Uncovered (5 page)

As soon as I had the chance, I’d spruce
this place up with color, but first—first I would take care of Oliver. And
getting through the first day with his mother. Sitting down, I fired up my
iMac, and logged into my employee profile with the information Dora had given
me. Multiple mail alerts flashed across the upper left side of the screen, not
really drawing me in until I saw a message from Stella that had been sent on
Tuesday.

I clicked on it and read as I pulled
Oliver’s envelope from my purse.

Still
staying golden? –Stella Marchand

Once the letter was in front of me, the
paperweight sitting on its right corner, I sent her a quick response.

Twenty-four carat. But … this is my first
day. I’ll let you know at the end.

Exiting my inbox, I took a deep breath
and glanced over at the multiline phone a few inches from the left of my
keyboard. Even though I still had twenty minutes to spare until work officially
began, I needed to get Oliver out of the way.

When I lifted the receiver to my ear
though, I hesitated. This was a mistake.
Anything
involving Oliver and
myself was clearly a mistake, and yet here I was letting my pride lead me
headfirst into a disaster. Instead of letting it go, I shook my head and
started to dial his office number. “Screw it,” I muttered just seconds before
the sound of an inviting male voice greeted me.

“Oliver Manning speaking.” A bolt of
excitement quickened my pulse as I realized I’d reached him directly instead of
a receptionist.

“What the hell do you think you’re
doing?” I demanded in lieu of a greeting.

“Lizzie?” He laughed. It was one of those
deep, sexy chuckles, and I felt the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end. “This
is
Lizzie, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I snapped.

“Took longer than I thought.” When I
snorted, he added in a low voice, “And what I was doing was being a gentleman.
Why the hell are
you
giving me a hard time for it?”

Curling my toes, I slid down into my
chair. “I thought you weren’t screwing HR.”

“I’m not,” he answered without missing a
beat. “Is it just me or was there a little jealousy behind that question?”

“How’d you get my address?”

“So, is it?” he teased. “Jealousy, I
mean. A simple yes or no will work.”

I’d been in Oliver’s presence only once
in my adult life, and I could already say that, without a doubt, there was no
such thing as simple when it came to that man. Squeezing my eyes shut, I gave
him a few more seconds to respond before I repeated, “How did you get my
address, Oliver?”

When he addressed me, his voice had
lowered to a seductive whisper. “We’ve already gone over this, Lizzie. I’m not
fucking Dora. She’s not my only connection.”

“Then who is?”

“I didn’t intend to piss you off.”

Frowning, I rested my elbows on my desk.
His words would be so much more believable if I wasn’t one hundred percent
certain he was grinning at the moment.    

“Avoiding my question isn’t exactly
helping that.” I massaged tiny circles into my right temple. “You’re not going
to tell me, are you?” When he responded with another chuckle, I questioned,
“And what will happen if I go down to Dora’s office and ask her if she gave you
my address?”

“Then I’d likely receive a very angry
call from her. She’d ask me the same questions you’re asking, she’d threaten to
tell my mother to which I’d tell her to go—”

“Since you’re obviously not going to
enlighten me,” I enunciated each syllable for emphasis, “should I return the
gift card to the address on the Manning Hotel Group envelope or do you want me
to leave it at the security desk here?”

He was speechless for a few seconds, and
then he said in the most serious tone I’d heard him use yet, “I’m
not
taking it back, Lizzie.”

“You will if I refuse to accept it.”

“You’re refusing a thousand-dollar gift
card?”

I nearly dropped the receiver. “A
thousand—” I took a deep breath. God, was he that far out of touch with reality?
“Why the hell would you send me that much? It’s an iPhone, not a—”

“I know what it is, and I looked up the
price. Since I didn’t know the model, I added some padding. You’re not going to
return it to me.”

Padding my ass.
“I don’t want it.”

“Then give it to someone else. Because if
you
do
return it to me, I’ll personally show up with it next time.”

“You wouldn’t make it past the doorman,”
I said, which was a lie because though the presence of a doorman was one of the
aspects that had helped me decide on my Marina del Rey apartment, I’d yet to
see one on duty. Still, Oliver didn’t know that. I moved the checkerboard
paperweight off his letter. Fuming, I jerked the first desk drawer open and
swept it all—envelope and gift card included—inside. “Did you treat your mom’s
last assistant like this?”

