From Boss to Bridegroom

Max was not something Lucy hid from anyone and it was on the tip of her tongue to admit that yes, she was a single mother. But at the same time it also occurred to her that it was none of Rand Colton’s business one way or another. Being a parent—even a single parent—would not interfere with the job he wanted her to do for him. On the other hand, as vehement as he was on the subject of single mothers, Lucy thought that it could very well influence his opinion of her and that could reflect down the road in referrals or derogatory comments he might make to other attorneys she could be courting for research work.

She didn’t deny having a child—that was something she would never do. But since he was leaving it up to her to give him the sign that she did have a child by turning the job down, she just didn’t do it. Instead she said, “I assure you I will not let personal calls interrupt my work and you’ll get very full days out of me. They’ll just end at five.”

“I work later than that.”

“I don’t.”

Lucy met him eye to eye in the stare-down that followed, not so much as blinking before he did. Yes, she’d come to realize working with this man would give her just the opening and contacts she needed to garner future research work and so the job was more valuable to her than she’d originally thought, but it wasn’t so vital that she would neglect Max because of it.

Rand Colton was the first to break the standoff.

“You know I’m under the gun here. The library back there—” he threw a nod over his shoulder in the direction of the corridor behind him “—is full of files that need to be updated, sorted and put away. I don’t know how people can tout themselves as competent when they don’t even seem to know the alphabet. I’m working on several big cases and, as I’m sure you’ve gathered just since arriving, my scheduling is a mess.”

“I can take care of all that.”

“But not after five.”

“I’ll give you one late night to get things under control. But after that I leave at five. No matter what.”

“Are you rushing off to a husband or a boyfriend who can’t fix his own dinner?”

“Is exposure of my private life a factor in doing your filing?”

He sized her up again but his expression was still more amused than not.

“So I can take your services or leave them, but anything outside of the office is off-limits. Is that it?”

“I’m only temporary help,” she reminded him. “I don’t see why too many details need to be explored for me to come in on that basis.”

He went on piercing her with those deep cobalt-blue eyes that seemed more remarkable the longer Lucy looked into them. But in the end he conceded.

“I’m trusting Sadie not to steer me wrong about your skills, so I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with days that end at five. But you’d better be as good as your aunt says you are.”

“So I’m hired?”

“You’re hired. Can you start tomorrow?”

“On a Friday?”

He nodded. “And stay tomorrow night the way you said you would.”

Rand Colton, playboy, wanted to work on a Friday night?

“All right,” Lucy agreed because it wasn’t as if she had anything planned. “Then I’ll be here at eight tomorrow morning.”

“Sadie didn’t tell you about that?”

About what? Her aunt hadn’t told her much about him at all over the years, just as Sadie had apparently not told him about her.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to. I know you’re a prominent attorney who was originally from California, and that’s about all Sadie has told me.”

“She also told you I’m brusque and demanding,” he reminded, that quirky smile making a reappearance to let her know he found that amusing.

“And that you’re brusque and demanding,” she confirmed. “But nothing about what’s wrong with my being here at eight tomorrow morning.”

“I live in Georgetown, too. I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty. I like to start work on the way in. It saves us going over what needs to be accomplished for the day when we both get here. So, seven-thirty,” he repeated. “Sharp. Don’t keep me waiting.”

Since that sounded like a dismissal, Lucy stood.

“Seven-thirty. I’ll be ready.”

“And I have you until late tomorrow night.”

Why did that sound like something that involved more than work?

She was probably just imagining it.

Or was he trying to charm her?

It didn’t make any difference because she was absolutely going to ignore those flutters that were dancing around in her insides again in response.

“I’ll even bring after-hours shoes,” she said as if to convince him.

“Okay. Then we’re squared away.”

“But you will be looking for someone permanent to take my place? I really want to get into my freelance work at home before too long,” she said to make sure they were clear.

“I have an employment agency on it as we speak.”

