columns marching impressively along the wide front verandah.
Then she laughed and gunned the engine and took off around the circle and down the long front driveway, headed back to SA and her own cute, cozy condo. Life, right then, seemed very good, indeed. She was young and strong and ready, at last, to be more focused, more mature, less … easily distracted.
Her new job at Great Escapes magazine began tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to get started.
“What in the hell did you do to your hair?”
Those were Dax’s first words to her Monday morning, when he got off the elevator and saw her sitting at her new desk where the HR person had left her.
Zoe pressed her lips together to stifle a cutting reply. She really didn’t want to start right off trading insults with the boss.
But on the other hand, she needed to be herself or this job wouldn’t last any longer than any of the others had. Being herself would have to include fighting back when Dax pissed her off.
And anyway, hadn’t he said he wanted someone with personality?
She yanked open the pencil drawer, grabbed the dagger-shaped letter opener from the tray within, raised it high and stabbed the air with it. “Do you realize that is exactly what my father said to me yesterday at Sunday dinner?”
He moved back a step and eyed the letter opener sideways.
She pressed her point—both literally and figuratively. “You don’t need to know all the issues I’ve got with my dad. You just need to know there are issues and you would do well not to turn out to be too much like him.”
With gratifying caution, Dax inquired, “Are you really planning to stab me with that thing?”
“Oh, I guess not.” She dropped it back in the pencil tray and shoved the drawer shut again. “I have to face facts. If I kill you, who will sign my paychecks?”
He was still staring at her hair. “Okay. Now that I’m over the shock, I admit it suits you,” he grumbled.
She gave him her sweetest smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And we can move on.”
“Coffee first,” he commanded low.
She peered at him more closely. Killer handsome, of course. But tired, too. There were dark circles under those wonderful bedroom eyes. “Long night?”
“Aren’t they all?” He named a place around the corner where the lattes were excellent. “Petty cash in the bottom drawer.”
She pulled out the drawer in question. There was a little safe mounted inside, with a combination lock. He rattled off the combination. She grabbed a pencil and jotted the numbers on a sticky note.
He said, “Get me the strongest coffee they’ve got, black, extra-large. When you bring it in to me, come armed with a notebook or your laptop and we’ll get down to what I want from you today. After that, you get with Lin Dietrich.” He turned and gazed over the large open workspace of desks, tables, machines and semi-cubicles. “Lin!”
A slim, beautiful Asian woman with a streak of cobalt blue in her thick, straight black bangs popped up from behind a glass partition. “What now?”
Dax signaled her over. When she reached his side, he announced proudly, “Lin’s the best editorial assistant I ever had, which means I had to promote her. My loss. Your gain. Lin is features editor now. But today, she’ll be with you, showing you everything you need to know.”
Lin gave Dax a narrow look, and then sent a wry smile in Zoe’s direction. “Because there’s nothing I need more than a little extra work to do.”
“I learn fast,” Zoe promised.
“Best news I’ve heard so far today.” Lin’s expression said she’d believe it when she saw it.
“Coffee,” Dax said one more time, in a pained voice. He turned and went into his office without waiting for a reply, swinging the door firmly shut behind him.
Lin laughed. “He’s always at his most charming on Monday mornings. Better get that coffee. I’m here when you’re ready for me.”
Dax finished telling Zoe what he wanted from her at a little after ten. She found Lin, who took a few minutes to introduce her around the office. More than one of her new colleagues teased her about falling for the boss. Wearily, Zoe reassured each one that it wasn’t going to be a problem.
Once the introductions were made, Lin then began guiding her through the mile-long list of high-priority duties Dax had given her.
At noon, she and Lin went to a coffee shop down the street for a quick lunch.
“I feel it’s only right that I say something,” Lin warned. “I can’t stress it strongly enough. If you fall for him, he will have to let you go.”
Zoe made the sign of the cross. “Lin. Please. Not you, too.”
“Did Dax warn you about the problem?”
“Repeatedly. And you heard the others back at the office. The subject is getting seriously old.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s an issue. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just wait. You’ll see. He loves women. Women love him. They can’t seem to help it. He can’t seem to say no.”
Zoe sipped her iced tea. “What about you? You were his assistant once. Did you fall in love with him?”
“Uh-uh. I had my secret weapon.” Lin held up her left hand. She wore a thick platinum wedding band.
“A husband.”
Lin beamed. “Roger.” She sighed in a dreamy way. “He’s an aerospace engineer.” She pulled her wallet from her giant black tote and took out a picture. Roger had blond hair, an angular face and thick-rimmed black glasses. “Hot, huh?”
“Very handsome.”
“He’s the only man for me.” Lin pressed the picture to her heart before tucking it away in her wallet again. “So I’m immune.”
“But what about every other woman in the office? I haven’t heard any predictions that they’re doomed to fall for Dax. What makes me so special?”
Lin shrugged. “It’s the constant proximity, I think.
The daily close exposure to him when you work directly for him. I don’t know what it is about him. He must have some genetic anomaly. An excess of sex pheromones maybe.”
“Oh, come on. You’re not serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” Lin tipped her head, studying Zoe. “And you’re exactly his type.” The blue streak in her hair caught the light, gleaming. “It’s sad, really. I tend to think of it as Dax’s fatal flaw. He hires the pretty ones with personality. And then they fall head-over-heels for him.”
“Not me. Can we be done talking about this?”
Lin
