Daring to Trust the Boss (Harlequin Romance) (3 page)

“Amazing.”

“Which is exactly why with my help the company will eventually be worth about a hundred million dollars.”

The limo rolled to a stop in front of a shiny glass-and-chrome building. They rode to the penthouse in another private elevator, which opened onto a living room. Electric-blue chairs angled beside a black leather-and-chrome sofa, which sat on a modern print rug. A wet bar took up the entire left wall. Huge windows at the back of the room let in the June sunshine as they displayed another fantastic view of the New York City skyline.

Olivia’s breath stuttered. She couldn’t believe she was here. Not just in a fantastic city, but part of a huge financial deal. Maybe working with Tucker Engle wouldn’t be so bad after all?

Two men bounced off the sofa and raced to greet Tucker.

“Hey, Tuck.” The first one—a guy who was a lot older than she’d expected, extended his hand. “Big day for us.”

“A big day for all of us,” Tucker agreed. He motioned to Vivi. “My assistant, Miss Prentiss.”

He shook her hand. “I’m Rick Langley.” With black hair and silky brown eyes, he was gorgeous. She could understand how he’d meet a woman who wouldn’t want to let him go. “The guy with the good fortune to be stalked.”

She laughed.

“And I’m Elias Greene.”

Vivi shook his hand, surprised when he gave an extra squeeze before releasing her.

Rick bounded to the bar. “Do you want a drink while we wait for our perpetually late lawyers?”

“Miss Prentiss and I are good.” He turned to Vivi. “Unless you’d like a water?”

She smiled her appreciation. In one easy sentence, he’d gotten her out of a potentially uncomfortable situation. He really, really wasn’t so bad.

She faced Ricky. “Water would be great, thanks. I’d also love a place to set up the laptop.”

Elias raced over and took the laptop from her hands. “We’re using the dining table as our conference table.”

“Sounds great.”

Tucker directed her to follow Elias to the table. When she reached it, he pulled out her chair. Ricky handed her a bottle of water as Elias sat beside her.

“So where are you from?”

She cleared her throat. “Kentucky.”

“No kidding?” Elias smiled broadly. “Are you a farm girl or something?”

She laughed. “No. I grew up in a small town.”

“I’d love to hear about small-town life, if you’d like to have dinner.... Maybe tonight?”

She stared at him. He was serious? Asking her out in front of her boss? But, worse, he was a stranger. And he was asking her out—

She hadn’t been out with anyone since Cord.

Heat filled her. She wasn’t freakishly afraid of men or dating. After the attack, she’d simply focused on getting her degree. She’d also become selective—too selective to go out with a guy she didn’t know.

She drew in a slow breath. “I’m sorry but I don’t date people I don’t know.”

Ricky laughed. “You could always run him through Jason Jones.”

She laughed, too, though Elias’s proximity suddenly shot shivers of fear through her. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, she chalked his enthusiasm up to excitement over the big, big deal represented by the agreement he was about to sign. But that didn’t make his nearness any less overwhelming.

She rose. “Could you direct me to the powder room?”

Elias popped off his chair. “Sure. It’s right back along this hall.”

Her nerves went on red alert as they walked down a long dark corridor. A memory flashed.
Cord leading her down a dark hall. Her giggling.
Him forcing her into a room. Her fighting to get away and eventually freeing herself. But she’d lost a shoe and her blouse was torn
—

Oh, God. This was bad. She’d put all this behind her. Why was it coming back to her now?

In the half bath, she took a few slow breaths. In the quiet, she realized Elias reminded her of Cord. Not looks-wise, but personality-wise. A little too pushy. A little too sure of himself.

That’s why she wasn’t going back out there until the lawyers arrived.

She washed her hands, combed her fingers through her hair and realized she wouldn’t hear the attorneys arriving. Nice as he was being on this trip, even Tucker Engle would have his limits. He would be angry with her if she wasn’t around when they came.

With a deep breath, she left the bathroom and returned to the main room as the elevator door opened and three gray-suited men stepped out.