“Good.”

“Say hello to Sadie for me,” Rand Colton said then.

“I will.”

“If you’re half the secretary she is, I’ll be satisfied.”

“I’m sure you’ll be satisfied,” Lucy said, mortified the moment the word was out of her mouth that she’d unconsciously put a lascivious spin on it. “With my work,” she added in a hurry, compounding her error.

Rand Colton grinned at her this time. A full, delighted grin of glistening, perfect white teeth that let her know right then and there why he had so many women willing to spend time with him.

But he let her off the hook by crossing to the office door to hold it open for her and saying a simple, “Seven-thirty.”

Lucy fought the blush that was heating her cheeks and took her exit, unhappy that she also noticed the fresh, clean scent of his aftershave as she passed in front of him to leave.

“I’ll tell Sadie you said hello,” Lucy muttered just for something to say as she left the office.

But her encounter with Rand Colton didn’t end then because he stayed in his doorway, watching her as she retraced her steps to the elevator. And when she hazarded a glance just before stepping into it, she found him still there, studying her.

But at least once the elevator doors closed she was alone and could breathe out the air she’d been unwittingly holding in her lungs.

It was going to be harder than she thought to work for Rand Colton, she realized on the way down from the twenty-third floor.

She could handle a difficult, demanding boss. But a difficult, demanding boss with gorgeous blue eyes, a body straight out of Esquire, charm, wit and even an unexpected sense of humor, who set off flutters in her stomach?

That was something else again.

Two

R and had never needed much sleep. The next morning, as usual, he was awake before the November sun had made an appearance. It was his morning routine right after waking to pour himself a cup of coffee, grab the just-delivered Washington Post and climb back into bed to read it before he showered.

But this morning, current events weren’t holding his interest. His gaze kept straying to the clock on his nightstand as if that would make time go faster.

He didn’t understand why he was so eager to get to work. He hadn’t felt that way in a long while now.

In fact, he hadn’t felt particularly eager about anything in a while now.

There were family problems back home in Prosperino, California, and he’d tried to tell himself that was the cause. But the truth was that there was something about his own life that seemed to have taken a turn when he wasn’t looking.

He didn’t understand it, and he couldn’t explain it. But in the last several months he’d lost some of the joy he’d found in things before. In his work. In his everyday life. In everything.

He still had the same intense drive to succeed, the same burning need to win his cases. That was just his nature—maybe because he was a firstborn. But he didn’t feel that old desire to charge into his day anymore. Nor his after-hours activities either, whether it was dinner with a supermodel in town for a shoot, a party at the White House, a fund-raiser for one of his pet causes or a weekend in the country with a gorgeous woman. It was as if everything had become mundane to him. Even excelling at what he did or being on the A-list around town.

Yet here he was this morning, excited to get his day under way.

Why was that?

The day ahead of him was like any other one. He had calls to make, clients to see, briefs and motions to write, a court appearance after lunch and then more of the same when he got back. Then he had the evening working with Lucy Lowry to straighten up the messes left by the previous secretaries.

Lucy Lowry.

Thinking about her intensified his sense of eagerness.

His latest temporary secretary was causing it?

That couldn’t be.

But there it was, irrefutably. What he was looking forward to today was seeing her again.

If that wasn’t the oddest thing, he didn’t know what was. He’d come away from their meeting yesterday thinking that he was who had really been interviewed. That he’d ended up being told how things were going to be run more than being the one to tell her. That she’d made the rules and left him to take it or leave it rather than the other way around. She was bossy and bold and outspoken.

So why was he so anxious to put himself in line for more of it?

She was great-looking, that was likely part of it. He was a sucker for a slender but curvy body with breasts that were just full enough. And that flawless ivory skin didn’t hurt anything. Or that curly mahogany hair—she’d no doubt thought she’d camouflaged its natural seductiveness by trussing it up.

