by Dani Wade
She viewed his father’s memory and Eternity Designs as hers; Sloan was a threat to her reign as queen. His frustration had been building over this situation for years and he let it out for once.
“We need to shake things up,” he said. “We can’t afford to lose our biggest account because we’re afraid to break out of the mold. Reliance on tradition is getting you nowhere. Eternity Designs needs a modern edge, a new designer, a revamped portfolio. Pronto.”
That was exactly what Vivian didn’t want to hear. “Your father prided himself on the tradition inherent in this company and its designs,” she said, elegantly restrained anger sharpening her tone. “This discussion demonstrates exactly why he chose me to continue the legacy of Eternity Designs.”
Not you.
The wedding gown design firm had been in his family for three generations—if his current 40 percent share of it counted for anything. With Vivian, it didn’t. But the words of the accountant told him now was the time to insist on the control she’d denied him for so long.
“The whole company will go under if something isn’t done immediately.”
“Sixty percent ownership doesn’t mean you’re God,” he said, ignoring the burn of betrayal. “It’s a good thing dear ol’ Dad isn’t alive to see how you’ve run it into the ground.” Yep. Payback was a bitch.
A quick glance revealed Ziara stiffening, in surprise or defense he wasn’t sure. If she knew what the posture did for her magnificent breasts, she’d hunch in on herself for eternity. He paced back and forth in front of Vivian’s desk, arousal and frustration fueling his restlessness. The business expert in him was tired of talking.
The man in him begged for a totally different kind of action.
Watching Ziara’s reactions to his and Vivian’s little fight fascinated him more than he would have thought. Her exotic, raven-haired beauty brought to mind sensual, spice-scented nights. What would she look like with that thick bun let loose around her shoulders? With that suit jacket loosened up a few buttons? Seducing her out of her loyalty to Vivian was going to be such guilty fun.
He’d avoided getting involved with his employees like a contagious disease, to the point that he hadn’t even had an assistant for six months. But his desperation called for outrageous actions—like storming into Vivian’s office this morning. Finding out Ziara had given up company loyalty for carnal indulgence would probably mean a quick dismissal, but he couldn’t let that stop him. For Ziara this was a job; she’d find another one soon enough.
For Sloan, Eternity Designs was a legacy.
Vivian’s haughty belle persona reappeared. “You’re awfully sure of yourself, Sloan. Overconfidence leads to nasty downfalls. Those unconventional methods of yours won’t work in such a traditional company.”
“Those unconventional methods are just what Eternity needs. Less tradition, not more.” He turned to Ziara. Might as well put her to the test first thing. “What do you think? Is Eternity’s current path leading to success?”
“I...I...” Her almond-shaped eyes flicked back and forth between him and her mentor, panic darkening their chocolate color. After a moment she said, “Our designers do beautiful work, enough to build a loyal following. Families come here generation after generation to commission their dresses. Our motto, our focus has built a legacy. I have no proof otherwise.”
Test number one: fail.
Vivian echoed Ziara’s words. “Eternity Designs is truly where tradition and style forever align.”
Quoting the company’s motto as a defense ramped up Sloan’s anger. He needed to save this business. His father had worked hard to build it. He’d loved it just as Sloan did. Despite their differences at the time of his death, the 40 percent he’d gifted to Sloan in his will told him his father had wanted him to have some small part of his family’s heritage. He had to believe that, had to believe Vivian hadn’t poisoned every ounce of their father-son bond.
He glared at them both. “Maybe our motto needs to change.”
Ziara held very still, the only movement the frantic pulse beating at the base of that silky throat. But Vivian sighed heavily, with a touch of drama. She would have called it flair. He knew he wouldn’t like what came next.
“I’ve been thinking about options to get us through this little slump. I have a few friends who might know potential backers. That should tide us over until spring.”
Shock immobilized Sloan for a moment. Then a sharp spike of panic sliced through the numbness. Then another...and another. “We’re not letting an outsider buy into this company.”
“I’ll do what I have to in order to save Eternity.”
“Except call in the one man whose skills would provide the lifeline? Did you honestly think I’d sit back, mouth shut, while you let Eternity go out of the family?” He straightened, the hardball negotiator stepping onto the court. “You know me better than that, Vivian.”
With a blink, uncertainty leaked into Vivian’s eyes. “I truly don’t understand why you’d care.”
He shook his head slowly, sorrow over the state of his relationship with his late father leaking underneath the anger. “That right there proves how little you know me...or knew my father. This place was his life—” in the end more than even his son “—I want nothing more than for his life’s work to continue, to prove to his memory I’m more than you made me out to be. A hard worker, capable of contributing to the family dream, instead of a slacker who cares about nothing but myself. You’re still looking at me as a grieving kid, Vivian. Not the man I’ve actually become, the man my father saw in me before he died.”
But the tightening around her mouth told him she’d never see it that way. After years of convincing her husband that his only son was impulsive and undependable, repeatedly citing his teenage antics, his father had left her with the majority ownership of Eternity Designs. That’s all she cared about.