Relief stole through her and she quickly made her way to her chair and her laptop.

Laptop! She’d left the laptop containing all of Tucker Engle’s business information—information he wouldn’t even put on his own company network—unattended.

He was going to kill her.

* * *

Tucker watched Olivia with something akin to pride as she not only got herself away from Elias, but also stayed as silent as a church mouse through the entire signing. No smart remarks. No unwanted questions. Just a nice, quiet assistant.

When the papers were signed and after they’d toasted with champagne, which he noticed Olivia refused, they headed for the limo.

As the car wove into traffic, he couldn’t stop the compliment that rose up in him. “You did very well in there, Miss Prentiss.”

“I did nothing.”

“That was your job. You were there in case we needed you. Since we didn’t, remaining silent was your only job.”

She rubbed her hand down her thigh. “I...um...left the laptop unattended.”

“If I remember correctly, you needed to get away from Elias.” The memory of Elias ogling her sent a wave of dislike through him, but she’d handled him, and in such a way that there had been no scene and no resultant bad feelings. “And I was in the room. No harm done.”

“Really?”

The anxiety in her voice again struck that nerve that told him something about this woman was off or wrong. For a second he toyed with asking her. After all, if she were someone he wanted to do business with he wouldn’t hesitate. He always needed to know everything about his partners. But this wasn’t a potential business partner. Olivia Prentiss was a temporary assistant. A young, single woman. Did he really want to risk hearing about her bad weekend or latest breakup?

No.

He picked pretend lint off his black trousers. “As I said, you did very well in there.”

“Thanks.”

She hazarded a glance at him and gave him a shy smile. His instincts hopped again. Trapped by her pretty blue eyes, he sat frozen as the urge to smile back plucked at the corners of his mouth and an unexpected desire to flirt with her rose up in him.

Fortunately, that brought him to his senses. She was a pretty girl and like any normal man, he was attracted to her. But she was an employee. A struggling working girl who shouldn’t have to worry about her boss hitting on her.

This “attraction” he felt was purely sexual. The normal reaction of a man to a very pretty woman. Not a big deal. And certainly not something he’d pursue.

* * *

The limo pulled up outside the office building. Tucker exited first and offered his hand to Olivia to help her out.

She took it instinctively, then was sorry she had. Little sparks of electricity spiked up her arm.

Confusion rattled through her. She had been pleased that he’d treated her normally during the limo ride to the signing and again as they drove back to the office. But what she felt right now wasn’t boss-employee goodwill. These sparks were attraction.

Really? After Elias had just scared the snot out of her? Three years since she’d even been on a date, she picked today to be attracted to someone? Her boss?

But she hadn’t really “picked” anything. This feeling was natural, an instinct. And Tucker Engle wasn’t anything like Elias. He wasn’t sleazy or overly complimentary or all over her the way Elias had been, the way Cord had been the night he’d attacked her. Tucker was mature, savvy, handsome—sophisticated.

Sheesh, no wonder she was attracted to him. Personality-wise he was Cord’s polar opposite.

Fortunately, she didn’t think he liked her.

So her being attracted to him was irrelevant.

Thank God.

She slid out of the limo and stopped in front of him on the sidewalk. Their gazes caught and held. Her breath slid in then stuttered out as he just stared at her. His smoldering emerald eyes held her captive. Tingles danced along her hand where their palms touched.

Their palms touched!

Good grief! She still had his hand! No wonder he was staring at her.

She dropped it like a hot potato. “Um. Thanks for taking me with you.”

He stepped back. “You’re welcome.” He took another step away. “I have a lunch meeting. Don’t expect me back until two.”

“Right.” Without waiting for him to get into the limo, she turned and scrambled to the revolving door.

She would not be attracted to her boss.

She would not be attracted to her boss.

She would not be attracted to her boss
.

That would be about as stupid as the poorest girl in town dating the son of the local rich family.

And she’d never be that stupid again.