She had a pert little nose, too. Upturned at the end. That wasn’t something he usually noticed, but for some reason he could picture it in his mind’s eye as if he’d fashioned it himself.

Then there were her eyes. Wide eyes that offset her simmering sexuality with a more innocent, doelike quality. Sparkling, crystal-blue eyes the color of a clear mountain lake in springtime. They were alight with life, with vigor, energy and spunk. Plenty of spunk.

In fact, he realized as he watched the sunrise through the sliding doors that led from his bedroom onto the balcony, she had so much spunk she reminded him of the characters Katharine Hepburn had played in so many of her movies with Spencer Tracy. Beautiful, feisty, sharp, smart and able to hold her own with Tracy whether as a lawyer or a reporter or a business whiz.

That was Lucy Lowry—beautiful, feisty, sharp and smart.

And he couldn’t seem to get the image of her out of his mind—any more than he could slow the increased beat of his heart every time she slipped into his head.

So what did that mean? That after fifteen minutes with her he was infatuated?

That was ridiculous.

He hadn’t been infatuated-at-first-sight with anyone since his first year in college. He hadn’t been particularly infatuated even after-first-sight with anyone for longer than he could remember. He enjoyed the company of the various women in his life. He looked forward to spending time with them, to everything they did together. But infatuated?

That was something else entirely.

That was like having a schoolboy crush and that wasn’t something Rand Colton did.

But how else could he explain being so excited about going to work?

Maybe he was just glad to finally have someone competent onboard. Maybe the idea of getting his office in order again had just gone to his head.

Of course it would help if she hadn’t put that five-o’clock stipulation on things, he thought, actually searching for something contrary to find in the situation.

What was that all about anyway? She’d been so adamant.

There had to be a man behind it, he decided. Some guy she was rushing home to, whether she admitted it or not.

But that possibility rankled Rand and again he looked for a reason.

He had so much work he needed taken care of—that was all. And there she was decreeing that her day would end at five o’clock on the dot no matter what.

Decreeing—that rubbed him wrong, too. And there’d been plenty of it. Plenty of decreeing and dictating. And big baby-blue eyes or no big baby-blue eyes, he didn’t like it.

Any better than he liked the thought that she might be running to some other man….

Oh, brother, there was that again.

Some other man? As if he were involved with her and a boyfriend would be another man in her life?

“Maybe I’ve been working too hard,” Rand muttered to himself, disgusted with his own train of thought.

Lucy Lowry was just one more in a string of women who had passed through his office since Sadie’s retirement, he told himself reasonably. There had been a dozen before her, there would be more after her, and that was all there was to it. What she did outside the office and who she fraternized with were her own business and no concern of his.

And being eager to see her again this morning?

It was just…

Well, he didn’t know what it was. But it wasn’t infatuation.

He tossed aside his unread newspaper, set his coffee cup on the nightstand and got out of bed, feeling more agitated than eager now. Because the very idea that he might be interested in Lucy Lowry was too much to bear.

Women didn’t come into his life and tell him what to do. And he sure as hell didn’t like them if they did. He was only tolerating it in Lucy Lowry because he was in dire need of office help and Sadie had assured him he would get it from her niece.

Yet despite all his sternness with himself, all his reasoning and rationalizing, as he headed for the shower Lucy Lowry popped into his mind’s eye again and he found himself wondering what that burnished hair of hers looked like down, falling in loose curls around her face.

And if she might wear it that way today…

Lucy’s doorbell rang at precisely seven-twenty-nine.

She opened the door, expecting to find Rand Colton on the stoop and instead faced a stout, balding older man in a chauffeur’s uniform.

She glanced beyond him at the long black Town Car parked at the curb and assumed her boss was waiting there.

“I’ll be right out,” she informed the driver.

Then she closed the door again and went into the living room where Max sat on Sadie’s lap, his teddy bear snuggled into the crook of one pajama-clad arm.

