“Then who is?”

“I didn’t intend to piss you off.”

Frowning, I rested my elbows on my desk. His words would be so much more believable if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain he was grinning at the moment.

“Avoiding my question isn’t exactly helping that.” I massaged tiny circles into my right temple. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” When he responded with another chuckle, I questioned, “And what will happen if I go down to Dora’s office and ask her if she gave you my address?”

“Then I’d likely receive a very angry call from her. She’d ask me the same questions you’re asking, she’d threaten to tell my mother to which I’d tell her to go—”

“Since you’re obviously not going to enlighten me,” I enunciated each syllable for emphasis, “should I return the gift card to the address on the Manning Hotel Group envelope or do you want me to leave it at the security desk here?”

He was speechless for a few seconds, and then he said in the most serious tone I’d heard him use yet, “I’m not taking it back, Lizzie.”

“You will if I refuse to accept it.”

“You’re refusing a thousand-dollar gift card?”

I nearly dropped the receiver. “A thousand—” I took a deep breath. God, was he that far out of touch with reality? “Why the hell would you send me that much? It’s an iPhone, not a—”

“I know what it is, and I looked up the price. Since I didn’t know the model, I added some padding. You’re not going to return it to me.”

Padding my ass. “I don’t want it.”

“Then give it to someone else. Because if you do return it to me, I’ll personally show up with it next time.”

“You wouldn’t make it past the doorman,” I said, which was a lie because though the presence of a doorman was one of the aspects that had helped me decide on my Marina del Rey apartment, I’d yet to see one on duty. Still, Oliver didn’t know that. I moved the checkerboard paperweight off his letter. Fuming, I jerked the first desk drawer open and swept it all—envelope and gift card included—inside. “Did you treat your mom’s last assistant like this?”

“Honestly, I don’t even recall the woman’s name. We maybe said a couple words to each other. I never asked her to dinner. And I never thought about what she’d look like with my sheets tangled beneath her after a five minute conversation.”

As I let his words tumble around my brain, my throat went dry. “I see.”

“Then you’re saying yes,” he said confidently, and when I closed my eyes, I could easily picture him, sitting in his office, leaned back with a satisfied smirk playing on his full lips. He thought he’d won, but he was wrong.

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go to dinner—or anywhere involving sheets—with Oliver.

He wasn’t a part of any of my plans.

I couldn’t want anything to do with him.

Suddenly desperate to put a close to the conversation, I sighed.  “Look, Oliver,” I started, but my eyes jerked open in surprise when the line went dead. Confused, I twisted toward the keypad. My gaze landed on a manicured finger pressed on the hook and my heart dropped.

Oh God.

I followed the finger to a delicately boned hand, an Omega watch, and up to a muscular yet feminine arm. My eyes wandered over the blue, white, and gray colorblock sheath dress that Margaret—at fifty-six years old—pulled off better than women half her age and the beige and champagne blond highlights hanging in shoulder length waves around her thin face.

Bracing myself, I forced my gaze up until she and I were staring at one another. Like Oliver, her eyes were a brilliant shade of blue, but they were currently narrowed into tight, disapproving slits.

“You must be Lizzie.”

“Yes,” I said hoarsely, “I’m so excited to—”

“Of course you are,” she cut me off sharply. Her thin lips parted to say something else, but my ringing office phone distracted her. Before I could stop her, she jerked the receiver from my hand and removed her finger from the hook. She held the handset to her ear, ready to answer—or perhaps humiliate me—but to my horror, Oliver spoke first. I could hear him from where I was sitting.

“I take it I can send a car to pick you up for dinner tomorrow night, Lizzie.”

She tapped her rounded fingernail on my desk and cast a frosty smile down on me. “This is your mother, Oliver. Ms. Connelly will be working late tomorrow evening, but you’re more than welcome to contact her when she’s not on my time.” Hanging up on him, she told me, “Now that you’re finished with my son, go to The Grindhouse. Have a small, skinny, double shot cinnamon latte on my desk in ten minutes.”

Then, without another word, she stomped from my office, slamming the door behind her.

Chapter 4

My father had married Margaret in a quiet civil ceremony just two months after his divorce from my mother was finalized. I hadn’t been present at the ceremony, but I could still remember hearing my mom’s harsh sobs coming from her bedroom in our small, Soho apartment. She had been broken, and at the time, that had meant I was broken too.

Over the last four months, I’d done more research on my former stepmother than ever before. The daughter of a an attorney and a businessman, she’d started at Emerson & Taylor as a lead designer in 1986—three years after her only child, Oliver, was born. By my parents’ divorce, she was on the seventh floor working alongside my dad as the vice president of creative design and before the new millennium rolled around, she was the CEO of the company.

As I grabbed my purse and left my office, the plaque on the door across the hall was a stinging reminder of her current role.

Margaret Manning-Emerson, CEO

Powerwalking through the lobby, I tried to remember if she’d been so intimidating the first, and only, time I met her—at my dad’s funeral. But then I shook my head. Other than giving me a stiff touch—I wasn’t sure I could call it a hug—and telling me she was sorry for my loss, she’d mostly stared blankly ahead.

Of course, grief could steal the words and thoughts from even the most unapproachable person, twisting them into a shell.

Pulling up The Grindhouse on my phone, I found it was a highly rated coffee shop two blocks away from the office. “Ten minutes, my ass,” I muttered as I swept out the revolving door and onto the sidewalk. Despite it being October, I was a sweaty mess by the time I reached the eatery and took my place at the back of the line. Blatantly, I tried to ignore the fact that my perspiration was a combination of getting worked up by Oliver and then getting called out by his mother, all in the course of an hour, and blamed it on my unexpected exercise instead.

When I reached the waifish barista, I checked my phone and realized there was no way in hell I’d make it back to the office within Margaret’s time limit. My first real day on the job, and I was failing horribly at my task.

“Can I get a small, skinny, extra-hot cinnamon latte?” I requested, and the barista grabbed a twelve-ounce cup and a metallic marker. She stared at me expectantly. “Oh, um, the last name is Connelly.”

She started to scribble on the cup, but then she paused and looked me up and down, taking in my outfit and flustered appearance before cocking an eyebrow. “Would this be for Mrs. Emerson?”

Fan-freaking-tastic. It’s never a good thing when even the coffee shop clerk knows your boss simply from the order and your look of sheer trepidation, I thought.

“It is.” I nodded, and she tossed the cup in a wastebasket under the counter, grabbed another, and began rewriting the order.

“I swear, I’m not bossing you around, but she’ll send you back in a heartbeat if it’s not a double shot.”

Heat prickled the back of my neck. Dammit. I was so flustered that I was a coffee order away from fucking up even more with Margaret. “Thanks,” I breathed, and the barista smiled sympathetically.