Книга - Crazy About Her Impossible Boss

Crazy About Her Impossible Boss
Ally Blake


A man in a million… There’s only one problem: he’s her boss! Lucinda Starling has lost faith happy-ever-afters. She protects the important things: her young son and her job working for entrepreneur Angus Wolfe. Her boss must never know she’s crazy about him! Until one evening when he looks at her like she’s the only woman in the world…







A man in a million…

There’s only one problem: he’s her boss!

Single mom Lucinda Starling has lost faith in love or happy-ever-afters. She must protect the important things: her young son and her job working for entrepreneur Angus Wolfe! Her commitmentphobe boss must never know she’s crazy about him! Until one evening at a conference he looks at her like she’s the only woman in the world… Dare she risk all and be tempted by Angus?


Australian author ALLY BLAKE loves reading and strong coffee, porch swings and dappled sunshine, beautiful notebooks and soft, dark pencils. Her inquisitive, rambunctious, spectacular children are her exquisite delight. And she adores writing love stories so much she’d write them even if nobody read them. No wonder, then, having sold over four million copies of her romance novels worldwide, Ally is living her bliss. Find out more about Ally’s books at allyblake.com (http://www.allyblake.com).


Also by Ally Blake (#u956244a0-1b45-5a83-acdb-6614758dfe05)

Falling for the Rebel Heir

Hired: The Boss’s Bride

Dating the Rebel Tycoon

Millionaire Dad’s SOS

Hired by the Mysterious Millionaire

A Week with the Best Man

The Royals of Vallemont miniseries

Rescuing the Royal Runaway Bride

Amber and the Rogue Prince

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).


Crazy About Her Impossible Boss

Ally Blake






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-0-008-90315-2

CRAZY ABOUT HER IMPOSSIBLE BOSS

© 2019 Ally Blake

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Note to Readers (#u956244a0-1b45-5a83-acdb-6614758dfe05)


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To Jamie, Merle and Ryan and the gorgeous staff

at my ‘office’, aka Café Bliss.

They know me by name, point out excitedly when my

favourite booth is free, and let me rent a table any time

for the price of a latte and a piece of cake.

True patrons of the arts!


Contents

Cover (#u9d088718-07eb-509b-9cc1-480bf0e973f3)

Back Cover Text (#u00b09d30-ccae-5978-a434-4527b83aa694)

About the Author (#uf5ca4ebe-4aeb-5775-a126-e83219f2da7c)

Booklist (#u9e25bbc7-ae50-5995-9c0e-26c85f7f7c6a)

Title Page (#u809594ed-b509-51a1-a982-19d009e74366)

Copyright (#ube4cb04f-8115-56e3-8dd4-71a8a9ac951b)

Note to Readers

Dedication (#ub190f143-a032-55ed-ac6b-6c434eb49ea5)

CHAPTER ONE (#ua0388bea-27bf-5ca3-bbe6-82aec2f6f31b)

CHAPTER TWO (#u4d0cb001-751d-5146-b2b1-d0a6202fa382)

CHAPTER THREE (#u2cbdf00d-eace-5956-bcb0-83dd47e0d52c)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE (#u956244a0-1b45-5a83-acdb-6614758dfe05)


LUCINDA. PICK UP. Lucinda. Pickup. Lucinda. Pickup.

Lucinda’s fingers hovered over the keyboard keys right as the voice stopped, their ends tingling from typing ninety-plus words a minute.

She cocked an ear but couldn’t tell where the voice had come from.

From her desk—aka The Guard Tower Blocking All From Entrance Into Her Boss’s Sacred Space—she could see all the way from his corner office, down the hall past Reception to the lifts at the end, and there was no one nearby.

She went back to typing and…

Lucinda. Pick up. Lucinda. Pick up. Lucinda. Pick up.

With a huff, she lifted her fingers from the keys and zeroed in on the sound.

It was coming from her phone, which was lit up beseechingly by her elbow. Someone had added a new ringtone. The picture smiling back at her gave her a fair idea who was behind the deep, gravelly voice.

Biting her lips to suppress a scowl—or possibly a smile—Lucinda pressed the little red “end call” dot on the screen, flicking the call to voicemail. She was a busy woman. The man could wait.

Straightening her shoulders, Lucinda found her spot on the screen once more, pressed a quick finger to her earbud and picked up the trail of the conversation in her ear as Dahlia—Executive Assistant to the Head of Advertising at the Melbourne Ballet Company—continued her story about the man who’d stood her up for drinks the night before.

As Lucinda listened, mmm-ing in all the right places, she continued to type a bullet-point list of the day’s top business-related headlines—trending brands, celebrity gaffes and wins, as well as a few choice titbits she thought might be relevant to her boss—a ritual she’d begun when she’d first landed a job at the Big Picture Group six-and-a-half years earlier.

Then her mobile started ringing again, the tone deep, resonant and insistent. Male. Lucinda. Pick up. Lucinda. Pick up. Lucinda. Pick up.

Lucinda did not pick up. She opened a drawer, tossed the phone inside, covered it in a pile of miscellaneous paper and shut the drawer once more.

Then into her mouthpiece she said, “Dahlia, you are a rare gem. Find a man who sees your worth. One who looks you in the eye. Who listens when you speak. Who shows up when he says he will. Find a grown-up. Do not waste another moment settling for anything less. You’ll thank me.”

Dahlia thanked her profusely and rang off. But not before promising to send Lucinda a dozen A-circle tickets to opening night of the Melbourne Ballet’s next show. Lucinda didn’t bite back that smile. She already had a couple of clients lined up who’d love her for ever for those tickets.

Though she did wonder—if only briefly—whether she was, in fact, the best possible person Dahlia, or anyone, could turn to for dating advice. At least she hadn’t given Dahlia any advice she wouldn’t follow herself.

“Probably why you’ve been single for so long,” she muttered, before getting back to work.

Until her phone started up again. Lucinda. Pick up. Lucinda. Pick up. Lucinda. Pick up. Only muffled. By paper. And a closed drawer.

Lucinda slowly typed the last bullet point, saved the file and sent it flying through the ether to her boss’s computer, before turning on her chair to face the man himself.

Angus Wolfe, one of the top branding specialists in town, if not the country, sat on the other side of a wall of diffused, smoky glass that separated him from the rest of the world.

He leant back in his big leather chair, feet up on the decadently deep windowsill, face in profile as he looked out over the stunning view of the Melbourne skyline. The dying sun sparkled and glinted off the staggering shards of chrome and glass beyond but Lucinda only had eyes for the mobile phone pressed to his ear.

When the drawer began to vibrate a moment before her phone rang, she whipped it open, grabbed her phone and again pressed the little red “end call” dot. She then shoved back her chair, stalked to the discreet glass door that was hers and hers alone, opened it with a satisfying swish and strode across the acre of soft grey carpet to her boss’s desk.

There was no way he wasn’t fully aware she stood behind him. The man’s ability to read a room was legendary. He noticed changes in temperature, pulse, breathing and tone of voice the way other people noticed being kicked in the shin.

Yet still she took a selfish moment to drink him in before officially making herself known.

For Angus Wolfe’s profile was a study in staggering male beauty.

The man was all chiselled angles. Sharp jaw, close-shaven. Hair darkly curling and a mite over-long. The reading glasses he refused to admit he needed to wear did nothing to soften the impact of the most formidable pair of dark-hazel eyes that had ever been seen.

