The world went still for Celia. All of it.

Including her boss. He was sitting in his black leather chair at the huge glass-topped table that served as his desk, in front of a wall that was also a window. Beyond lay Las Vegas, the magical, impossible city in the desert.

But it wasn’t Las Vegas Celia was staring at.

It was Aaron Bravo.

All of him, every last detail, was suddenly achingly clear.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Lean. That face, with a cleft in the strong chin. His gorgeous designer suit.

In that frozen moment, as his image seared itself into her brain, it hit Celia….

She loved her boss!

Dear Reader,

This August, I am delighted to give you six winning reasons to pick up a Silhouette Special Edition book.

For starters, Lindsay McKenna, whose action-packed and emotionally gritty romances have entertained readers for years, moves us with her exciting cross-line series MORGAN’S MERCENARIES: ULTIMATE RESCUE. The first book, The Heart Beneath, tells of love against unimaginable odds. With a background as a firefighter in the late 1980s, Lindsay elaborates, “This story is about love, even when buried beneath the rubble of a hotel, or deep within a human being who has been terribly wounded by others, that it will not only survive, but emerge and be victorious.”

No stranger to dynamic storytelling, Laurie Paige kicks off a new MONTANA MAVERICKS spin-off with Her Montana Man, in which a beautiful forensics examiner must gather evidence in a murder case, but also has to face the town’s mayor, a man she’d loved and lost years ago. Don’t miss the second book in THE COLTON’S: COMANCHE BLOOD series—Jackie Merritt’s The Coyote’s Cry, a stunning tale of forbidden love between a Native American sheriff and the town’s “golden girl.”

Christine Rimmer delivers the first romance in her captivating new miniseries THE SONS OF CAITLIN BRAVO. In His Executive Sweetheart, a secretary pines for a Bravo bachelor who just happens to be her boss! And in Lucy Gordon’s Princess Dottie, a waitress-turned-princess is a dashing prince’s only chance at keeping his kingdom—and finding true love…. Debut author Karen Sandler warms readers with The Boss’s Baby Bargain, in which a controlling CEO strikes a marriage bargain with his financially strapped assistant, but their smoldering attraction leads to an unexpected pregnancy!

This month’s selections are stellar romances that will put a smile on your face and a song in your heart! Happy reading.

Sincerely,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

His Executive Sweetheart
Christine Rimmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my own sons,

Matt and Jess,

with all my love.

CHRISTINE RIMMER

came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been an actress, a salesclerk, a janitor, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. She insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

I t happened on Valentine’s Day.

Which was just a coincidence, really. An irony. An accident of timing that made the whole thing all the more pitiful, somehow.

It was Valentine’s Day and it was a Wednesday, at 9:15 a.m. in the Executive Tower of High Sierra Resort and Casino. Celia Tuttle was taking a memo—well, getting e-mail instructions, really. Her boss, Aaron Bravo, never actually composed the in-office e-mails he sent out to the managers and senior vice presidents who labored under him. He told Celia what he wanted to get across. As his executive secretary/personal assistant it was her job to put appropriate wording to his commands.

Her boss said, “We’ve got to do something about the line for that damn raft ride….”

Celia smiled to herself as she scribbled on her notepad. High Sierra contained its own river, complete with rushing rapids and a whitewater raft ride. The ride was incredibly popular—so much so that the long lines of customers waiting their turn sometimes got in the way of casino traffic. At High Sierra, as in any gaming establishment worthy of its name, nothing was allowed to get in the way of casino traffic. They called it a resort and casino, but everyone knew it was really the other way around.

“Send an e-mail to Hickock Drake.” Hickock was a senior vice president. “Tell him to sit on Carter Biles.” Carter Biles was Director of Rides and Attractions. “It’s too many people standing around in a line when they ought to be at the tables or playing the slots. Carter should know that. Up the price on the ride till no one will pay it. Shut the damn thing down. Whatever. The line is in the way and I want it out of there.”

