Read an Excerpt
The Valentine Challenge
By Marisa Cleveland, Liz Pelletier, Kaleen Harding Entangled Publishing, LLC
Copyright © 2013 Marisa Cleveland
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62266-063-6
CHAPTER 1
February 8
"Anyone but her."
The insult grated on Stacey, but she stayed perched on the edge of the chair outside his office, eavesdropping as her boss defended her.
"Stacey's sharp. She has a good head on her shoulders."
That was right. How dare he dismiss her as a viable candidate when he probably couldn't even pick her out of a lineup! She was more than qualified for her current position, which was why, when everyone had begged to be assigned to the now vacant job under the IT director, Lorraine Hudson, staffing director, had chosen her.
"She's pretty. Probably dates a ton of guys. Those kinds of girls are unreliable." His voice sounded definite, as though nothing could change his mind. Heat tingled up her neck at his backhanded compliment, which offended her in a dozen different ways. But it also let her know that he knew who she was, could, in fact, recognize her, and still didn't want her as his assistant. Based on her looks. She smoothed her hair and rose, prepared to confront him.
Lorraine clucked her tongue. "Marshall, she's the newest, so she's the easiest to transfer to your department."
"No."
What kind of man dismissed her without first interviewing her? As if she'd really want to work for him now, after he blatantly declined. The fact that they'd never spoken didn't dampen the sting of rejection. But this was her third job in three months, and if she didn't find a permanent job soon, she'd be forced to return to her previous career. A thought that shot a shudder through her already-tense body.
Silence.
Then, "Marshall, you can't discriminate based on looks."
"Can't I? Let's examine the evidence. Two junior programmers tried to sleep with me. One got pregnant by some biker dude and quit. The fourth one quit without notice because I wouldn't go on a date with her. They were pretty. I need an old, ugly woman or man."
Lorraine's heels clicked, and Stacey envisioned her leaning over his desk. Her suspicions were confirmed when she heard the unmistakable slap of palms against the surface. "You have six other brilliant, old developers. What you need is a personal assistant to get your shit in order."
Stacey stifled a snort. Way to go, Lorraine! That oughta put him in his place. Sure, he might be underwear-model gorgeous, but that didn't mean she'd fall in love with his arrogant ass! In the two weeks she'd worked for Dimistar Enterprises, she'd heard all about his reputation. He never dated anyone more than once and never anyone from the office.
His deep baritone still sounded uncertain. "I'll think about it."
Lorraine's tone softened. "At least talk with her."
A chair scraped across the floor. "You're not going to let this go —"
"No. You needed someone yesterday."
Finally, he growled. "Fine. I'll talk with her."
Stacey smoothed down her skirt and touched the side of her hair. She waited until Lorraine called "Stacey!" before stepping around the corner to view an obviously annoyed Marshall Royce.
"Shit, Lorraine. She's here?"
Pinning her brightest smile to her lips, she strode into the room and extended her hand across the desk. "Good afternoon, Mr. Royce."
* * *
Marsh stared at Stacey Bradford's startling blue eyes and wide smile framed by dark, straight, chin-length hair, and tried to recall the millions of reasons why he wanted an ugly assistant. He'd been lying when he'd said she was pretty. The woman was downright gorgeous, a menace to his productivity, and he had a zero-tolerance policy toward distractions.
But the moment his hand swallowed her petite one, his brain fast-forwarded to the many late nights they would encounter while he completed his analysis of the strip mall. Chinese takeout, pizza delivery, midnight coffee breaks, alone ...
He blinked those images away and tried to recall what he'd heard about her since she'd started with the company two weeks ago. When nothing immediate came to mind, he shifted his attention to Lorraine.
"Lorraine, I assume you have her résumé for me."
"Right there." Lorraine gestured toward the folder, still unopened on his desk.
"Fine."
Lorraine stayed a moment longer, but when he remained silent, she arched a brow and challenged, "You may thank me later, Marshall."
She pivoted and almost made it out the door, but he couldn't stop himself from taunting, "I'm sure I won't."
Stacey gasped. "Mr. Royce, let me assure you I am quite capable of filling any gap left in the wake of Shelly's departure."
He slammed a mental hand to his head for whatever had possessed him to mutter that parting comment. But apologizing was something he was not prepared to do, so he shook off the last three minutes and returned to more important matters.
"Yes, well, might as well make use of you. I need those pages," his gaze shot to the conference table at the other end of his office, "collated and color-coded in those binders for the executive meeting at three."