“Honestly, I don’t even recall the
woman’s name. We maybe said a couple words to each other. I never asked
her
to dinner. And I never thought about what she’d look like with my sheets
tangled beneath her after a five minute conversation.”

As I let his words tumble around my
brain, my throat went dry. “I see.”

“Then you’re saying yes,” he said
confidently, and when I closed my eyes, I could easily picture him, sitting in
his office, leaned back with a satisfied smirk playing on his full lips. He
thought he’d won, but he was wrong.

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go to
dinner—or anywhere involving sheets—with Oliver.

He wasn’t a part of any of my plans.

I couldn’t want anything to do with him.

Suddenly desperate to put a close to the
conversation, I sighed.  “Look, Oliver,” I started, but my eyes jerked open in
surprise when the line went dead. Confused, I twisted toward the keypad. My
gaze landed on a manicured finger pressed on the hook and my heart dropped.

Oh God.

I followed the finger to a delicately
boned hand, an Omega watch, and up to a muscular yet feminine arm. My eyes
wandered over the blue, white, and gray colorblock sheath dress that
Margaret—at fifty-six years old—pulled off better than women half her age and
the beige and champagne blond highlights hanging in shoulder length waves
around her thin face.

Bracing myself, I forced my gaze up until
she and I were staring at one another. Like Oliver, her eyes were a brilliant
shade of blue, but they were currently narrowed into tight, disapproving slits.

“You must be Lizzie.”

“Yes,” I said hoarsely, “I’m so excited
to—”

“Of course you are,” she cut me off
sharply. Her thin lips parted to say something else, but my ringing office
phone distracted her. Before I could stop her, she jerked the receiver from my
hand and removed her finger from the hook. She held the handset to her ear,
ready to answer—or perhaps humiliate me—but to my horror, Oliver spoke first. I
could hear him from where I was sitting.

“I take it I can send a car to pick you
up for dinner tomorrow night, Lizzie.”

She tapped her rounded fingernail on my
desk and cast a frosty smile down on me. “This is your mother, Oliver. Ms.
Connelly will be working late tomorrow evening, but you’re more than welcome to
contact her when she’s not on
my
time.” Hanging up on him, she told me,
“Now that you’re finished with my son, go to The Grindhouse. Have a small,
skinny, double shot cinnamon latte on my desk in ten minutes.”

Then, without another word, she stomped
from my office, slamming the door behind her.

My
father had married Margaret in a quiet civil ceremony just two months after his
divorce from my mother was finalized. I hadn’t been present at the ceremony,
but I could still remember hearing my mom’s harsh sobs coming from her bedroom
in our small, Soho apartment. She had been broken, and at the time, that had
meant I was broken too.

Over the last four months, I’d done more
research on my former stepmother than ever before. The daughter of a an
attorney and a businessman, she’d started at Emerson & Taylor as a lead
designer in 1986—three years after her only child, Oliver, was born. By my
parents’ divorce, she was on the seventh floor working alongside my dad as the
vice president of creative design and before the new millennium rolled around,
she was the CEO of the company.

As I grabbed my purse and left my office,
the plaque on the door across the hall was a stinging reminder of her current
role.

Margaret Manning-Emerson, CEO

Powerwalking through the lobby, I tried
to remember if she’d been so intimidating the first, and only, time I met
her—at my dad’s funeral. But then I shook my head. Other than giving me a stiff
touch—I wasn’t sure I could call it a hug—and telling me she was sorry for my
loss, she’d mostly stared blankly ahead.

Of course, grief could steal the words
and thoughts from even the most unapproachable person, twisting them into a
shell.

Pulling up The Grindhouse on my phone, I
found it was a highly rated coffee shop two blocks away from the office. “Ten
minutes, my ass,” I muttered as I swept out the revolving door and onto the
sidewalk. Despite it being October, I was a sweaty mess by the time I reached
the eatery and took my place at the back of the line. Blatantly, I tried to
ignore the fact that my perspiration was a combination of getting worked up by
Oliver and then getting called out by his mother, all in the course of an hour,
and blamed it on my unexpected exercise instead.

When I reached the waifish barista, I
checked my phone and realized there was no way in hell I’d make it back to the
office within Margaret’s time limit. My first real day on the job, and I was
failing horribly at my task.

“Can I get a small, skinny, extra-hot
cinnamon latte?” I requested, and the barista grabbed a twelve-ounce cup and a
metallic marker. She stared at me expectantly. “Oh, um, the last name is
Connelly.”