Even the tendons in his neck were a sight to behold.

Then he shifted. Slowly. Like a big cat stretching in the sun. The lines of his charcoal suit moved with him, cut as they were to make the most of his…everything. Each one cost more than she’d spent on her car. She knew. She paid his bills.

Then she spotted his socks. Peeking out from the top of his custom-made dress shoes was the merest hint of a wolf motif. She’d given him those socks for Christmas.

Her heart gave a little flutter, releasing a gossamer thread of lust that wafted from throat to belly to places less mentionable.

She squished the thing. Fast.

Angus Wolfe might be able to read a room, but if anyone dared claim that Lucinda Starling—his long-time executive assistant, his right-hand woman, his not-so-secret weapon—was a teeny, tiny little bit in love with him, he’d have laughed till he split a kidney.

Either she kept her cards closer to her chest than she realised or he had a blind spot when it came to her. The fact that he had no clue was a gift. And she planned to keep it that way.

For the sake of her job. Her self-respect. Her mental health.

When her phone went off in her hand—Lucinda. Pick up—she flinched.

Then she pulled herself together. She held her phone at arm’s length and said, “Really?”

A beat slunk by before Angus turned in his chair, mouth kicked to one side in the kind of half-smile that always meant trouble.

“When did you even get access to my phone?” she asked.

He tapped the side of his nose. “I have ways,” he said, his voice deeper in person than in the recording, the words unhurried, the effect magnetic. “Ways and means.”

“So they say,” she sassed.

No one else would have noticed Angus’s pause. The infinitesimal shift in his eyes. But Lucinda noticed it all. It was her job to do so. It was what made her so good at getting him what he needed before he even knew he needed it.

It was also why she mentally kicked herself for the flirty bass note in her voice.

Their relationship, as it was, was a finely tuned, perfectly balanced thing. There was sass, and plenty of it. And banter. There was also brutal honesty. And respect. A little flirtation was within the rules. Part of the game. For they worked really long hours and had to do what they had to do to keep it fun. It took work to keep the balance right. Work to make sure the guy had no clue how she felt about him.

Lucinda feigned resignation as she cocked a hip and waggled her phone in his general direction in order to deflect his attention. “Were you calling for a reason or were you just bored? Because I have plenty of admin I can sling your way if you’re looking for something to do.”

Angus blinked, breathed deeply through his nose and dragged his chair closer to his desk. “Thank you, but no. I wanted you.”

“I was busy,” she said, even while his words skipped and tripped through the unguarded parts of her subconscious.

“Doing what?”

She moved around behind his desk, turned the sleek monitor to face her and called up the screen that mirrored her own, where a bright-yellow computer-generated sticky note said, Read me.

Angus rubbed a single finger across the crease below his bottom lip. Lucinda tried not to stare at his mouth, she really did—but there she was, staring, as his face split into a grin. “Anyway, now I have you, sit.”

His voice had dropped. A fraction. Enough.

She glanced up at his eyes. Imagined a bookshop full of self-help books taking her to task for allowing herself even a brief moment of fantasy.

Gritting her teeth, Lucinda walked back round his desk, taking the time to change her ringtone to something less likely to make the hairs on the back of her neck flutter and tickle. Where was a funeral dirge when you needed one?

She pulled up her chair, the rose-pink velvet tub chair he’d bought her for Christmas. The fact he let her keep it in his office, the absolute best part of the gift.

She sat then pulled out the notebook and pencil she’d grabbed without thinking when she’d picked up her phone. She scratched the pencil a few times to warm it up and settled in preparation for Angus’s labyrinthine mind to shift, sway and touch on more bright ideas than any one person had the right to keep in their head.

“Ready?” he asked, that slight lift on one side of his mouth.

“Always.”

Angus clapped and like that he was in work mode. One hundred and ten percent. “Right. The Remède account.”

For the next ten minutes, Angus went on a wild and woolly stream of consciousness about the rebranding of the Remède cosmetics company, once upon a time a global force, now attempting a last-ditch about-turn in its fortunes before it sank.

It didn’t matter if it was a lipstick maker, a political party or a department-store chain. Angus knew what made people connect with a product. What made them want.

Angus jumped from thought to idea, from grand plan to fine detail. Pausing rarely, never forewarning the shifts. Using Lucinda as a sounding board, a mental stress ball, a repository for the pyrotechnics that had built up inside his brilliant head throughout the long working day.

And Lucinda wrote. The adrenaline high of keeping up with Angus’s mental gymnastics was cushioned by the tactile bliss of a dime-a-dozen 2B pencil tip gliding over quality note paper.

“And…?” she said, her voice a tad breathless, when he’d gone quiet for longer than a second.

“And we’re done.”

“Super.”

She figured it would take about another half an hour to pour the notes from the page into the right files and to-do lists and then she could head home.

“Plans tonight?” Angus asked.

“Not much.” Beyond the funny smell coming from the laundry that she’d promised herself she’d investigate.

Not that Angus would understand. His apartment was a sleek, temperature-controlled monument to earning big bucks.

While her cottage was…in need of a lot of TLC. But it was hers. Which made it wonderful.

“You?” she asked.

Again the small smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. It told of fine dining, decadently expensive wine, all while looking across the table at a beautiful woman.

She rolled her eyes.

A well-timed reminder of the many ways in which she and Angus might as well have been different species.

He could survive on the barest amount sleep per night, and often did, while if she didn’t get a solid seven in a row she woke up looking and feeling part-witch.

He had a kitchen he never used and didn’t need, considering he ate out every night, while she budgeted.

She could count on one hand the number of times he’d mentioned his family in six and a half years. While he knew everything there was to know about hers and they were more important to her than breath.

Her life was…slower. More structured. A daily routine of shopping lists stuck to the fridge door and juggling responsibilities. He said tomato, she said… Well, she said tomato as well.

The point was, at work they fit like custom-made kid gloves but their paths divided the moment they left the office.

On that note… When she reached the glass door at the boundary of his office, she stopped. Clicked her fingers. “Oh!” she said, as if she hadn’t been trying to find a way to bring up something all day long. “I have some leave saved up. Enough that Fitz and his HR army are getting twitchy. I’ve checked the calendar, and there’s nothing pressing, so I’m taking this weekend off.”

“Off?” he asked. “Or off-off?”

She had weekends off anyway, but working for Angus ensured that meant very little. The man never stopped working. He was a hustler at heart and the hustle knew no clock. And, as she was basically his computer, his sounding board and his answering machine, if he needed to get it out, she was the one who caught it.

“Off-off,” she said, taking a small step towards her door. “Friday through Sunday.”

“Why?” he asked, pulling himself to standing and stretching his arms over his head. His white business shirt clung to the acres of muscle and might, one button straining so far she caught a glimpse of taut, tanned skin.

Her voice was only a little husky when she said, “Does ‘none of your business’ mean anything to you?”

“Can’t say that it does.”

“I have plans.”

“What kind of plans?”

Come on, Lucinda. This is not a big deal. Stop prevaricating and tell him!

“Just…plans.”

“Plans!” a voice boomed from the direction of Angus’s main office doorway. Lucinda spun to find Fitz Beckett and Charlie Pullman, Angus’s business partners in the Big Picture Group, amble on in.

“I love plans,” said Fitz—broad, dashing, a total cad, the Big Picture Group’s partner in charge of Recruitment, and Angus’s cousin—as he hustled over to Lucinda, took hold of her and twirled her into a Hollywood dip. “Plans are my favourite. What are these plans of which you speak?”

