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As she strode to her car, she didn’t even see the celebrated blossoms of spring in Georgia, feel the warmth of the March sun or smell the fresh air that signaled new life. All she could think of was how poorly Josh had treated her, and how foolish she had been to let him.
With every mile she drove on her way to her apartment, huge chunks of grief and sadness dislodged from her soul, but more than that she got angry. Furious. She was so damned glad to be moving on with the rest of her life that she hoped she never saw Josh Anderson again.
She was grateful—thrilled—he had been obnoxious when she tried to say goodbye. It was painful to think she had wasted four years of her life being head over heels in love with the guy. This rude awakening was exactly what she needed to force her to face the truth and assure that she didn’t change her mind or have any regrets. After the way he had treated her, she was absolutely certain she wouldn’t have to worry about being nice to him again, let alone falling back in love with him. Let alone reversing her decision and staying in Georgia one minute beyond her deadline!
When there was a knock at her apartment door only a few minutes after she arrived home, Olivia peered up from the final box she was packing and wondered who the heck it could be. Positive it was a well-wisher, hopefully somebody with takeout dinner, she answered the door with a smile.
When she saw Josh, her smile faded and she said, “What do you want?”
“Hey, is that any way to treat a guy who is here to apologize?”
She only stared at him. It was odd. Now that she had faced the truth about him, and now that he was no longer her boss, she didn’t have the butterflies in her stomach that she usually got. They were equals. On even ground. He didn’t hold her future in his hands anymore.
Heck, she didn’t even like him anymore.
She could talk to him any way she wanted.
“I’m going to take a wild stab at this and guess that you’re here because Gina finally got you to understand that today was my last day.”
Josh shuffled his feet. “Yes and no. Come on, Liv, I’ve been busy. You know that better than anybody else. And I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I feel like a heel for not realizing you were going.”
“They had a cake for me sitting by the coffeepot. You ate three pieces, but didn’t see the Good Luck in Florida decoration? You’re a marketing whiz who graduated from Princeton. I’m just about certain you can read.”
“Come on, Liv,” he groaned. “I’ve been preoccupied. Florida? You’re moving to Florida?”
“My mother lives there.”
“Oh, so you’re moving to be with family?”
She almost told him she was moving to get away from him, but thought the better of it. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but she didn’t want him to know she had spent the past four years desperately hoping he would notice her, desperately wishing he would fall in love with her. He had embarrassed her enough for one lifetime—or maybe she had embarrassed herself by not waking up sooner. But she was awake now and she wasn’t letting her guard down.
“Look, Josh, I’m busy. I’ve got to pack these things in my car. And then I need to find a hotel and go to bed early so I can be on the road first thing in the morning to avoid some of the traffic.”
“What part of Florida?”
“What difference does it make?” Olivia said, getting angry. Now that she wanted him out of her life, it appeared he wanted to camp at her front door.
“I’m just curious. We’ve been together three years—”
“Four,” she interrupted him.
“Four years. Four long years,” he said, ambling into her living room, which was empty except for boxes. “And now you’re just going. It doesn’t feel right.”
For the first time since his arrival, Olivia began to weaken. He finally got it. Her leaving didn’t feel right. It felt forced and awkward.
Still, it was too late.
This time she shuffled her feet. “Yeah, it feels weird.”
“And it’s the worst possible time for Hilton-Cooper-Martin.”
Olivia swallowed. That was the one part she regretted. And her only Achilles’ heel. She hadn’t intended to leave when all hell was breaking loose for the company that had employed her and paid her generously for four years. But she had set a deadline of one year to get him to notice her, and she had promised herself she would leave if he didn’t. In the past twelve months she had tried everything under the sun to get Josh to see her as a woman, to ask her out, or even to hold a more personal conversation with her, but he hadn’t. So, keeping the deal she made with herself, she gave up what was clearly an unrequited love and turned in her two-week notice. She had actually resigned before Gina’s father, Hilton Martin, gave Josh the assignment that buried him with work. But in spite of the gravity of the situation, she wouldn’t let herself take back her resignation. She couldn’t. Forcing herself to admit that her life was stagnating and it was time to move on had been difficult enough the first time. She never would be able to do it a second time.
“Sorry.”
He caught her gaze and gave her the sweet, sheepish smile that always made her melt. “You could salve your conscience and save my career if you would stay another week and help me train a new person.”
She shook her head. “Can’t.”
“You already have another job?”
She shrugged. “An interview.”
“We can reschedule an interview,” he said, as if he still had the right to plan her life, and Olivia straightened her shoulders.
“There is no we, Josh. This is an interview scheduled between me and a new company—”
“What new company?”
Josh had never been this curious about her life. She knew part of his inquisitiveness stemmed from his natural gift for digging into a situation and finding a way to work it to his advantage. But she also sensed something else. He stood in her empty living room, gazing at her boxes as if they were strange, wonderful things he should explore, and Olivia got the feeling something was wrong. She knew he regretted losing her. She knew he regretted being rude. But the poor guy seemed like he was going to have a stroke or something.
