Chapter One
“Damn rain,” Holly mumbled under her breath as she ran from the front door of her home to her little Toyota SUV in the driveway. “Two o’clock in the morning and he feels the need to call me for help.”
“I mean, who calls someone in the middle of the night – their assistant, no less – to come and pick them up with no explanation? It’s unreasonable! It’s selfish, it’s obnoxious, and it is so going to stop tonight!” Feeling better with her little pep talk, Holly drove off in to the stormy night to pick up the man who was persona-non-grata at the moment.
Stephen Ballinger. Just thinking his name made Holly grind her teeth in agitation. Having worked for the man for three years, she thought she had seen and done everything humanly possible that should be expected of a personal assistant. She wouldn’t mind it all so much if it all didn’t have to be done on top of the twelve hour day that she normally put in with Stephen at the office.
Checking her GPS and trying to get a grip on where exactly she was, she continued to stay the course down the highway for another twelve miles until her exit. The sky was illuminated with a steady stream of lightning strikes and Holly shivered with the fierceness of it.
“I have money in savings,” she began. “It’s not like I’d starve to death or anything. Most companies would love someone like me.” Thinking that she sounded a little smug didn’t stop her from continuing, “I mean, I am a hard worker, I don’t take frivolous amounts of time off, I’m never sick, I’m available almost 24/7 because I have no social life and…”
The problem was tonight. Why it suddenly all felt as if it were coming to a head, she wasn’t sure. All she did know was this phone call…this stupid two a.m phone call, was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. The man had friends, why not call one of them? He had a personal driver! Why not call him? Why, oh why, had he insisted on dragging Holly out of bed at this ungodly hour - in the pouring rain, no less! – and make her come and get him? It made no sense, whatsoever.
A strong wind shook the silver SUV and Holly held the steering wheel a little tighter. The rain seemed to be coming down harder. What had the weather man said on the news tonight? She wondered. Wasn’t this the outer bands of some tropical storm? Great, just what she needed, to be out in the middle of the night in a tropical storm, looking for a place that she was unfamiliar with.
Pulling into the parking lot as directed, she pulled out her cell phone and texted Stephen to alert him to her arrival. Hitting the send button, she sat back and waited. And waited. And waited. With each second that passed, her ire grew. “What in the world?” she yelled to no one, slamming the steering wheel. Picking up her phone once again, she dialed his number and waited to hear his voice. The phone went directly to voice mail. Turning the car off, Holly threw the door open with a huff of frustration, pulled up the hood of her jacket and hopped out of the car, cursing like a sailor the entire time. A strong wind nearly blew her in to the bushes and she screeched at the closeness of a lightning strike.
Stalking to the heavy, wooden door of the bar, she yanked it open and stepped inside. She spotted Stephen practically slumped over the bar. Not really caring what kind of shape he was in, she stomped over to him and said his name. Loudly. The place was fairly deserted but the eighties big-hair metal music coming from the sound system was a bit loud.
“Stephen!”
He stirred a little and lifted his head. It took a minute for things to come in to focus. With a grunt of thanks towards the bartender, Stephen stood, threw a twenty down on the bar before walking out the door, straight to Holly’s car and climbing in on the passenger side. For a minute, Holly was too dumbfounded to move. She glanced at the bartender with raised eyebrows and questions written all over her face.
“He drank. He fought,” the man shrugged. “He lost. Thanks for getting him out of here. Now I can close up.” With those few short words, he turned his back on her and went about his business.
“Thank you,” Holly mumbled and walked out the door. Climbing in to the car, she fought off a chill from the rain. While her first instinct was to sit there and yell and rant and rave and demand to know what in the world had gone on tonight, her main need was to get the heat going in the car once again.
Stephen’s head was turned away from her and for a moment, Holly thought he was asleep. “Hell, no,” she murmured and summoned up all of her courage to confront this man who had ruined her night.
“Stephen,” she snapped and waited for him to face her. He finally did on the third try. “What went on here tonight?”
“Nothing.”
“Really? So I had to come out in a monsoon in the middle of the night to a place that I don’t know over nothing, is that what you’re telling me?”
He sighed wearily. “Look, if I had any other option, I would have called someone else…”
“There are cabs,” Holly interrupted, “then there’s your driver, George, who I thought his sole purpose in life was to drive you where you needed to go! Then there’s Will and Derek who probably would have…”
“They were here earlier and they are the reason I had no ride.” His tone was quiet, serious and just slightly sleepy.
“You fought with Will and Derek and so they just left you here? You are grown men! Why would they do that?” Her voice was raised on the last and she noticed Stephen wince at the volume. Clearly her brain was still not fully awake because none of this made any sense; and Stephen always made sense.
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? I just need to go home and get some sleep.”
The man had a nerve! “Oh, you want sleep?” Holly asked sarcastically. “Well, you know what? So did I. As a matter of fact, I wanted it so badly that I already was asleep, as are most of the people of the normal population at two o’clock in the morning!” Taking a moment to count to ten and calm down before she continued, she pulled the car out of the bar’s parking lot, unsure of where they were going. If she could have, Holly would have avoided any more conversation, but she had no other option.
