“Is that the girl who runs the bakery cart downstairs?” He took the muffin and took a small bite of it, letting the sweet muffin melt in his mouth. It was good. Everything she made was good. She had a good little business going down there, and it was just going to keep going as long as she kept a good head on her shoulders about all of it.
“Yes. Her name is Charlotte, and those are the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth, without exception. I’m sure both of my ex-husbands will back me up on that.” She grinned and settled into her usual chair on the opposite side of his desk. “So you’ll have to excuse me for being a little late, but I had good reason. That would have been a distraction for anyone.”
“What was she doing up here?” Preston hadn’t seen the strawberry blonde outside of her place on the first floor during the weeks she’d been here. It was strange to see her standing in the foyer of his office.
“She’s trying to drum up some business, and it seems like she’s going to be pretty successful. Mostly she’s trying to get together enough income to open a real bakery and not just a food cart. She can keep bringing me muffins for the rest of time if they’re going to taste like that, though. I won’t complain if they’re from the food cart downstairs, a bakery down the street or the moon.” Sophie laughed and snagged another muffin from the basket before taking a bite. She did have a point. The young woman certainly had the product, but he didn’t know if she had the business acumen to open her own bakery. Only time would tell there, but it was always intriguing to see someone who was out to start into business on their own. It reminded him of when he’d been young and ambitious and just needed the right helping hand to start out on that life.
For him, that helping hand had come in the form of Howard Specter, his business partner. The older man had been his first investor when he’d opened the original business that had developed into Pierce Industries. Now, Preston owned a majority stock in several businesses including pharmaceutical manufacturers, restaurant and hotel chains, research and development firms and IT consultancies. He’d come a long way from that corner bookshop, but part of him was still that twenty-two year old boy, just starting out, who was focused on trying to not only make a living but also making sure that all of this worked out.
“I see. Well, if we can focus on what what we’re here to do, and not get lost in a basket of blueberry mini muffins, then maybe we can make up for the time we’ve lost already this afternoon.” He raised an eyebrow at Sophie who laughed softly and straightened out her skirt.
“Yes sir, Mr. Pierce.” He knew her well enough to know that she was only partially serious. Sophie wasn’t ever going to be all business no matter how much he might be. It was one of the things he liked about her. She was good at her job, but she also kept him from getting too serious for his own good from time to time. She was older than him, sort of like the aunt he’d never had, and he enjoyed working with her, even when she gave him a hard time. Sophie was one of the few people around here he trusted to be one hundred percent honest with him no matter what.
It was simple enough to settle into business for the rest of their time together. It was more or less as straight forward as he’d expected. All the pieces of the planned opening were falling perfectly into place. Sophie had done her job beautifully, and there was nothing for him to worry about. He was going to worry anyway, but at least he was only excruciating over the details and not panicking that the entire thing was going to fall apart around them all. As they neared the end of their discussion his eyes fell on the basket in front of her on the desk.
“Tell me you got that young woman’s business card.” He returned his gaze to Sophie with a raised eyebrow.
“I know good muffins when I taste them, Mr. Pierce. Of course I got it. It’s in the top drawer of my desk out there.” She nodded towards the hallway. “And why might I ask are you interested in her contact information.”
Preston shook his head at the knowing grin that drifted its way across the face of his personal assistant and sighed. She was always plotting on his love life. He dated a few people from time to time, but nothing was ever serious. There were just a string of women that he occupied his time with, nothing more. He’d been the same thing for most of them, something fun to pass the time. He liked it that way.
Having a relationship and a family and all the rest of it was just a distraction. Preston had learned that early on in his career. If he was going to focus on being successful, he couldn’t afford distractions. That didn’t stop the people around him from trying to get him to settle down and do something more domestic. It just wasn’t something he saw for himself. Instead, he’d pushed all of that energy into his businesses.
“I just wondered if she’d be able to whip something up for the investors meeting on Monday afternoon. If these muffins are any indication of what she’s capable of, I’m sure she can impress them as well. Besides, they’re easier to talk out of money when they’re well fed. Just give her a call for me and see what she can get together. I need them delivered by 3 pm on Monday afternoon so we can get things set up for the meeting at 4:30. Ok?”
Sophie rolled her eyes and tried not to look disappointed which just meant that she looked absolutely disappointed that he didn’t have a better sense of humor about everything.
“You’re no fun, but if it means I can get more of her baking then so be it.” She sighed dramatically, but wasn’t able to keep the smile off the corners of her mouth from turning into a laugh.
“Go on… and after you give her a call take the rest of the day off. You’ve earned it.” She really had. Sophie had been working herself to the bone for weeks on this business deal. She deserved the time off.
“You know you’ve earned some time off too, Preston.” Sophie didn’t often use his first name, but when she did, she was always fussing at him to take better care of himself.