“It’s a law office,” she mumbled, answering his question.
He looked at her. He really looked at her…and smiled. Olivia genuinely believed it was the first time that he was seeing her as a person, not just an employee.
“You’re going to be a legal secretary?”
“That’s actually what I trained to be.”
His smile grew larger. “No kidding.”
She shrugged, keeping her eyes downward because she was weakening. Really, really weakening. She had fallen in love with Josh Anderson because he was a workaholic who wasn’t any nicer to himself than he was to the people around him. Olivia knew he needed somebody in his life who would smother him with affection. She had fallen in love with him because underneath all that Princeton business knowledge was a simple, nice guy who took great pleasure in the most common, ordinary things when he finally got around to noticing them. To him everything was special and wonderful, because in an odd way everything was new to him.
“You ever work for a lawyer?” he asked suddenly.
“Yeah. When I first got out of college.”
“I hear they’re awful.”
“I’m sure Ethan McKenzie will be thrilled to hear that,” Olivia said with a laugh, referring to Hilton-Cooper-Martin’s in-house counsel.
“Hey, Ethan can be a barracuda when he wants to be.”
She smiled.
Josh smiled.
“Just give me one week, Olivia.”
She shook her head, feeling the weight of her shoulder-length golden blond hair as it shifted around her. “I can’t.”
Josh tried to argue, but she held her hand up to stop him. “It’s not something you can fix. I don’t have electricity,” she said, then hit the switch to prove it. “I told my landlord I would be out today and I have to be out today. I have to find a hotel room for tonight. Forget about finding a place to stay for an entire week.”
“Stay with me,” Josh suggested as if it were the most simple, most obvious solution in the world, but heat shivered through Olivia.
Stay with him…at his house…All alone with him when she was weakening toward him again. Oh, that would be wonderful.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?” Josh asked innocently.
Unless she wanted to confess the truth, Olivia knew she didn’t have an answer for him. He had the perfect argument and his next words proved it.
“I have a huge house. You would have your own bedroom and bathroom. And it would give me a chance to make everything up to you. Every insensitive, inconsiderate thing I’ve done in the past three…four years,” he said, correcting himself, “I could replace with something good. I like you, Liv. I feel terrible about the fact that I didn’t treat you better. And I want to fix this.”
Olivia couldn’t help it. She smiled. There was no way he could “fix” what had happened between them unless he married her. For a silly second she wondered how he would react if she told him that, but decided it wouldn’t be wise to mention it.
“I hope you’re not planning to spend this week trying to convince me to change my mind about leaving, because you can’t ‘fix’ the reasons I’m leaving.”
“Okay, so I’ll respect your privacy,” Josh said quickly. “I won’t ask why you’re leaving, I won’t try to get you to stay. I will keep to the letter of this bargain.”
Though she had already begun to weaken, she wavered even more. She did feel guilty about leaving at such a bad time. Not just because Josh was busy, but because everyone was busy. Before Josh was through he would have everybody working, helping to ward off the competition, saving the company from the new grocery store chain that was trying to infringe on their territory. While she, the one person who should have been there to support Josh and to pay back Hilton Martin for all the good things he had done for her, would be hundreds of miles away.
“I’ll get Ethan to write up an official agreement if it will make you feel better,” Josh coaxed.
But his proposal had exactly the opposite effect. All the girls in the office knew why she was leaving. They had helped her to forge her declaration of independence. They would laugh at her if she came back. Even for a week. Even to help him.
Especially if she came back to help him.
“I can’t.”
“What do I have to do to change your mind?”
Knowing Josh would see right through a lie and would also see a little too far into the meaning if she told him the truth, Olivia wrapped her arms around herself and turned away from him so he couldn’t look at her face.
“I already told everybody I was leaving. They had a party and a cake. I can’t just show up Monday morning.”
“So, don’t,” Josh said in his usual I-can-find-the-answer-to-anything voice. “Train me at night.” He snapped his fingers. “I know. Train me tomorrow and Sunday. That way if anybody sees you at the office, you can still say you’re leaving Monday.”
He had a point. And she did regret deserting him. And she did feel awkward about putting Hilton-Cooper-Martin Foods in a bind when there was so much work to do.
“Okay,” she said, but the minute the word was out of her mouth she regretted it because Josh gave her his beautiful smile again. And he was looking at her as if he really appreciated what she was doing. And they were about to spend at least a weekend in the same house, probably across the hall from each other. Undoubtedly staring at each other over Cheerios.
Boy, this didn’t feel right at all.
If anything, Olivia got the sudden, distinct impression she’d jumped from the frying pan directly into the fire.
Chapter Two
Josh glanced around Olivia’s empty living room, desperately wishing she still had a chair, because the second she opened her door he felt he needed to sit. But without furniture in the room, he was forced to stand on legs that didn’t seem to want to support him.
