Crazy About Her Impossible Boss Read online

  “All that’s left is the awards night and a final speech over breakfast.”

  “Perfection! Speaking of perfection, where’s Lucinda?”

  His jaw clenched before he admitted, “With Cat. And Sonny.”

  “Cat. And Sonny. They gate-crashed too? Well, the gang really is all here!”

  “Go home, Fitz. Take Charlie with you before you lose him.”

  “And miss the big party?”

  “Awards dinner.”

  “Awards dinner? Never! We’re not going to miss that. Are we, Charlie?”

  Charlie glanced away from the TV over the bar off to the right of the front desk. He’d somehow made them change it to the business channel.

  “Come on, cuz.” Fitz flung an arm around Angus’s neck. “Let’s show these ladies of lipstick how it’s done.”

  * * *

  The awards dinner was long over, the after party in full swing. The DJ played “Celebrate” for the seventh time and Fitz stood on stage, singing his heart out. Charlie had lost his shoes and shirt and was dancing with Ms Black Heels, Ms Henna and about a half dozen other women.

  While Angus sat at a table by the doors, checking his watch or checking the hall in case Lucinda came looking for him, now Sonny would be down. If she’d cooled off.

  Elena took the seat beside Angus. “Darling boy.”

  “Elena.”

  “Why so glum? This is a party. And a great one. Thanks in no small part to you and your friends.”

  “Not glum,” said Angus. “Designated driver. It’s my fault they are here so it’s on me to get the boys back to their rooms in one piece.”

  “Mmm... And the lovely Lucinda?”

  “Her son is here and her sister. She’s spending some time with them.”

  “Her son? So, she’s married, then? I thought—”

  “Not married. Very much single.” Angus shook his head, wondering why he’d felt the need to be so vociferous.

  “I see. Then I’d be remiss in not saying the two of you complement one another very well.” With that cryptic comment, Elena looked out over the happy crowd. Her crowd. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Angus Wolfe, but it must have been spectacular. Even without all the amazing work you have done for us this weekend, this party is going down in history. Half those here have already paid deposits for the next conference and that is unheard of. Please tell me you’ll come?”

  Angus went to shake his head, before realising it wasn’t a hard no. He’d had a good time this weekend. Broadened his horizons. Looking up and out suited him. “I’ll sign up to the mailing list. Then we’ll see.”

  Elena reached out and put her hands over his. Her skin was paper-soft. “I know how busy you are. You’re a darling for even pretending. This isn’t my first rodeo. I looked you up five minutes after we met. I’m well aware how lucky we have been to have you. I know you’ve been talking to a lot of the other girls about Remède. How is old Louis? Is he well?”

  Angus coughed out a laugh at the thought of anyone daring to call Louis “old”. “Ah, he’s...keeping on.”

  “I’m glad. What a dear man. My first job was working one of his counters in David Jones back in the day. The lushest, loveliest product I’ve worked with then or since. The kind that makes every woman feel special, despite their scars, their worn-off edges.”

  Angus stilled as a small flame flickered to life in that place inside where ideas were born.

  Elena went to take back her hand before Angus turned his over and captured it. “Special? How?”

  Elena blinked. Thought. Then said, “My favourite lipstick—back when I was young and married, a zillion lifetimes ago—was a coral gloss by Remède. I’d wear it day and night, even while washing the dishes, knowing that when my husband came home from a long day at work I’d feel pretty for him. After he passed, I continued to put on that lipstick every time I washed the dishes as it reminded me of all the good. I know it sounds very old-fashioned but it’s a rare product that can make queens and housewives alike feel like royalty. Then again, Louis Fournier is a rare man.”

  She squeezed his hand before letting go, then glanced over her shoulder to the double doors. “Why don’t you head off? I’ll make sure your boys get home safe.”

  Angus didn’t need to be told twice. He kissed Elena on the cheek before taking off.

  His mind was like a wildfire of ideas, burning up everything in its path.

  He needed Lucinda.

  He needed her with her cheap pencil, her fancy notebook and the way she understood what he meant. Her ability to put his thoughts into words the world would understand.

  Something Elena had said tugged at a loose thread inside him and, the more it tugged, the more the way he’d been thinking about Remède’s rebrand unravelled.

  They’d gone high-concept. Crisp, aspirational glamour. Because Remède was a quality brand. Celebrity endorsements. A string of lean, tanned, beautiful social media influencers all lined up at the ready.

  He’d gone for big when he should have been going in. Tapping into how to make every woman feel beautiful. Honest. Special.

  But how could he do that if he hadn’t been able even to convince Lucinda of the same?

  Suddenly it was of supreme importance that he did so. That he made Lucinda understand what he’d been trying to say, badly, behind their tree. How special she was. And not just on occasions when she allowed herself to wear her mother’s perfume.

  If he could make Lucinda see it, and believe him, then maybe the rest of the world would too.

  * * *

  Lucinda woke with a start.

  Feeling disoriented in the strange, dark room, she glanced at the clock to find it was a little after ten. After saying her goodnights to Sonny and Cat, who’d been tucked in watching Jurassic Park, she must have come back to her room and fallen asleep. Fully dressed.