“Um, Stephen, I know this is an odd question, but I really have no idea where we’re going.” He punched the information in to the GPS and then heavily leaned back against the seat, looking away from her again.
“My house,” he said.
“Well I figured that much, genius. It’s just that you moved last month and since I was handling all of the stuff at the old place, I haven’t been to the new one yet. Geez.” A slight chuckle had Holly turning her head ever-so-slightly to look at him. “Something funny to you?”
“You’re not normally this snippy at the office,” he observed.
“That’s because it’s never two-thirty in the morning while we’re at work and I’ve normally had a full night’s sleep. A full night’s uninterrupted sleep.”
“Cute. Sarcasm. That’s never been an issue in the office either. This is a side of you I’ve never seen before.” He yawned and settled more comfortably into the passenger seat, clearly not having a problem with all of the frustration that Holly was feeling.
“Wake me up in the middle of the night again and you won’t have to worry about what is and what isn’t an issue in the office because I won’t be there,” Holly snapped.
“What?” That got his attention.
“You heard me, Stephen. You may be my boss Monday through Friday but you know what? You have no respect for my personal time! Do you have any idea how inconvenient this was for me?” Before he had the chance to answer, Holly went on. “No, of course you don’t because you don’t care who is inconvenienced just as long as it’s not you. I mean, I would never call up someone in the middle of the night unless it was a dire emergency and…”
“It was�
�” Stephen tried to argue.
Holly silenced him with a hard glare. “No, it wasn’t. You could have called a cab. You chose not to. Why? Because you didn’t think it was any big deal to wake me up in the middle of the night to jump through fiery hoops for you!”
“Holly, it’s a drive in the car…”
“It’s two in the morning, Stephen! And have you noticed the weather? Do not try to make me seem like I am wrong to have a problem with this.”
“Fine, I’ll pay you for the time.”
If there could possibly be coined the number one wrong thing to say in this situation, that was it. Holly jerked the car over to the side of the road, threw the car in to park and turned to face Stephen full on, full of fury. “How dare you!” For a moment, it was a toss up as to who was more surprised by what she said. “You think that it is okay to do something like this that is so beyond inconsiderate and then just throw money at me? What is wrong with you?”
Rubbing his temples and finally snapping out of the stupor of the last few hours, Stephen turned to equally face her. “Look, had I known this was going to turn in to such a damn fiasco, believe me, I would have walked home!” he growled, full of frustration. “I didn’t think that calling a friend was going to cause all of this, for crying out loud, Holly! Stop being such a drama queen.”
Drama queen? She saw red. Literally. Everything around her was tinged in a bright, fiery red. “How dare you? And friends? Friends?” she shrieked. “Since when are you and I friends?”
“We’re not?” His voice was instantly calm and he seemed to be truly perplexed by this knowledge.
“No, we are not! I work for you. I work hard for you. Five days a week, fourteen hours a day at times, and that’s not including the weekends when you wake me up! We don’t pal around, we don’t socialize, and we don’t hang out outside of the office.” Holly realized she had some major bitch-factor going on and decided to take a moment to calm down. After a few seconds, she looked up and met his eyes and said quietly, “We work together. You are my boss and I am your assistant. I don’t know how to be friends with you, Stephen.”
“Why? What’s so hard about being friends with me?” He had friends; plenty of friends. None of them every complained about him being difficult to be around. Had they?
“Well, for starters, everything that we have together at work is all about you. It’s your company. You are in charge. Everything that we do is focused around you and your needs or the company’s needs. While we’re working, we’re talking about work. When we stay late and even while we eat dinner, we still only talk about work and your plans about more work. You know nothing about me that wasn’t on my resume, you never ask about me or my life and you are rather inconsiderate of my personal time. That’s not friendship, Stephen, that’s just being a boss. And an inconsiderate one at that! Do you know where I’m from? Do you know how many siblings I have? What did I want to be when I grew up? Why I chose the college that I did? What’s my favorite color? Or my favorite flower? Did you know that have a fear of the water due to a boating accident I was in while in high school? No! Because you do not care about my life; all you care about is Ballinger’s. ”
He stared at Holly for a long moment, barely blinking. When her green eyes had met his just minutes ago, something weird happened. It was as if he was seeing Holly for the first time. His brows furrowed as he continued to stare at her. That was the most she had probably ever said to him at any given time and other than the fact that he would have preferred a nicer tone, Stephen realized that he actually liked this interaction with her. People didn’t usually interact with him, they played to him, and they catered to him, even Holly. Until now. This was fascinating.
“What?” she finally asked uncomfortably.
“Nothing, it’s just that you not only sound different, but…look different.” He continued to steadily stare at her as if her were seeing her or meeting Holly for the very first time.
Self consciously, Holly ran a hand over her hair. “Well, it is two-thirty in the morning. I don’t sleep in a suit with my hair pulled back, you know. I threw on sweats and ran out the door when you called. I didn’t realize I was expected to be in ‘personal assistant’ mode all the live- long day!”
