having none at all.
Take, for instance, his hand brushing hers….
It happened all the time, though she’d hardly noticed it before. He would ask for something—an update, a file, a letter, a cup of coffee, black—and she would see he got it. And if she had to come near him to deliver it, he would touch the back of her hand or maybe her wrist or her forearm. It would be just a breath of a touch, a little thank-you, without words. Something that was so small, so unremarkable, that she hardly recalled it once it had happened.
Well, until now she’d hardly recalled it.
“Did the estimates come in on the South Tower remodel?” At High Sierra, the hotel rooms and the rides, the casino and the showrooms, were in a constant cycle of remodeling. Things had to stay fresh to lure in the crowds.
She told him where to look for it.
“It’s not coming up.”
She put down her legal pad and went around behind him where she had a view of the screen.
Oh, Lord. He did smell good. So clean and fresh and…male. She’d always liked the aftershave he used. She liked his hair, short but kind of wavy, a dark brown that sometimes, in the right light, still managed to show glints of gold. And the shape of his ears…
He glanced back at her, one eyebrow lifted.
Her heart lurched in her chest and she ordered her face not to flush beet-red. “Hmm,” she said. “Let’s see…” She reached for the mouse. Two clicks and the information he wanted appeared.
“Good. Thanks.”
As she withdrew her hand, he touched the back of it—just that quick brush of warm acknowledgement. She almost gasped, but somehow held back the sound. Her skin flamed where his fingers had grazed it—so lightly, so fleetingly. For Aaron, she knew, the touch was the next thing to a subconscious act. He did it and forgot it.
Not for Celia. Not anymore. Suddenly, his slightest touch seared her to her very soul.
She made herself cross back around the desk and return to her chair. She picked up her legal pad again and waited for him to go on.
For the next ten minutes, the situation was almost bearable. They got through his calendar for the day, the rest of the memos and letters he would be wanting, the reports he needed her to get in hard copy and bind for the next managers’ meeting.
They were winding things up when he added offhandedly, “And would you get something nice for Jennifer? Since it is Valentine’s Day…”
It felt like a knife straight through the heart, when he said that. Get something nice for Jennifer….
Jennifer Tartaglia had a featured role in the hit review, Gold Dust Follies, playing nightly in High Sierra’s Excelsior Theatre. Jennifer was Cuban and Italian, drop-them-in-their-tracks gorgeous—and a very nice person, as well. The first time the showgirl had visited the office tower, she’d made it a point to say hi to Aaron’s secretary.
“Hello, so nice to meet you.” Jennifer had stuck out her hand and beamed a radiant smile. “I hear you take fine care of Aaron.”
They shook hands. “I do my best.”
“You are the best. He tells me so.” Still smiling that wide, friendly, breathtaking smile, Jennifer tossed her honey-blond mane of hair and turned to walk away. Celia had found herself staring. The rear view of Jennifer Tartaglia—especially in motion—was something to see.
But so what if no woman had a right to look that good? Celia liked Jennifer. She considered Jennifer a good person who was, no doubt, very good to Aaron—not that the relationship was anything truly serious. It never was, with Aaron.
Aaron Bravo…enjoyed women, and a man in his position had his pick of some of the most beautiful, talented and seductive women in the world. But none of them, at least in the years Celia had worked for him, had lasted. Aaron always gave them diamonds—a bracelet or a necklace—at the end. Eventually, Celia knew, she’d be buying diamonds for Jennifer.
He really was married to his work. And so busy he thought nothing of asking his assistant to buy his girlfriend thoughtful gifts and expensive trinkets whenever the occasion arose—like for Valentine’s Day.
“Something nice for Jennifer,” Celia parroted in the voice of a dazed windup doll.
He was frowning again. “Are you certain there’s nothing wrong?”
“I am. Positive. No problem. Sincerely.”
An hour later, Celia left High Sierra to get Jennifer that gift. She found a heart-shaped ruby-encrusted pin in one of the elite little boutiques at Caesar’s Forum Shops. High Sierra had its own series of exclusive shops, the Gold Exchange, in the central court between the casino and the 3,000-room hotel. But Celia never shopped in-house for gifts “from” the boss. To her, it seemed more appropriate, more personal, if she went outside Aaron’s realm of influence to get little treasures for his lady friends.
And hey, wasn’t that great reasoning? she found herself thinking, now unrequited love was souring her attitude. He wasn’t even choosing the gifts. How personal could they be?
She bought the pin, brought it back to High Sierra and showed it to him, so that he’d know what lovely little trinket Jennifer was getting from him.
“Great, Celia. She’ll love it.”
Tears tightened her throat as she wrapped up that ruby heart. But she didn’t cry. She swallowed those tears down.
By then, it had been a mere six hours since she’d realized she was in love with him. She couldn’t afford to start blubbering like a baby from day one, now could she? And maybe, she couldn’t help thinking as she expertly tied the red satin ribbon, this sudden, overwhelming and inconvenient passion would just…burn itself out. Soon.
Oh, yes. Please God. Let it be over soon….
But her prayer was not answered, at least not in the next week. The days went by and the longing didn’t fade.
She managed, somehow, never to cry over it, in spite of how close she’d come that first day. And he never guessed. She was sure of it. She took a kind of bleak pride in that, in the fact that he didn’t know she was hopelessly, utterly gone on him.
Yes, sometimes he gave her a faintly puzzled look. As if he knew something wasn’t quite right with her. But she did her job and she did it well and after that first day, he never asked again what might be wrong with her.
Fresh torments abounded.
Simple things. Everyday things. Like his brushing touch, they were things that had meant next to nothing before. Things like following him around the executive suite taking last-minute instructions before he met his managers for lunch—as he stripped to the waist and changed into a fresh shirt.
She tried not to stare at his muscled back and lean, hard arms, not to let herself imagine what it would be like if he held out those arms to her, if he gathered her close against that broad chest, if he lowered that wonderful mouth to cover hers….
It was awful. She had seen him change his