Charlie—tall, lovely, an utter genius and the Big Picture partner in charge of Client Finance—followed in Fitz’s wake, giving Lucinda a shy smile before heading over to Angus’s desk and launching straight into a story about financial irregularities in one of their client’s accounts.

The three of them in one room was a formidable thing. The three of them in one company made for one-stop business branding, recruitment and financial strategy.

From her upside-down vantage point she saw Angus raise a finger to his mouth to ask Charlie to shush.

“Lucinda was just telling me about this weekend’s plans,” said Angus, his voice a deep rumble.

“Exciting plans?” Fitz asked as Lucinda slapped him on the arm until he brought her back upright.

“Do any of you men know the meaning of the word ‘boundaries’?”

Fitz shrugged. Charlie blinked. While Angus’s intense hazel gaze remained locked onto her.

When Fitz cleared his throat, Lucinda realised the room had gone quiet. How long had she been staring back?

In a panic, she covered herself by crossing her eyes. When she uncrossed them, she found the corner of Angus’s mouth had kicked into a half-smile.

Her heart fluttered like a baby bird in her chest.

“Look it up,” said Lucinda, not giving them even an inch. “If I don’t see you before I head off, have a good night.”

Fitz shot her a grin. “Count on it.”

Charlie lifted his hand in a wave.

Angus motioned the others over to the couches by the bookshelves and just like that he’d moved on to business. His one true love.

Lucinda turned and walked out of her boss’s office, shutting the door behind her with a snick. She moved back to her desk where she sat and waited for the tremors in her hands to subside.

Why hadn’t she just told him? Told all of them?

“Told them what, exactly?” she muttered as she put her notebook in her bag, deciding to type it up later that night, and closed up her desk for the day. “That you’ve been seeing a really fabulous man but you didn’t tell anyone as you didn’t want to jinx it? That, although he’s absolutely perfect on paper, you know you’ve been holding back because of this hopeless crush you have on your unsuspecting boss that has kept you in an emotional wasteland for the past several years? So now, even though you haven’t managed to light any real spark with Mr Perfect-on-Paper yet you’ve planned a dirty weekend with the guy because you’re not getting any younger.”

Yeah. She could just imagine their reaction.

Boundaries. Boundaries were a good thing. Angus did not need to know every minor detail of her life.

Lucinda slipped into her jacket, whipped her scarf around her neck, grabbed her bag and strode down the hall towards the bank of lifts, lifting a hand to wave to any stragglers still at their desks.

Lucinda pressed the Down button and waited, recalling another “minor detail” she’d kept to herself; the phone call she’d received just that day with a job offer most executive assistants would kill for.

What was the point? It was hardly news. Recruiters attempted to headhunt her all the time.

But, whatever challenging conditions came with their working relationship, she’d never leave Angus. Their connection was rare. The repartee, the respect, the shorthand, the success they shared. Every other assistant she commiserated with over then phone made her realise how lucky she was.

While without her he’d fall apart.

Being the best assistant Angus Wolfe could ever ask for meant she’d come to know the man better than she knew herself—literally.

His favourite colour? Charcoal grey.

Hers? Who knew? Bluish? Periwinkle? Was that more purple? She did like her yellow kettle a great deal.

She also knew he was even more hopeless when it came to romance than she was.

Though he’d say otherwise. He called himself a dedicated bachelor. A strident holdout when it came to romantic entanglements. Too busy. Too set in his ways. That not imposing those constraints on any one woman was a public service.

All of which meant that even if by some strange twist of fate Angus ever saw Lucinda in the same light in which she saw him, he would still not be the man for her.

For Lucinda liked entanglements. She yearned for constraints.

So, she, Lucinda Starling, planned to put an end to her self-imposed emotional wasteland.

None of which Angus ever needed to know.






“Honey, I’m home!”

Voice echoing down the hallway of her small cottage in suburban Abbotsford, Lucinda took off her jacket and scarf, not bothering to disentangle either from the handle of her bag as she dumped the lot in a heap on the hall table.

“In the kitchen!” called Catriona, Lucinda’s big sister, housemate and godsend.

Lucinda sniffed the air in the hope there might be a little leftover dinner she could snaffle and caught a whiff of chicken and potato wedges—the good ones she’d found on sale. She hoped Cat had added a little chopped carrot for colour and health. Maybe some baby spinach leaves.

Then she sighed as she kicked off her heels and padded down the hall.

Cat was in the kitchen, one foot tucked up against the other knee, chomping down on a piece of buttery toast.

Her sister had inherited their dad’s lanky genes. Lucinda was shorter and curvier, like their mum. She grabbed a carrot stick in lieu of the toast.

Thinking of her parents gave Lucinda a sad little clutch behind her sternum, as it always did, even though it was over ten years since the crash that had taken them.

Then she looked past her sister to the small room beyond. Her heart swelled, her lungs tightened and her head cleared of any and all things that had seemed so important only a moment before.

For there sat Sonny. Her beautiful boy. Hunched over a book at the tiny round table tucked into the nook beside the small kitchen, distractedly polishing off the last potato wedge. His plate was wiped clean bar a few spinach stems. Go Cat!

“Hey, sweet pea!” Lucinda called.

Sonny looked up from the adventures of Captain Underpants, hair the same dark brown as Lucinda’s hanging into his eyes. A blink later, his face broke into a smile filled with gappy baby teeth, one wobbly. “Hey, Mum!”

She edged around the bench and pressed back Sonny’s hair to give him a kiss on the forehead, making a mental note to book in a haircut. She caught scents of sweat and sunshine. “Good day?”

“Yup.”

“What’s the newsy news?” she asked as she headed into the kitchen.

Cat tilted her head towards the microwave, where a plate sat covered in a little mound of cheap, easy goodness. Lucinda nodded her thanks then plonked onto a chair tucked under the kitchen bench.

Sonny looked off to the side, searching his data banks for whatever snippet he’d tucked away, knowing she’d ask. “Mr Fish, the fighting fish that lives in the library, is missing.”

“Missing, you say? That is news.”

Sonny nodded. “Jacob K and I went to the library at lunchtime and saw the tank was empty. Jacob K asked if it was dead. Mrs Seedsman said, ‘Many believe they know what happens when a creature is no longer with us, but nobody knows for sure’.”

“Did she, now?” Lucinda looked to Cat who was biting back a laugh. “Quite the progressive, Mrs Seedsman.”

“I like her hair. It has purple bits on the ends.”

“Then I like Mrs Seedsman’s hair too.”

Happy with that, Sonny gave her another flash of his gorgeous smile before easing back into his book.

Lucinda turned to Cat. “Jacob K?”

“New kid,” said Cat. “Sonny was put in charge of him.”

“Of course he was. He’s the best. Anything else?”

Cat finished rinsing the plates and popping them in the dishwasher, before reaching for a glass of wine she’d clearly had airing in wait for Lucinda to get home and take over Sonny duties.

“All good. Came home chatty. Didn’t touch his sandwich again.”

Lucinda sighed. Once he was down, she’d be online searching for lunchbox ideas for kids who refused to eat sandwiches, as heaven forbid Sonny eat something she could prepare and freeze in advance.

She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Bath time, kiddo.”

“Okay,” said Sonny, not moving from his book.

