my God!” She thrust the cup toward him; his coffee sloshed over the rim and burned them both.
Malcolm winced but managed to hold on to the cup.
Gloria jerked her hand back, waved it in the air as she turned toward the large desk and set her tea down in order to attend to the blouse. “You know you could have said something,” she snapped.
“Sorry,” he said with little conviction. “I was working on it.”
“Yeah. Right.”
Lips curving, Malcolm rather liked seeing Gloria’s feathers ruffled, especially since before now he didn’t think such a thing was possible. “Look, Gloria. I—”
“Forget it,” she muttered while glancing around the floor. “Just help me find the button.”
Still wearing a smile, Malcolm launched into an immediate investigation for the missing clear button against the office’s champagne-colored carpet. That is, until Gloria lowered herself onto all fours and drew Malcolm’s attention to her glorious apple bottom.
“It has to be around here somewhere,” Gloria mumbled, fanning her hands across the carpet as she crawled her way back toward the door.
Time seemed to stop as Malcolm watched Gloria inch her way up the carpet. A near-unbearable heat scorched up the column of his neck and burned the tips of his ears. Malcolm fingered his collar loose, mistakenly thinking that it was the cause of his inability to get air into his lungs. Not to mention the unexpected throb and ache against his pants’ inseam.
Just the sight of the uptight and always-proper assistant kneeling down on all fours made him fantasize about what else that position was good for.
“Here it is. I found it,” Gloria exclaimed, pushing up to sit on her haunches.
Malcolm came out of his trance quick enough to set his coffee down and offer his hand to help her up. “Glad that crisis is over with,” he joked, but his throat was still clogged with the residue of lust.
When Gloria arched a delicately groomed brow, he quickly coughed as a lame cover.
“Thanks,” she said, placing her hand into his.
At the feel of her silky palm sliding into his, Malcolm was sure his body temperature soared into the triple digits.
What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn’t stand Ms. Gloria “Know-It-All” Kingsley.
Right?
Just then, as if to rescue them from themselves, Mabel burst into the office with her arms bursting with packing material.
“I got everything you asked for, Gloria,” she said, finding a nice clear spot in the center of the room and dropping everything. “Whew!” She straightened her back just as her eyes widened to twice their size. “Malcolm,” she exclaimed, rushing around the pile of packing material and then pulling him into her pillow-soft body.
If Mabel was ever to enter into a celebrity look-alike contest, she would win for Star Jones (pre-surgery) hands down. “Gloria said that you were coming in here to help pack this stuff, but I kept telling her that it was just too soon for you to be dealing with all this right now.”
Malcolm shot a glance at Gloria, triumphant that someone agreed with him.
A frown settled around the corners of Gloria’s lips.
“It’s still work that needs to be done,” he said, quoting the efficient assistant and managing to bring a smile back to her face.
“I think we’d better get started,” she said.
Malcolm readily agreed. “Will you be joining us, Mabel?”
“Unfortunately not. I have four hungry teenage boys and a construction-worker husband who’d be rumbling up a storm if dinner isn’t on the table on time. But I’ll be seeing you again soon, I hope.”
He smiled. “You can count on it.”
“Good. Good.” Mabel turned toward Gloria and her smile dropped. “Ms. Kingsley,” she hissed, and then covered a hand over her own bosom. “Your blouse.”
“Oh, yes.” Gloria blinked. “I just found my button.” She turned toward the desk and retrieved a safety pin.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you two to your work,” Mabel said, as if she didn’t believe for one moment that was what they were about to do.
“It was good seeing you again,” Malcolm said, barely able to contain his amusement.
“Give my love to the family.” Mabel glanced back at Gloria, shook her head and made her exit.
“Well,” he said. “I guess that means it’s just you and me.”
“Apparently.” She mimicked his awkward smile. “Let’s get started. We’ve already wasted enough time.”
He couldn’t agree more. The sooner he got out of there, the better. He turned and moved toward the first line of file cabinets near the window, pulled opened the top drawer and quickly started shoving files into the closest container.
“No. No,” Gloria said, rushing over. “Some material will need to stay here for the new…I mean…”
“It’s all right,” Malcolm said, rescuing her from tripping over her tongue again. “I know what you mean—for whoever is going to take my father’s place.”
“No one could ever take Harmon’s place.”
Jealousy stabbed Malcolm and robbed him of his breath, although he agreed wholeheartedly with Gloria’s proclamation. Not for the first time, Malcolm wondered whether Gloria’s feelings transcended the boss-and-employee relationship.
She flashed something that was obviously meant to be a smile, but ended up looking like perhaps her shoes were pinching the hell out of her feet. “I’m sorry. It all still seems so…surreal.”
He nodded. A moment of silence flowed between them while his eyes lowered and he damned the safety pin she’d used to close her blouse. He slammed his eyes shut and chanted in his head: focus, focus, focus.
“All right, Ms. Kingsley. In addition to the bookshelves, desk and walls, why don’t you tell me exactly how you want this part done?”
“Well,” she said, straightening her back. “I want you to carefully go through each folder and remove only the personal files or pet projects. Then I want you to use these dividers and tabs I purchased—” she reached for the stack of office supplies he’d missed “—and label everything and place them into the containers in alphabetical order.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.” She frowned again. “It’ll make it easier for your family to sift through.”
“It’ll also take all night,” he grumbled, glancing around the office.
“What?”
“I