“Sloan, I would prefer to keep this inside family lines, such as they are. So I’ll stand by my word and give you a chance. But in the meantime, I’ll be working on a backup plan.”
It wasn’t much of a compromise, as they went, but he’d take what he could get. He needed carte blanche over the fall line. Because if Vivian knew the plans gathering mass in his mind, she’d shut him down in a heartbeat.
Her mouth pulled into a strained smile. “Just don’t go forgetting who is in charge around here.”
“I won’t. We’ll pretend you’re in charge while I become the linchpin holding everything together.”
It was a low blow, but he was beyond caring. Vivian straightened, her shoulders squaring as the pinching around her mouth deepened. Then a calculating look slid across her face, warning him he was about to pay for his disrespect.
“I have a caveat of my own. If you should happen to walk away before the fall line is presented—” her tone said she could happily run him off with a shotgun “—then Eternity Designs will become solely mine.”
Two
Nothing like a new challenge and a gorgeous woman to work with.
Sloan listened to Ziara’s movements in the outer office as he sat at his desk. He’d wondered whether she’d postpone coming in until the last minute, but here she was thirty minutes early, moving into her new office.
Yesterday she’d both confounded and fascinated him. Her exotic, Indian beauty stirred many un-bosslike urges. Her attempts to keep that beauty under wraps teased his senses. Did she think pulling her luxurious dark hair tight into a bun and covering those shapely legs made her a better employee? It probably did in Vivian’s eyes, but Sloan was a whole other matter.
Something she’d learn soon enough, and hopefully enjoy. Though he’d never seduced any of his employees—he spent more time running from than running after—he wasn’t above using this mutual attraction as one more tool to secure control of Eternity Designs. He would need h
er help to understand how things worked around here, to facilitate his relationships with the other employees after being shut out in the cold since his father’s death. If tempting her loyalty in his direction meant the reports to Vivian became fewer and further between, or even stopped, all the better.
Crossing the room with a heightened sense of anticipation, he eased through without alerting her to his entrance. She stood behind the desk, the chair pushed aside to give her room to reallocate her personal stuff. Her movements were elegant but efficient as she placed pens and papers in the desk drawers. Her careful concentration told him she had a precise way she wanted things and she’d find a way to create order in this new space.
He barely held back laughter as he sized her up. He was a red-blooded male and his body naturally heated despite her choice of clothes. She’d opted for a longer skirt and boxier jacket, as if that would hide the curvy shape of her hips and ass. But it was the scarf he found most amusing. From the back, he could see the curl of material around her neck. Did it merely cover her throat in the front, or had she gone all out to hide every single hint of bare skin, tucking the ends into her jacket?
Didn’t she realize that don’t touch me attitude set her up as his own personal challenge?
“Settling in okay?” he asked.
Her jerk of surprise should have made him feel guilty, but he suspected he had to sneak up on this one before she cut him off at the knees with her stern librarian attitude.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m almost ready.”
“No hurry,” he murmured, tracking the glide of her fingers over a few pictures. No people that he could see, just atmospheric photographs of simple wooden bridges, each in a different season. She arranged them carefully along the top of the nearby shelf, then reached into the remaining cardboard box once more.
Pulling out an object wrapped in cotton batting, she uncovered it layer by layer. She steadily revealed a glass object inscribed with words that she rubbed over a few times with the wrapping.
Too quick for her to stop him, he lifted the object from her hands for a closer look. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Be careful.”
“Ziara, you wound me,” he said with a cheesy helping of drama. “I promise not to drop it.”
The cut-glass award was shaped in the outline of a flowing gown, inscribed with the date and Employee of the Year. Ziara Divan. “Employee of the Year, huh?”
“I’ve worked hard to get where I am.”
“And where is that exactly?”
“If all goes well, I’ll be promoted to Vivian’s personal assistant when Abigail retires next spring.”
“Wow, a full-fledged executive assistant at the tender age of—”
She drew a deep breath, as if he were a toddler trying her patience. “Twenty-seven.”
“So young to be so buttoned-down.” He aimed a pointed look at her scarf, which did indeed drape down to cover that delectable collarbone and upper chest.
“There are worse things to be.”
“Like what?”
For a moment it looked like she would speak, but then those full lips pressed tight. Her hand extended, palm up, and her perfectly manicured fingertips curled in a give it to me gesture. “Behave, please.”
He stepped closer, moving past her invisible keep away signs. “Let’s get something straight here, Ziara. You’re playing by my rules now. I’d imagine I have seriously different requirements for becoming Employee of the Year.”
She swallowed hard. “Excuse me?”
She reached for the award, moving her body even closer to him, and he used the opportunity to snag an edge of the scarf. Luckily for him, it was only loosely twisted and unraveled like a dream from around her neck and into his hands.
Award forgotten, her hands clamped to her bare neckline, then she glared at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“A little employee training.” He rubbed the material between his fingers but resisted the urge to lift it to his nose and find out if it smelled like her. Vanilla and cinnamon spice. “I’m not nearly as stuffy as Vivian. I don’t run my office that way.”
