by Red Garnier
“My mother is flying in tomorrow, Miss Divine,” Holden said that morning as they rode together in the car. “I want you to pick her up at the airport, get her settled in the best hotel, take her shopping, take her anywhere, I don’t give a damn…just keep her off my back.”
Their frequent rides in one of the company’s preferred black cars usually consisted of him either barking orders at her or at his cell phone, while Lucy got to sit uncomfortably either beside him or across from him. She didn’t know which was worse.
Sitting beside him in the Lincoln felt like sitting next to a huge mass of tension that was waiting to explode at any minute, and no matter how she tried to reassure herself, she predicted that when he did explode she was going to get scorched. Sitting across from him in the limousine, however, she got a very complete, very discomforting look at his face, which was devilishly handsome even when frowning—which was most of the time.
She’d lately been thinking it was such a pity, such a waste of an eligible bachelor, that he should be such an arrogant pig, which was why, of course, no matter how rich and handsome he was, the man was still single at thirty-eight. Lucy doubted there would be any woman in her right mind who would want to settle down with a man who sent his assistant to buy her presents.
And yet, during these same uncomfortable car rides, Lucy got a glimpse of the mysterious workings of his mind, and the blazing heat of his personality. Watching him work usually left her nothing short of speechless. He was a fearless risk-taker, and Lucy was awed to be witness to the furious passion with which he worked. It was the same sort of driving passion that made one jump from great heights or paint master works. Patrick Holden’s lust for business was as potent as a composer’s quest for the great concerto.
When it came right down to it—it really turned her on.
Take GYRO, for instance. The software-processing business had a solid client base that included Dell, Hewlett Packard and Apple computers. But after losing a big contract to the larger Intel competition and not being able to cope with an enormous debt, had filed for Chapter 11. The stock immediately plummeted to nine cents per share, from the four dollars it had been worth. And from what Lucy had overheard from Holden’s numerous telephone conversations, he was buying up the stock like a man possessed. Though he hadn’t achieved major shareholder status just yet, he was already planning to set up new management, secure several long-term deals with Dell and Hewlett Packard, and change the small business’ status quo.
These sorts of deals were practically impossible without a solid financial backing that could provide the small company the security it needed to grow and expand. And although Lucy had her own share of ideas about the buy-out, similar to the ones Holden had, she had to admit she wouldn’t have had the guts to see them through. There was always the possibility of losing all that you risked.
That was why Lucy had taken this job—she wanted to learn from the very best. Barely two weeks into her new job and she had already realized something of vital importance—she was really going to have to grow into her pants if she expected to succeed in this line of business.
“I don’t give a damn what you have to do,” Holden had snapped over the phone at Simon Morris, head of mergers and acquisitions, just yesterday. “Raise the offer and buy it.” And he’d hung up.
“Don’t you think it’s a little rude to hang up all your cell phone conversations without even a farewell?” Lucy had asked him then. She’d noticed he never said “goodbye” to anyone on the phone and found it really annoying. He sat across from her in the limousine and remained silent while he eyed her steadily.
“We’re men, Miss Divine. That’s how we do business. Neither of us wants a hello, nor a farewell, we want to make money.”
“And saying ‘thank you’ or ‘goodbye’ would be too much of an effort?”
She could swear she saw the hint of a smile play on his lips as he pulled on his tie in exasperation, something he always seemed to do. “Yes. It would.” He took a bottled water from the wet bar to one side of the limo, cracked it open and took a swig. Then his forehead creased in one of his usual scowls. “Besides, I didn’t get where I am by saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’.”
Lucy had turned to stare out the window to hide her smile. Men were men, women were women and Holden was…himself. Yet no matter how much she privately enjoyed watching Holden during his business conversations, she felt extremely uncomfortable under his stare, at the way his eyes darkened when he looked at her. For the last couple days, Holden, rather than Carlos, had held the car door open for her, and the occasional brush of her elbow to his chest, or the sweep of his coat against her hair, or just about anything as fleeting as the feel of his breath on the top of her head effectively sent her senses spinning.
