He told himself he had no business wondering. Her privacy was to be respected, as was his. He too kept himself at a distance from others, for what he considered to be very good reasons. He should be relieved, actually. He’d had a secretary once who’d made the silly mistake of believing herself in love with him. It had gotten very awkward, very messy before he’d finally been forced to discharge her in a scene he still couldn’t remember without wincing. Thank goodness there’d be no risk of anything like that happening with Ms. St. Clair. She was too good an assistant to lose over something so unreasonable.
So, he’d stop wondering what it would be like to stroke those long, silky legs. Stop wondering how those soft, slightly pouty lips would taste. Stop imagining that slender, nicely curved body beneath his. Shifting uncomfortably in his desk chair, he scowled down at the readout in front of him, realizing he’d completely lost his concentration. Damn. Maybe it had been too long since he’d been with a woman. Too bad there wasn’t a conveniently uncomplicated one around who interested him even a fraction as much as his puzzling assistant.
SPINNING HER CHAIR to face the window of her office, Angie hung up the telephone with a grimace she would not have indulged had anyone been in the room with her. She’d just completed a call to an associate in California, and the man had made every effort to be the breezy L.A. cliche. Weariness making her a bit giddy, in addition to missing both breakfast and lunch that day, she lifted her nose in a mock-snooty expression. “Fan-tas-tic, sweetheart. It’s a done deal,” she mimicked wickedly. “Have your people do lunch with my people. Ciao.” And then she laughed softly at her own foolishness.
“Let me guess. You’ve been talking to Henderson in L.A.,” drawled a deep voice from the doorway behind her.
Angie closed her eyes in a mortified wince. Of all people to catch her indulging in a rare bit of frivolity, it would have to be Mr. Wakefield! Composing her expression, she turned her chair around. “Yes, I was,” she admitted, glancing up at him. Something in his gray eyes caught her attention for a moment. A gleam of shared amusement? A momentary awareness of her as a person, not simply an emp
loyee? Surely not, she told herself, dropping her eyes back to her desk. “I have the figures here you requested, Mr. Wakefield. As you can see, they’re almost exactly as you’d predicted.”
She handed him the report she’d just finished, noting when she did so that his eyes had returned to normal. Shuttered, inscrutable. And she chided herself sternly for unreasonably feeling a bit disappointed that the brief moment of communication was over.
For the remainder of the day, she was especially careful to be even more efficient and professional than usual. If her employer noted any difference in her behavior, he didn’t comment. But then, he never did.
SITTING ALONE IN A BOOTH in a trendy restaurant close to her office, Angie scanned The Wall Street Journal as she finished her salad. Having lunch was a rare luxury for her. Rhys—as she called him only in her mind these days—usually kept her so busy there wasn’t time for such leisure. His two-day business trip to Dallas was giving her a break, of sorts—one of the few in the four months she’d worked for him. Not that she’d slacked off at the office, of course. But without Rhys’s constant instructions, she was able to do her work and have time for lunch. As hard as she’d worked during the past months, she still didn’t have the same stamina her employer displayed. She sometimes needed to rest. He apparently did not.
A familiar voice from the other side of the stained-glass divider that separated her booth from the adjoining one caught her attention. Darla, one of the secretaries from the office, spoke quite clearly. “Did you hear that the new engineer made a pass at the deputy dictator today?”
The answering laugh was also known to her—Gay Webster, from data processing. “Poor man. Was he still in one piece when she finished with him?”
“Mmm. I hear he hasn’t stopped shaking yet, though. And his color may never be the same. Seems he’s a bit pale.”
“Frostbite, most likely. How anyone that gorgeous on the outside could be so cold and hard on the inside is totally beyond me.”
“You want to know something really funny? When Mr. Wakefield first hired her, I thought maybe she was his mistress. It wouldn’t be the first time a man hired his girlfriend for a highly paid assistant’s position. I must have been temporarily delusional. I mean, we both know neither Wakefield nor St. Clair have the same urges as most other humans. They’re as cold to each other as they are to everyone else. Shoot, they probably don’t even have sex. With anyone.”