It happened right then. Celia looked up from her legal pad, still smiling a little at the whole idea of an amusement park ride upstaging the mighty gaming tables. Aaron said, “And before the meeting with the planning commission, I need you to check with…”

She didn’t really catch the rest of it because everything seemed to spin to a stop. It was something out of a sci-fi movie, the kind where the world freezes in place and one woman is left walking and talking in the usual way while trying to deal with the fact that everyone she knows is suddenly a statue.

Yes. The world went still. All of it.

Including Aaron. He was sitting in his glove-soft black leather chair at the huge glass-topped chrome-legged table that served as his desk, in front of a wall that was also a window. Behind him and below him lay the Las Vegas Strip, a modern-day Mecca, a land of turrets and towers, sphinxes and circus tents. Beyond the strip stretched the glittering sprawl of the magical, impossible city in the desert.

But it wasn’t the city of Las Vegas Celia Tuttle was staring at.

It was Aaron.

And all of him, every last physical detail, was suddenly achingly clear.

Tall, she thought, as if that was news. Broad-shouldered. Lean. A face that wasn’t quite handsome. Long and angular, that face, with a cleft in the strong chin. And a nose that would have been bladelike, had it not been broken at some point in his checkered past.

He wore a gorgeous lightweight designer suit. Navy, chalk stripe. A lustrous silk shirt. A paisley tie in plum and indigo. The suit had been handmade by his ultra-exclusive Manhattan tailor, everything in the best fabrics.

He had his computer in front of him, a little to the side. He’d been clicking the mouse as he spoke, his blue gaze mostly on the screen, but now and then flicking her way. What did he see on the screen? Probably his e-mail—to which Celia would end up composing the replies.

Or could be he was looking over some marketing or design prospectus. Aaron rarely did just one thing at a time. He was a driven man. Only thirty-four and part owner and CEO of one of Las Vegas’s top super-casinos. Multi-tasking was not a concept to him. It was the way he lived his life.

In that frozen moment, as his image seared itself into her brain, it hit her.

She loved him.

Somehow, the thought of that, the admission of that, brought the world to life again.

She heard a siren, out there somewhere in the vast city beyond the window wall. And far out over the desert, just above the rim of the mountains, a silver jet streaked by, leaving a white trail in its wake.

And in the huge office room, Aaron was clicking his mouse again, frowning at the computer screen, giving her instructions at the same time.

Not that she was capable, right at that second, of making sense of anything he said to her. But it was okay—at least the part about not really hearing him. She had her mini-recorder going, as she always did for their morning meetings, providing a backup in case her own notes fell short. She would need it big-time later, since right now, incoming information was not getting through in any rational form. She felt…so strange. Disordered. Confused. Embarrassed. In complete emotional disarray.

All she could think was, How can this be?

She and Aaron Bravo enjoyed a strictly professional relationship. The only time he really noticed her was when she wasn’t getting her job done—which, at least in the past two and a half years or so, was pretty much never.

It had always been just fine with Celia that her boss didn’t notice her. He was a fair boss. Yes, he worked her very hard; she rarely got a weekend off. But he also paid her well. She had a great benefits package and points in the company.

And she loved her job.

But she didn’t love her boss. Or at least, she hadn’t until about forty seconds ago.

Then again, maybe she just hadn’t realized it until now. Maybe it had been happening for a long time, coming on slowly, like a nagging cold that never quite catches hold for weeks and weeks and then—bang—in a flash it hits you. You’ve got pneumonia and you’ve got it bad.

Oh—she held back a small, anguished groan—this was ridiculous.

Over time, it was true, she’d grown…rather fond of Aaron Bravo. He was really a much nicer person than a lot of people thought. And all those rumors about junk bonds and Wise Guy connections? Patently untrue.

Celia was certain of that now, after three years of working for him. He wasn’t a shady character at all, but an honest businessman with lady luck in his corner. He’d made a few very risky investments—in computer games and real estate. He’d seen those investments pay off in a major way and put the profits into carving out a niche for himself in the gaming industry.

