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Tempting the New Boss
A Sleeping with the Enemy Novel
By Angela Claire, Marie Loggia-Kee Entangled Publishing, LLC
Copyright © 2015 Angela Claire
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63375-463-8
CHAPTER 1
"It's polite to shake a new employee's hand when it's extended." Mason Talbot's administrative assistant interrupted his reading of the draft Annual Report.
A woman stood next to Marcia. She was a little younger than him, late twenties maybe, and sported a wide, over-eager smile along with the usual polished exterior of a lawyer. Navy suit. First-day-of-work string of pearls. He took the young woman's outstretched hand and obligingly shook it.
"Camilla Anderson. Nice to meet you, Mr. Talbot."
"Yeah. You, too." No magic sparks erupted between them. He didn't touch her and know she would be his future. He didn't think much of lawyers. At all. One way or the other. They were a necessary evil as far as he was concerned. He dropped her hand and turned to Marcia. "Can I have my report back now?"
He was trying to get through the legalese of the report and sign off on it by the time he left for his trip. Reading and rereading every sentence to get the general gist of it was slowing him down. He'd solved calculus equations that were less complex.
"No. You have to leave. You can read it on the plane."
"I thought I had two hours?"
"We're fitting a meeting in on the way. Greg Porter called and said it couldn't wait. No prep needed. Just introductory." She handed him his briefcase.
"What is it?"
"Project Ripper. It's moving faster than they expected."
"Oh, European component supply. Right. I care about that one."
"Which is why I put it on your schedule. Now what about the dinner next month? I have to let them know." She waved an invitation that she had been hounding him about for the last couple days.
"No. No way."
"You don't have to give a speech. Just say 'thank you' for the award and be on your way. You care about that one, too. You know you do. All the money you've spent on —"
"Forget it. Let's go, uh ..."
"Camilla. Her name is Camilla"
"Where's what's-his-name? The usual one?"
"Sam got tired of you shouting at him and forgetting his name. He said he didn't go to Yale for that. He quit. Camilla here is his replacement."
The new hire played with her pearls, a twist of the single strand around her index finger, and treated him to that wide smile again. Glossy cherry lips and teeth so white they put her jewels to shame. He had a sudden vision of tilting her heart-shaped chin up and running his tongue along the gloss, savoring the fruity taste of her. Unclasping the necklace to let it drop slowly into the satiny crevice between her breasts. Fishing it out with long strokes on her bare skin along the way.
Mason shrugged into his jacket, missing the armhole twice before he finally got it on, and looked away. Okay, that was weird. And not good. Where the hell had that come from? He had never looked at a suit — his term for one of the troop of business executives who kept his company humming — with that in mind, no matter how attractive she was. Suits were for advancing more important business agendas.
He strode out the door with the new lawyer behind him. "I hope you didn't go to Yale," he said over his shoulder.
"Harvard."
"Well, that's a little better."
"Camilla, hang back a minute," Marcia called out. "I've told the limousine to wait. You go on ahead downstairs, Mason."
Sam Shreeman had tried to talk Camilla out of taking his old job, but the salary Talbot, Inc. offered spoke louder. She'd done her research on Mason Talbot before she applied for the job as his corporate counsel, and everything she saw on the record was admirable. Degree from Caltech, Ph.D. at twenty-five, CEO of his own company one short year later, and a billionaire by thirty.
"Forget the record," Shreeman had advised, "the man is practically Asperger-Syndrome-worthy."
And this from the guy who was interviewing her for the job. Even if her predecessor's unflattering portrait of Talbot wasn't sour grapes, all she needed to do was manage to last one measly year. Then she could pay off her student loans and finally be free of the worst decision she'd ever made. Going to law school.
Uncomfortable with slurs involving developmental disorders, however, she had reminded Shreeman about the generous severance package he bragged he was getting "to keep his mouth shut" — otherwise known as a non-disparagement agreement — and he admitted, "You're right. It was just a joke anyway. But man, Talbot is downright odd. Acts like he doesn't know you're in the room half the time and the other half he treats you like shit."
Was that all? She was used to being treated like shit. She'd worked as an associate at a New York meat grinder, er, law firm, before they had the gall to repay her hundred-hour working weeks by laying her off to maintain profit margins.
Talbot's matronly assistant gestured to the black leather sofa in the corner of the office, bigger than Camilla's entire studio apartment, and placed what looked like an invitation on the coffee table, before taking a seat beside her.
A large woman with a shock of gray hair trailing down her back in a thick braid, Marcia White dressed in peasant skirts that spoke to comfort in her own body after five or so decades and referred to her boss like a recalcitrant child. Camilla was already a fan.