Gay laughed again. “Ain’t it the truth. But if there was ever a perfect pair, those two would be it. Both of them hard as nails, perfectionists, real loners. It’s not as if either of them are overtly unfriendly to any of us. They’re polite enough, unless someone steps out of line, of course. But—brr! Cold is the right description.”
Perhaps a third of her salad still lay on her plate, but Angie had suddenly lost her appetite. Pushing the plate away, she picked up her purse, carefully folded her newspaper and stood. Her movement drew the attention of the two women in the next booth. Angie noted that both of her co-workers looked immediately horrified to recognize her. She nodded coolly to them. “Hello, Gay. Darla. Enjoying your lunch?”
She didn’t wait for them to answer, but walked away with her chin high, her pace unhurried. She found some comfort in the knowledge that no observer could have possibly known how deeply she’d just been hurt.
Hard as nails. Loner. Cold. And they’d been talking about her. Echoes of voices from the past filled her mind as she drove mechanically back to the office.
Hey, Party Angel! Give us one of your beautiful smiles.
Oh, Angie, you’re such a cutup. Aren’t you ever serious?
We’re bored, Angie. Do one of your funny monologues. Make us laugh.
Gosh, I envy you, Angie. You’re beautiful and rich and popular. You’re so lucky, Angie.
So lucky. Angie nearly gave into an unladylike snort as she shoved the gearshift of the aging sedan into park after maneuvering it into her private parking space in the WakeTech lot. How things changed. How she had changed.
As she turned the key in the door of the battered ten-year-old car, she thought fleetingly of a candy-apple-red sportscar. Yes, things had definitely changed.
SHE TRIED VERY HARD not to dwell on her co-workers’ spiteful words as she worked that afternoon. Afternoon stretched into early evening and still she sat, shuffling papers, studying numbers, perusing correspondence. She would not leave until everything was ready for Rhys’s return the next morning.
Rhys. If there was ever a perfect pair, those two would be it. Gay’s words slammed into her mind with an almost physical punch. Angie had been so very careful not to even mentally acknowledge her nagging attraction to her employer during the past months. It hadn’t always been easy. More than once a meeting of eyes, an accidental touch, a very brief moment of shared amusement had weakened her resistance, made her tremble with a wholly unwanted awareness of Rhys Wakefield, the man. Yet she’d managed to maintain an emotional distance at all times. She hadn’t recovered enough from past wounds to allow herself to form even the beginnings of a relationship. She had no intention of becoming involved with her complex, brilliant, unfathomable employer.
Not that she had anything to fear on that score, she thought soberly. There had been times when she’d wondered if Rhys even noticed that she was a woman—not that she would have it any other way, of course. It was simply that she was accustomed to being pampered and admired, both for her looks and for her former wealth and social position. Her illogical feminine ego had taken some comfort from the passes she’d intercepted initially from various male co-workers, though after several months of icily determined refusals, even the most ardent pursuer had conceded defeat. Only the occasional newcomer dared make advances to her now. And that was exactly the way she wanted it.
Though her own reasons for solitude were simple enough, she couldn’t help wondering why an attractive, seemingly healthy male such as Rhys would be rumored to live an almost monklike existence. He was always the first to arrive and the last to leave the office, weekdays, weekends and holidays. If he were seeing anyone, Angie couldn’t imagine when he would find the time.
She slammed a folder closed with more force than necessary. Rhys Wakefield’s social life was none of her business, she reminded herself sternly. She had work to do, and plenty of problems of her own to occupy her thoughts.
Work completed, she reached for her purse in preparation to leave. Feeling a bit disheveled, she pulled out a small mirror to check her discreet makeup and neatly pinned hair. Something about the unsmiling, sensibly attired image in the mirror held her still for a long time. When the reflected woman’s full lower lip quivered, she didn’t even notice a film of unexpected, unwelcome tears suddenly obscuring her vision. Shoving the mirror into her purse, she rested her forehead on her hand, swallowing an inexplicable sob.