CHAPTER THREE

A
T
NOON
THE
next day, Olivia called out “I’m going to lunch,” grabbed her backpack and hit the button for the elevator. But before the door opened, the phone on her desk rang.

Not wanting to further disturb Tucker, who’d come back from his business meeting the day before quiet and sullen and hadn’t spoken two words to her today, she raced to the phone and answered it. “Tucker Engle’s office.”

“This is Stewart, the lobby security guard. There’s a man and woman here who say they’re your parents.”

Heat flooded her face and her chest tightened.
Her parents?
Oh, Lord! Their overprotectiveness had now reached its legal limit. It was one thing to check up on her. Checking out Tucker Engle was quite another. How could they embarrass her like this?

“Mr. Engle doesn’t allow us to send anybody up to his private offices without prior approval and they aren’t on the list.”

She thanked her lucky stars for that rule. “No. Of course not. I’ll be right down.”

“Right down where?”

Hearing Tucker immediately behind her, she pressed her hand to her chest to still her thumping heart, hung up the phone and spun to face him.

“Lunch. I’m going downstairs to lunch, remember I told you that?”

“I did hear you say something. But that was before the phone rang.” He caught her gaze. “Who was on the phone?”

Manipulating the timing hadn’t worked. And she didn’t lie, so this was a moment of truth. Literally. “It was Stewart.”

Tucker frowned. “Is he sending someone up?”

Heat blossomed on her cheeks. “No. The people in the lobby didn’t have prior approval. So I’m going down.”

He turned to his office. “Get him back on the phone. I have time today. I can see whoever is down there.”

She stood frozen.

When she didn’t answer, he stopped and faced her again.

The warmth in her face intensified. “There’s no need to call Stewart. He told me who was in the lobby.”

His eyebrows rose.

She sucked in a breath. “It’s my parents.”

“Oh.”

Though it pained her, she knew she might as well go the whole way with this. “I have a sneaking feeling they’re here to meet you.”

“Sneaking feeling?”

“You know. A feeling that just sort of creeps up on you when you don’t want it to.”

“Ah.” He waited a second then said, “You don’t want me to meet your parents?”

“No! No!” What else could she say? “That’s not it.”

“Then have Stewart send them up. If they’re here to see the city, I’ll give them my driver for the afternoon and they can go to all the sites.”

Though that was nice of him, risking one meeting was bad enough. Risking a second when they returned the limo was insanity. They’d ask questions about his background. Want to know his intentions. Read between the lines of everything he said, making sure he wasn’t a closet pervert bent on hurting their little girl. Embarrassment and humiliation collided and turned her stomach. She could not let that happen.

“That’s way too kind.”

He brushed her concern off with a wave of her hand and headed back into his office. “Call Stewart. Send them up.”

With no choice but to obey, Olivia did as she was told.

Fortifying herself for the worst, she stood in front of her desk waiting for the elevator ping. As the doors opened, she didn’t see just her mom and dad. Her brother, Billy, and her sister, Cindy, stood beside them. Even before she was off the elevator, her mother reached out for a hug.

As her mother’s arms wrapped around her, she closed her eyes. It was really hard to be mad at somebody who loved you so much.

“Hey, guys.”

Her mother squeezed her even more tightly.

“I’m fine, Mom.”

As her mother released her, her dad caught her up in a bigger hug. “It’s just so good to see you.”

She laughed. “I’ve only been gone a month.”

As she said the words, Tucker Engle came out of his office. Her brother and sister froze. Her mom spun to face him. Her dad blatantly gave him a once-over.

* * *

Tucker smiled. He had this. If there was one thing he was good at, it was people. Let her dad narrow his eyes. He would still win him over.

Tucker held out his hand to shake her dad’s. “I’m Tucker Engle. Olivia’s boss.”

Tall and bald, Olivia’s dad looked like a man who labored for a living. His calloused hand confirmed that.

“Mr. Engle, these are my parents, Loraina and Jim Prentiss and my sister, Cindy, and brother, Billy.”