The assistant batted the invitation around on the coffee table with one finger, and Camilla couldn't help but notice the gold embossed script against the white background. A thank you dinner for our generous sponsor. There was a yellow logo of a smiley face that seemed out of keeping with the otherwise elegant invitation. Camp for Kids it said.
"It's so nice to meet Mr. Talbot finally," Camilla offered.
"Yeah, Mason's a doll," Ms. White said. "But the thing is, he's not so good with his, ah, social skills. I won't get into his family, er, personal background. But let's just say he's a little awkward sometimes, with people I mean."
Camilla didn't even dare nod. Was this some kind of post-employment test?
"I have a little job for you, Camilla. Something to keep your eye on while you're doing all that legal crap."
"Of course. Is it something to do with that invitation?"
She looked down at the white square of cardboard and laughed, as if she'd forgotten she had it, then gave it a rest. "This? No, this is a cause Mason gives a load of money to and just refuses to let them thank him for it."
Marcia scooted forward. "Now you're a smart lawyer, Camilla, but there were about a hundred other smart lawyers applying for this job, and I didn't want another Shreeman, nice as the poor kid was."
"Sure."
"So when I saw your resume and did a little more fact checking on you, about your background and all, and then you came in, I could see right away you were what we needed around here."
"And what was that?"
"Somebody to teach Mason some manners."
It was about the last thing she expected the assistant to say. She laughed, starting to stand. "I'll do my best."
Marcia yanked her back down. "I'm not kidding. With that big family of yours, you got skills from the cradle Mason doesn't know the first thing about. How to get along with people. How to, well, hide a little of yourself in a crowd. Blend in."
On interview day, the assistant had asked a lot about Camilla's big brood of an Irish Catholic family, eight kids in all. But of course everybody asked about that when they found out. Although it had been commonplace in her neighborhood back in Detroit, in New York it was as unusual as saying she'd been raised Amish. How did your mother remember all your names?
"That's nice of you to say but —"
"And then with your PR training —"
"Not exactly training. It was more like a class or two in college."
"— and your psychology degree —"
"Just a minor."
"You have all the right tools to take somebody like Mason and make him, well, a little smoother when he deals with people. Like I said, sort of teach him some manners."
"I don't think I'd be very good at that."
"You'll do fine."
"What I mean to say is I'm not comfortable with it. Correcting my boss or guiding him on anything non-legal, that is. I'd rather not."
"It was in the job description. Footnote three. Check it out if you like."
She mentally called up the vague reference to other duties as specified by etc. etc. It was always the fine print that got you. "No need. I concede the point."
The assistant stood up. "Thanks so much, hon. I look forward to seeing how you do."
Camilla smiled, recognizing an immovable force when she ran into one. "No problem. I'm on it."
So in addition to the Uniform Commercial Code and Securities Acts, it looked like she needed to pick up an etiquette guide for this job.
When she got back down to the limousine, apologizing profusely for the delay, the driver nodded, and Talbot, sitting across from her, barely acknowledged her presence, staring out the window at the rainy, snarled Manhattan traffic. The car pulled out, and she pretended to read her iPhone, as if she might have some important emails to scan when in fact her work email wasn't even set up yet.
Her new boss was a little quiet — actually completely silent — but after years of listening to blowhard superiors, in title if nothing else, and seven noisy siblings, quiet was a refreshing change. She decided against trying to start a conversation right off, since he seemed distracted. It gave her an opportunity to study him.
Business casual didn't begin to describe Talbot's style. Student casual was more like it. Homeless casual may have even been closer to the truth. The jacket he'd shrugged into on his way out of the office was of a muddy color that had once been tweed but was worn down to a smooth sheen, ill-fitting at that, and his shirt was a simple T-shirt with a slogan on it that she couldn't quite read. The jeans and tennis shoes completing his outfit were beaten up enough to look chic, but she doubted that was on purpose. He clearly didn't care what he looked like.
Interesting, then, that the rest of him actually looked quite yummy. Sure, she'd been working nonstop since she passed the bar and hadn't shared her bed in almost as long as that, but she still recognized attractive when she saw it.
With his overlong curly black hair, dark blue eyes, and inky lashes, Talbot had a distinctly Byronic thing going on, with none of the eccentric or tyrannical undertones her predecessor had hinted at.
Even now, she couldn't help but notice his long fingers, nails short and blunt, as he rested them against his full lower lip, or the way his chin was slightly squared, making his angular face more than just planes and hollows. His legs, which took up most of the space between the two sides of the limo, were crossed as he leaned toward the window, completely still. What was going on in his head? She thought about his assistant's surprising last-minute addition to her work responsibilities. He didn't look the slightest bit ill at ease or awkward.
