled her nose. "We had that yesterday. How about Taste of India?"
Everett started to agree before Catalina cut in. "Never mind, you have plans tonight--I know how you feel about the possibility of somebody smelling food on you." She rolled her eyes, and Everett didn't defend himself.
He had a keen sense of smell--a very keen sense of smell. And he couldn't very well announce the reason. How do you drop into casual conversation that you're not only a lauded alternative energy entrepreneur but also a bear shifter? Besides, there were rules within the shifter community about telling anyone but a soulmate about any extra abilities. His heightened senses were one of the many benefits of being a bear shifter. He could detect with a single sniff what someone had for lunch. It was always distracting. When he could smell butter chicken and samosas on himself he felt like his date could too, even if he knew better.
"The cafeteria?" Everett offered.
"Yes!" Catalina started to grab for her purse.
"Get the intern to do it," Everett said, trying to stop her.
"We don't have an intern anymore, remember?" Her smile was sweet but laced with accusation.
"Oh, that's right. We haven't hired a new one yet?"
"If we had, you probably wouldn't be working in my office right now."
"You know you're always my favorite," Everett chided. "A team of interns couldn't keep me out of your office."
"Uh-huh." Catalina was using that tone. That light, quick tone that meant she didn't agree but she wasn't going to argue. She was out of the office before Everett could challenge her. He had to think for a second before he could remember who the last intern was, and then it came to him. Mandy. She was cute. Petite, with caramel highlights in her dark brown hair. Impossibly short skirts. Maybe he should stop sleeping with the interns. Then Catalina wouldn't have to waste her time doing menial stuff that was really a poor use of her considerable talents. But really, what was the point of having interns if you couldn't sleep with them? He'd thought about getting rid of the program before, but the board always said that it was good for their corporate reputation, so he made the most of it. The girls got a little job experience. They got to put Bowen Enterprises on their résumés, and everyone else got to enjoy a little eye candy while the interns ineptly tried to do office work that took more time for a real employee to explain how to do than it took to do the actual job.
Catalina came back up with thick sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.
Everett unwrapped his turkey and provolone on wheat, throwing the pickled chile that came on the side onto Catalina's spread of wax paper. Catalina pulled the tomato off her curried chicken salad and passed it over, neither one of them looking up from their work.
Chapter Two
Catalina
Catie picked up her office phone on autopilot, without checking the caller ID.
"Bowen Enterprises, Catie Flores speaking."
"I knew you hadn't left yet!" The shrill voice coming through the receiver belonged to Catie's best friend, Gina.
Catie glanced at the clock and cursed herself. She was supposed to leave early today, and she was already a half-hour behind schedule.
"I'm leaving right now!" Catie lied. She started shoveling her things into her purse while simultaneously saving and closing documents on her computer. They would have to wait.
"I'm already at your place," Gina complained. "What am I supposed to do, just hang out in the hallway?"
"I'm so sorry. I completely lost track of time."
Gina huffed loudly, and Catie could picture her exact expression: eyebrows winged upward, jaw jutting in annoyance. "You always lose track of time. I swear to God, if you miss this date, or try to reschedule again, I am not going to set you up on more dates. Not with Nick. Not with anyone."
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Just channel your inner zen." That was an inside joke between them. They both came from big, loud families. Catie could sleep through a fire alarm, and Gina could read a book with the TV blaring. Gina was a native New Yorker, and when Catie moved away from her Colombian family in South Florida, it was a blessing to have home-cooked meals at Gina's, even if the Italian cuisine wasn't quite the same. The meaning behind a good, home-cooked meal translated to every culture.
"You can't get out of that building in fifteen minutes," Gina challenged.
"I can't if I'm talking to you," Catie shot back. "I'll be super fast, promise." She hung up the phone and gathered the few things she had to drop off to Everett before leaving.
Why had she let Gina talk her into a blind date? Because she was hopeless? Because she was desperate? Those both felt like distinct possibilities, but couldn't her hopeless love life wait for two more weeks, at least until after the public launch of the H2 tiles? This was just bad timing. She should have pushed the date off--if she knew Gina, she knew that woman would never rest until she'd found Catie the perfect man--but the date was with Gina's own cousin. She owed her best friend the courtesy of at least trying to make the date.
Gina had been attempting to set Catie up with her cousin, Nick, for months, and Catie wanted to go. She really did. Lord knew she could use a bit of distraction and levity in her life. She was just busy. She was always busy. And now Gina was threatening her that if she didn't go now she wasn't going to set her up at all.
