“I tell you what. Let me know when you’ve got those finished, and I’ll plan out another batch to bring you. Maybe banana nut next time instead of blueberry, and I’m running a food cart downstairs for now. It’s just a step to get to my final goal. I’d like to own my own bakery some day.”
“Well, keep on baking like that, and I don’t think it’ll be too long before you get there, Sweetheart.” She snagged the handle of the basket. “I’m sure Mr. Pierce will appreciate a few of these himself. I’ll make sure to tell him you came by, and that you’ll be back with more. Though, I might have to hide those for myself if these muffins get too popular around here. You wouldn’t happen to have a business card or anything I could put out next to the basket would you?”
Charlotte fished into one of the pockets on her skirt, pulling out a business card she’d just had made up. When she opened the food cart and started marketing herself to the people around the building, her uncle had told her it would be a good idea to have something customers could use to get in touch with her for further orders. She passed it across the desk to Sophie with a warm grin.
“There you go, and let me know if there’s anything else you guys would like to see in the food cart downstairs. I’ll also do special orders for individual offices for meetings or events. I even do cakes for special events. I really appreciate the chance to get the word out about my business.” She nodded as Sophie slid the card into the top drawer of her desk.
“Well, if the rest of what you bake is as good as these muffins, I’m sure you’ll be getting a call sooner rather than later from us. Thank you for the baked goods. Anyone who can cook like this is definitely welcome back.” She walked around from behind the desk and glanced over at the closed double office doors to her right. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m overdue for a meeting in the boss’s office. Can’t be too late for one of those can you?” She nodded and walked off towards the wooden doors, leaving Charlotte behind to head off to the elevator, fairly convinced that she’d been successful in getting at least one more customer.
Chapter 2
Thursday afternoons were Preston Pierce’s least favorite time of day. Thursdays were always hectic with people trying to prepare as much as they could ahead of time so they could end Friday off early. Everyone tried to schedule everything in on a Thursday, and there were only so many hours in a day. Not that it really mattered to Preston. His secretary Sophie liked to hound him about the fact that he slept in his office. Most of the employees around here thought it was just a joke, but the truth was that he had a bed in the room off to one side of his office. He’d slept there more nights than he could count. He wasn’t much of a weekend person either. He hadn’t gotten this far in the business world by taking time off. Most weekends he could be found around the building or at his home working there instead of off golfing or skiing like most of the business associates around this building. Maybe that was why his office was on the top floor and his name was the one on the outside of the building.
Sophie should have been in here five minutes ago for the strategy meeting about the new business he was launching at the beginning of next week. All of the pieces should have already been in order, but he needed one last run through with her to make sure that everything he’d laid out had been put into action. He glanced at his watch and then up at the double doors to his office when she came through them with a basket draped across her arm.
“Listen, Boss. I know I should have been in here five minutes ago, but before you go off on me about punctuality have one of these.” She picked up one of the tiny muffins that lined the bottom of the basket and placed it in his palm. He glanced up and furrowed his brow as he noticed a familiar face just outside the door, as it was slowly closed on the hydraulic hinges that were made to keep it from slamming every time it was opened. He recognized the young woman from downstairs who’d just opened a new bakery cart in the lobby. Before she’d been there, it had housed some god awful sandwich maker who didn’t know how to make a decent reuben. He’d avoided it like the plague, but the first day she’d been there with an array of baked goods that filled the lobby with the smell of cinnamon and sugar, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from walking over and buying one on the spot. It also didn’t hurt that she was far more pleasant to look at than the balding man in his fifties who’d been the previous occupant.
“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 hi
s 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 smile 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.
* * *
Read the beginning of Charlotte and Preston’s story HERE!
Indulgence: A Billionaire Virgin Romance Page 11