She started to scribble on the cup, but
then she paused and looked me up and down, taking in my outfit and flustered
appearance before cocking an eyebrow. “Would this be for Mrs. Emerson?”

Fan-freaking-tastic. It’s never a good
thing when even the coffee shop clerk knows your boss simply from the order and
your look of sheer trepidation
,
I thought.

“It is.” I nodded, and she tossed the cup
in a wastebasket under the counter, grabbed another, and began rewriting the
order.

“I swear, I’m not bossing you around, but
she’ll send you back in a heartbeat if it’s not a double shot.”

Heat prickled the back of my neck.
Dammit. I was so flustered that I was a coffee order away from fucking up even
more with Margaret. “Thanks,” I breathed, and the barista smiled
sympathetically.

“Mrs. E is a longtime customer. We like
to see her happy. I’ll have this ready for you ASAP.”

With three minutes to spare, I raced back
to work, walking as fast as I could in my unforgiving dress and coming
dangerously close several times to drenching myself with Margaret’s molten-hot
drink order. It wouldn’t be the first time coffee had burned me, and I shivered
at the memory of accidentally pulling my father’s coffee on me when I was a
little girl.

“You’re late,” Margaret told me flatly
the second I stepped into her black and white office. She flicked her hand at
the chair positioned in front of her half-moon shaped desk. An image of the
giant mahogany desk that was there many years ago flashed in my mind, and I
swallowed hard at yet another recollection of my father. Noticing my hesitation
to move, Margaret leaned forward, her voice impatient as she snapped me out of
the memory. “Sit, Ms. Connelly.”

My legs felt shaky as I moved forward,
and I was almost thankful for the seat as I slid the coffee in front of her.
“I’m sorry I was late. I’ve never been to The Grind—”

“I’ll forgive it this time.” She took a
sip of the latte before setting it on a silver coaster a few inches from her
laptop. “What I absolutely cannot forgive is personal calls at work. When you
come through that door downstairs, you
are
at work. Do you understand
that, Ms. Connelly?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“I typically handpick my assistants;
however, my recent schedule made that impossible. I trusted Isadora to find me
a qualified applicant, and she assured me you were highly recommended.”

My teeth sunk down on the inside of my
cheek. I hated being talked to like this, and the few times I had a client
who’d treated me like a child, I’d promptly collected my belongings and left.
But this … this was different. There was no gathering my things and leaving because
then I’d never get my answers. The only way to get what I wanted—what I’d been
desperate enough to break the law for—was to sit here and let the woman who had
her lawyer turn me away years ago verbally pummel me.

I dragged in a painful breath. “Yes, I
was highly—”

“I don’t want to hear your virtues, Ms.
Connelly. I’ve already looked at your resume. What I want is for you to do your
job. That starts with—not only leaving
your
personal life at home—but
also not intermingling with mine.” Linking her fingers together and setting her
hands on her desk, she speared me with a flash of her porcelain veneers. “My
son is
off
-limits.”

Instantly, the need to defend myself
kicked in, and I cleared my throat. “I was thanking him. We…bumped into each
other the other day, and I broke my phone. Oliver insisted on replacing it.

“How
kind
of him,” Margaret said,
and the deliberate sarcasm in her voice made me curl my fingernails into my
palms. Inside, I was seething, but I beamed at her agreeably. Sweetly. As if
the word
bitch
wasn’t rolling through my mind like movie credits. 

“And now that you’ve
expressed
your gratitude, you can get to work. I’m usually here by nine-thirty, so I’ll
expect you in here with my coffee no later than then.”

“Same order as today?”

With a brisk nod, she pushed a sheet of
paper across the desk to me. Turning it around, I saw that it was a handwritten
To-Do list. “I’ve taken the time to write down what I expect from you before
the end of the week, but in the future, it will be your responsibility to take
notes. Has Isadora sent in your information for a company credit card?”

“Not that I’m aware of, she never
mentioned it to me.”  Which I supposed was a good thing. No matter how talented
she was, I wasn’t sure Pen could pull off getting my fake identity approved for
a company card.

Margaret blew a lock of wavy, highlighted
hair from her face. “Christ, that airheaded—” Exhaling through her turned-up
nose, she unlocked her top desk drawer and reached inside. “You’ll need to
speak to Isadora about getting a card. It should only take a week or so.”

Hopefully, I wouldn’t be here long enough
to need it, but I nodded. “Yes, I’ll talk to her today.”