Olivia had knocked him for a loop dressed in jeans and a cute little green top. With her blond hair hanging past her shoulder blades instead of pulled back in the usual ponytail or neat chignon, she didn’t look at all like a secretary, but a woman. For the first ten seconds he actually felt dizzy and sort of weak-kneed. He would have wisely sat for a bit to give himself time to get his bearings, but she didn’t have a darned chair!
“So,” he said, trying to sound casual and knowing he was failing. But it didn’t matter because he had accomplished the real goal of his mission. She had agreed to help him get organized so he could train her replacement. No matter how silly or how shaky he sounded, the victory was his. And the sooner he got her out of this house and into his, the less chance she would change her mind.
“I appreciate your doing this, Liv,” he said, then wondered why he had the sudden inspiration to give her a nickname when he had never used one before. “But, since it’s already late, I think we should get going.”
Olivia turned to face him and Josh found himself caught in the gaze of her unusual green eyes. They weren’t green like grass, or green like moss, but more the color of the ocean. Sort of an aqua. He’d never noticed them before.
“To your house?”
“Well, yeah. We’ll get you settled and then maybe we’ll even have time for you to give me some background information about your job before we call it a night.”
“I guess,” Olivia said, but she stammered and stumbled over her words, as if she were having second thoughts about her agreement. Josh nearly panicked until she added, “The thing is, Josh, I have to be out of here tonight. That means I have to have all my boxes out of here.”
A rush of relief poured through him. For a minute there, he thought she might have changed her mind. Or, worse, that she was recognizing the layers of complications involved in spending the weekend at his house. After all they were both single, good-looking adults, and in spite of the fact that he was more than ten years older than she, he was suddenly attracted to her. Maybe she had noticed and wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to stay overnight with him…. Or maybe after seeing him in another context she was feeling an attraction to him….
Nah. That was nothing but his over-active imagination traveling into the land of wishful thinking.
“That’s simple enough. I’ll help you get the rest of these boxes into your car and then you can follow me home. By the way, where’s your furniture?”
“I sold it. I’m going to be living with my mother and stepfather until I get on my feet. Once I do, I would rather buy new things than use what I had here, because I want to make a whole new life.”
He knew there was significance in that statement. She hadn’t said it with any extra inflection, but Josh instinctively knew that selling her furniture or maybe starting over again meant something to her.
“Well,” he said, not quite sure why a simple statement would leave him with a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. “New furniture is as good a way as any to make a declaration of independence.”
She nodded, and her blond hair floated around her like a billowy cloud. In the thin light of the early evening, her complexion was smooth and edged with shadows that gave her a mysterious, sultry countenance, again feeding the notion that he didn’t really know this woman at all, and again making him feel tongue-tied and stupid.
He glanced around at her boxes to get his eyes off her. “What do you say we get started?”
“Okay,” she agreed, but now her voice sounded uncertain. Almost as if she didn’t know how to treat him anymore.
Josh understood that feeling perfectly. He hadn’t necessarily missed that his former secretary was an attractive woman, he had just never noticed that she was drop-dead gorgeous. Not that that influenced how he felt about her. He had always liked her. True, he didn’t show her any affection. Sometimes he wasn’t even really friendly. But he was busy. He was always busy. It wasn’t easy to work for family. First, he didn’t want to take advantage of the generosity of his uncle. Second, he didn’t ever want anyone to accuse him of not pulling his weight. If he worked harder and longer than everyone else, it was because he had to.
And if that meant his personal life suffered, then so be it. The problem was, though, in one ten-minute encounter out of the office, with roles reversed, or perhaps in some respects completely nonexistent, watching Olivia’s hair shifting around her every time she moved, and her nice little butt outlined in her jeans, Josh was considering that maybe—just maybe—his life was out of balance.
“Josh?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry,” Josh apologized quickly, then hoped she hadn’t caught him staring at her, pining for something he couldn’t have. Because that was ridiculous. Hormones. An unexpected wash of testosterone. That’s all. His goals, his lifestyle, his dedication to a man who had rescued him from a job he hated, couldn’t be overturned merely from seeing a pretty girl in jeans that fit as if they were cut to cling to her curves.
“Tell me what box to move and where to take it, and I’ll start toting and storing.”
“Okay,” she said, chipper and happy again.
Josh nearly breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to be attracted to her. He didn’t want to be attracted to anybody, but he especially didn’t want to be attracted to her. She worked for him. Any move he made or inadvertently flirty thing he said could be construed as sexual harassment, but more than that she was vital to his plans right now. He needed her to be his teacher…and maybe his friend. But that was it.
Comfortable that his resolve was in place, he took a quick peek at her to see if the sight of her disrupted his reinforced conviction. When it didn’t, he knew he was back to normal. It was for both of their benefit that he didn’t see her as anything other than a secretary, and if it killed him over the next few days, he would treat her as impersonally as possible.