Lucinda considered that her five-minute warning, knowing by now she’d have to ask at least three more times before he actually moved. It gave her time to unwind and settle into the different pace and sounds at home compared to the office.

Time to shed her work persona—proactive, sophisticated, tough, respected—put on her Mum skin—reactive, threadbare, fingers crossed she was making all the right choices, and a massive soft touch when it came to her boy—and remember that, whatever worries she dealt with at work, they always came second to this.

And always would.






A half-hour later, Sonny was bathed and dressed, his hair a little wet from being washed, his pyjamas soft from the two nights they’d already been worn. She could get another night out of them. He only had one other pair that fit. The joys of owning a growing boy.

Once he’d given Cat a goodnight hug, Sonny ran back into his room.

Lucinda carried him the last few metres, just because she could. It might not be an option for much longer. At eight years of age, the kid’s feet were nearly dragging on the floor.

Once Sonny was settled, Lucinda tucked herself up on his bed, making sure not to block his bedside lamp so he had enough light to read. They took turns reading and listening. When she dozed off for the second time, Lucinda gently closed the book and went through the rest of the night-time routine: butterfly kiss, nose-tip kiss and kiss on both cheeks, followed by a seven-second cuddle.

Special toys were found and tucked into their respective nightly positions—Dashy the Dog behind Sonny’s neck, Punky the Penguin behind his knees. Blankets were moved up to the chin, star-shaped night-light put on low.

This was the time of day when she felt so lucky to have this all to herself—this routine, this sweetness, this boy. Her heart filled her chest. She loved the kid so much.

Though give it ten more minutes and if he called her name needing a drink, or a trip to the toilet, she’d wish with all that same heart that she had a partner to shoulder the load.

Such were the swings and roundabouts of single motherhood.

Lucinda made it to the door before turning to blow one last kiss. “Goodnight, little man.”

“Night, Mum.”

“Love you.”

Yawn. Then, “Love you more.”

She went to close the door before she was stopped by a, “Hey, Mum?”

“Yeah, buddy.”

“Did Angus ring you today?”

Lucinda narrowed her eyes. “We work about three metres from one another all day long. We can wave from where we sit. So why would he…? The ringtone!”

Sonny tucked his sheet up to his nose to smother his laughter.

“Did you have a hand in that, little man?”

“Angus messaged last night to ask me how. Cat had let me use the tablet to research planets for homework,” he added quickly. “Not playing games.”

“Hmm. You are a rascal.”

Sonny grinned. The sweetest, most good-natured kid in the world, he was the least rascally kid ever. He made better choices than she ever would.

She was working on improving that score.

“Goodnight, little man.”

“Goodnight, Mum.”

She closed the door then notched it open just a sliver before padding back to the kitchen to stare inside the fridge in hope of healthy inspiration.

All the while thinking about Sonny. And Angus.

She knew they not so secretly messaged one another. She’d been the one to set up the private account when Sonny had worn her down with begging. And only after Angus had insisted it was fine with him so long as Lucinda had full access to the conversations.

Not that she checked much these days. It was mostly links to “try not to laugh” videos. But it had all started after a less innocent incident a few years back.

Sonny had woken up feeling sick one day, and none of Lucinda’s usual methods of cajoling, encouraging and downright bribery had convinced him to get ready for kindergarten. So, with a huge, unwieldy backlist of things to do waiting for her at work, she’d taken Sonny to the office with her for the first time.

Angus—completely up to date on every small thing—had shocked the living heck out of Lucinda when he’d offered to let Sonny hang with him in his office. After a good two and a half seconds of consideration she’d handed over Sonny’s tablet—a necessary evil of modern parenting—and left the men to their own devices.

Less than an hour in, over a mid-morning fruit snack, Angus had wangled from Sonny the real reason behind the “sore tummy”. The kindy group had spent time that week making Father’s Day cards.

Sonny—being Sonny—had put up his hand to ask his teacher what to do if he didn’t have a father to give a card to.

Lucinda had made it her life’s mission to make sure Sonny understood that, whether a child had a mum and a dad, or two mums or two dads, grandparents, siblings or a mum and a super-cool aunt, every type of family could be as rich with love as any other.

Unfortunately, other kids had pretty set opinions on what a “family” ought to look like and had made it their mission that day to make sure Sonny knew it too.

When Angus had pulled her aside that afternoon, while Sonny had been learning how to use the photocopier with one of the guys in accounts, Lucinda had felt sideswiped. Not only that Sonny had gone through such an ordeal but that he’d spilled to Angus. And not her.

Angus had taken her by both hands—something he’d never done before that day—had sat her down, made sure she was looking him in the eye and explained that he’d told Sonny how he’d grown up without a dad too.

She’d learned more about his childhood and his motivations for why he worked so hard in that one conversation than she had in all the time they’d known one another. And, when Angus had assured her that his imperfect mother’s love had been his north star, the guiding light that had kept him on the right path, she’d been hard pressed not to sob.

Things had changed between them that day.

In trusting Angus with her son, she’d given him the impetus to step out from behind the figurative wall from behind which he engaged with the world, leading to a moment between them that had been honest, raw and real. And the tiny, innocent glint of a crush she’d happily harboured had erupted, splintering off into a thousand replicas, spiralling uncontrollably into all directions like fireworks, too much, too many for her to have a hope of reining back in.

While Angus, with his vintage chess set and killer AFL handball skills, fast became Sonny’s hero. The strongest—maybe the only—male influence in his young life.

She’d never told Angus that Sonny had come home from kindy that week with a card made out to him. It was another of those “minor details” she figured best to keep to herself.

She heard the water cooler talk. She wasn’t alone in her crush. Every girl in the office was right there with her. Only, they talked about how infamously uncatchable he was. That he dated widely. And never for long. They called him the Lone Wolfe. If he knew how quickly Sonny had become attached to him it would have sent him back behind that wall.

As things stood, their friendship had grown. Evolved. Stretched. Become something important to them both. It was good. Just as it was.

Lucinda realised she was still holding open the fridge door. She let the door close, but not before taking out a small tub of chocolate custard.

Tossing the lid of the custard into the bin, Lucinda nabbed a spoon from the drying rack by the sink and went to find Cat in her usual spot, watching Netflix while typing away madly at the laptop balanced on a cushion on her lap.

A freelance journalist, Cat’s life was a case of produce or starve. But it also meant that when Lucinda’s husband had left, deciding marriage and parenthood was all too hard—while Lucinda had been cooking dinner and holding their toddler in her arms, no less—Cat had moved in the next day, more than filling the space Joe had left behind. Making Lucinda realise how little she’d asked of him. How little space she’d taken up herself.

Sonny had been thirteen months old. Earlier that day he’d walked for the first time.

That was nearly seven years ago now.

And it had taken that long for the regular routine, the comfort of home and the warm hum of work success to make room for other hopes and dreams that had begun to flicker at the corner of her mind’s eye.

With a sigh, Lucinda sank into the lounge room chair.

“So,” said Cat, tap-tap-tap.“Did you tell him?”

And, just like that, Lucinda’s contented little bubble burst. “Hmm?”

“Angus. Did you finally tell him about this weekend?”

Lucinda wriggled on her seat, trying to get comfortable. “Yep.”

Cat’s fingers stopped tapping. “Really? Did you say the words, ‘Mr Wolfe, sir, I am taking next weekend off because my man-friend, the estimable heart surgeon Dr Jameson Bancroft-Smythe, and I are going away to a fancy resort for some grown up time’?”