Billy also shook his hand. A boy of about sixteen, who appeared to be trying to be a man, he wore jeans and a T-shirt like his dad.

Her sister Cindy looked a year or so younger than Olivia and was nearly as pretty. Both Prentiss daughters had their mom’s strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. Cindy shyly said, “It’s nice to meet you.”

But her mom didn’t say anything. She caught his gaze and held it as if trying to see into his soul.

He’d never had anyone look at him that way before.

Her pretty blue eyes narrowed, her mouth thinned.

Okay. So her mother didn’t like him. He could fix that, too. “I’ve called my limo driver and instructed him to take you anywhere you want to go this afternoon. It’ll be much easier to see everything with a driver who knows the city.”

Cindy gasped and Billy said, “All right!”

Jim said, “That’s very nice of you.” He produced some bags with the logo of a popular Chinese restaurant on them. “But we were just about to have lunch. We brought enough for an army and we’d love to have you join us.”

Tucker smiled. “Thank you, but I was planning to work through lunch today. I have a meeting across the street at one. I thought I’d pick up something when that’s over.”

Loraina surprised him by hooking her arm through his. “Oh, now, you can’t skip lunch. And we can’t eat in front of you! Besides, if you really are giving us your limo for the afternoon, we owe you.”

He sought Olivia’s gaze and she shrugged, though her red face was the picture of apology.

He’d never had a family, so he could only imagine how embarrassing this was for her. Especially since her mother was already on the way into his office.

“This is perfect.” She pointed at the sofa grouping. “We can sit around the coffee table.”

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d eaten Chinese food at that coffee table. He did some of his best business deals in that quiet, comfortable atmosphere. He’d never, however, eaten breakfast, lunch or dinner with the family of an employee.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t figure out a way to refuse them without sounding like he was kicking them out of his office.

Her dad put the Chinese food on the coffee table. Her brother and sister sat on the sofa and began opening the bags, looking for chopsticks.

Olivia caught his arm and pulled him back, away from her family. “I’m sorry. They’re just very comfortable people. They think everybody is a new friend.”

He drew in a breath. “That’s actually a nice philosophy.”

“I swear. In twenty minutes they’ll be gone.”

Okay. He could deal with that. Hell, he could deal with anything for twenty minutes. “No need to be so embarrassed or so hard on them. I love the food from the restaurant they chose and as your mom said, everybody needs to eat.”

She visibly relaxed and nodded, and his instincts jumped again. All along he’d thought there was something about her. Her family reminded him she was new to the city. Maybe even here alone. And if he got comfortable with her family, maybe she would become more comfortable with him?

He took the big chair at the head of things, reached for a carton of sweet-and-sour pork and dished some onto one of the throw-away plates Olivia’s mom had handed out.

“So what do you do for a living, Jim?”

“I’m in construction.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Loraina beamed. “He paid for Olivia’s schooling by flipping houses.”

“Wow.” That took hard work and brains, the ability to find a good house and spend only enough on remodeling that you could still make a profit when you sold it. He could see where Olivia got her talent with numbers.

“He’ll do the same for Cindy now.”

Cindy faced Olivia. “Are we going to get to see your apartment?”

“I don’t know. How long are you guys staying?”

Billy said, “Two days. We have to fly back tomorrow night.”

Tucker said, “That’s a short stay for such a long trip.”

All five Prentisses grew quiet. Olivia’s face reddened again. And again the sense that there was something he was missing nagged at him.

But Loraina brightened. “Hotels are expensive in this city. We’re just happy for the time we get.”

Olivia suddenly said, “Who wants an egg roll?”

Her dad and brother immediately shoved their plates at her, but Tucker suspected she’d craftily changed the subject.

When she faced Cindy, and asked, “Are you ready for school?” he was certain of it.

“I may never be totally ready.” Cindy grabbed a different carton of the food and dished herself a serving. “Billy made the football team.”

Olivia spun to face him. “Oh, my gosh! Shouldn’t you be at practice?”

Billy scowled.

Loraina said, “You can miss a practice or two. It’s not every day you get to see New York City.”