Frankly, Celia had been a little nervous when she first took the job with him. After all, they’d grown up just blocks from each other, up north in New Venice—yes, named after that famous city in Italy, though New Venice, Nevada, was pronounced Noovuneece, with the accent over the “neece.” It was nowhere near the sea and it didn’t have a single canal. Instead, it lay tucked against the eastern slopes of the Sierras in the beautiful Comstock Valley not far from Lake Tahoe.

Celia was eight years younger than Aaron, but she’d grown up on the stories of the notorious Caitlin Bravo and her three wild boys—each of whom, by the way, was now doing nothing short of spectacularly in his chosen field.

And yes, all right. Maybe there was an air of danger, of risk, of something not quite safe, about Aaron Bravo. But that, Celia had decided, was part of his charm. He was the kind of man you didn’t challenge unless you were willing to fight to the brutal end.

He was tough. And uncompromising. He had to be. But at the core, she knew him as a fair man, and essentially kind.

And she was proud—yes, she was—to work for him. She had, at least in the past couple of years, felt warmly toward him.

But love?

How could this be happening?

“Celia? Are you all right?”

Celia blinked. Aaron was staring at her—noticing her—because she was very obviously not doing her job.

She checked her recorder—working fine, thank God—and straightened her shoulders. “Uh. Yes. Okay. Really. I am.”

“You’re certain? You look a little—”

“Honestly Aaron, there’s nothing. I’m okay.” Yes, it was an outright lie. But what else could she say?

Right then, the phone in his pocket rang.

Saved by the bell, she thought with an inward sigh of relief.

Aaron pulled out the ringing phone, flipped it open, spoke a few sentences into it, swung it shut and put it away.

Celia cleared her throat and poised her pen. “Now. Where were we?”

They got back to work.

But from that frozen moment on, for Celia Tuttle, nothing was the same.

The hours that followed were pure misery. Insanely, now that she’d acknowledged its existence, the longing she felt seemed to grow stronger minute by minute. It hurt, just being near him, going over the rest of the calendar with him—and having him not once look up and make eye contact.

Now, really, why should that bother her? It certainly never had before.

But all of a sudden she was…so hungry for any kind of contact.

And yet, when she got contact, it hurt almost as much as having none at all.

Take, for instance, his hand brushing hers….

It happened all the time, though she’d hardly noticed it before. He would ask for something—an update, a file, a letter, a cup of coffee, black—and she would see he got it. And if she had to come near him to deliver it, he would touch the back of her hand or maybe her wrist or her forearm. It would be just a breath of a touch, a little thank-you, without words. Something that was so small, so unremarkable, that she hardly recalled it once it had happened.

Well, until now she’d hardly recalled it.

“Did the estimates come in on the South Tower remodel?” At High Sierra, the hotel rooms and the rides, the casino and the showrooms, were in a constant cycle of remodeling. Things had to stay fresh to lure in the crowds.

She told him where to look for it.

“It’s not coming up.”

She put down her legal pad and went around behind him where she had a view of the screen.

Oh, Lord. He did smell good. So clean and fresh and…male. She’d always liked the aftershave he used. She liked his hair, short but kind of wavy, a dark brown that sometimes, in the right light, still managed to show glints of gold. And the shape of his ears…

He glanced back at her, one eyebrow lifted.

Her heart lurched in her chest and she ordered her face not to flush beet-red. “Hmm,” she said. “Let’s see…” She reached for the mouse. Two clicks and the information he wanted appeared.

“Good. Thanks.”

As she withdrew her hand, he touched the back of it—just that quick brush of warm acknowledgement. She almost gasped, but somehow held back the sound. Her skin flamed where his fingers had grazed it—so lightly, so fleetingly. For Aaron, she knew, the touch was the next thing to a subconscious act. He did it and forgot it.

Not for Celia. Not anymore. Suddenly, his slightest touch seared her to her very soul.

She made herself cross back around the desk and return to her chair. She picked up her legal pad again and waited for him to go on.