Lucinda’s silence spoke volumes.

Cat snapped her laptop shut. “Seriously?”

“I said I was taking the weekend off. The reason why is none of his business.”

Cat’s nostrils flared. “You forced Angus to stay here, sleeping in your bed while you bunked in with Sonny after he had dental surgery, because the dentist said there was a chance of bleeding overnight. The two of you obsessively text one another through every new episode of that stupid Warlock school show. You both spend way too much time coming up with wilder and-or weirder gifts for one another, just because. Not to mention whatever went down at that crazy office Christmas party a couple of years back. You and I both know the lines are very much blurred between your boss’s business and your own.”

Lucinda’s throat had gone dry at the mention of the office Christmas party. Cat must have been really agitated as she knew better than to bring it up. The events of that night had miraculously remained classified, locked in a vault ever since.

Moving on after a surreptitious swallow, Lucinda said, “What exactly do you want me to say?”

“I want you to admit to me why you didn’t you tell him about Jameson. You didn’t have a problem telling me all about it. If you and Angus are as tight as you claim to be, why not tell him?”

Cat was no idiot. Quite the contrary. She was a shark despite the fact that, modern journalism being what it was, she wrote as many stories about Instagram celebrities as she did about human rights violations. Which was why she said, “I need to hear you say the words.”

Lucinda threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know why! Maybe I’ve enjoyed keeping this part of my life just for me. Maybe it still feels precious, fragile and not quite real, and if I say it out loud it will pop. Maybe I’m slightly concerned if Angus knows then he’ll come over here when Jameson is due to pick me up and answer the door with a shotgun in hand so Jameson knows not to mess with me. Maybe if I tell Angus he’ll ask questions, and poke holes in my logic, and convince me I’m making a huge mistake.”

Cat sighed. Dramatically. “Nobody but you can make you feel anything.”

Lucinda dropped her hands and looked indulgently at her big sister. “I know that. I do. I’m just nervous, okay? I want this weekend to go as smoothly as possible. I need it to. I’ve already put so much effort into keeping things going this far, considering how often we’ve had to cancel our plans with his work and mine. And Angus is right in the middle of this huge account, working for a man he looks up to a great deal. It felt better not distracting him with things that don’t matter.”

Cat snorted, as if she didn’t believe a word of it.

“He’s sensitive,” Lucinda attested. He really was. Highly attuned to people’s needs and wants. It was what made him so good at his work. Judging from the little bits and pieces she’d picked up over the years about his childhood, staying hyper-aware had been the only way he’d survived.

“He’s a man-child,” Cat muttered.

“Cat!”

“He has a driver, a cleaner, someone else who answers his phone. No wonder he hasn’t found his own girl to take away for a serious weekend—none of them could possibly live up to his contingent of carers. And, in that list, I include you.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Lucinda shot back. “Without my part as a cog in the Angus Wolfe wheel, we would never have been able to afford this beautiful little house in which we now sit, all cosy and warm.”

What she didn’t say to Cat was that she didn’t see herself as one of his “contingent of carers”. She was his outlet. His release. In the tough, hard-working, driven life of Angus Wolfe, she was unique.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Cat asked. “You sell yourself short. And the great and wonderful Angus does too. He so takes you for granted. I could…” Cat stopped. Shook her head. “Tell him. Tomorrow. Or you’ll burst from holding it all in.”

Lucinda left Cat’s comment be. It wasn’t the first time Cat had tried to convince her Angus expected too much. She’d learned to agree to disagree.

She’d been an exhausted, inexperienced mother of a toddler who had no clue if she could do the job, much less commit to the hours required, when she’d interviewed to work for him. But he’d seen something in her nevertheless. Chutzpah, he’d said. A raging desire to pull herself up by the bootstraps that he understood.

He expected her to work hard, but he worked harder. And he’d never made her feel as if he took her for granted. Despite all she’d given up in order to work with him—time with her family, romantic relationships…

She shook her head and settled deeper into the chair.

“What ifs” were never worth the time spent dwelling on them. Life was good. Her family was healthy and happy. She loved her job. She had the security that came with having a roof over her head. What more could she want?

A devilish little voice whispered into her ear. Love. Intimacy. Romance. Someone who puts your needs first.

Hence the dirty weekend.

When her phone buzzed in her pocket, she found herself unsurprised to find a message from Angus.

She glanced at Cat, only to find her back typing at her ancient laptop.

The message asked if she was keen to start watching the final season of Warlock Academy on Netflix—a decade-old schlocky, supernatural teen drama they were both obsessed with. Another part of her job description—find TV shows just soapy enough to engage Angus and brain-numbing enough to let his active mind slow down so he could fall asleep at a reasonable hour.

She messaged back.

You bet.

Then she grabbed the remote, changed the channel, poked her tongue out at Cat when her sister groaned and settled in to watch teenaged witches and demons battle it out at a high school football match.

Though she kept shifting in her seat, unable to find a comfy spot.

For there was no denying that if she had to choose between her upcoming weekend away, with a handsome, eligible doctor who’d made it all too clear how much he liked her, or snuggling at home watching TV with a man who wasn’t even in the room, she’d choose the latter. Every time.

Worse, this was the first time admitting as much actually unnerved her.

Cat was right about one thing. Something had to give.




CHAPTER TWO (#u956244a0-1b45-5a83-acdb-6614758dfe05)


ANGUS LEANT BACK in his office chair, finger tapping against his lips as he looked over the impressive wall pinned with striking images, word clusters and thought clouds framing the penultimate drafts of the Remède rebranding that the graphics team had moved into his office earlier that morning.

Louis Fournier, the venerable president of the Remède cosmetics company, was just outside, leaning over Lucinda’s desk.

Angus didn’t need to see Lucinda’s face. From the way she sat forward in her chair, chin resting on her palm, chair swinging from side to side, it was clear she was flirting her heart out.

Angus felt the smile start in his throat before it even reached his mouth. Atta girl.

Fitz’s assistant—Velma—was built like a German tank with the accent to match. She was stern, efficient and ferociously protective of her charge. Fitz claimed he couldn’t be trusted with anyone more tempting under his nose all day long. Everyone knew he adored Velma as much as Velma doted on him.

Charlie’s new right hand—Kumar—was only slightly more human than Charlie. But, as work mates, they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle no one else understood.

In fact, there was not one single staff member at the Big Picture Group who was carried by someone else. Fitz for all his insouciance, was a ruthless recruiter. They ran a seriously tight ship.

And yet none of them held a candle to Lucinda.

The way she went about things was instinctive. And tenacious. She knew when to be brusque, when to be dulcet, when to be straight down the line and when to bewitch until she had even the most difficult clients eating out of her hand in a matter of minutes.

She was out there right now, wearing Remède’s Someday perfume. He’d seen it on her desk about an hour earlier. There was a story there, about her parents, both gone long before he’d met her. Lucinda kept a bottle in a drawer as a reminder of them, but she only pulled it out when Louis was on his way.

As if she felt his thoughts, Lucinda turned to look over her shoulder, the floppy frills at her collar framing her face, her long, dark hair swinging, her red lips curled into a half-smile.

The crack of the glass door created a slight distortion. He shifted slightly so he could see her whole face. It was a good face. Candid, spirited, empirically lovely and as familiar to him as his own.

A pair of small lines criss-crossed above her nose. A rare indicator of indecision.