That afternoon, as she boarded the limo for their usual afternoon drive to his apartment, he halted her, his grip firm but gentle on her arm, his eyes intense on her face.
“Would you care for dinner, Miss Divine?” He’d spoken so softly she even wondered if she’d imagined the words. For a brief second she just stared up at him, unsure of what he meant. Was he asking her to dine with his employees in the kitchen of his apartment, or did she even dare think that he might be asking her to dine with him?
“I…”
Her lack of speech was hardly appropriate for a Stanford graduate. Still, she felt immobilized with shock, her whole body frozen by a wild fluttering in her chest and something else she dared call…hope.
His whole body stiffened at her apparent hesitation and suddenly he smiled coldly, arrogantly. “I know, I know. Some other time.”
That left her, unfortunately, with no reply whatsoever, and no matter how frantic she felt, it would be too inappropriate for her to backpedal. She should have promptly thought of a smarter reply—one more fitting for an educated professional such as herself, and not some silly dimwit.
He was silent on their way to his apartment, and when they arrived, he seemed hell-bent on staying as far away from her as he could while she selected his suit and tie—something she accomplished with record speed that evening.
Lucy was starting to really abhor touching his manly…things. It seemed so intimate, so very personal. Touching his things made her retire to her apartment every night with an inner longing—not to touch his clothes, but the powerful, arrogant man who wore them.
Holden was always so strong, so self-assured. Yet she’d had glimpses of him, sacred moments when his shoulders relaxed, his handsome features softened. Moments when he grew pensive and thoughtful. Moments when he would look at her as if…
She saw something there, something she didn’t know how to interpret, that pulled at the very essence of her soul as if his own was calling out to hers in recognition, in promise. Sometimes, when his guard was down, he seemed so…different.
Lucy was behaving very differently herself. She was, in fact, being very naughty. Her behavior was just despicable…at least in her mind. Lucy had been surprising herself with the erotic, vivid stories flying endlessly through her once-upon-a-time-intelligent brain.
Bad, wicked Lucy. There was something downright sickening about a woman who couldn’t look at her boss without staring down at his crotch—and that happened to her all the time, when all she should be focused on was her work. So why was she spending so much time evaluating this selfish, arrogant person? More importantly, why was she harboring fantasies about herself, on her knees, giving him oral sex—in the limo, for crying out loud! For this reason, after learning about his mother’s impending arrival, Lucy had been extremely grateful for an opportunity to get away from him and escort his mother around town. How bad could it be?
The next day, Lucy stood at the airport and watched a woman walk down the concourse toward her, hauling a brown suitcase splattered with Louis Vuitton monograms, a coat overwhelmed with Fendi’s signature interlocking-F symbols and a belt with the unmistakable Gucci GGs in glinting, polished gold. Lucy prayed, fervently and silently, that she not
be Holden’s mother. But she knew, because her ageless face was identical to the framed picture atop a console in Patrick Holden’s apartment. Her skin was the identical pearly color captured in the photo, her hair the same shade of bright orange-red.
Lucy took a step forward. “Mrs. Holden?”
With the tip of a finger, the woman lowered her huge black sunglasses to the bottom of her nose and peered at Lucy through a pair of dark green eyes. “You’re not Katrina.”
“No,” Lucy said cautiously. “No, I’m not.”
“I asked for Katrina, where is she?”
“Mrs. Holden, I’m afraid Katrina no longer works for Mr. Holden, so he sent me instead. But please don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get everything you need. I’m his new personal assistant, Lucy Divine.”
Eyeing her outstretched hand without taking it, Mrs. Holden hmphed her disgruntlement and said nothing.
“Let me help you with that,” Lucy said politely, saving face by graciously pretending her outstretched hand had been meant for the luggage and smoothly taking the monogrammed suitcase from the woman’s grip.