  Pulling herself to a sitting position with a groan, she ran a hand over her hair to find it knotted on one side. She gave her face a good stretch, as if shaking off a mask she’d been holding in place for months.

  But couldn’t find the wherewithal to get up. Get changed.

  Had Angus made it to the awards night? Probably. Despite all the whammy errors of judgement, thought and deed he’d made over the past weekend, he was a big one for keeping his word.

  “Gah!” she yelled, and fell back on the bed.

  What would it take for her to remain angry with the guy? Right now, she could really do with a good head of steam where he was concerned. Some deep-rooted, stomach-churning loathing would be great.

  What a rotten thing to think.

  Angus Wolfe had never let her down. He’d given her opportunity, support, kindness and space, galvanising her need to work into creating a career she could be proud of. One she was mighty good at.

  Just thinking about the man—the way he’d looked her in the eye and said he’d followed her to the hotel because he was worried about Sonny—made her feel as if her insides were on the outside, as if her nerves were exposed. Every movement scraped. Every feeling ached.

  Lucinda turned her head towards the door, thinking she’d heard a gentle knock. Nothing. Even her ears were playing tricks on her.

  It sounded again.

  “Cat?” she muttered, rolling off the bed and trudging over to the door.

  When she whipped it open, she found Angus standing in the hall.

  His eyes were preternaturally bright, his hair tightly curled as if it had recently been wet. His tie was skew-whiff.

  He opened his mouth to say something before his gaze dropped to her dress. And something seemed to come over him. A kind of mental fugue that made his eyes go dark and his jaw clench.

  “Angus,” she snapped. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you at the awards dinner?”

  He shook his head. “May I com
e in?”

  Like a vampire; unable to enter without explicit invitation. And just as dangerous. Especially when she was feeling so wobbly. But if they were going to move beyond this weekend, if things had a hope of going back to normal come Monday, it had to start some time.

  So, with a sweeping arm, she invited her boss into her hotel bedroom.

  “What’s so important it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” she asked, closing the door and padding over to the couch in the corner where she’d flung a bra. She tossed it into her open suitcase which she then shut with a toe.

  When she looked back, it was to find Angus standing at the end of her bed, staring at the mussed-up blankets on which she’d been sleeping.

  “Angus? What’s going on?”

  His gaze swept to hers, before sliding back to her dress. “I wish you hadn’t worn that dress.”

  “This dress?” Why on earth not? “It’s a gorgeous dress. And I look mighty fine in it, thank you very much.”

  Something in his eyes told her he agreed. And yet he looked pained.

  She went to him. “Angus, are you okay? You look unwell. Have you been drinking?”

  “Not a drop.”

  “Okay then, how about you fill me in on whatever was so important you had to come to my room at ten o’clock at night.”

  “Is it that late?”

  “It’s that late.”

  His mobile rang. He ignored it. He didn’t even glance at it to see who it was.

  “Angus, your phone.”

  “They can wait.”

  “It’s okay.”

  He looked into her eyes, believed her, then with a nod grabbed his phone out of his pocket and answered it with, “Fitz, are you bleeding? Have you been arrested? Then don’t call me. I’m otherwise engaged.” With that he turned off the phone. All the way off. His eyes on her the whole time.

  Feeling like she was having some kind of out of body experience, Lucinda said, “If Fitz needs you, take the call.”

  “He can wait,” Angus said. “I’m here with you.”

  Lucinda curled her feet into the carpet in an effort not to sway straight into the man’s arms.

  Good gravy, are you so hard up for a man who’ll stick, you’re getting all woozy over crumbs?

  But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t that.

  Despite the times she’d had to leave at the drop of a hat for Sonny. Despite the tough first months when her need to be liked had clashed with his need for personal space. Despite the fact that she stood up to him on a regular basis, refusing to back down when he was in a bolshie mood. Or when he was flat-out wrong.

  Angus had stood by her through thick and thin.

  He’d never left.

  In fact, he’d done the opposite. He’d followed her here. Not for some small-fry conference with a tenuous link to a favourite client. Not because he feared for Sonny’s mental health.

  He’d followed her. She knew it. Right deep down in that most feminine place inside.

  The question was, why?

  Slowly she uncurled her toes from their grip on the carpet.

  “Angus, what’s going on?”

  “What’s going on? Fitz thought I should know that Charlie is currently leading a conga line at the party downstairs.”

  “I’m sorry, what? Why the heck are they here? Did you invite them?”

  His left eyebrow notched. “Fitz claims they’re here because he’s bored and never met a conference he didn’t love.”

  “Why are they really here?”

  “I think it’s to stop me from doing anything stupid.”

  “Such as?”

  He wouldn’t say.

  But she knew. Deep within a moment of true clarity, she knew.

  For he was looking at her in a way that told her he’d like to tear her clothes off and have his way with her then and there. It was the look she’d been waiting for her whole life. Untempered, unmitigated and all kinds of trouble.

  “Why are you really here, Angus?” Her mouth was so dry it was a miracle she found words at all.