Holly knew that she wasn’t beautiful; men didn’t normally give her a second look, but the way that Stephen was looking at her right now made her wish that they weren’t in this particular moment, fighting. Why couldn’t he look at her like that while they were at work? Or at one of those blasted charity events he was always dragging her to! Goodness, on those occasions Holly went crazy trying to dress in a way that would make Stephen see her as a woman and apparently there wasn’t enough make up and sequins on the planet to do that. But sure, bring her out in the middle of the night in sweats with no make up and the man can’t take his eyes off of her! Clearly he’d had too much to drink.
Yes, her chestnut hair was down and longer than he would have thought it was but there was something else. Studying her face it finally hit him; “Your glasses. You’re not wearing your glasses.” Without them, he could see high cheekbones and what he could only imagine to be silky smooth, creamy complexion. He stopped his hand from reaching out.
“Oh, yeah, well…um…I don’t really need them,” she stammered, uncomfortable with the way he was watching her. “I mean, they have a tiny prescription to them and I use them more for when I have some eye strain.”
“You wear them every day,” he stated.
“Yes, well, with the amount of time I spend on the computer, it just makes sense to keep them on.”
“Oh.”
They sat in silence for less than a minute before Holly finally looked away and put the car back in gear and headed towards Stephen’s house. Glancing at the GPS she noticed how far away it was. “Thirty miles!” she cried. “Stephen…” Holly whined. She was ready to start arguing again but realized that there was no point in it. She would get him home, get herself home – probably somewhere around five a.m. - but luckily it was Saturday so she could sleep all day if she wanted. Well, that is, if he didn’t call her with any work-related issues.
“I’m sorry, Holly. Believe me when I tell you that this was so not the way I saw the night going either.”
“Well I would hope not.” She sighed at her own snippy tone and decided to try and be pleasant. “So what happened? What did you fight with the guys about? It had to be pretty intense for them to just leave you there.” When he didn’t answer, Holly prodded a little bit more. “I mean, I can’t imagine you guys fighting at all. You seem to always be laughing and having a good time when you’re together.”
Not taking the bait, he simply replied, “Like I said earlier, I don’t want to talk about it.”
By silent agreement, they dropped the subject and drove the rest of the way without speaking another word. The only sounds came from the rain pelting the car and the roar of thunder.
When Holly finally turned in to his subdivision, she gasped with surprise. With nothing more than the light of the street lamps, she could tell that the homes were beautiful. Large wooded lots gave way to homes that took her breath away. They passed a rather large looking lake on the right side of the road and Holly saw what looked like a gazebo off in the distance. At the prodding of the GPS, she turned in to Stephen’s driveway and had to stifle another gasp. His home, once you drove up the winding drive, was very rustic looking with tons of stone facing and cedar shake shingles. Colors could not be clearly defined but Holly knew it would be stunning. As much as she hated having to be here at this ungodly hour, suddenly she wanted to get out and explore – rain and all.
Stopping the car directly in front of his door, she waited for him to climb out. It seemed that Mother Nature had decided to wait for that exact moment to throw more high winds and now hale in to the mix. “Great,” Holly mumbled, “more fun for the drive home. Can’t this night just end?” Her head slumped forward on to the steering wheel in defeat.
Without a wor
d, Stephen reached across the car, turned the key and shut it off, taking the keys out of the ignition. “Um, excuse me,” Holly chimed in a sing-song voice. “What do you think you’re doing? I can’t drive home without my keys.”
“You can’t drive home at all in this. It’s almost three-thirty in the morning and the weather’s gotten worse. I may have been an inconsiderate bastard thus far, but I’m hoping to remedy that right now. I have five extra bedrooms, Holly; you can take your pick and sleep. I’ve kept you out and awake long enough.” With that, he climbed out of the car and went to open the front door of the house.
Holly sat mutely for a minute. Was the man for real? Sleep at Stephen’s house? Was that appropriate? Should she protest? It wasn’t like she was sleeping with Stephen; she was just sleeping in his house. She could choose whichever bedroom was furthest from his and it would be fine, right? Chewing her lip, she looked up and saw him leaning in the open doorway, half asleep and waiting. Sighing with resignation, she pulled up her hood, climbed out and went to join him.
“Thank you,” she grumbled as she walked past him in to the house. Stepping inside, Holley immediately kicked off her wet sneakers while she waited in the foyer for him to lead the way around. Within minutes she found herself walking up a grand, curved staircase before coming to stand in a room that was almost the size of the first floor of her own condo!
Besides being massive in size, it was beautifully decorated. Holly had decorated Stephen’s last home but this one he had purchased as the model home with all of the furnishings. The back wall had a huge picture window with floor to ceiling drapes in shades of cream and taupe. The bed, which looked the size of a small continent with four posters, stood along the middle of the right wall and was piled high with pillows in jewel tones. The furniture was large and honey colored and Holly just wanted to sigh.
“You have your own bathroom through here,” Stephen indicated, “and there are fresh towels in the closet. There is soap, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste all in there, as well, and a robe hanging on the back of the door.” He stopped with hands on hips and glanced around the room as if making sure he wasn’t forgetting anything. And then it hit him, “Wait here.”
In the Eye of the Storm Page 1