But most people didn't sit in absolute silence with a new employee. Small talk might be a nice way to ease into the gentle tutoring that she supposed she should be flattered Marcia wanted her to undertake. So she said, "Horrible weather we're having, isn't it? And it's not even April showers, right? What do October showers bring I wonder. Halloween?"
No slight turn of his head in her direction. No hum. And above all no talk, small or otherwise. It was as if he hadn't heard, glued to the sight of the bleary city streets, blaring honks punctuated by jarring starts and stops, not just for the limousine, but all the cars around them. An occasional biker veered in and out of traffic for variety, risking his life in the name of whatever package he was delivering.
"I don't know how they do that," she tried again, leaving the statement ambiguous so as to prompt the obvious response. Who? Or even You mean bikers?
But again there was nothing. Thinking of her little brother, Joey, who was hard of hearing, among his other issues, she wondered if maybe that was part of Talbot's problem. Was it possible he had some hearing loss and was hiding it behind his aloof exterior?
"I said I don't know how they do it. Bikers." Spoken as loudly as she would to Joey if he wasn't facing her.
That did the trick. He turned sharply toward her. "Is there some reason why you're shouting at me?"
"Oh, sorry." She forced a laugh. "I thought maybe you hadn't heard me. Just making conversation."
His phone buzzed with a text, and he glanced at it, then at her. "I thought you were my lawyer."
"I am."
"Hmmm." He pocketed his phone. "Marcia says it's going to be part of your job to make me more amenable to people and help me with my social skills."
Her mouth dropped open.
"Of which she says I don't have any."
She was starting to think maybe the assistant didn't, either.
One corner of his mouth turned up, a dimple making him look boyish. "Good luck with that," he murmured.
The limousine stopped, and the driver came around to the curb to get their door. An open umbrella was clutched in his hand, but Talbot walked right by it, long strides in the rain toward the Time-Life Building just beyond the slippery sidewalk.
Camilla clasped her computer bag, accepting the umbrella from the driver with a smile of thanks and, taking care not to slip on her four-inch heels, rushed after Talbot who was already in the grips of the revolving door. He was rustling around in his pockets a few feet from the lobby desk when she caught up to him.
"Forgot your ID?"
He nodded. "Left it at the office. This damn checking in."
"Let me try something. Can I have your phone?" She tapped out a quick text to Marcia, and a moment later had what she had asked for. She brought the phone to the front desk, slipping her own ID out from the wallet in her computer bag.
The guard, weary from a million self-important folks trying to bully him day in and day out, faced her stonily. "ID please."
She smiled and held out her own as well as the screen of Talbot's phone for the text with the shot, front and back, of his ID that Marcia had sent at her request. The guard took both. "Stand in front of the camera please."
He snapped her picture and handed both the phone and ID back along with one entrance badge. "You can go ahead, Miss Anderson, but the other guy, who may or may not be Mr. Talbot, better go on back home and get himself some ID. A picture of something 'aint that something."
Behind her, Mason observed, "That's a pretty arbitrary distinction that's eroding with the advance of technology. Consider Apple-Pay, for example, which is essentially a picture of cash, not the cash itself."
If looks could kill, it wouldn't matter that the guard wasn't actually armed. Or she hoped he wasn't.
"This man is just doing his job," she said in a reproving tone.
The guard's nod in response to her sentiment was a step in the right direction. A line formed behind them.
"It's my first day," she confided as she returned her ID to her wallet, laughing in what she hoped would be construed as nerves, well, actually, really were nerves. "And this is my new boss." She leaned a little forward to the guard and added in a lower voice, "I'm sorry about this. We'll just have to go back to the office and get his ID. He probably thinks I should have reminded him about it. You know how that is. Anyway, it's just we have a flight after this and —"
She glanced back at the line and moved to the side, pulling Talbot with her, the solid muscle beneath the damp tweed slightly disconcerting. "But we're holding things up."
A man in a Burberry overcoat, five thousand dollar briefcase in hand, slapped his ID on the marble counter with an impatient huff. "I'm late for a meeting."
The guard eyed him before turning back to Camilla. "Let me see that phone again."
She complied and he took his time about it, staring at the screen, then at Talbot, the line getting longer and the raincoat guy's face getting redder.
"I guess this'll do."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Tempting the New Boss by Angela Claire, Marie Loggia-Kee. Copyright © 2015 Angela Claire. Excerpted by permission of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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