“Mr. Creighton—”
“Uh-uh. Sloan.”
He was surprised she could talk through teeth that tightly clenched. “Sloan, your behavior is inappropriate in the extreme.”
“Is it? Are you going to charge me with sexual harassment?”
That cool eyebrow lifted in condemnation. “If I have to.”
Her response was so unexpected, he almost choked. Man, he sure enjoyed a woman with spice, but she didn’t need to know that. Yet. “Oh, I don’t think you will.”
She opened her mouth, but he continued on. “I know Vivian gave you this job for a reason.” He leaned even closer to her, watching her heartbeat speed up in the well of her collarbone. “And not just because you’re organized and can turn in paperwork on time. After all, she knows something about assistants and their access to—how can I say this diplomatically—company secrets.”
Not even an attempt at a response this time.
He pushed a little harder. “Isn’t that right, Vivian’s little spy?”
“That’s insulting.”
But she didn’t look insulted. The waver of her gaze and uncertain look meant one thing: guilt. “There’s no point in pretending, Ziara. Vivian put you here to keep an eye on me, and report back everything she needs—or doesn’t need—to know. But that’s okay.”
Her eyes jerked back to his, widening to give him a great view of chocolate irises shot with gold sparks.
“Just remember,” he said, “forewarned is forearmed.”
For long seconds neither of them moved, gazes locked in either a worthy battle or forbidden attraction, he wasn’t sure. All he felt was the blood pumping hard in his veins and an excitement he hadn’t brought to a job in many, many years.
With shaking hands she finally pulled the award from his grasp and turned to place it on the corner of her desk. Then, she pulled out a thick folder from a drawer of the filing cabinet. “Here is information on the current preparations for the fall line. I thought—”
He lifted the file from her unsteady hands, resentment that he had to rely on her for information mixing with the other emotions roiling through him. “What do we have here?”
She managed to maintain an outward calm. Almost. “Actually, I thought you might like me to familiarize myself with the project you’re here for.”
Her eyes begged, a moment of peace, but he wasn’t in the mood for mercy. “Let’s take this discussion into my office.”
* * *
A spy, he’d said. She’d never really thought about it that way.
How had she been promoted from executive assistant in training to spy in one morning? Proving herself to Vivian had been a long-held goal, but doing it now could put her in a very awkward position.
One last glance at her Employee of the Year award stilled her spinning universe. Looking at it, her uneasiness and frustration melted away and her resolve strengthened.
This is what I want. I’m almost there. Becoming executive assistant to the CEO of a major design firm had been her goal from her first day at Eternity Designs. At twenty-seven, the finish line loomed much closer than she’d dared to hope, despite the lack of money for anything other than a trade school degree.
She’d grown up with nothing—no, less than nothing. Oh, they’d technically had enough to live on, but every spare cent had gone for slutty clothes and accessories for her mother to attract the newer, better sugar daddy around the corner.
She’d dreamed of escaping from the trash that still stained her heart into her own office situated right outside of her role model Vivian Creighton’s. But would the price be worth this sacrifice?
Vivian and Sloan are playing a gam
e and I’m stuck in the middle.
Ziara was smart enough to realize it. Her firm loyalty to Vivian notwithstanding, her choices from here on out had to be dedicated to what was best for Eternity Designs. That was her only guarantee of keeping a clear conscience.
Vivian had given her a long lecture on all things Sloan yesterday afternoon. He’s not to be trusted. Why wouldn’t his father have just given him the business if he wanted him to run it? He’s up to something, I know it. Ziara had questions of her own, concerns about a man who spent his life reviving companies but completely ignored his family heritage until it was almost too late. If Sloan truly sought to ruin the company, as Vivian had also suggested...well, she wasn’t about to let him put anything over on her.
She’d just watch closely and learn to deal with him. She’d always been a stellar student. If she hesitated before crossing the threshold into his office, it didn’t mean anything. Drawing in a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders. A little over three months and her training period would be complete. This was simply a small bump on a long road.
She pushed the dilemmas from her mind and entered the room.
Sloan had chosen a corner office at the opposite end of the building from Vivian’s, his windows overlooking the sidewalk and shops that lined the streets in this part of town. Quaint, with a touch of subdued elegance, Ziara had always thought, and easily accessible through a MARTA stop only a few blocks away.
Instead of the soothing cream carpet prevalent in the rest of the offices, the flooring here had been replaced with dark wood planks. A desk just a shade or two darker dominated one corner, facing out so that Sloan could see the entire room, from the door to the floor-to-ceiling windows. He crossed the thick blue-and-burgundy rug to stand before them now, hands in his pockets, looking down from the fifth-story view.
For long moments he remained silhouetted against the lightened windows. His strong shoulders spoke of strength and shelter. The line tapered down to his waist, where his hands in his pockets drew the material of his dress pants across the high, firm cheeks of his backside.