Yes. The world went still. All of it.
Including Aaron. He was sitting in his glove-soft black leather chair at the huge glass-topped chrome-legged table that served as his desk, in front of a wall that was also a window. Behind him and below him lay the Las Vegas Strip, a modern-day Mecca, a land of turrets and towers, sphinxes and circus tents. Beyond the strip stretched the glittering sprawl of the magical, impossible city in the desert.
But it wasn’t the city of Las Vegas Celia Tuttle was staring at.
It was Aaron.
And all of him, every last physical detail, was suddenly achingly clear.
Tall, she thought, as if that was news. Broad-shouldered. Lean. A face that wasn’t quite handsome. Long and angular, that face, with a cleft in the strong chin. And a nose that would have been bladelike, had it not been broken at some point in his checkered past.
He wore a gorgeous lightweight designer suit. Navy, chalk stripe. A lustrous silk shirt. A paisley tie in plum and indigo. The suit had been handmade by his ultra-exclusive Manhattan tailor, everything in the best fabrics.
He had his computer in front of him, a little to the side. He’d been clicking the mouse as he spoke, his blue gaze mostly on the screen, but now and then flicking her way. What did he see on the screen? Probably his e-mail—to which Celia would end up composing the replies.
Or could be he was looking over some marketing or design prospectus. Aaron rarely did just one thing at a time. He was a driven man. Only thirty-four and part owner and CEO of one of Las Vegas’s top super-casinos. Multi-tasking was not a concept to him. It was the way he lived his life.
In that frozen moment, as his image seared itself into her brain, it hit her.
She loved him.
Somehow, the thought of that, the admission of that, brought the world to life again.
She heard a siren, out there somewhere in the vast city beyond the window wall. And far out over the desert, just above the rim of the mountains, a silver jet streaked by, leaving a white trail in its wake.
And in the huge office room, Aaron was clicking his mouse again, frowning at the computer screen, giving her instructions at the same time.
Not that she was capable, right at that second, of making sense of anything he said to her. But it was okay—at least the part about not really hearing him. She had her mini-recorder going, as she always did for their morning meetings, providing a backup in case her own notes fell short. She would need it big-time later, since right now, incoming information was not getting through in any rational form. She felt…so strange. Disordered. Confused. Embarrassed. In complete emotional disarray.
All she could think was, How can this be?
She and Aaron Bravo enjoyed a strictly professional relationship. The only time he really noticed her was when she wasn’t getting her job done—which, at least in the past two and a half years or so, was pretty much never.
It had always been just fine with Celia that her boss didn’t notice her. He was a fair boss. Yes, he worked her very hard; she rarely got a weekend off. But he also paid her well. She had a great benefits package and points in the company.
And she loved her job.
But she didn’t love her boss. Or at least, she hadn’t until about forty seconds ago.
Then again, maybe she just hadn’t realized it until now. Maybe it had been happening for a long time, coming on slowly, like a nagging cold that never quite catches hold for weeks and weeks and then—bang—in a flash it hits you. You’ve got pneumonia and you’ve got it bad.
Oh—she held back a small, anguished groan—this was ridiculous.
Over time, it was true, she’d grown…rather fond of Aaron Bravo. He was really a much nicer person than a lot of people thought. And all those rumors about junk bonds and Wise Guy connections? Patently untrue.
Celia was certain of that now, after three years of working for him. He wasn’t a shady character at all, but an honest businessman with lady luck in his corner. He’d made a few very risky investments—in computer games and real estate. He’d seen those investments pay off in a major way and put the profits into carving out a niche for himself in the gaming industry.
Frankly, Celia had been a little nervous when she first took the job with him. After all, they’d grown up just blocks from each other, up north in New Venice—yes, named after that famous city in Italy, though New Venice, Nevada, was pronounced Noovuneece, with the accent over the “neece.” It was nowhere near the sea and it didn’t have a single canal. Instead, it lay tucked against the eastern slopes of the Sierras in the beautiful Comstock Valley not far from Lake Tahoe.
Celia was eight years younger than Aaron, but she’d grown up on the stories of the notorious Caitlin Bravo and her three wild boys—each of whom, by the way, was now doing nothing short of spectacularly in his chosen field.
And yes, all right. Maybe there was an air of danger, of risk, of something not quite safe, about Aaron Bravo. But that, Celia had decided, was part of his charm. He was the kind of man you didn’t challenge unless you were willing to fight to the brutal end.
He was tough. And uncompromising. He had to be. But at the core, she knew him as a fair man, and essentially kind.
And she was proud—yes, she was—to work for him. She had, at least in the past couple of years, felt warmly toward him.
But love?
How could this be happening?
“Celia? Are you all right?”
Celia blinked. Aaron was staring at her—noticing her—because she was very obviously not doing her job.
She checked her recorder—working fine, thank God—and straightened her shoulders. “Uh. Yes. Okay. Really. I am.”
“You’re certain? You look a little—”
“Honestly Aaron, there’s nothing. I’m okay.” Yes, it was an outright lie. But what else could she say?
Right then, the phone in his pocket rang.
Saved by the bell, she thought with an inward sigh of relief.
Aaron pulled out the ringing phone, flipped it open, spoke a few sentences into it, swung it shut and put it away.
Celia cleared her throat and poised her pen. “Now. Where were we?”
They got back to work.
But from that frozen moment on, for Celia Tuttle, nothing was the same.
The hours that followed were pure misery. Insanely, now that she’d acknowledged its existence, the longing she felt seemed to grow stronger minute by minute. It hurt, just being near him, going over the rest of the calendar with him—and having him not once look up and make eye contact.
Now, really, why should that bother her? It certainly never had before.
But all of a sudden she was…so