"That's in ten minutes." She swiped her palms down the sides of her suit skirt, and he wondered what kind of sick bastard gave the okay for miniskirts and high heels in the workplace.
Choking back his appreciation of her long legs, he barked, "Glad you can tell time." Which meant they had no time to lose. Shelly's quitting had really put him in a bind. His computer pinged, and he refocused his attention to the e-mail flashing on his screen, but not before he saw the scowl flash across Stacey's face as she turned away from him.
She snorted, and as she picked up the first stack of pages and spread them in neat piles, he studied her. Most women flirted or giggled around him. He had no illusions about his looks or his wealth. One was a happy circumstance of genetics, but the other had been hard earned. Still, Stacey's reaction to him had been ... interesting, to say the least. He couldn't help that she'd overheard his objections, what with Lorraine blindsiding him at two-fifty in the afternoon, but he also couldn't deny he needed an assistant, even a temporary one.
After replying to three more e-mails, he shoved out of his chair and removed a cart from the side closet.
"Do you know where the executive conference room is located?" She barely spared him a glance as she clipped the pages into another binder. "Yes. Fourth floor."
"You're on the fourth floor now," he pointed out.
She paused and looked at him then, a warm blush invading her smooth cheeks.
Guilt for his sarcastic comment put him in his place, and again he felt he ought to apologize. What was it with this woman, twisting his usually smooth manners into knots? He cleared his throat. "This level is a square, so turn left when you leave my office, then turn right, and it's at the end of the hall. I'll see you in there."
Her fingers fumbled with the pages, and a surprised panic flashed across her face. "You're not going to wait for me?"
Her unexpected vulnerability almost had him caving, but one glance at his Breitling changed his mind. "I'm already late."
"Fine." Her head bent forward and her thick strands covered her eyes, but he still heard the insecurity in her voice, and it baffled him.
He moved to the door and paused in the archway. "Is there a reason you can't manage to finish these and bring them without my assistance?"
Her spine stiffened, and she stopped long enough to look him in the eye. "No, not at all. I'll meet you in there."
They'd obviously started on the wrong foot, and he was annoyed with himself for the instant attraction, but if this was going to work, he needed to establish the upper hand, despite his natural instinct to want to protect her.
"Try not to be too late, Ms. Bradford, and you just might keep your job."
CHAPTER 2
Of all the arrogant, demanding ...
Stacey's fingers crumpled the page she'd been holding. She quickly tried to smooth the paper on the corner of the table, but froze when the familiar logo of her best friend's flower shop, Frills Florist, caught her attention. Why would Marshall Royce include Frannie's flower shop in his executive meeting?
Scanning the summary, she pieced together the threads of Frannie's troubled voice message from the previous evening with the black-and-white paragraph she now held in her hand. Her mind spun with the disturbing realization that her new boss was recommending not to renew Frannie's financing.
"Stacey?"
She whirled toward the door and shook the paper at the young girl she recognized as the assistant to the CEO. "Oh, hello."
"Hi." The girl advanced into the room. "I'm Tish, Simon Dimistar's PA. I understand you're Marshall's new hire?"
Mr. Royce's parting words reverberated through the turmoil in her brain. He obviously had no problem putting people out of work, given the evidence of his threat about her keeping her job and his recommendation to pull the plug on her best friend's shop.
She snapped the binder closed. "For now, it seems so."
Tish smiled and closed the distance between them. "Don't worry. As long as you don't fall in love with him, Marshall is easy to get along with."
Stacey snorted. "I haven't seen that easy-to-get-along-with side to him, but it's only been ten minutes."
Tish giggled in a way that reminded Stacey of someone with a schoolgirl crush. "Well, anyway, Simon sent me to check on Marshall's reports."
"Oh! Yes. Almost done." She closed another binder. "So there are twelve on the board?"
Tish loaded four more binders onto the cart, and once all twelve were complete, she took the lead by steering the cart down the hall. "It's really an advisory board. There are four directors under Simon, but he really runs things any way he wants."
Stacey followed and hoped Mr. Dimistar ignored Mr. Royce's notation about Frills not turning a significant enough profit. How dare he condemn her friend without knowing how much Frannie had sacrificed to open her dream store! She should confront him before he had a chance to voice his opinion to the board. Had he even bothered to visit Frannie, to see how hard her friend tried to make ends meet?
According to the summary, Frills was a sinking ship, but the store had been open for less than a year, and Valentine's Day was just around the corner. Surely the board would not vote to close a florist days before such a romantic holiday. What would her friend do with the preorders? Give them to another flower shop, to her competition? There had to be a reason the universe sent Stacey to Marshall Royce.