  He glanced towards the door, as if trying to remember himself. “Remède. Back at the party—the dinner —I’d had a breakthrough about Remède.”

  “Not here, to my room. But to the hotel.” She took a step his way. His gaze dropped to her bare feet. When she took another step, he slid his phone into his pocket and waited.

  “What really sent you to the hotel website? And don’t tell me it was Sonny because, while I know you love my kid, you know I’d never do anything that wasn’t in his best interests.”

  “I may have had other reasons.” His eyes slowly lifted back to hers.

  “Such as?”

  “Fear.”

  Well, that was not what she’d expected him to say. “Of what?”

  “Of Dr Jameson What’s-His-Name-Smythe. Of the way he looked at you in a picture Fitz found on Facebook. That he’d marry you and have three more kids.”

  “Oh.”

  “And—” He cut himself off.

  Lucinda took another two steps his way. “And?”

  “Your priorities would change. And you’d...leave me.”

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed. The thought of her ever leaving him was ridiculous.

  Angus’s face grew stony. Some instinct had her reaching out and taking his hand.

  “I wasn’t laughing at you, Angus. I promise. The thought of ever leaving you is laughable. You know how much I love my job. How important the Big Picture Group and the motley crew who run it are to me.” She swallowed. Then said, “How important you are to me.”

  He took a step her way.

  Not expecting it, she rocked back, but he reached out, slid an arm around her waist and hauled her against him. It took everything she had not to swoon.

  She waited for him to let her go. But he didn’t.

  Instead, his voice came to her, rough and low, as he said, “How important?”

  She lifted a hand and held her forefinger and thumb an inch apart. “This important.”

  “Well, that’s something.” His eyes, dark now, not a glint of light within to be seen, moved slowly between hers. “Did I ever tell you how much I like this dress of yours?”

  “That would be a no.”

  “Enough that I’m especially glad Dr Whatever-the-Hell-His-Name-Was never got the chance to see you in it.”

  Lucinda breathed out hard as Angus did more than nudge at the line between them. “Angus,” she warned, “It’s okay. I know I had a moment there, behind our tree, when I was feeling a little sorry for myself, but I’m tough. I don’t need you to be extra nice to me.”

  He reached up and ran a finger over one twisting strap, his finger sliding beneath it as he traced it over her shoulder and down the blade. “The last thing I’m feeling right now is nice.”

  The line blurred a whole lot more.

  And then he went ahead and obliterated it when he said, “The night of the Christmas party, I was hiding at the edge of the makeshift dance floor as Dean Martin crooned about a winter wonderland, while outside in downtown Melbourne it had been a sweltering thirty-five degrees Celsius. I’d been waiting a good half an hour for you to arrive so you could save me from all the small talk when the crowd cleared and there you were. Looking like you’d stepped out of a flower patch. All glowing and fresh and bright as a star. The feeling that came over me—I’d never felt anything like it before. A heaviness in my limbs. A hollowness behind my ribs.”

  Lucinda knew how that felt, for she was feeling that way right now. “You say that to all the girls.”

  “Never,” he claimed. “They’d laugh in my face.”

  “Are you kidding? They’d quiver in their heels.”

  His gaze warmed and his touch moved south, his palm sweeping down her
back, sending goose bumps in its wake. “Is that what’s happening to you right now, Lucinda?”

  Somehow she managed to say, “I’m not wearing heels.”

  He laughed, the rumble travelling through him into her. And pulled her closer still.

  Feeling reckless, she said, “You wore your navy suit that night, the one with the fine pinstripe. No tie. I remember thinking, wow, Mr Casual even has his top button undone.”

  He cocked his head. “It was a party, after all.”

  “True. But it’s not the suit I remember most from that night so much as the—”

  “Mistletoe,” they said at the same time.

  Lucinda felt herself transported back to that moment. Coming out of the store room with a roll of paper towel to mop up a spill, right as Angus had come in. They’d both ended up in the doorframe. Toe to toe. His hands at her elbows. Laughing at the near-collision.

  Then someone—a disembodied voice—had headed past them in the hall and shouted, “Mistletoe!”

  And they’d looked up.

  When Lucinda had dared look down, dared make eye contact with Angus again, he’d already been watching her, chest rising and falling as if he needed more air. The fingers holding her by the elbows had tightened. Just enough to tell her she wasn’t alone.

  “So,” he’d said, eyes flickering to the offending greenery above that was holding them both to ransom, before dropping back to hers, so dark and saying so much without saying a word.

  “So,” she’d said, her voice cracking, her heady gaze dropping to his decadent mouth.

  She remembered thinking, maybe she could do this. Maybe this would be her only chance to see what he tasted like. What those lips would feel like on hers. To slide her hands into his dark curls and kiss the man till they both forgot who they were to one another.

  Whether she’d lifted onto her toes, or he’d done it for her, she remembered how they’d edged closer, the air heating, shimmering, the sounds of the party dropping away.

  Until the roll of paper towel she’d been holding had fallen out of her hands and rolled down the hall, breaking the spell. Reminding them both of who they were. What they were meant to be doing. And not doing.