Divine Assistant

And then he’d looked at her as if she were the one gone crazy. “Nothing’s impossible, Miss Divine. I’m surprised with that attitude you’ve gotten the slightest bit ahead in New York.”

Yes, getting ahead in New York was much more difficult than Lucy had imagined. It was a world away from her childhood in Oakland, and her student days in Palo Alto. In New York, with the amount of money Patrick Holden had, maybe nothing was impossible. But a solid MBA, a thirst to work and a desire to make someone of herself was actually not that much to get ahead on, especially in a city like this, where there were hundreds of thousands of other people just as thirsty and as willing to do what was needed to get the job done and rise ahead of the pack.

“My mother is flying in tomorrow, Miss Divine,” Holden said that morning as they rode together in the car. “I want you to pick her up at the airport, get her settled in the best hotel, take her shopping, take her anywhere, I don’t give a damn…just keep her off my back.”

Their frequent rides in one of the company’s preferred black cars usually consisted of him either barking orders at her or at his cell phone, while Lucy got to sit uncomfortably either beside him or across from him. She didn’t know which was worse.

Sitting beside him in the Lincoln felt like sitting next to a huge mass of tension that was waiting to explode at any minute, and no matter how she tried to reassure herself, she predicted that when he did explode she was going to get scorched. Sitting across from him in the limousine, however, she got a very complete, very discomforting look at his face, which was devilishly handsome even when frowning—which was most of the time.

She’d lately been thinking it was such a pity, such a waste of an eligible bachelor, that he should be such an arrogant pig, which was why, of course, no matter how rich and handsome he was, the man was still single at thirty-eight. Lucy doubted there would be any woman in her right mind who would want to settle down with a man who sent his assistant to buy her presents.

And yet, during these same uncomfortable car rides, Lucy got a glimpse of the mysterious workings of his mind, and the blazing heat of his personality. Watching him work usually left her nothing short of speechless. He was a fearless risk-taker, and Lucy was awed to be witness to the furious passion with which he worked. It was the same sort of driving passion that made one jump from great heights or paint master works. Patrick Holden’s lust for business was as potent as a composer’s quest for the great concerto.

When it came right down to it—it really turned her on.

Take GYRO, for instance. The software-processing business had a solid client base that included Dell, Hewlett Packard and Apple computers. But after losing a big contract to the larger Intel competition and not being able to cope with an enormous debt, had filed for Chapter 11. The stock immediately plummeted to nine cents per share, from the four dollars it had been worth. And from what Lucy had overheard from Holden’s numerous telephone conversations, he was buying up the stock like a man possessed. Though he hadn’t achieved major shareholder status just yet, he was already planning to set up new management, secure several long-term deals with Dell and Hewlett Packard, and change the small business’ status quo.

These sorts of deals were practically impossible without a solid financial backing that could provide the small company the security it needed to grow and expand. And although Lucy had her own share of ideas about the buy-out, similar to the ones Holden had, she had to admit she wouldn’t have had the guts to see them through. There was always the possibility of losing all that you risked.

That was why Lucy had taken this job—she wanted to learn from the very best. Barely two weeks into her new job and she had already realized something of vital importance—she was really going to have to grow into her pants if she expected to succeed in this line of business.

“I don’t give a damn what you have to do,” Holden had snapped over the phone at Simon Morris, head of mergers and acquisitions, just yesterday. “Raise the offer and buy it.” And he’d hung up.

“Don’t you think it’s a little rude to hang up all your cell phone conversations without even a farewell?” Lucy had asked him then. She’d noticed he never said “goodbye” to anyone on the phone and found it really annoying. He sat across from her in the limousine and remained silent while he eyed her steadily.

“We’re men, Miss Divine. That’s how we do business. Neither of us wants a hello, nor a farewell, we want to make money.”

“And saying ‘thank you’ or ‘goodbye’ would be too much of an effort?”

She could swear she saw the hint of a smile play on his lips as he pulled on his tie in exasperation, something he always seemed to do. “Yes. It would.” He took a bottled water from the wet bar to one side of the limo, cracked it open and took a swig. Then his forehead creased in one of his usual scowls. “Besides, I didn’t get where I am by saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’.”

Lucy had turned to stare out the window to hide her smile. Men were men, women were women and Holden was…himself. Yet no matter how much she privately enjoyed watching Holden during his business conversations, she felt extremely uncomfortable under his stare, at the way his eyes darkened when he looked at her. For the last couple days, Holden, rather than Carlos, had held the car door open for her, and the occasional brush of her elbow to his chest, or the sweep of his coat against her hair, or just about anything as fleeting as the feel of his breath on the top of her head effectively sent her senses spinning.

That afternoon, as she boarded the limo for their usual afternoon drive to his apartment, he halted her, his grip firm but gentle on her arm, his eyes intense on her face.

“Would you care for dinner, Miss Divine?” He’d spoken so softly she even wondered if she’d imagined the words. For a brief second she just stared up at him, unsure of what he meant. Was he asking her to dine with his employees in the kitchen of his apartment, or did she even dare think that he might be asking her to dine with him?

“I…”

Her lack of speech was hardly appropriate for a Stanford graduate. Still, she felt immobilized with shock, her whole body frozen by a wild fluttering in her chest and something else she dared call…hope.

His whole body stiffened at her apparent hesitation and suddenly he smiled coldly, arrogantly. “I know, I know. Some other time.”

That left her, unfortunately, with no reply whatsoever, and no matter how frantic she felt, it would be too inappropriate for her to backpedal. She should have promptly thought of a smarter reply—one more fitting for an educated professional such as herself, and not some silly dimwit.

He was silent on their way to his apartment, and when they arrived, he seemed hell-bent on staying as far away from her as he could while she selected his suit and tie—something she accomplished with record speed that evening.

Lucy was starting to really abhor touching his manly…things. It seemed so intimate, so very personal. Touching his things made her retire to her apartment every night with an inner longing—not to touch his clothes, but the powerful, arrogant man who wore them.

Holden was always so strong, so self-assured. Yet she’d had glimpses of him, sacred moments when his shoulders relaxed, his handsome features softened. Moments when he grew pensive and thoughtful. Moments when he would look at her as if…

She saw something there, something she didn’t know how to interpret, that pulled at the very essence of her soul as if his own was calling out to hers in recognition, in promise. Sometimes, when his guard was down, he seemed so…different.

Lucy was behaving very differently herself. She was, in fact, being very naughty. Her behavior was just despicable…at least in her mind. Lucy had been surprising herself with the erotic, vivid stories flying endlessly through her once-upon-a-time-intelligent brain.

Bad, wicked Lucy. There was something downright sickening about a woman who couldn’t look at her boss without staring down at his crotch—and that happened to her all the time, when all she should be focused on was her work. So why was she spending so much time evaluating this selfish, arrogant person? More importantly, why was she harboring fantasies about herself, on her knees, giving him oral sex—in the limo, for crying out loud! For this reason, after learning about his mother’s impending arrival, Lucy had been extremely grateful for an opportunity to get away from him and escort his mother around town. How bad could it be?

The next day, Lucy stood at the airport and watched a woman walk down the concourse toward her, hauling a brown suitcase splattered with Louis Vuitton monograms, a coat overwhelmed with Fendi’s signature interlocking-F symbols and a belt with the unmistakable Gucci GGs in glinting, polished gold. Lucy prayed, fervently and silently, that she not