Perhaps rare was the wrong word, for the criss-cross of lines over her nose had shown up more and more over the past weeks. Then there was that new lipstick. Darker, glossier than usual. She’d cut sugar from her coffee. Added infinitesimal pauses before each sentence. All of which, in Angus’s mind, spoke to restlessness. To a change in the air.

And he was not a man who liked change.

She lifted a single eyebrow in question. Ready?

It took him a moment to remember what he was meant to be ready for.

Louis Fournier. Remède. Saving his old friend’s business. He nodded curtly.

The criss-cross above her nose flickered off and on before she turned back to finish up with Louis.

Angus breathed out hard and rolled his shoulders.

His instinct for branding came from the ability to tap into the greater collective human subconscious. To mine people’s baser urges in order to encourage—no, demand—that they look to his clients to fulfil those needs.

Tapping into Lucinda’s baser needs to find out what was going on in her subconscious was not something he had any intention of doing.

Whatever was going on with Lucinda did not impact on her work. It would pass. Everything did. Eventually. And, if not, he’d drag it out of her when he had the Remèdeaccount off his plate.

Angus pressed out of his chair and moved to look over the mood wall one last time to make sure nothing had been missed. For nothing was ever perfect. Not for him. There were always improvements to make.

A childhood spent being told that he was a mistake by the procession of men in his mother’s life, a blight, in the way, had not been pleasant. But there was no doubt his burning need to prove them wrong was the root of his success. The reason he never stopped striving to do better, to be better, to reach for more.

Without them would he have been standing there in his huge corner office? Would he have had the gumption to land Louis Fournier as a client? As a mentor? As a friend?

He heard Lucinda’s laughter from beyond the glass wall and he turned away from the mood board. She’d pinch him if she heard him speak that way about the business. Literally. She’d growl at him to “chillax”. To appreciate all he’d accomplished. To enjoy the spoils.

His partners had no problem revelling in the benefits of their success. The highlight for Fitz had been when they’d been written up in GQ. Charlie’s highlight had come when the university from which he’d graduated with his doctorate in mathematics had enlisted him to manage their financial matters.

Angus’s one bright, shining moment?

It hadn’t hit him yet. Or, more precisely, for him it wasn’t about a moment. It was about moving forward. Stopping to look back, even for a moment, could halt the momentum he’d worked so hard to achieve. So he’d keep working. Keep striving. Keep kicking hard beneath the surface to make sure it continued.

Voices drifted through the glass door leading from Lucinda’s desk to his as Lucinda waved Louis into the office. Angus moved to meet them halfway.

“Gus,” said the older gentleman, a glint in his eye, and a goodly dose of French still in his accent despite his years spent in Australia. “Good of you to squeeze me in this morning.”

Angus’s gaze slid to Lucinda who was quietly shutting the door behind her. “Did you flirt him into calling me that?”

She opened her eyes wide and mouthed, “Who me?”

At which Louis scoffed. “You do not answer to Gus? I am an old man. Anything I can do to save the time I have left…”

“Fair enough,” said Angus. “Then I’d suggest you call that one Cindy. Every lost syllable helps.”

Louis looked over his shoulder in time to see Lucinda scowl menacingly Angus’s way. She tried to right herself, but only came across looking guiltier still.

Louis’s resultant laughter was rich and deep, full of the smoke left by a lifetime of cigars. “You two. Even if I did not have a business to save, I would pay simply to watch you spar.”

The guilt on Lucinda’s face made way for chagrin as Louis reminded him of their Hail Mary attempt to right his company’s ancient ship. For Remède, one of the world’s most revered beauty brands, was on the verge of collapse.

It would not happen on Angus’s watch. In fact, if he was on the hunt for a highlight, saving Remède from ruin would come close.

For, once upon a time, Louis Fournier had saved him.

Post-university, making waves as the youngest-ever junior partner in a whiz-bang upstart marketing firm, he’d met Louis at an industry night at which the older man had been a plus one.

They’d started up a conversation at the bar and found commonality in their disinterest in schmoozing and their love of French New Wave cinema.

The conversation had moved to the hotel lounge, leading to Angus missing the moment his team had won an award that night. Not that it had mattered. In the hour he’d spent with Louis he had already mentally moved on.

For Louis Fournier was the first man his senior who had seen straight through the cool veneer, the steely ambition, to the hunger beneath. The hunger to truly make a difference. And to show Angus that hunger had inherent value.

“Latte, Monsieur Fournier?” Lucinda asked, snapping Angus back to the present. “Milk, no sugar?”

“Oui. Merci.”

Lucinda didn’t need to ask for Angus’s order. She knew how he liked his coffee, his steak, his calendar. She knew his shirt size, his in-seam measurements and his favourite underwear—having restocked the closet in his private bathroom many times over.

She also knew when to pass the team baton to Angus, to switch off the glamour and melt into the background.

When she returned a few minutes later, bringing the neat silver tray and comforting aroma of hot coffee into the room, Angus hid his smile behind his hand. He couldn’t remember the last time Lucinda had brought him coffee rather than farming it out to an intern. The last time he’d asked if she’d be so kind, she’d laughed so hard he’d heard it even after she’d closed the door between them.

But Louis was old-school. The kind of gentlemen who would never enter a room before a woman, who smiled and nodded at every person who met his eye. And Lucinda had a huge soft spot for the man.

She placed Louis’s elegant, heat-resistant, double-layered glass on the table at his elbow, alongside a plate of small French pastries.

“Ah,” Louis said, eyes closing against the heavenly scent. “Parfait.” Angus recognised his mug in an instant. She’d bought it for him for… Lent? The Queen’s birthday? International Pirate Day? He’d lost track of the occasions once their gift-buying had become a blood sport.

He turned the mug. On one side it boasted his favourite Winston Churchill quote: Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. The other side of the mug had a tacky photo of a penguin pushing another penguin off an ice shelf.

When he looked up, Lucinda was leaning over him, placing a smaller plate of pastries beside him. The frills trickling fussily down the front of her shirt weighed the fabric down, giving him a glimpse of white lace. The swell of female curves.

He tensed and looked up. Her eyes were on her work, a smile curving the glossy red of her lips. Definitely a new colour for her. It suited her. A great deal. So much so, he’d found himself staring. Considering.

Reminding himself this was Lucinda. His assistant. His right hand. His foundation. His conscience. The yin to his yang. The light to his dark. He could not do what he did without her.

Therefore, there was no staring at her lips. Or beyond the frills of her shirt. Or at any other part of her. No matter how inviting. No matter how lovely. Those were the rules he’d set himself from day one when he’d first seen her sitting outside Fitz’s office waiting for an interview, foot tapping with nerves, the rest of her glowing with eagerness, charm and life.

Her eyes shifted to his.

“Appreciate it,” he murmured.

“My pleasure,” she replied, though the criss-cross of creases over her nose were back.

Damn it.

Angus schooled his features until he knew he appeared cool, unmoved, the very picture of ambivalence—an expression learned over many years at the feet of those who’d enjoyed it when he flinched.

It was an expression that had once made an intern cry. Not a deliberate move, but there you go. Lucinda, on the other hand, raised a single eyebrow. Slowly. As if she was bemused he was trying such a move on her.

“Need anything else?” she asked, under her breath.

I need you to stand up, he thought, his eyes starting to water with the effort not to stray. He wondered for a brief moment if Fitz’s tank-like assistant Velma had a twin sister he could hire instead.

