Surrendering to Us (5 page)

Well either Violet Cooper had given out a lot of sexual favors, or else she’d really nailed the initial interview (I hoped it was the latter) because she was on the short list when I opened my email a little while later. Due to Lilia’s fabulous flagging system, it was one of the first things I read. She’d learned that what I deemed important varied, which was what made the job slightly difficult.

Follow-up interviews with everyone who made it through the first round were set for tomorrow and were going to take nearly an entire day. Lovely. I’d have to remember to drink an extra cup of coffee, or five, beforehand. Interviews, if you’ve done enough of them, can be horribly dull, unless someone says something unexpected. Or they answer their phone in the middle of said interview.

I meant to go see Dad in the morning, but of course that didn’t happen. There was a snag with some of the html coding on the beta website page for the new software and no one seemed to be able to figure it out, so a group email had been sent around to see if anyone could fix it. I had a working knowledge of html, but I couldn’t find why it wasn’t working. I sent my response back that I had no idea. Two seconds after I sent it, there was another timid knock. Sometimes when I looked up, I still thought Lucah was going to be standing there, but it was Lilia. Maybe she was so scared because I always looked so disappointed to see her. It wasn’t her fault that she wasn’t Lucah.

“Miss Clarke?”

“Yes, what can I do for you, Lilia?” She shifted from one purple satin heel to the other. Today her dress was sunny yellow, with a matching purple belt around her waist. Too bad she was a twig, or else I would beg to raid her closet.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s probably not my place, but I was just glancing at that code, and I think I found the problem.” Lilia, in addition to her own email account, had access to mine, but I forgot sometimes that she could see it whenever she wanted.

“You did?” She nodded and kept her eyes on the floor. “Where?” I nodded and she walked into my office as if I’d asked her to enter the Dungeon of Eternal Torture. But she came around my desk and stood at my shoulder as I pulled the copy of the code up.

She scanned it with her eyes and then pointed.

“There. It’s missing . . . “ she stole the mouse and moved it to the spot and then typed a few things in. “There. That should work.” For the first time her voice wasn’t a whisper. This girl knew code.

“I have no idea what you just did, but I’m going to send it back to tech and have them double-check it.”

And just like that, timid Lilia reappeared.

“I hope it’s right. I think it’s right.”

“If it is, I’m taking you out to lunch. My treat.” I smiled, but the scared look on her face just got worse. “So you know html?”

“Uh yeah. You know how some people can learn a foreign language really easily? That’s like me and code. My brother and I used to hack websites for fun in our spare time when we were kids. Oh. I probably shouldn’t have told you that. Please don’t fire me.” She looked like she was actually scared that I would use her teenage hacking as a reason to fire her. It made me laugh.

“Um, if you knew about all the crap I did when I was younger, and still managed to be successful . . . So why did you want to be my assistant instead of working down with the tech guys?” She paused for a long time before she answered, and I started to think maybe she wouldn’t.

“I thought about it, but I wanted to learn from you. I wanted to know how you did it, being so young and being surrounded by men. I can be a little shy, and you seemed so confident. I wanted to learn from the best.” Wow, what a compliment. I could feel my head swell and my cheeks turn red. That was rare, outside of Lucah teasing me.

“You make me sound like some sort of corporate superhero.” I should put in an order for a cape. “I’m not, but it’s really nice of you to say that. I learned the hard way, and I know you have to be confident. Knowing that you’re smart and prepared, and that you are the best for the job is also key. Convincing people that you know what you’re talking about is half the battle. Clearly, your strength is code, based on what you just showed me. So I’ll fish around and see if I can get you some special projects.” Now it was her turn to blush.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Of course I do. I’m your boss, and I want you to succeed here. I also don’t want to lose you to another company.” I knew a gem when I found one. It just took a little while for her to shine.

A ding signaled that I had an email. It was tech informing me that Lilia’s fix had worked.

“Go sign out. I’m taking you to lunch.” She gave me another tiny smile and dashed to her desk.

Once I got Lilia out of the office, and got her talking about computers and code and so forth, she turned into a delightful, bubbly person. I knew she was buried in there. Lilia was one of those people who really lit up when she was talking about something she was passionate about.

“I’m sorry for talking so much.”

“Don’t be sorry at all, I’ve been trying to get you to talk since I hired you. Even though I’m your boss, I want us to be able to talk, okay?”

She nodded and finished the last bit of her key lime pie. I paid using the company credit card, which Lilia noticed.

“This is a work meeting. We discussed work, so it counts,” I said, giving her a wink. If several of the men at the office could go golfing and write it off, I could take my assistant out to lunch.

“Thanks so much. This was really nice,” she said as I dropped her back at her desk.

“We’ll have to make it a regular thing. Maybe once a month.” She smiled again, and I definitely liked that look better than her fearful face. I dropped my bag off in my office and went down the hall to see Dad.

“Rory, I was hoping I’d see you sometime today.” He motioned me in and I closed the door. “How are you doing? How’s your new assistant? Not quite like your last one.” Haha.

“She’s doing well. It’s probably a good thing that she isn’t like the last one. How are you doing?” He was looking worse and worse. Now his skin had sort of taken on an unhealthy grayish tinge that made my stomach flip in a bad way. I was going to have to give Mom a call and see if she could do something.

