Sweet Surrendering Read online

  “This company needs him, Miss Clarke.” Now it was my turn to talk again. “And working with you is the best place.”

  “I’ll consider him,” I said, knowing that it was already a done deal. What the board wanted, the board got.

  “You need to do what’s best for you, but remember that the needs of the many overpower the needs of the few.” Oh my God. He was using Spock Logic on me and he probably didn’t even know it. I stifled another laugh as a cough and nodded and tried and stop myself from telling him to live long and prosper as he gave me one last hard look before he went to take the Danish that someone has saved for him.

  Dad gave me a look and then followed me back to my office.

  “What was that about?”

  “Oh nothing, he just ‘strongly suggested’ that I hire Lucas as my assistant and by ‘strongly suggested’ I mean he said I had to because the company needs him.” I sat down in my chair in a huff and pinched the bridge of my nose with my hand. This day needed to be over two hours ago.

  “Yes, Hal and I had a chat about him, and I have to agree with him. There’s no one else that’s so overqualified. We would be lucky to have him.” Lucas Blaine should have changed his name to Jesus Christ, because everyone seemed to be worshipping him. What I didn’t get was why he wanted this dinky little assistant job, if he was qualified, and he obviously didn’t need money. It just wasn’t adding up.

  Dad interrupted my wonderings. “Unless you have any overwhelming reasons not to hire him?” Other than the fact that I’d slept with him?

  “None at all,” I said with another smile that made my teeth hurt.

  “Good. I’ll be glad to have someone to pick up the slack for you. You’re working too hard again.” Dad always thought I was working too hard because I was still his little princess and I always would be. I also couldn’t say no to him.

  “I’m fine. I’ll just check his references and call him with the good news.” I would rather swallow five very large and venomous spiders than call Lucas and tell him he’d gotten the job. I could ask Mrs. Andrews to do it for me, but that would have made me look like a coward. I had to do this for the good of the company. My company.

  Mr. Craig, one of the other Vice Presidents who also had a billion other titles, was waiting for me when I got back to my office. I wasn’t in the best mood, and I just gave him a terse nod as I walked back into my office. Of course he followed me in.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, no. I was just wondering how the meeting went.” He had been curiously absent, but Mr. Craig wasn’t a big fan of meetings. He liked to spend as much company time on the golf course wooing clients as he could. He wasn’t a bad guy, just lazy.

  “We went with the fancy pens. Anything else is in the minutes they send around.” Somehow, files had started multiplying on my desk like rabbits.

  “Oh well. I just wanted to check in.” Why was he checking in WITH ME? He snapped his fingers as if he had just remembered something.

  “Could you let Walter know I need to leave early today? I have an appointment with my acupuncturist. My sciatica’s been acting up,” he said, holding his back and cringing in a comical way. Yeah, maybe you should stop playing so much fucking golf.

  I was in rare form due to the Lucas Blaine situation. I might have also been PMS-ing. And, it wasn’t my freaking job to tell my dad that he had to leave early. Grow a pair and do it yourself. But I didn’t tell him to do that. Instead, I said, “sure, I’ll tell him.” Mr. Craig gave me the thumbs up and strolled back to his office, whistling as I banged my head on my desk.

  Lucas Blaine had quite a fan club. All of his references ranted and raved and sang his praises and I was beginning to wonder if they had also slept with him.

  I hung up with the last one, a woman who praised him like the second coming, and then it was time.

  Of course I had to organize my drawers, arrange my pens, get more coffee and reapply my makeup before I did it. I put it off as long as I could, but I was really drowning under my work here. I had been completely avoiding my voicemail box.

  Taking one deep breath, I picked up the phone and willed my voice to be steady, and my brain to provide me with the appropriate words.

  “Hello?”

  Mmm, that voice. I paused for a second and forgot what I was supposed to be doing, so I cleared my throat.

  “Hello, may I please speak to Lucas Blaine?” I knew it was him, but I didn’t want him to know I recognized his voice from just the hello.

  “This is he.” Swoon.

  “Hi, Mr. Blaine, this is Aurora Clarke from Clarke Enterprises. I was just calling to tell you that you got the assistant job.”

  “Hello again, Aurora Clarke.” Oh, the way his voice caressed my name made me quiver.

  Stop that.

  “That is very good news to hear. I have been sitting here and waiting for your call.” There were sounds in the background and I could tell he wasn’t at home.

  “I’m sure you were,” I said sarcastically, dropping all pretense of being professional.

  He laughed and I wanted to strangle him through the phone.

  “So, when do I start?”

  I gritted my teeth before I answered.

  “How about tomorrow? We can get you set up on the company software and Mrs. Andrews can show the ropes. Be here at eight.”

  “I’ll be there. How do you take your . . . coffee?” Oh, he was going to make this a miserable experience, wasn’t he?

  “Look, whatever happened, happened and I think we’re both grown-up enough to put it behind us. Besides,” I said with a smirk I hoped he would hear in my voice, “if it’s a choice between he said, she said, I win. Cream and sugar. Eight o’clock.”

  Before he could say anything else, I hung up on him, slamming the phone into the receiver, but I swear I could still hear him laughing.

