drawer.”
She pulled out the drawer in question. There was a little safe mounted inside, with a combination lock. He rattled off the combination. She grabbed a pencil and jotted the numbers on a sticky note.
He said, “Get me the strongest coffee they’ve got, black, extra-large. When you bring it in to me, come armed with a notebook or your laptop and we’ll get down to what I want from you today. After that, you get with Lin Dietrich.” He turned and gazed over the large open workspace of desks, tables, machines and semi-cubicles. “Lin!”
A slim, beautiful Asian woman with a streak of cobalt blue in her thick, straight black bangs popped up from behind a glass partition. “What now?”
Dax signaled her over. When she reached his side, he announced proudly, “Lin’s the best editorial assistant I ever had, which means I had to promote her. My loss. Your gain. Lin is features editor now. But today, she’ll be with you, showing you everything you need to know.”
Lin gave Dax a narrow look, and then sent a wry smile in Zoe’s direction. “Because there’s nothing I need more than a little extra work to do.”
“I learn fast,” Zoe promised.
“Best news I’ve heard so far today.” Lin’s expression said she’d believe it when she saw it.
“Coffee,” Dax said one more time, in a pained voice. He turned and went into his office without waiting for a reply, swinging the door firmly shut behind him.
Lin laughed. “He’s always at his most charming on Monday mornings. Better get that coffee. I’m here when you’re ready for me.”
Dax finished telling Zoe what he wanted from her at a little after ten. She found Lin, who took a few minutes to introduce her around the office. More than one of her new colleagues teased her about falling for the boss. Wearily, Zoe reassured each one that it wasn’t going to be a problem.
Once the introductions were made, Lin then began guiding her through the mile-long list of high-priority duties Dax had given her.
At noon, she and Lin went to a coffee shop down the street for a quick lunch.
“I feel it’s only right that I say something,” Lin warned. “I can’t stress it strongly enough. If you fall for him, he will have to let you go.”
Zoe made the sign of the cross. “Lin. Please. Not you, too.”
“Did Dax warn you about the problem?”
“Repeatedly. And you heard the others back at the office. The subject is getting seriously old.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s an issue. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just wait. You’ll see. He loves women. Women love him. They can’t seem to help it. He can’t seem to say no.”
Zoe sipped her iced tea. “What about you? You were his assistant once. Did you fall in love with him?”
“Uh-uh. I had my secret weapon.” Lin held up her left hand. She wore a thick platinum wedding band.
“A husband.”
Lin beamed. “Roger.” She sighed in a dreamy way. “He’s an aerospace engineer.” She pulled her wallet from her giant black tote and took out a picture. Roger had blond hair, an angular face and thick-rimmed black glasses. “Hot, huh?”
“Very handsome.”
“He’s the only man for me.” Lin pressed the picture to her heart before tucking it away in her wallet again. “So I’m immune.”
“But what about every other woman in the office? I haven’t heard any predictions that they’re doomed to fall for Dax. What makes me so special?”
Lin shrugged. “It’s the constant proximity, I think.
The daily close exposure to him when you work directly for him. I don’t know what it is about him. He must have some genetic anomaly. An excess of sex pheromones maybe.”
“Oh, come on. You’re not serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” Lin tipped her head, studying Zoe. “And you’re exactly his type.” The blue streak in her hair caught the light, gleaming. “It’s sad, really. I tend to think of it as Dax’s fatal flaw. He hires the pretty ones with personality. And then they fall head-over-heels for him.”
“Not me. Can we be done talking about this?”
Lin picked up her fork and stuck it in her Cobb salad. “Too bad you’re not already in love with someone else.”
… in love with someone else….
The words bounced around in Zoe’s brain.
Lin was right. Zoe needed a man. Her man. A man she adored, who adored her in return. Such a man would be the perfect way to get everyone at Great Escapes to stop predicting her inevitable, job-destroying, hopeless passion for the boss.
Too bad her man didn’t exist—or if he did, Zoe had failed, so far, to meet him.
She pushed her coleslaw around on her plate, considering. Not that she was in any way ready for her own personal hero, not yet. She had things to prove, a success to make in the business world, before she found the man for her and settled down.
Besides, right now she didn’t need an actual guy. No way. She didn’t have the time for a flesh-and-blood Mr. Wonderful who would drag along love and commitment and a shared mortgage. Uh-uh. It was the idea of the guy that mattered. It was that everyone believed she had a guy who was the only guy for her.
She slanted Lin a glance. “Maybe I am in love already.”
Sharp black eyes widening, Lin looked up from her plate. “There is someone special, then?”
“I … don’t want to say anything right now. It’s, um, well, it’s complicated.”
“Complicated is fine. Whatever. As long as there’s someone and you’re in love with him.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so. If you’re serious about getting a start at Great Escapes, a special guy would be the best thing for you. And for Dax. And for the poor, overworked ladies down in HR.”
Chapter Two
Zoe took that whole week to make up her mind.
Really, it was a wild idea. Not to mention a total lie. She didn’t want to get involved in an elaborate fiction if she could avoid it. It could be dangerous. There was always the possibility she would get caught, and not only by tripping herself up. What if Dax ran into her mother or father or someone in the family and happened to mention that Zoe had a fiancé?
That could be embarrassing.
But, then, as far as tripping up, she could make notes, create her own personal hero from the ground up, so that he became the next thing to real for her. Then she would be unlikely to contradict herself when she spoke of him.
And as far as her family, well, how much chance was there that they would blow the whistle on her? It wasn’t as though Dax knew her family well, or hung around with them or anything. Even if he ran into her mother somewhere, it would only be Hello, how are you? And have a nice day.
True, her mom might ask how Zoe was doing on the job. He would say how great she was—well, he’d better say how great she was, because she intended to be even better at the job than Lin had been—and that would be that.
No reason a fiancé even had to come up.
And she wouldn’t have to tell the lie forever. Eventually, when she was certain that Dax had stopped worrying she might try to seduce him, when everyone in the office quit waiting for her to drag him into the supply closet and ravish him, she could end it with her imaginary groom-to-be.