For the next ten minutes, the situation was almost bearable. They got through his calendar for the day, the rest of the memos and letters he would be wanting, the reports he needed her to get in hard copy and bind for the next managers’ meeting.

They were winding things up when he added offhandedly, “And would you get something nice for Jennifer? Since it is Valentine’s Day…”

It felt like a knife straight through the heart, when he said that. Get something nice for Jennifer….

Jennifer Tartaglia had a featured role in the hit review, Gold Dust Follies, playing nightly in High Sierra’s Excelsior Theatre. Jennifer was Cuban and Italian, drop-them-in-their-tracks gorgeous—and a very nice person, as well. The first time the showgirl had visited the office tower, she’d made it a point to say hi to Aaron’s secretary.

“Hello, so nice to meet you.” Jennifer had stuck out her hand and beamed a radiant smile. “I hear you take fine care of Aaron.”

They shook hands. “I do my best.”

“You are the best. He tells me so.” Still smiling that wide, friendly, breathtaking smile, Jennifer tossed her honey-blond mane of hair and turned to walk away. Celia had found herself staring. The rear view of Jennifer Tartaglia—especially in motion—was something to see.

But so what if no woman had a right to look that good? Celia liked Jennifer. She considered Jennifer a good person who was, no doubt, very good to Aaron—not that the relationship was anything truly serious. It never was, with Aaron.

Aaron Bravo…enjoyed women, and a man in his position had his pick of some of the most beautiful, talented and seductive women in the world. But none of them, at least in the years Celia had worked for him, had lasted. Aaron always gave them diamonds—a bracelet or a necklace—at the end. Eventually, Celia knew, she’d be buying diamonds for Jennifer.

He really was married to his work. And so busy he thought nothing of asking his assistant to buy his girlfriend thoughtful gifts and expensive trinkets whenever the occasion arose—like for Valentine’s Day.

“Something nice for Jennifer,” Celia parroted in the voice of a dazed windup doll.

He was frowning again. “Are you certain there’s nothing wrong?”

“I am. Positive. No problem. Sincerely.”

An hour later, Celia left High Sierra to get Jennifer that gift. She found a heart-shaped ruby-encrusted pin in one of the elite little boutiques at Caesar’s Forum Shops. High Sierra had its own series of exclusive shops, the Gold Exchange, in the central court between the casino and the 3,000-room hotel. But Celia never shopped in-house for gifts “from” the boss. To her, it seemed more appropriate, more personal, if she went outside Aaron’s realm of influence to get little treasures for his lady friends.

And hey, wasn’t that great reasoning? she found herself thinking, now unrequited love was souring her attitude. He wasn’t even choosing the gifts. How personal could they be?

She bought the pin, brought it back to High Sierra and showed it to him, so that he’d know what lovely little trinket Jennifer was getting from him.

“Great, Celia. She’ll love it.”

Tears tightened her throat as she wrapped up that ruby heart. But she didn’t cry. She swallowed those tears down.

By then, it had been a mere six hours since she’d realized she was in love with him. She couldn’t afford to start blubbering like a baby from day one, now could she? And maybe, she couldn’t help thinking as she expertly tied the red satin ribbon, this sudden, overwhelming and inconvenient passion would just…burn itself out. Soon.

Oh, yes. Please God. Let it be over soon….

But her prayer was not answered, at least not in the next week. The days went by and the longing didn’t fade.

She managed, somehow, never to cry over it, in spite of how close she’d come that first day. And he never guessed. She was sure of it. She took a kind of bleak pride in that, in the fact that he didn’t know she was hopelessly, utterly gone on him.

Yes, sometimes he gave her a faintly puzzled look. As if he knew something wasn’t quite right with her. But she did her job and she did it well and after that first day, he never asked again what might be wrong with her.

Fresh torments abounded.

Simple things. Everyday things. Like his brushing touch, they were things that had meant next to nothing before. Things like following him around the executive suite taking last-minute instructions before he met his managers for lunch—as he stripped to the waist and changed into a fresh shirt.