  As fate would have it, I was running late the next morning. Traffic was horrendous due to some construction and I skidded into the lobby, nearly wiping out on the smooth floor. A hand reached out and prevented my face-plant.

  “Good morning, Miss Clarke.” I peered into those blue/gray eyes and they were smiling and laughing at me.

  Damn, he looked good in the morning. I stood up and adjusted myself, trying to gain composure.

  “Coffee?” he said, holding out a tray with two cups on it. “The one with the happy face is yours.”

  I give him a look and took the happy face cup. I hadn’t had a chance to have my fix yet, and I was jonesing.

  “Shall we?” he said after I took a sip. He turned and didn’t wait before striding toward the elevator and hitting the Up button. I sighed to myself and followed him. This time he was dressed in a perfect gray suit and sapphire tie, and the diamond stud was back in his ear.

  “I never wear my nipple ring to the office, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said when he caught me staring at his chest and wondering that very thing. My face flamed red and I tried to glare at him.

  “I wasn’t thinking that.”

  Yes I was.

  “Yes you were.”

  “Shut up.” Wow, brilliant response, Rory. You sound exactly sixteen years old.

  He just grinned and handed me a bag.

  “Cheese Danish, cherry Danish, croissant and donut with strawberry frosting and sprinkles. I wasn’t sure what you liked.” His face was smug and I wanted to smack it and then smack a kiss on it.

  He seemed to read my thoughts again and turned his head to the side and moved his face closer to mine. I was captivated by his eyes and the enclosed space of the elevator and his smell and . . .

  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, cutting off the moment. Lucas pulled back and shook his head and tried to hand me the bag again. I snatched it from him.

  I was going to eat every single pastry in that bag. I was an equal opportunity pastry eater, but the strawberry donut was my first choice, though I wasn’t going to tell Lucas that.

  He said he
llo to Mrs. Andrews as he walked past her desk and she gave him a genuine smile, as if she was happy to see him. God, not her, too.

  I showed him around the office again, the break room, bathrooms, copier, etc., and he was too close for comfort, even though he was almost completely silent.

  He followed me all the way to my desk and I was about to snap at him to stop following me, but then I realized I hadn’t showed him to his desk.

  Get your head in the game, Clarke.

  I set down my coffee and the bag of pastries.

  “Your, um, desk is right over there,” I said, pointing to the desk that was right in the middle of the hallway across from my office. Granted, I had a door in between us, but I almost never closed it (BLB, Before Lucas Blaine) unless I needed privacy, and that was rare. So basically, we’d be facing each other. All day. Every day.

  Those stormy eyes would be staring at me for at least forty hours a week. More if we had a big project to work on.

  He faced me and walked backwards to his desk with a come hither smile. He wasn’t making this easy. Well, I could make it hard.

  Head in the game, Clarke.

  I tried to snap my spine straight and made sure my heels made the maximum amount of noise as I crossed the space between us and started explaining everything.

  We did have a dedicated person whose job it was to train new employees, but I was a bit of a control freak and I’d rather teach him once and have him do it the way I wanted, than have to spend time making him unlearn one way and relearn my way.

  This meant there was a lot of leaning over his shoulder and trying not to breathe in his scent too much, or let our faces get close when he turned to ask me a question. I’m pretty sure he did that on purpose, along with leaning back in his chair and bumping into me, and the half-dozen chest grazes.

  It was evident within a few minutes that he was smart, he learned fast and he could remember it. I’d had a little hope that he’d turn out to be a moron, but he was sharp and took everything I could throw at him. I needed some space, so I started him out with the task of going through my inbox and flagging anything that might be important and deleting all the chain emails that were against company policy, but still seemed to make the rounds anyway.

  “I’ve got this, boss,” he said with another smirk as I walked back to my desk and I could feel his searing gaze on my ass. I tossed my hair back and closed the door behind me, breathing a small sigh of relief before going for my coffee and belated breakfast.

  An hour later I was knee deep in approving a presentation and wondering why it was that the people I worked with could speak html and CSS, but not English when there was a knock at my door. Wonder who that could be?

  I crumpled the empty pastry bag and shoved it in the trash bin before answering. For some reason I didn’t want him to know I’d binged and eaten everything due to the fact that he stressed the hell out of me.

  “Yes?” I kept my voice calm and cool and glued my eyes to the computer screen before the doorknob turned and he poked his head in.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to know if you needed anything. Coffee, or . . .” he trailed off with a smile. Bad boy.

  “I think I’m all set for now, but thank you. How are the emails coming?” I pretend to type something on the computer so I had an excuse not to look at his face. His freckles were especially cute today.

  “You seem to have a lot of spam coming in, so I reconfigured your filters. I hope you don’t mind.” That made me look up. I hadn’t messed with that in months, and not since the last software upgrade. You’d think, living my entire life inside this company, I would be on top of something like that.

  “Oh, thank you. Yeah, I have noticed a lot of funny stuff getting through, but I’ve been so swamped I haven’t been able to deal with it.”

  He gave me a smile and it was like I’d given him another gold star.

  “You’re welcome. Anytime. Just let me know if or when you need something, Miss Clarke.” He managed to make the last part sound just a little bit dirty.