“Okay, buddy, I have to go. Remember what I told you last night—Aunt Sadie will bring you to day care later this morning when she goes to read to the kids. Until then you’ll stay at her place. She’s making you a special breakfast and I put your dinosaur videotape in your backpack so you can watch that if you want or you can watch cartoons. Then you’ll come home with Aunt Sadie this afternoon and stay with her again. I probably won’t be home before you go to bed but it’s only this once and I’ll call you today and again tonight. Got all that?”

Max nodded solemnly, more asleep than awake and seemingly unfazed by his mother’s imminent departure.

“I’ll miss you,” Lucy told him.

“Miss you, too.”

“Be a good boy.”

Again the nod.

Lucy knew he’d be fine. She didn’t have a doubt that Sadie would take good care of him or that he’d enjoy playing with kids his own age at the day care. She knew he did well with other children, that he made friends easily. But she still felt awful leaving him for such an extended amount of time.

It’s only for today, she reminded herself.

And fast on that thought came one that had been popping into her head all through the last evening and again this morning like some kind of consolation prize—that she was spending the time away from her son with Rand Colton.

She didn’t want that to be something that could brighten her spirits. But for some reason it was. Some reason she didn’t even want to think about, let alone analyze.

“Kiss,” she demanded of her son.

An instant, impish grin tugged at the corner of Max’s mouth just before he planted a wet one on her cheek. Then he turned his face for her to do the same to him.

“I’m taking the Triceratops to day care with me,” he informed her in the meantime.

“Okay, but you know the deal. You have to share.”

“Then maybe I better take the Tyrannosaurus, too.”

Max said that as if it were serious business, which, to him, dinosaurs were.

“Have a nice day.” She ruffled his hair as she said goodbye to her aunt, then forced herself to walk out the door.

“You have a good day, too,” Sadie called after her.

The big black Lincoln Town Car outside had windows too darkly tinted to see through, yet knowing Rand was in that back seat made Lucy’s pulse pick up more speed with each step that drew her nearer.

She wanted to believe it was nothing but first-day jitters. But she knew better. This had more to do with the man himself. And as much as she wished she could deny that fact, she couldn’t.

There had been something about their brief meeting the day before that had caused him to stick in her mind vividly. Images of his tall, lean-but-muscular body, of his handsome face, even of his big hands, had kept her company all through the night.

Something about their brief meeting had caused her to wake up earlier than necessary this morning with a desire to dress just so for their coming day and evening together, inspiring her to wear her best suit, a pale blue cashmere that buttoned in a diagonal from her right shoulder to her left hip. It had been an extremely expensive birthday gift from her aunt that she saved for only the most important workdays.

And worst of all, there had been something about her brief meeting with Rand Colton that had caused her to look forward to today as if it were some kind of special occasion she’d been waiting for her whole life.

He’s your boss, she reminded herself firmly. Not to mention that he was arrogant and irascible. And that she wasn’t interested.

But still, as his driver got out and hurried around the car, a twitter of excitement danced across the surface of her skin at the imminence of seeing Rand Colton again. And no amount of telling herself that sense of excitement was completely uncalled-for made any difference.

When the driver opened the door for her, she got her first view of Rand. Or at least of his profile.

His dark, dark hair was impeccably combed, his face clean-shaven, and the scent of his aftershave wafted enticingly out to her.

He wasn’t wearing a suit coat to cover his pristine white dress shirt, complete with French cuffs and cuff links of brushed gold. Against the stark whiteness of the shirt he wore a mauve silk tie Windsor-knotted at his throat. His suit pants were a rich wool that were not quite black and not quite gray but somewhere between the two. He looked better than any man had a right to that early in the morning.

But Lucy tried not to notice.

“Thank you,” she muttered to the driver as she slipped into the back seat.

Rand was writing something on a sheet of paper braced by a leather-bound notebook. The notebook was propped against a massive thigh that was raised with the aid of his ankle perched atop the opposite knee.