Lucinda righted herself—thank everything good and holy—her glossy dark hair swinging past her shoulders and showering him in the scent of her shampoo; coconut and lime, making him think of cocktails. Of holidays. Of Christmas parties. One in particular that he did his very best not to think about. Especially in the middle of important business meetings.

“Shall I leave you boys to it?” she asked, hip cocking, swinging her pencil-skirt-clad backside right into his eyeline.

Angus’s gaze shot to the ceiling. Was that a spider’s web on the light fixture?

“Merci, Lucinda,” Louis said, saving Angus from having to answer. “You are not only an utter delight and a great beauty, with excellent taste in perfume, you can now add coffee angel to your list of super powers.”

“And I shall.”

“In fact, have you ever considered cosmetic modelling?”

Lucinda un-cocked her hip. “What’s that, now?”

“Your skin is like satin, cherie.”

“My skin?”

“Louis,” said Angus, his voice a little gruff. “Are you making a move on my girl?”

At that Lucinda twisted and pinned Angus with a look he’d never seen before. Her eyes were wide, pink sweeping fast across her cheeks. Her mouth opened as if she was about to say something before she snapped it shut and turned slowly back to Louis.

“Monsieur Fournier, beneath the satiny veneer of my glorious Remèdefoundation is the lamentable skin of the mother of an eight-year-old who refuses to sleep past five in the morning.”

Then she bent down and kissed the older man on the cheek.

“But you are sweet for pretending. Now, stop distracting me. I am an important person with important work to do.” With that she stalked out of the room.

Both men followed with their eyes.

Louis broke the silence. “Never let that one go.”

“Count on it,” Angus promised, even if the amazing Velma did in fact have a nicer twin.

Then, putting all thoughts of red lips and white lace aside, Angus got to work.






For the next hour, and even after Louis had said his goodbyes, Lucinda sat at her desk and vacillated between fuming and telling herself to stop being so ridiculously reactive.

But the moment Angus had said the words “Are you making a move on my girl?” something had snapped inside her.

She wasn’t usually so touchy. She knew it had been a joke. One she’d usually have played along with if it got the job done.

It was as if the conversation with Cat the night before had pried something loose. Then her earlier chat with Louis, in which he’d constantly joked about her being far too good for the likes of Angus, had further shifted whatever it was that now shook inside her.

The fact was, she was rattled. If she’d been in a mood like this at home she’d have found a way to distract herself while she got her head on straight. But, here, she couldn’t hide behind her desk all afternoon.

She was a grown-up who’d been through plenty worse. So, instead of sending an intern to clean away the cups, she did her best to shake it off and headed into Angus’s office.

“How’d it go?” she asked as she placed plates and coffee cups back onto the silver tray.

“As well as can be expected,” said Angus from his leaning spot, sitting on the wide shelf that ran under the long window, legs stretched out before him, gaze caught on some paperwork he held in one hand. “He kept reiterating that he has faith in us. In me.”

Words that would usually be music to Angus’s ears, but she could tell from his tone that they hadn’t been.

This, she thought, is what I need to find my equilibrium again.

Work talk. Pure, clear cut. Uncomplicated.

“But?” Lucinda said.

“He spent far more time talking about you. About how his perfume has never suited a woman more.”

And with that his eyes lifted to hers.

With the sun behind him he was little more than a silhouette, but she felt the glance all the same. Felt it hit her eyes, before tracing the line of her cheek and landing on her mouth.

She wished she hadn’t reapplied her lipstick as it suddenly felt too red. Too slick. And yet, conversely, as his gaze remained, she was also glad that she had.

Then he seemed to shake himself before he looked back down at the papers, lifted himself away from the window and tossed the papers onto his desk. “He also made it clear he believes that whatever I’m paying you it’s not enough.”

“He’s right, of course.”

“No doubt.” Hands sliding into the pockets of his suit pants, he rounded the desk towards her, those long legs eating up the distance between them in three short strides. “But it was a distraction. I get the feeling things are worse than he’s letting on.”

And there she was, caught up in some throwaway line, while Louis was in actual trouble. Gripping the tray harder, Lucinda said, “Could you convince him to let Charlie weigh in on his financials? Say it’s part of the service? No extra fee?”

Angus shook his head. “It was hard enough for him to come to me at all, and he could only do that by convincing himself he was doing me a favour.”

“Would you like me to put it to him?”

She saw Angus allow himself a moment to consider the offer. She wished Cat could see him in such a moment. For all his genius, and his self-belief, he was always open to her opinion.

But then he shook his head. Which was wasn’t uncommon either.

Yet, while any other time she’d have moved on, it turned out the rattle had not gone away. It trembled as she huffed out a breath filled with sudden frustration. “Seriously, I can sweet talk him into a meeting at least. I know I can.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Louis respects me. And likes me. But he also doesn’t have to worry about keeping up appearances where I’m concerned. He won’t fear that I will no longer look at him like he’s my hero.”

Angus shifted uncomfortably. “Leave it, Lucinda.”

“But—”

“Enough.” Angus ran a hand through his hair, giving the ends a tug.

Lucinda stilled. The only parts of her that moved were her shoulders, inching back, and her nostrils, flaring gently as she put the brakes on her temper. Barely.

Until his eyes once more snagged on hers.

“Was there something else?” he asked, slowly leaning back against his desk and folding his arms over his chest.

While he acted as if he hadn’t just shut her down, as if they were in the middle of a regular conversation, the rattle inside her began to shiver and shake until it bumped against her ribs like a drumbeat. Like a call to arms.

“Actually, yes,” she said before she even felt the words coming. “It’s about this weekend.”

“What about it?”

“My plans. I am going away with…” She stopped there. As if her words had smacked up against a stone wall. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip in an attempt to loosen them.

“Is this a guessing game?” Angus asked, his voice now edged with impatience. “You’re going with… Catriona? The Easter Bunny? Elvis?”

And just like that the rattle stopped rattling. As if a storm inside her had stilled. And her voice was calm, even, as she looked her boss in the eye and said, “I’m going away with a man.”

She watched Angus closely. As closely as one person could watch another. She noticed the flare of his nostrils. The tightening of his jaw. The way the rest of his body went preternaturally still.

Then she did her very best not to read anything into it. To pretend she was simply an employee passing on a titbit of little interest to her boss.

“A man,” Angus finally managed.

“Yes, a man. Not just any man,” said Lucinda, the floodgates now wide open. “The man I’ve been seeing. For a few weeks now.” Off and on. When he hadn’t been called away to surgery. Or to phone calls with doctors in developing countries needing his advice stat. He was a doctor. Had she mentioned that?

“Sonny?” Angus asked, his voice a mite strained. But that part she understood. That part made her shoulders relax down away from her ears. Raised by a single mother himself, Angus took Sonny’s welfare nearly as seriously as she did.

“Hasn’t met him yet,” she assured him. “But if this weekend goes well…”

Her boss blinked at her and said nothing. And now she couldn’t get a read on him at all. Only the fact that he looked so utterly disinterested told her that he was trying too hard.

Which, in turn, brought the rattle back to life. With a vengeance.

“Would you like to know where we’re going?”

There, a flicker below his right eye.

“A resort. Near Daylesford. Called Hanover House. It’s gorgeous. Well, Cat says it’s gorgeous. She did an article on it for a travel blog last year. Super-romantic.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed lightly before he said, “Sounds nice.”