“Busy. Very busy. This . . . setback has been tough. But we can get through it.” He gave me a tight smile, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore.

“Daddy, you have to stop working so hard. You’re going to get sick. There is a whole office full of people who can help you. And we have all those interns now. I’m worried about you.” I got up and put my arms around him. He sighed heavily, like he’d heard it before, which he had. Probably from multiple sources.

“This is my company. I built it from the ground up and I feel responsible. This happened on my watch, because I wasn’t paying attention. I can’t let it happen again.” I just hugged him harder, and he finally hugged me back.

“But I worry about you. You’re not as young as you were.”

“Hey, I earned these years and grey hairs.” He pulled back and smiled.

“I know you did. Hey, how about you take the rest of the day off and get in some golf? You haven’t been in ages. We can deal with everything here. The company’s not going to blow up if you leave. I don’t think,” I said with a wink.

“So apparently, Lilia is some sort of html genius,” I said as Lucah and I lay on the couch after eating dinner. We’d made love so vigorously last night, and it had been a long day for both of us that I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen tonight. Besides, I was thinking of inviting Sloane over to watch movies with us anyway.

“Imagine that. A girl who is good at computers.” He said it with sarcasm, so I knew he wasn’t serious. I also knew that Lucah had no problem with smart, independent women.

“I know, right? So do you mind if I ask Sloane over? I haven’t talked to her since last night.” She’d sent me a couple of terse texts, but it wasn’t good enough. We needed to make up face to face. Even if I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Sure, I don’t mind. As long as I get you later. And as long as I get to pick one of the movies.”

“Uh, I don’t think so. That’s not how this works. There are two of us and one of you. So we win. Sorry about that.” He just shook his head, because he knew it was true. In addition to getting me when he moved in, he also got my extensive DVD collection that Sloane had added to over the years. It included just about every movie that you could possibly need to watch during PMS, after a breakup, or to cheer you up if you’d had a crappy day. It just so happened that a lot of those movies were, um, romantic comedies and chick flicks. They weren’t all like that, but a lot of them were. Lucah didn’t have a lot of movies, because he watched most everything on his laptop and DVDs were a pain to travel with.

I still hadn’t heard the extent of his adventures around the US, but I was giving him time, and I didn’t want to guilt him into telling me. I wanted him to want to tell me.

“Just as long as it’s not Hugh Grant. I can’t stand that guy. I don’t know what it is about him, but I just want to knock his teeth in.” Sloane and I had done a Hugh Grant marathon once when Lucah was home and he’d whined and complained the entire time. You would have thought we were putting him through a rare form of torture.

“Fine. No Hugh Grant. But anything else is fair game.” I could make this really terrible for him if I wanted to. But then he might withhold oral from me as punishment, and I definitely didn’t want that.

I dashed down the hall to knock at my former apartment. I heard her walk to the door and peer at me through the peephole.

“Movie night? Your theme choice. Only no Hugh Grant. Lucah vetoed.” I heard her sigh on the other side of the door, but the lock clicked and the door opened.

“Fine. I guess. Do you have popcorn?” I shook my head, and she let me in. “Must I do EVERYTHING for you?” Man, she was grumpy. She went to the cupboard and got out the bottle of popcorn kernels. She was adamantly anti-microwave popcorn. Plus, she didn’t just put butter on it. Oh no, she made popcorn into an orgasmic taste experience. That was another reason I’d come over. And to make up. There was definitely that too.

“Are you okay?” I knew she wasn’t PMS-ing because we were on the same cycle and had just finished.

“Not really. I’m just really stressed. Finding people to believe in the new lingerie line has proved more difficult than I thought.” Sloane was used to talking and getting her way, and she always got in a terrible mood when she didn’t get what she wanted. Sometimes, like with Ryder, it got out of hand, but sometimes, like with her business, I felt for her.

“Aw, I’m sorry. How can people not want to invest in it? Did you tell them about our success rate?” I had gotten laid every single time I’d worn one of her outfits and so had our friend, Marisol.

“It’s just a really crowded market. That bitch Victoria and her damn Secret are hard to compete with.”

“That whore.”

“Yeah, screw her.” She got out the popcorn popper and started banging around and assembling other ingredients. From what I could tell, she was going with savory tonight, given the spices she was shaking together into a measuring cup. She also got some butter going on the stove and I waited for her to start talking. It was only a matter of time.

“I just thought that this would be easy. I mean, it seemed like such a good idea and I was so sure of it. But now it’s like I’m failing.” She sniffed, her back to me as she stood at the stove so the butter didn’t burn.

I walked over and put my hands on her shoulders.

“You’re not a failure, Sloane. You have never failed at anything you’ve ever done. Everything you ever wanted, you’ve gotten.”

“Except love,” she said in a small voice. Crap, I’d forgotten about that. But it didn’t undo my previous statement. She had gotten everything she’d ever wanted, career-wise.

“You’ll find it. I promise.” She sniffed again and wiped her eyes.

“Why the fuck am I so emotional? If I didn’t know that there was ZERO chance that I was pregnant, I’d be taking a test. This is all your fault, by the way.” She turned and I almost stumbled into the counter.