Margaret pulled her hand from her desk
drawer, producing a credit card. Instead of handing it to me right away, she
held it close to her chest—like a lecturing parent would when giving a child
her first debit card. “
This
. Is.
Mine
,” she told me, her voice
spoken in slow motion as she emphasized each word. “You will not use it for
your personal expenses, is that understood?”

I managed a look that was a combination
of outrage and surprise. “Of course. I would never do that.”

She simpered. Keeping her gaze locked on
mine, she handed me the card. “You’re obligated to say that, Ms. Connelly.”
Standing, she smoothed her elegant hands down the front of her colorblock
dress. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a brunch meeting to attend. I’m personally
a big fan of punctuality.”

From her hard look—a look I had trouble
imagining in her son’s similar blue eyes—I took her words for what they clearly
were. A stark warning.

“I’ll do my best to be on time in the
future,” I said, feeling my chest hurt a little more with every word that fell
from my lips. Gathering her credit card and the To-Do list, I headed to the
French doors. Before l left the room, I turned slightly. “Is there anything
else you need me to do?”

She grabbed her white Hermes bag from the
corner of her desk and lowered her chin to the paper in my hand. “Your job,”
she stated, and before I could offer some chipper promise about doing it to the
best of my ability, she icily added, “And not my son.”

*

With
my head down, I returned to my office and dropped into my seat. Did that really
just happen? Releasing a rasping groan, I buried my face in my hands. Yes, it
had happened. The first meeting with the woman whose life I was trying to
infiltrate had gone to crap because she thought I wanted to screw her son.

“Of course, Mrs. Emerson, I wouldn’t
dream of it,” I muttered, mimicking what I’d said to her after she told me to
keep away from Oliver. To her, the reaction had probably seemed contrite, but
fury raged within me. “Damn you, Oliver.”

My computer dinged, and I pushed my loose
curls back from my flaming face to check my email. Two messages waited—the
first from Stella, telling me she was still holding me to that promise for
drinks.

Monday is a holiday, but how does Tuesday
sound?
I responded
before returning to my inbox. The second message was from Oliver.

The worst emotion
possible—anticipation—settled in my stomach.

For what felt like a small eternity, I
stared at the unopened message. And I loathed myself for the tendrils of
curiosity winding around me, making the desire to know what he had to say all
the more tempting.

You dumbass fool,
I told myself as I clicked on his
message.

Lizzie,

I was serious about dinner. Let me know
what your schedule looks like. You’re welcome to return the gift card to me
then.

-Oliver

Tapping my foot, I glanced down at the
long list his mother had given me before my fingers flew across the keyboard in
response.

Oliver,

Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t allow
for dinner dates with my boss’ son, but thank you for the offer.

Best wishes,

Lizzie

 
Hitting send, I picked up Margaret’s list and began studying
it in earnest.

“
Verify final details with Natalie
Roche for Halloween charity ball, schedule travel accommodations to Paris for
November fourteenth meeting…
” The sound of a new message coming through
drew my attention away from the paper, and I looked up at my screen to see a
response from Oliver.

If my mother said anything to you, let me
ease your mind by telling you this: I’ll be thirty in December. I haven’t let
the wishes of others dictate whom I date—or fuck—in many, many years.

My mouth went dry as I read his message.
Again. And then two more times. The words seemed to seep into my skin, waking
parts of myself that had no business being in Los Angeles with me. Tugging at
the scooped neck of my dress, I considered my next words carefully before I
tentatively typed my reply.

Oliver,

I have no intention of dating or bedding
you, so sorry to bruise your ego. Please stop harassing me at the office—I’d
hate to have to report your behavior to HR. Don’t you have work to do?

Lizzie

His final reply came a few minutes later,
and looking at the new message alert on the screen tightened every muscle in my
body. Oliver wouldn’t have simply brushed that last email off with a simple
fuck
you
. I closed my eyes, knowing that whatever he’d said would mess with me.
I told myself that I didn’t have to read it, that I shouldn’t give Oliver
another thought. But I shrugged off my own warning. Opening my eyes, I glued
them to the screen, reading his words hungrily.

Lizzie,

There was nothing innocent about the way
you stared at me earlier this week, and if there was, I wouldn’t be pursuing
you. Innocence is an overrated headache that I don’t want.

And that threat about HR? I’d be happy to
explain my plans for you to Isadora, but I’m not sure you want her hearing some
of those details. Before you respond, I should also tell you that I still
want—and plan—to take you to dinner.