He didn’t look up as Lucy got in and the driver closed the door behind her. He didn’t even say good morning.

Neither did she. Instead she said, “You’re from California and you don’t know how to drive?”

“Of course I know how to drive,” he answered, still not looking up from what he was doing. “But I like living in Georgetown and I don’t like taking the Metro into the city.”

Oh no, no public transportation for His Nibs…

“Besides,” he went on, “we can get a surprising lot of work done on the way into the office if someone else is behind the wheel and fighting traffic. So yes, I own a car, but I also invest in a service that provides this car and driver.”

He continued to write at a breakneck pace and apparently didn’t intend to waste any more time on small talk because he said, “You’ll find paper and pen in the pocket behind the seat. Take this down.”

And so Lucy’s day began.

From that moment on she barely had time to even notice Rand the man. He was like working with an excessively efficient machine. It took everything she had to keep up with him whether he was rattling off the perfect letter or having her jot down notes on his train of thought in preparation for writing a brief, or ordering her to fix his coffee, or to get a client on the phone or bring him a file.

He had the most rapid-fire mind—and mouth to go with it—that she’d ever encountered. No wonder he’d run through a succession of secretaries, Lucy thought more than once during the day. He was almost superhuman and what he really needed was two or three secretaries to meet all his needs.

Not that Lucy missed a step, because she didn’t. In fact, matching him movement for movement became a challenge to her, and once she’d met that challenge, she one-upped him by anticipating several requests before he actually made them. Even though the job and the pace were not what she would have opted to do every day for the rest of her life, she found it all exhilarating. She found him exhilarating, if she were honest with herself or had had the time to ponder it.

She did manage to sneak in a phone call to Max while Rand was in court, but beyond that the day flew by. Before she knew it, it was nearly 6:00 p.m. and they switched gears to tackle what Rand called the mess in the library—stacks of papers and files that previous secretaries had obviously set aside to deal with after the maelstrom of Rand’s workday and then never gotten back to.

But the evening’s work was actually a nice change. After hours her sometimes-hard-to-take boss grew much less intense. Off came the exquisitely tailored suit coat he’d worn from the moment he’d gotten out of the car that morning, joined over a chair-back by his tie. Then he opened the collar button of his hardly wrinkled shirt and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, exposing a thick neck and forearms so sinewy any construction worker would have been proud of them.

“Get out those comfortable shoes you said you were bringing,” he advised Lucy as he led the way to the room he less formally referred to as the research room.

Rand was still all business as they passed the evening going through the stacks of papers. He checked each sheet to make sure what it contained and where it belonged, then handed it to Lucy, telling her which file to put it in.

It was a monotonous task that didn’t allow for conversation as Rand concentrated on what he was doing. But Lucy found herself waiting almost breathlessly for each of those silences to be broken by the deep tones of a voice so rich it could have come from a jazz singer in a smoky New Orleans bar.

When all the papers were tucked neatly into the files, Lucy excused herself for a bathroom break and used her cell phone to call Max and bid him good-night. By the time she returned to the office Rand had transferred all the files to the file room where they spent the remainder of the evening sifting through the deep drawers of the cabinets to put the files away.

She was surprised to find Rand joining her in that portion of the job. Making sure the papers got into the correct files had required his participation, but finding the right slot for them was certainly not something he needed to attend to. Yet there he was, doing just that, right alongside her.

It was nice, Lucy admitted reluctantly. Nice to see that no job was too small for his attention. Rand Colton might be a bear to work for but he didn’t demand any less of himself than he did of anyone else, and somehow that seemed to cushion the weight of his heavy expectations.

By ten o’clock Lucy was beat and glad when they finally finished.

Even Rand seemed worn out as he raised long arms above his head, flexed his broad shoulders and stretched toward the ceiling.

“Okay, enough is enough,” he said to the accompaniment of his back cracking. “That was quite a day’s work.”