five extra minutes under the ultimate hydro-jet massage from heaven?
God, if he knew how many times she’d treated herself to that shower, she’d be updating her résumé. And she’d worked in human resources long enough to know that the last place she wanted to be was on the job market. No one hired anyone without a check of the Internet—and she knew exactly what would pop up when someone typed “Anna Cross” into a search engine.
Accused of corporate spying…
No, Anna shouldn’t do anything that would force her to look for another job. So, she’d better hope her boss didn’t think borrowing the shower was grounds for dismissal.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she listened to the voice mail system announce that Parker Garrison had seventeen messages.
Seventeen? What the heck was going on?
By the time she jotted down message number five, she knew. At least she knew that something really bad had gone down at the morning meeting. The various Garrison siblings and a couple of lawyers didn’t provide details in their voice mails, but their tone, along with a few clues about “what the will said,” didn’t sound good.
Parker’s door had remained firmly shut since she’d done her level best to exit his office with some measure of dignity, knowing he watched her, knowing he’d seen everything she’d been careful to hide. Ever since she’d arrived at Garrison, Inc. four years ago, Anna had done whatever was necessary to stay off the radar, and do an outstanding job as an administrative assistant.
In fact, she’d done such an outstanding job in human resources that she’d been handed the promotion of her dreams when the slot for Parker Garrison’s administrative assistant had become available three months ago. Maybe, considering her history, she should have turned it down.
But she couldn’t resist the upgrade in status, pay and benefits. Plus, she’d been tucked away on a lower floor for almost four years. Surely, after all this time, her past would remain, well, in the past.
Still, it had become habit to keep a low profile.
Until ten minutes ago when her profile had been anything but low. It had been… damn near naked.
She closed her eyes again as another heat wave threatened, trying to ignore it as she noted each caller. No, that definitely wasn’t embarrassment. Nor was it a feminine response to the warmth of Parker’s very obviously high opinion of how she looked sans suit. The heat wave that warred with the air conditioner was raw terror.
The only thing she’d ever wanted out of this job, this city and this life was anonymity and peace. No attention—from men or media. No connection—with her boss or his associates. No trouble—ever. And what had just happened in that bathroom spelled attention, connection and trouble in capital red letters.
She recorded the rest of the messages on a call sheet that she delivered to him hourly, only slightly reassured by the fact that whatever was going wrong in Parker’s world, it would divert his attention from her.
Her intercom buzzed.
“Yes, Mr. Garrison?”
“I need you.”
Her gut clenched. “I’ll be right there, Mr. Garrison.”
“I think, Anna—” his voice in the receiver was just soft enough to make her tighten her grasp and push the phone closer to her ear “—you could probably call me Parker now.”
Now that I’ve seen you in your underwear. Her heart wobbled. “Absolutely, Mr…. Parker.”
He was still chuckling when she hung up.
“Come on, Anna,” she whispered to herself, gathering her planner and pen. Parker didn’t strike her as the kind of man to torture and tease a woman, or one who would assume that just because he’d seen her in the almost altogether that he could have his way with her.
She stood, surprised at how shaky that thought made her legs. Have his way with her.
A stupid, archaic phrase that sent even stupider, more archaic pulses down her body. So they’d had an awkward moment.
She rolled her eyes at the understatement. A really awkward moment. And so what if she’d seen a lusty side of a man she found attractive? Okay, gorgeous. All right, hot as sin.
She was still a top-notch administrative assistant who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that office affairs were for fools who liked to job hop. And he was a very important, busy man who had an electronic black book with the name and private cell phone number of every available model, debutante and businesswoman in Miami-Dade County.
She was still an employee, and he was still the boss. Period. End of fantasy.
She tapped on his door, opening it as she did. She’d always done that, but this morning, the intrusion felt more intimate. He stood at the window, the cordless phone held to his ear, his attention on the postcard view of Biscayne Bay. Through a floor-to-ceiling window, sunlight glinted off blue-violet waves, polka-dotted with pleasure craft and cruise ships, fringed by emerald palm trees and the pastel high-rises of Miami Beach on the horizon.
But the real view was inside and, as always, Anna stole an eyeful.
Parker had removed his jacket, revealing the tailored cut of a snow-white zillion-thread-count designer shirt pulled just taut enough to hint at the toned, developed muscles underneath. The shirt was tucked neatly into dark trousers, custom-made to fit like a dream over one drool-inducing backside.
The man was a god.
He turned from the window and she averted her eyes before getting caught worshipping at the altar of his backside.
“Can the legal crap, Brandon,” he said into the phone, sliding one of his hands through closely cropped, thick black hair. “I don’t care what the DNA test results will say. Can we or can we not contest this will?”
DNA? Contest the will? Anna frowned, but Parker just nodded to one of the guest chairs in front of his desk, issuing an unspoken invitation for her to sit. As always, he seemed utterly calm, the aura of authority that shimmered around him neatly in place. But there was something different in that clipped voice, and in the tense way he held his broad shoulders. His control was tied on with a tenuous thread today.
“Fine, you do that,” he said, leaning his head to one side to work out a crick. “In the meantime, it’s business as usual. My business.” He glanced at Anna, who made a show of flipping her planner to the next clean page so she didn’t stare. Even though she’d become quite adept at avoiding detection.
“Oh, damn it all, I completely forgot.” His tone changed with the admission, and she instantly sat up, prepared to help him remember what he forgot. That was, after all, her job. Not ogling his perfectly shaped butt, impossibly wide shoulders or Adonis-like chest. Parker-gazing was just a side benefit.
“I can’t go,” he said to Brandon, sliding into the high-backed desk chair and reaching for his little black digital device and pressing a few buttons. “But, with the bomb you just dropped at this morning’s reading, I think I need to be there more than ever.”
He paused and Anna tried to psych out what he was talking about.
“But I’m way too swamped to consider going that far away,” he added, “unless I charter a jet.”
Of course. London.
“I have a ton of work to do this weekend,” he continued, “and it’s impossible to get anything done on a commercial flight.”
Anna slipped a creamy-white card embossed with silver letters from the “pending” section of his calendar. Her fingers glided over the imprint of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association seal, over the gilded script inviting him to the annual ball at Guildhall in London. She’d been meaning to get a response from him so she could RSVP.
He