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