“Time off…” He laughed a little bitterly and shook his head. “You know this place would fall to pieces without me. Go on. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Alright, but promise me you’re going to go home and not sleep in the office.” Sophie’s hands went to her hips and she looked over at him disapprovingly. She knew him far too well for his own good.
“I’ll go home before seven if it makes you get off my case, Soph.” He blinked over at her and adjusted his lapels. “Now go. I’ve got a few contracts to see about, and I need you to order something from Charlotte that’s going to make Loren Ashford not think twice about getting out his checkbook, alright?”
Sophie folded her arms across her chest and sighed. “Alright. I’ll see you in the morning then Mr. Pierce.” She turned and walked out of the office, leaving the basket on Preston’s desk as he settled back into his desk chair. He grabbed another muffin from the basket, tossing this one whole into his mouth while he pondered over the papers in front of him.
❖
The next morning Preston felt himself drawn to the bakery cart down in the lobby as he made his way into the building. Normally, he was entirely devoted to a schedule. He ate breakfast from her cart on Monday and Thursday. Friday, he generally got something from the cafe he passed on his walk to work every morning. This morning however, he’d skipped it on his walk into work. His curiosity about the young woman who ran the bakery cart had gotten the better of him.
He liked that she was ambitious, and that just running this cart wasn’t the full extent of where she saw herself. It was something that reminded him of himself at her age, even if nothing else about her did. She was pretty and sweet, where he’d been serious and all about business even at that age.
But there was something about her that drew him to the cart. Charlotte had tried to talk to him on several occasions. She was clearly friendly, even if he wasn’t. He’d always been straight to the point with her, but it never stopped her from trying.
“Good morning, Sir. It’s a surprise to see you here this morning. To what do I owe the honor?” She’d smiled at him with that same warm smil
e she always gave him when he walked up to the counter and glanced around at the things she had on display this morning. There were his usual cinnamon rolls along with a plethora of other things. Normally, he would have stuck to his usual, but there was something about today that made him veer off his routine.
“I see you’ve started baking cheese danish recently.” He glanced at the stack of perfectly baked pastries off to one side of the register she kept there. “I’ll take two of them.” He’d ignored her question for the moment, unsure of how much he wanted to open up to the young woman when he didn’t really open up to anyone.
She bagged up two of them, and tallied up his total on the register before announcing it to him in a voice that was far too cheery for this time of morning.
“Can I get you anything else?” She raised an eyebrow, and he could see the amusement that played out behind those hazel eyes of hers. It was the first time he’d noticed her eye color. There was something he found intriguing about her, like he hadn’t really noticed her before now.
He wasn’t blind. He was a red-blooded man, and of course he’d noticed the pretty young lady who’d set up shop in the first floor of his office building. But he hadn’t really paid attention to her until now. There was more to her than that pretty face and those strawberry blonde curls gave away at first glance. He wanted to know more about her, and he could feel an old urge he hadn’t given sway to in years begin to surface.
There was a reason that he hadn’t given much time to relationships beyond the purely physical in years. He knew he could get consumed in the urges that he felt building and that getting consumed could be a dangerous distraction for him, one that he wasn’t certain he could afford. That look in those green-brown eyes brought it all roaring to the surface again. She was young. She still had that air of naiveté about her that not many young women still held at her age. And she was trying to crack the shell that he put up for the world. It was a dangerous combination.
He shook his head before passing his money over to her and making a beeline for the elevator. He was going to have to get himself in check before he went and did something that was stupid for the both of them. He ought to know better. Preston Pierce was practically forty years old and the owner of a multi-billion dollar corporation, but here he was having urges that better belonged to man fifteen years his junior about a young woman who was almost young enough to be his daughter if he’d been inclined to start a family at a younger age. He was going to get himself in over his head if he wasn’t careful, and Preston hadn’t gotten as far as he had in life without being careful.
Chapter 3
Another few weeks passed, and Charlotte noted that the handsome older man had changed his schedule somewhat. She still didn’t know his name or even what floor he worked on, but he’d increased his visits from Mondays and Thursdays, occasionally dropping by on a Wednesday or Friday to pick up something. When he stuck to his schedule it was always the same cinnamon rolls, but when he showed up unexpectedly it was always to order something new she’d put out.
Charlotte tried her best to engage him in conversation on those days, but he was still as taciturn as ever. He clearly intended to keep to himself, and she almost felt guilty about trying to pressure him into a conversation he clearly didn’t want. But there was something about him that made her want to know more about him. Maybe it was those deep brown eyes she felt like she could get lost in or the way he looked just a little bit sad every time he walked away from the food cart. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but the fact that he didn’t seem to want to share anything about himself made her that much more curious about him.