This was why every smart person who'd ever lived told you not to procrastinate. Because if you did, the world would find a way to force you to do the thing you've been trying to avoid. And it would happen at the worst possible time, when work was taking up seventy hours a week instead of the usual sixty.
For most people, going on a date was no big deal. Sure, there were nerves, but also excitement and anticipation. Yet Cat
ie purposely avoided the dating apps and websites that everyone seemed to be using these days. Call her old school, but she couldn't just look at a picture and swipe left or right. It felt judgmental and impersonal, and besides, she didn't have time to date. If she told herself that enough, it seemed the perfect excuse.
She printed out the mini-biography and photograph that had been emailed over by B3, the exclusive dating site Everett favored, and put it together with the theater tickets and a confirmation of the dinner reservation. If there was any more indication that she needed to buck up and actually go on this date with Nick, this was it. If her own boss could find the time for dates--and he seemed to find plenty of time--she could too. Catie slipped into his office, hoping he would still be in his afternoon meetings, but they must have gone smoothly because he was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk, leaning back in his chair, as he read over a file in his hands.
"Here's everything you'll need for tomorrow tonight. I'm headed out for the day. I have my cell if you need anything." She closed her eyes, wishing she hadn't said that last part. She didn't need a reason to leave at four-thirty. She put in enough time at Bowen Enterprises, she could leave before five without offering herself up to be on call.
Everett looked up from his file and then at the clock, not taking the packet of materials from Catie. "Where are you going?"
Everett's tie was loosened, but he was still wearing his perfectly tailored charcoal suit that made his steel gray eyes shimmer with intensity. His thick auburn hair waved over his head. The way the sunlight was catching it right now, brought out the lighter hues. He wore it long on top and shorter on the sides. It was structured while still being soft and a little unruly. It was dark in the shadows but came to life in the sun. Catie thought it matched his personality exactly.
"I have plans." There was a hitch in her voice, so she straightened her back, trying her best not to look like she was wavering on leaving at all.
"What are your mysterious plans that you didn't tell me about?"
"I don't tell you everything, Everett," Catie said, not quite hiding her impatience. "You're my boss, not my girlfriend."
Everett stood and walked around the desk, standing close, towering over her and looking down in that way that made her feel like he could see everything. After a pause that seemed to last a lifetime, he finally took the papers from her and glanced at the dossier for his latest B3 date match. He tossed the files onto his desk and focused back on Catie, smirking. "I thought we were both. Don't tell me I've been practicing my hair braiding skills for nothing."
"I gotta go." Catie walked backwards, inching away from him. When he stood that close, the playful banter felt too much like flirting, and the scent of his cologne made her dizzy. After all this time working together, she didn't understand how he could still affect her like that. She shouldn't get so worked up over her boss standing that close to her. She was a professional. It was a fact she had to remind herself of nearly every day.
"Well, have fun," Everett said. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"That leaves me a lot of wiggle room."
Everett winked at her, his eyes sparkling with mischief, and she couldn't help but smile as she shook her head at him. The smile stubbornly stuck on her cheeks all the way down the twenty-flight descent in the elevator.
#
"This one," Gina said, thrusting out a black dress that looked impossibly small.
When Catie finally got to her apartment, she found Gina camped outside, sitting on an overstuffed suitcase with her legs stretched out, filing her nails. Inside the suitcase was what seemed like Gina's entire wardrobe, relocated for the purpose of finding the perfect outfit for Catie's date.
Catie eyed the dress suspiciously. "That will never fit me."
"Oh, yes it will." She pulled at the fabric, showing how stretchy it was. "And Nick's eyes are going to bend around your curves so fast it'll give him whiplash," she laughed, pushing the dress into Catie's hands.
Catie put the dress on and looked at herself in the full length mirror. It so wasn't something that she would normally wear. The dress was made in strips of fabric sewn together to create a full garment--Gina had called it a bandage dress--and Catie thought she looked like she was being tied up.
"Oh. My. Fucking. God," Gina said, twirling Catie around when she came out of the bathroom. "Nick is going to hit the ceiling when he sees you."
Catie felt a rush of heat spread up to her cheeks. She wasn't sure she wanted to make anyone hit the ceiling, not that she was capable of such a thing even if she had wanted to. She swatted her friend back, but Gina was relentless and gave her a slap on her backside.