Mrs. Holden gave Lucy the silent treatment all the way to where Carlos waited with the limousine outside, and during the whole time it took them to reach the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It wasn’t until they rode along Fifth Avenue that the woman sighed in contentment and finally forgave Lucy for not being Katrina.
“I do love the shopping here in New York.”
Lucy felt grateful that she was at least talking to her once again. It wouldn’t have improved her position very much with her boss if his mother happened to hate her. “We’ll go anywhere you like. Why don’t we settle you in first? I’ve reserved a suite for you at one of the finest hotels, one with a view of—”
“Nonsense. I will be staying with my son, of course. Why else would he own a three-bedroom penthouse?”
Lucy cleared her throat. “Mr. Holden believes you will be more comfortable in the privacy of your own suite, Mrs. Holden.”
“Ha! With hotel sheets? They’re probably not even Egyptian cotton. I’m staying with my son, Miss Divine. Now this is why I asked for Katrina.”
“Perhaps this is why Katrina no longer works for Mr. Holden. My instructions were very clear, and—”
“Carlos,” the woman barked. “Please take me to my son’s apartment. This woman doesn’t seem to realize that I never have—and never will—stay at some lousy hotel when visiting my own son. Besides,” she said, turning to eye Lucy, “hotels don’t have anyone that even remotely resembles the grace and hospitality of Mr. Pipsqueak.”
Lucy swallowed her laugh. “You must mean Mr. Pimwick?”
“Yes, my dear, but I call him Pipsqueak, and he likes it very much.”
Fifteen minutes later, Lucy confirmed that indeed Mrs. Holden called the butler Pipsqueak, but he indisputably appeared to hate it.
“Pipsqueak, hello you old devil!” the woman bellowed when she and Lucy entered Patrick’s apartment, Carlos closely following with Mrs. Holden’s LV-monogrammed suitcase.
Poor Mr. Pimwick looked ashen when his eyes landed on the beaming Mrs. Holden.
“Madam,” he said, bowing very stiffly.
“Did you miss me?” the woman taunted saucily, chucking Mr. Pimwick’s chin as she asked.
Lucy watched in fascination as Mr. Pimwick straightened his spine, and with the cool casualness of one whose family members have been butlers for generations, said, “No.”
Then he turned to Lucy, bowed and uttered, “Miss,” before walking away.
On the way to his apartment, Patrick Holden stared blindly out the car window and cursed Aaron Phelps for the sixth consecutive time that day. The man had sent six women to his private office that morning, and they had all equally sucked. Yes, they had dark hair and were decently chubby, but none of them seemed to have even half the brains and elegance Lucy Divine had shown during the past two weeks. And they were all old! Damn it, Patrick wasn’t going to hire a granny—how could they possibly keep up?
Keeping Divine on his payroll, however, was an option Holden was still hesitant to consider. It was extremely uncomfortable to have to conduct business with a hard-on, and that was just what she was causing with those blow-job lips and those perky tits and that tight little ass. Even with the preferred rudimentary outfits, she looked ready for a tumble, and Holden would swear he could smell her—a heady, spicy yet fruity scent—even from a mile away. Just sharing the same air with her in the confines of a car, or any other space for that matter, was testing his nerves to the breaking point. Simply knowing he was wearing a tie that had been carefully selected by her the night before was damned vexing, to say the least.
He was glad his mother was here. This gave him at least another week to find Miss Divine’s replacement without having to look at her tempting body too frequently. But hell, even when he closed his eyes at night, after a long, exhausting day at work, he found her image indelibly marked onto his retinas like a brand.
Of course, he had to admit the woman had not only looks, but a backbone as well. She’d accepted every one of his demeaning, demanding, overbearing orders—meant to send her screaming for cover—with grace.
Well…if you consider the frequent “screw you” looks she didn’t quite manage to smother, maybe not exactly with grace, but at least with some outward civility. Plus, she’d accomplished them all, even the most daring ones. She had even successfully gotten him the Wall Street bull—wouldn’t you know it? That huge, mean bull was now his. Even if Holden did have to sign a contract agreeing not to move it from its current location, it gave him great pleasure just to know he owned it.