  “Thank you, Mr. Blaine.” I called my last assistant Sal, but that was because he treated me like a granddaughter and that was just the way things were. I would have to keep the boundaries very clear with this one so he didn’t get any ideas.

  And so I didn’t get any ideas, either.

  Sloane texted me and asked if I wanted to have a lunch date, and I was thrilled because I needed her. I needed my best friend to vent to.

  I gathered up my purse and locked my computer and walked myself to Lucas’ desk. Mr. Blaine’s desk.

  I wanted to smash my head on his desk.

  I swear, everything I thought turned dirty in his presence. I shoved it aside as he looked up from the computer. His earring winked at me.

  “I’m going to lunch. When I come back, you can go. You, can, um call me if there’s an emergency, but I’m sure Mrs. Andrews would be able to help you out with whatever you need.”

  “Thank you very much, Miss Clarke. I hope you have a wonderful lunch,” he said with such a sweet voice and such a sweet smile I knew he was messing with me. Well, it was about time.

  “Thank you, Mr. Blaine, I’m suuuurrreee I will.” With a wink, I strutted slowly away from the desk and I knew he was watching me and I hoped he was remembering how awesome in bed I was because that was NEVER happening again.

  “You look all hot and bothered,” Sloane said as I sat down and she shoved a mimosa across the tablecloth at me.

  “Do I?” God, I hoped not. I didn’t want anyone at the office getting wind of my history with Mr. Blaine. I pulled out my compact and checked my face for signs of hotness or botheredness. My eyes were a little wide, but other than that I looked the same. Warm blonde hair, brown eyes, small nose.

  “Jesus, take a Valium, why don’t you?” I picked up the mimosa glass instead as the waiter made his way over and I ordered a pear and goat cheese salad and a bowl of minestrone. I figured it was the healthiest option since I’d had so many pastries this morning. My ass couldn’t deal with too many more calories.

  “So, how is it going?” Sloane said as she dug into her steak sandwich. Yes, she was one of those bitches who could eat ANYTHING and stay skinny without purging. Feel free to hate her for it.

  “It’s fine so far, although he has ogled my ass so many times, I feel like I should walk in slow motion so he can better admire it. Or maybe I should play sexy slow motion walking music while I walk in slow motion.” I was babbling and Sloane listened without interruption. This was our thing.

  When I was done she made a sympathetic face.

  “Well, I don’t know him, but I know you and I know that you take your job seriously and you won’t let anything get in the way of it. So I know that you’re going to put on your big girl panties and go back to work and be a goddamn professional.” She raised her glass and I clinked it with mine.

  That’s right. I was a goddamn professional.

  No guy with stormy eyes and a fuck me smile and a magic tongue was going to stand in the way of that.

  Because I was a goddamn professional.

  My confidence in my ability to be professional lasted as long as it took for me to walk to his desk and tell him that he could take his break.

  The second I met those eyes and saw that mouth forming words, I was lost again.

  “You okay?” He caught on, of course.

  “Yeah, I just had a mimosa and I think it went to my head.” Wow, brilliant save there Rory.

  “Or maybe you’re just going to swoon in my presence. Would you like me to catch you and then fetch the smelling salts?” And just like that, I was wondering how I ever found him attractive.

  “You get a half hour. No more. Be back here at one-thirty or you’re fired.” I stomped back to my office and shut the door. Seconds later, I heard his footsteps walking toward the elevator. I turned on my computer and threw myself back into work. Ah, work. My sanctuary.

  I went back to working on the presenta
tion, but checked the clock every few seconds. At one-thirty on the dot, there was a knock at my door. Damn.

  “I’m back, Miss Clarke,” he said, actually coming into the office this time and closing the door behind him. The place felt like it grew increasingly smaller until it was barely a closet.

  “Thank you for your punctuality, Mr. Blaine.” I straightened some papers on my desk, trying to breathe normally.

  “You are most welcome, Miss Clarke,” he said, sauntering toward the desk and resting his hands on it and leaning forward. “And please, if there’s anything I can do for you, anything, all you have to do is ask.” His voice dipped into a lower register that made my insides do funny backflips and cartwheels as his face came within a foot of mine.

  “Anything,” he breathed.

  I found myself involuntarily leaning forward and our lips were a whisper away . . .

  And there was a knock at the door and we broke apart like teenagers getting busted under the bleachers. I banged my knee on the desk and he nearly crashed into the credenza near the door trying to put space between us.

  “Come in,” I said, rubbing my knee and trying not to wince too much as Lucas (Mr. Blaine) straightened his tie.

  “Sorry to bother you, dear, but I just had a call for you and I didn’t see Mr. Blaine at his desk, but clearly he is here. Would you like me to transfer it?” Mrs. Andrews, bless her heart, seemed totally oblivious that she’d walked into a wall of sexual tension. Still, it’s a little strange that she walked all the way down here to tell me about a call when she could have just called my extension and the put the call through. Huh.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Fintan Herald.” Fabulous.

  “Sure, you can transfer him, Mrs. Andrews.” I gave her a smile and she nodded, her hand still on the doorknob.