"I'd tap that."
Catie rolled her eyes and checked her phone. She still had a few minutes before she had to go. She looked back at the heap of discarded garments on Gina's bed and lamented over a flowy dress with an empire waist that Gina had banned her from touching.
Gina grabbed a handful of hair and beauty supplies, lovingly touching Catie up and making her glow by accentuating her natural bronze coloring.
Catie grabbed for her phone again and started looking through her emails and her text messages, paranoid that she was letting someone down.
She bit at her lower lip as she pulled her email up, letting it refresh yet again. She quickly scanned through a few emails that could wait until the morning--though her fingers itched to type out a response immediately. She was about to check the Bowen social media feeds to keep an eye on the marketing side of the launch when Gina slid the phone out of her hands and placed it down on the bed beside her. She crouched in front of Catie so they were eye to eye.
"No one needs your time more than you do. It's one night."
Catie tried to dismiss the list of tasks in her mind that she could be doing right now. Guilt twisted in her stomach. Launch was in two weeks, and it felt like there was no end of the top-priority tasks she needed to get done. Yet here she was knocking off work early and going out with Gina's cousin.
Catie shifted on her stocking feet. She should have blown this off. There was too much to do to worry about things like her love life. She puffed a laugh. Love life, or lack thereof. Gina grabbed her arm and turned Catie to face her.
"Listen, hon," Gina said, pursing her full lips together for a moment like she was choosing her words carefully. "You need a break. You deserve a break. You're working what, sixty hours a week? That's nuts to put in this much of your life without being appreciated."
Catie frowned. "Everett appreciates me. I don't think the company would function without me there."
Gina crooked one eyebrow, obviously in disbelief. "Have you seen that closet of an office? You work your ass off harder than anyone I know, yet you're still getting his crappy coffee every morning. You're a lawyer, dammit, not his secretary."
"Come on, Gina. That's not fair. I've been there from the beginning. When we were barely keeping the lights on so Everett and Liam could put everything they had into these solar tiles. I promise you, no one works harder or believes in what he's doing more than Everett Bowen. I think it's an honor to be there beside him." Catie grinned, trying to lighten the mood. "Even if he does have awful taste is coffee."
Gina sat down hard on the edge of her bed. "Is that why you've been waffling on this date with Nick? Because you're secretly in love with your boss? Oh, honey, no. You've told me enough about that parade of interns to know that's a bad idea."
"I do not," Catie spluttered. She threw her shoulders back and stood tall and confident. "I have zero feelings for Everett Bowen. I respect the man as a colleague and a visionary. There's nothing more."
But as she said it, her heart twisted just the tiniest bit in her chest. There had been those nights she'd .... Catie scrubbed the memories from her mind. She didn't even want to consider if she could think of Everett as more than a friend.
"Mm-hmm," Gina murmured. She stared at Catie for a long moment, then stood up and raised her hands in surrender. "Whatever you say, c
hica."
Then Gina held up a moto jacket and motioned for Catie to slip it on. Catie shrugged on the jacket then stepped into her black booties and let Gina hustle her toward the door. The movement at least distracted them both from the conversation.
"Don't think about work for one more second," Gina commanded. "It is time for you to go slay on this date."
At the door, Gina primped with Catie's hair for another second, then pushed her out the door with an exaggerated slap on her ass. "Go get laid tonight. It's been way too long."
Chapter Three
Catalina
Catie adjusted the hem of her dress, trying to pull it down to cover more of her thighs, but the damn thing was dead set on riding right back up every time she took a step. The cold January air whipped around her legs, and she cursed herself for letting Gina make her choose style over practicality.
The restaurant was just two blocks from the Prince Street subway station, but Catie was already shivering inside her thin leather jacket and booties. She should have fought Gina harder on wearing her heavier tights instead of the sheer black nylons. She was a Florida native; she wasn't made to handle New York winters. She nearly jogged up to the glowing windows outside Drover, the restaurant Nick had picked. And speaking of, she was fairly certain the man shifting back and forth in his black dress shoes and blowing into his hands was most likely her date. Catie tentatively walked up to him and smiled.
"Nick?"
"Wow," Nick said in greeting, as his eyes traveled up and down her body. He leaned in for a cheek kiss and Catie felt herself flinch like he was about to hit her, not kiss her. She hoped he didn't notice. She tried to smile warmly to cover up her discomfort.