Maybe that reason was to become Marshall Royce's personal assistant. Maybe so she could save Frannie's flower shop.
But as she entered the opulent conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, all of her defenses fled. The single moment that she was paused in the doorway with more than a dozen pairs of eyes curiously assessing her evaporated all of her anger, leaving only the disquieting trickle of perspiration on her lower back. She blinked, and in half a heartbeat her gaze found Marshall, and as confused as it made her, her whole world spun into focus.
* * *
What the hell was taking her so long? Marsh rapped the tip of his Montblanc against the leather of his portfolio. They had more than three hours of items needing to be covered, which put them at the office well after six o'clock on a Friday night. The sooner they could vote on the finance director's recommendations, the sooner he could check on what really concerned him.
When she stepped into the doorway and froze, her shocked shyness sucker-punched him in the gut, and he swore softly as he realized that he found her vulnerable expression endearing. He knew nothing about her, except that she was gorgeous and had greeted him with a bravado now absent. He vowed to read every single syllable of her résumé before Monday morning.
The momentary apprehension disappeared as she pasted that smile to her lips and copied Tish by personally handing a binder to each board member. Thankfully, Lorraine filled the silence by introducing Stacey to the group.
"Stacey Bradford will be joining the executive team as Marshall Royce's new personal assistant."
Stacy faltered only slightly when Lorraine said her name, but she continued doling out the reports until she reached him. He held her gaze for a second longer than necessary before addressing his colleagues. "Thank you, Lorraine, for finding Stacey on such short notice."
Simon opened his binder, and Marsh gestured to the empty space beside him. As Stacey slid into the seat, he ignored the strange surge of excitement as her floral fragrance assaulted his senses. His physical reaction to his new assistant shocked him, and because his thoughts were on her bare legs, when he read the note she slipped him like a sixth-grader, he immediately categorized it as a come-on.
Can we meet after this?
If she'd been a girl he met in a bar, or if it had been a Saturday instead of a Friday, his answer would be a definite yes. As it was, he would already be late for his Friday evening appointment, so he hastily scratched, I don't date my staff, and redirected his attention to Simon.
Beside him, she stiffened and remained stock-still for the next hour as they combed through their impressive acquisitions stack.
An hour later, Simon suggested, "Okay, let's take a ten-minute break and tackle the cuts when we return."
Marsh stood and would've returned to his office, but Stacey was pinned to his side in seconds, and judging from the ice in her tone, she hadn't meant the note as an invitation.
"I wasn't suggesting we date. I need to talk to you about one of the companies."
"Reading the reports, were you?"
"Not at first," she admitted and plowed ahead, even though he hadn't shown any signs of agreeing to have the conversation. "But then I noticed the evaluation on Frills Florist."
He rolled the name around his brain and came up with a company owned by a woman and less than a year in operation. "And?"
"And Frills happens to be my best friend's flower shop. She's poured her heart into that place, and she will die when she finds out you want to close her down. And to make matters worse, it's days before Valentine's Day! How could you?"
He was pretty sure by the accusatory glare that she blamed him for the report. "Look, Stacey, it's not like I personally wrote those reports. I'm the IT guy." At her narrowing eyes, he continued, "As in technology, as in I expertly collect the data from the finance department, and my analysts analyze it."
She pressed her lips together before her face opened in what could only be seen as hopeful. "But you'll vote on what to do about her company, right? That's why it's in the binder."
Her persistence gave him pause, but he was unaccustomed to his assistant arguing with him. Typically, they simpered and tried to please him, and maybe that was why Stacey's brash behavior intrigued him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and told himself not to provoke her, but he couldn't help asking, "Don't you think you're being a little confrontational?"
She blinked and snapped, "Don't you think you're being a little coldhearted?"
He would've laughed, but he was having too much fun to bring about the end game. "I'm not sure you know me well enough to make that statement, especially since you don't know my opinion."
He watched with satisfaction as her eyes widened and she comprehended what he implied by contradicting her assumption regarding his heart's temperature. But it was her first day as his assistant, and already she felt entitled to argue with him over a decision he had yet to make. This should've disturbed him, and he should've balked at her audacity, but a mischievous voice inside him told him he just might be thanking Lorraine for sending Stacey his way.
"Would you like me to refill your coffee?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Valentine Challenge by Marisa Cleveland, Liz Pelletier, Kaleen Harding. Copyright © 2013 Marisa Cleveland. 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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