She’d taken to making up stories about her most quiet customer in her spare time standing at the food cart when business was slow. Maybe he was some kind of quiet business mogul who’d made his fortune in selling widgets or perhaps he’d inherited a vast empire of sock manufacturers. She was lost in this exact kind of daydream as she made her way up to the top floor of the Pierce building late one Friday afternoon after most of the building was gone.
She’d brought another basket of mini muffins up to Sophie on Wednesday, and usually the older woman stopped by on Friday morning to return the basket and chat about how the week was going. She generally ordered an assortment of pastries to be delivered to the top floor on Monday morning when she stopped by. It seemed like her bet on introducing herself to the offices in the building with a basket of muffins had worked out in her favor. However, she hadn’t seen Sophie this morning, or at any other point during the day, so she’d decided to head up to the top floor to retrieve the basket herself before going home for the weekend.
Today was a holiday, and the building had been nearly empty. It had taken most of the day for her to sell out of enough of her baked goods that she felt comfortable leaving the stand. That meant that the offices upstairs were nearly deserted when she got off the elevator. In fact, she was fairly certain that she was the only one on the entire floor after looking around. It made her feel a little bit skittish and nervous, like she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be, but she really needed to retrieve that basket to prepare orders for next week. So she took a deep breath and headed straight for Sophie’s desk intent on her purpose.
Charlotte was so determined to grab the basket and get out of the office that she didn’t even notice that the double office doors next to Sophie’s desk were ajar and that a light was on inside. She certainly didn’t see that Preston was sitting there in his desk chair, facing the windows with his tie draped across the desk behind him and a glass of scotch in his right hand.
He’d thought he was alone, but when he heard some noise out in the foyer, he turned around in his seat, swiveling into place just in time to see Charlotte peering around the edge of Sophie’s desk. Charlotte’s eyes went wide and she made a tiny squeaking sound when she noticed that she’d interrupted someone, and as soon as her eyes caught his, she knew exactly who he was. So the man who’d been coming by her stand for weeks and refusing to engage in conversation was none other than Preston Pierce. Of course she’d been serving the owner of the building and trying to get him to talk to her for weeks. That was just her luck. He probably thought she was insane standing here in front of his office doors in the middle of a Friday evening with no one else in sight.
“Can I help you?” He walked over to the doors, leaving the glass of liquor on his desk and peering out into the rest of the office as she stood there frozen in place.
“I… Sorry…. I just came up to get my basket.” Finally she found the ability to move and gestured towards Sophie’s desk. “Usually Sophie brings it back to me, and I didn’t see her today so I…”
He interrupted her before she could even get the rest of her thought out. “Sophie’s home sick today, and I was supposed to return your basket. But it seems that time slipped away from me this evening. I have it in my office. Why don’t you come in and have a drink, and I’ll get it for you.”
Those were more words in a row than he’d spoken to her in the entire time she’d worked in the Pierce Building. She didn’t quite know what to make of it. He’d clearly been drinking, and he was the only one left in the office. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but it would have been rude of her to refuse, so she followed him into the office, timidly settling down into one of the chairs he gestured at as he asked her to sit down.
“What can I get for you?” He walked over to a bar set in one wall of the office, grabbing a glass and putting some ice in it and glancing over his shoulder at her.
“Umm… I’m not sure?” Her voice raised in question as she considered what she knew about liquor. “I’m not much of a drinker.”
He chuckled, and it struck her that it was the first time she’d heard him laugh in all the weeks since the first time she’d seen him.
“Alright, I guess you’re having what I’m having then.” He grabbed a crystal bottle from the back of the assortment of bottles and poured a couple of inches of the amber liquid into both
glasses before grabbing them and bringing them over to the chairs. They were far from his desk in a pair of armchairs that flanked a coffee table and a sofa in one corner of the room. She studied him as she took the glass. His shirt had the top couple of buttons undone, exposing the dip in his collarbone as he bent down and handed her the glass, and his shirt cuffs were also undone and rolled up to his elbow, showing off the well toned muscles of his forearms. He was in good shape for a man half his age, but it was the first time that Charlotte had noticed it.
She thanked him for the glass and brought it to her lips, taking a sip and making a face at the burn of the scotch that hit the back of her throat and went straight up to her head. She’d never had it before, and she understood why her uncle called it an acquired taste.
“I don’t think I’ve introduced myself. You must think I’m endlessly rude. I’m…” This time it was Charlotte’s turn to interrupt him.
“You’re Preston Pierce. Or at least you’re in his office. I should have figured it out before now, but this is the longest conversation we’ve had since I started working in the building. I have to say thank you for the business, and not just the biweekly cinnamon rolls. You’re becoming my best customer.”
Sweet Temptation_A Billionaire Virgin Romance Page 2