Getting him that bull had been a near-impossible feat, one he’d only thought of to make her realize once and for all that being his assistant sucked and she should really think about quitting.
But time and again, she surprised him. Yesterday morning, she’d set down his donuts while he’d been on the phone, and when he hung up, he’d been surprised to notice she’d been attentively listening to every word.
“Is there something you wish to say?” he prodded, noting the way she was pursing her lips in an obvious attempt to keep from doing so.
She looked relieved. “Yes, actually, I have something I want to ask. Why a hostile takeover? Why not just buy the company outright at a fair price for everyone?”
He leaned back in his swivel chair and studied her, realizing there was far more to Lucy Divine than he’d expected. He was not going to explain to her, however, that if the population in general got word that Holden wanted something, the stock would skyrocket, making his purchase more expensive. So he instead said, “Maybe I like to do things the hard way.”
She laughed, and surprisingly, her laughter did all sorts of things to his body, clenching here, tightening there, caused a tingle here and there. It was hell. When he’d dismissed her, he sat there for longer than was necessary to wonder about it.
Now, he inexplicably found himself wondering if he was being too harsh on her. That would certainly account for his sudden and maddening urge of late to make amends. Could possibly explain his reason for asking her—his employee—to dinner, of all things!
As the car slowly advanced through the hideous afternoon traffic along Central Park, Holden pulled out his cell phone and dialed Phelps’ number, frowning at a sudden thought that began to concern him.
“Phelps, how much is Miss Divine earning?” he barked as soon as Phelps picked up. Holden cringed at the number Phelps immediately recited. “That hardly buys you anything in this town,” he grumbled.
“It’s actually a steep amount, sir. Personal assistants usually earn half that,” Phelps calmly assured.
“And are they all assistants to me?” Holden asked gruffly.
“Pardon?”
“Are all their last names as pretty as Divine?” Holden insisted.
There was a long silence, his point still not coming across clearly to Phelps, as if ten years working for him had g
one empty on the man.
“Well? Do they all have such pretty names, Phelps?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought. I want you to double it. Triple it. I mean a decent six figures, Phelps.”
“But sir, that’s almost what I—”
“Thank you.” Holden hung up before Phelps wheedled a raise for himself again.
Then he sighed in contentment, at least certain that Miss Divine’s troubles would be well paid for. Services like Miss Divine’s were hard to come by these days, after all. Didn’t Phelps know this? Didn’t Phelps himself tell him repeatedly how perfect his new assistant was?
He’d been right. She was too perfect. While Holden, unfortunately, was hardly the perfect boss. He was too crude, cold, calculating, vicious, while she was… Was there a word to describe her? Holden could think of thousands, and none of them seemed to do it adequately. Except maybe…
Divine.
Simply Divine.
Now, as he took the elevator up to his apartment and nodded absently to its other occupant, he suddenly realized Lucy Divine was the perfect personal assistant. She was responsible, resourceful, dedicated. If he could harness his sexual impulses around her, she could definitely be a formidable asset—one he’d be lucky to keep. But frankly that seemed next to impossible, because all he pretty much wanted to do all day was screw her…and kiss her.
Hell yes, kiss her! Kiss her everywhere. Run his hands over her skin and taste every inch of it. He’d be extremely appreciative and grateful if she ever let him do that. He would also love to have her naked and sprawled on top of his desk, giving him her sweet little pussy for breakfast. That would be so damned sweet. Sweeter than donuts, he was certain. His eyes glistened just thinking about it.
Why couldn’t he fool around with her? He wasn’t married, he didn’t have a girlfriend—thank God, because frankly, women and their hormones made him pretty nervous—and Holden was the boss of his company. That means that he made the rules. There was no written law, no signed contract that forbid him to mess around with his assistant—although he’d certainly always thought it unprofessional.