Nice. This from a man who put words together that took businesses from the verge of ruin to stratospheric.

From the outside, Lucinda was certain their conversation seemed reasonable. Polite, even. But she felt as if she was watching it unfold from another dimension. The air crackled between them, voices rippling, words they were steadfastly refusing to utter buffeting against them in steadily increasing waves.

“How about the man himself? Don’t you want to ask who he is? What he does for a living? School grades? Parking tickets? How he votes? You’re usually all over that kind of thing. Figuring people out. Putting them into neat boxes so you know how to deal with them.”

A muscle twitched beneath his right eye.

What are you doing? a voice cried in the furthest recesses of her mind. What do you want from him? Are you looking for a reaction? Are you baiting him to tell you, “no, you can’t go”?

Angus lifted a hand and ran it over his chin, then around behind his neck. “Lucinda,” he said, “If you’re thinking ahead to letting Sonny meet him, then he is no doubt the kind of man both Sonny and I should hero worship. Now, are we done?”

He glanced pointedly at the coffee cups on the tray. His eyebrows rose, as if to remind her what she should be doing with her time rather than nattering with him about her private life.

Wow. Harsh.

They clashed all the time. Telling it like it was was their dynamic. And it worked. In fact, they fed off it. She knew if she walked away things could settle. They always did after such electric, static-fuelled dust-ups.

But, rather than feeling invigorated, she felt twitchy, discomfited and strangely hollow.

She turned and walked towards the door, her feet numb, her face burning.

But when she reached the door she stopped, turned and gave Angus one last look. “One more thing,” she said.

Angus breathed out hard. As if he was clinging to control by a fingernail. His voice was deep and tight as he said, “I think we’ve covered everything. You’re going away. HR has signed off on it. It’s done.”

“Not about the weekend,” she managed, even while storm clouds gathered about her head, lightning flashing with the darkness. “It’s about today. When I asked if I might be given the chance to try to convince Louis to talk to Charlie about Remède’s finances…”

She closed her eyes, shook her head and started afresh. “I get that you have the final word, that as your assistant it’s my job to grease the wheels, keep you fed and watered so that you’re able to perform at your best. But Angus?”

She waited, squeezing a breath into her tight lungs, as it took for ever for him to respond.

“Yes, Lucinda?”

“I’m not your girl.”

With that she took his dirty plates and left.




CHAPTER THREE (#u956244a0-1b45-5a83-acdb-6614758dfe05)


I’M NOT YOUR GIRL.

Lucinda’s words from earlier that day bounced off the inside of Angus’s skull like echoes inside a bell tower.

He hadn’t meant anything by it. She knew it, too. It wasn’t like her to be so pedantic.

A voice that had emerged from the swampier parts of Angus’s subconscious since he’d sat down at the bar around the corner from work said, It’s also not like her to go on a dirty weekend with some guy you’ve never heard of.

A hand slapped down hard on Angus’s shoulder, followed by Fitz’s voice. “You look like hell.”

Angus grabbed his cousin’s fingers and pried them off his shoulder. “Appreciate it.”

“I, on the other hand, am not sure how anyone survives a single day without getting a load of my handsome mug.”

As he dragged out the stool next to Angus, Fitz caught the eye of the bartender, tapping Angus’s drink and asking for one of the same. “So, what’s the haps?”

“Does a man need a reason to have a drink with his favourite cousin?”

Fitz snorted. “Only cousin. And, yes, I don’t think you’ve wasted a single minute in your entire adult life. Then there’s the dark cloud hovering ominously over your head, and the fact your leg looks ready to take off…”

Angus looked down. His left leg was shaking so hard it all but crackled with excess energy. He stopped, only to find he couldn’t, so gave up and let it jiggle for all it was worth.

“Did someone have a better idea than you at work?” Fitz asked.

Angus shot him a look.

“You’re right. What was I thinking? So what? Designers no longer making suits? The cobblers of Spain all out of shoes? Lucinda mad at you?”

Before he could stop it, Angus felt a tightening around his left eye.

Fitz let go a long, high whistle between his teeth. “So, it’s the lovely Lucinda who has you hunched melancholically over your scotch. Interesting. What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Fitz snorted. “So what didn’t you do? I know you didn’t miss her birthday, what with the charming gift-a-palooza thing you have going between you. So what?” Fitz slammed a hand against his chest. “Was there another…event? Dare I say, Christmas party?”

A muscle flickered in Angus’s jaw, while every other muscle in his body clenched. Hard. His glass paused before it hit his lips. When the liquid finally spilled down his throat, he relished the burn. “Nothing happened at that damn Christmas party, as I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Yet, every time that night came up, something slippery and uncontrolled uncoiled within him.

“I could say the suspense is killing me, but the truth is I’m actually beginning to bore of—”

“Lucinda’s gone and got herself a new man and they are going away together this weekend.”

Fitz stilled, then burst into laughter. “That’s it? That’s why you look like your doctor just gave you bad news? Because Lucinda has a boyfriend?”

Angus shook his head. He had no better answer.

“Come on, mate. She’s bright, bold and knows more dirty jokes than any man I know. It’s more of a mystery why she hasn’t been snapped up already.”

Angus gripped more tightly to his glass.

He’d thought about this—about why he was reacting the way he was. It wasn’t the fact that she was seeing someone. Or even that she hadn’t told him about it till now. He felt as if his tendons had frozen solid because she had never come close to introducing any man in her life to her son.

Well, his subconscious perked up and responded, apart from you.

That was different, he shot back.

The day he’d met Sonny he’d felt as if he’d been hit with a lightning bolt: this was his opportunity to be, for another kid, the kind of man he’d desperately needed in his own life at the same age. A man to encourage his curiosity, to welcome his boisterous side, teach him how to stand up for himself in the playground and to appreciate his mother.

When the day came that Lucinda introduced Sonny to a man in her life, the kid would be smart enough to understand what that meant. And, once that door was opened for Sonny, it could never fully be closed again.

It was his duty to make sure she realised how formative such a moment would be. To make sure, before she did anything she couldn’t take back, that she was sure.

“The real question is,” Fitz intoned, “why hasn’t she nabbed herself a long-term fella? All she’d have to do is snap her fingers. The woman is smoking hot. Hair like a dark-chocolate waterfall. Skin like Italian marble. Those big, brown cow eyes that can see right into the depths of your deeply charred soul.”

“You might want to tone it down.”

“What? The smoking hot thing?” Fitz was clearly on a roll. “I’m not trying it on. It’s an empirical fact. You must be aware that your assistant is as good as it gets. Say it out loud so I know you are a human man: Lucinda Starling is a glorious, gumptious, gorgeous specimen of womanhood.”

Angus took a long, slow sip of his drink, only to find he could no longer taste it.

Fitz tapped a finger against his lips. “No? Too busy drinking? Well, I’ll say it—for a woman like that, every weekend ought to be a dirty weekend.”

Angus turned to Fitz. Everything in him clenched, as if readying to take a swing.

By the glint in Fitz’s eye, he knew it. Hell, he’d have welcomed it. As if it would prove a point. A point Angus had no intention of helping him make.

“Enough,” Angus managed through gritted teeth. “You’re talking about someone’s mother.”

At that, Fitz burst out laughing. He laughed until he had to grip the bar so as not to fall off his stool. “Man, you kill me. I gifted you so many other ways to defend her and that’s





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