Ignoring Billy’s plight, Cindy said, “I was sort of hoping you’d take me shopping.”

Olivia laughed gaily. “Me? I can just barely dress myself. If you want expert advice, you need to take Eloise with you.”

Jim said, “I don’t think there’s time for shopping.”

Billy said, “You can shop at home.”

Loraina agreed. “You get better bargains there anyway. I saw designers on TV the other day showing how to make clothes from your local store look like big-city fashions.”

“I don’t want them to
look
like big-city fashions. I want them to
be
big-city fashions. Can’t we stay another day?”

Billy exploded. “No! I’m missing two practices already! I’m not missing three!”

“You and your precious football.”

“You and your precious
clothes!
At least some day football might get me a scholarship. What are clothes going to get you?”

“A boyfriend?”

“You don’t need a boyfriend!”

Both parents said that at once and might have made Tucker laugh, except Cindy’s next whine started a discussion that had all five Prentisses talking at once. Tucker had been in boardrooms where five people talked at once. He’d been in boardrooms where five people yelled at once. But this discussion—sort of stupid, but very important to the people talking—whipped around him like a tornado. He had absolutely no idea of what to say.

Worse, he didn’t think they cared or wanted him to say anything.

A feeling of alienation stole over him, which didn’t surprise him. In foster homes, you didn’t comment on another kid’s life or problems. You weren’t really family; you were boarders. He remembered falling asleep trying to imagine himself in a family like this and never quite being able to put himself into the picture. He couldn’t put himself in this picture either. Even though he was actually, physically here.

Olivia’s laugh penetrated his discomfort and he glanced from the arguing teens to Jim to Loraina who groaned and said things like “Settle down” and “If you don’t stop fighting nobody’s getting anything.”

He peeked at Olivia again. Her pretty face relaxed in her laughter.

Now she was happy and he was the one who felt like an outsider.

* * *

Olivia had never been so glad to see an elevator door open and take people away as she was to see her parents and siblings leave Tucker Engle’s office. He made good on his promise of his limo for their use that afternoon, but he’d been quiet through their lunch.

“Do you want me to go back to reviewing Bartulocci financials this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

He said the word while staring at the elevator that had just taken away her family and his limo driver.

A minute ticked off the clock. Then another. Then another. He just kept staring at that elevator.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

But Olivia didn’t think he was. Normally, he was a tad brisk. Formal. Even with Elias and Ricky from the start-up, two guys who considered him a friend, he’d been formal. She didn’t like this sullen side of him. “I want to apologize again for my family.”

“Your family is very nice.”

She winced. “My brother and sister fight all the time.”

He turned away from the elevator and headed to his office. “I’ve heard that’s normal for brothers and sisters.”

She scrambled after him. If this mood was the fault of her family, she had to help him get rid of it. “Heard?”

“I don’t have any brothers and sisters.”

He strode to his desk and bent down to retrieve a briefcase from the floor. He stopped so quickly, bent so quickly and rose so quickly, that Olivia didn’t have time to get out of his way. When he stood again, they were mere inches apart.

She caught his gaze. She could smell the vague scent of his aftershave, feel the raw maleness that drifted off him. After being attacked, she hadn’t often let herself get close to a man. Especially not someone as far out of her league as the town rich kid had been—as Tucker Engle
was
.

But he was so handsome and she couldn’t seem to step away, or break contact with his beautiful emerald eyes.

When she spoke. her voice was a mere whisper. “You’re an only child?”

“You could say that.”

Though they were talking about something totally innocent, electricity crackled between them. “You don’t know if you’re an only child?”

“No.” He took a long breath. “I’m a foster child.”

“Oh.”

He stepped away. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m fine.”

“Yes, of course.”

He walked around her and strode to the door. “This meeting shouldn’t last more than an hour.”

With that he was gone and Olivia let out her breath in a grand whoosh. A foster child? Her heart ripped in two. Not because he wanted her to feel sorry for him, but because he didn’t.