She tried not to stare at his muscled back and lean, hard arms, not to let herself imagine what it would be like if he held out those arms to her, if he gathered her close against that broad chest, if he lowered that wonderful mouth to cover hers….

It was awful. She had seen him change his shirt fifty times, at least. She’d never thought of a fresh shirt as a new form of torture. Until now.

Really, their lives were so…intertwined. They both lived where they worked. Aaron had a penthouse suite. Celia’s rooms were smaller, of course, and several floors below his.

She’d always loved that, living on-site. She loved the glamour and excitement of her life at High Sierra. In many ways, the resort was its own city. A person could eat, sleep, shop, work and play there and never have to leave. The party went on 24/7, as the tired saying went.

Celia was far from a party animal. But working for Aaron, she felt as if some of the gold dust and glitter rubbed off on her. Growing up, she’d been just a little bit shy, and not all that popular—not unattractive, really, but a long way from gorgeous. She came from a big family, the fourth child of six. Her parents were good parents, but a little distracted. There were so many vying for their attention. She felt closer to her two best friends, Jane Elliott and Jillian Diamond, than she did to her own brothers and sisters.

She’d earned an accounting degree from Cal State Sacramento and worked for a Sacramento CPA firm before she stumbled on a job as secretary/assistant to one of the firm’s clients, a local morning talk-show host.

Celia adored that job. It suited her perfectly. She needed to be organized and businesslike—and she also needed to be ready for anything. She handled correspondence and personal bookkeeping, as well as shopping and spur-of-the-moment dinner parties. Her duties were rarely the same from one day to the next.

The talk-show host had done a segment on High Sierra. Aaron had agreed to a brief interview. And then he’d been there, behind the scenes, for the rest of the shoot. And he’d remembered the girl from his hometown.

Two months later, the talk-show host got another show—in Philadelphia. Celia could have gone, too. But she decided against the move.

Aaron’s human resources people had contacted her. She flew to Vegas to see him and he hired her on the spot.

“You’re just what I’m looking for, Celia,” he had said. “Efficient. Cool-headed. Low-key. Smart. And someone from home, too. I like that. I really do.”

It had been a successful working relationship pretty much from the first—impersonally intimate, was how Celia always thought of it. She was a true “office wife” and that was fine with her. She was good at what she did, she enjoyed the work and her boss knew her value. She’d had a number of raises since she’d started at High Sierra. Now, she was making twice what she’d made in the beginning. She’d been happy with the talk-show host, but she’d really come into her own since she became Aaron’s assistant. Now, instead of shy, she saw herself as reserved. Serene. Unruffled.

She was that calm place in the eye of any storm that brewed up at High Sierra. Aaron counted on her to keep his calendar in order, his letters typed and his personal affairs running smoothly. And she did just that, with skill and panache. She was a happy, successful career woman—until she had to go and fall for the boss and ruin everything.

Now, it was all changed. Now, it was the agony and the ecstasy and Celia Tuttle was living it. Everything about being near him excited her—and wounded her to the core.

By the fourth day, she felt just desperate enough to consider telling him of her feelings.

But what for? To make it all the worse? Make her humiliation complete? After all, if he were interested, even minimally, wouldn’t he have given her some hint, some clue, by now?

She told him nothing.

By the sixth day, she found herself contemplating the impossible: giving notice. Less than a week since she’d fallen for the boss. And she’d almost forgotten how much she used to love her job.

Now, work seemed more like torture. A place where she suffered constantly in the company of her heart’s desire—and he was totally oblivious to her as anything but his very efficient gal Friday.

Maybe she should quit.

But she didn’t. She did nothing, just tried to get through each day. Just reminded herself that it really hadn’t been all that long since V-day—yes, that was how she had started to think of it. As V-day, the day her whole world went haywire.

She hoped, fervently, that things would get better, somehow.

The seventh day passed.

Then, on the eighth day, Celia got a call from her friend Jane in New Venice.

It was after midnight. Celia had just let herself into her rooms. A group of Japanese businessmen had arrived that afternoon. High rollers, important ones. The kind who thought nothing of dropping a million a night at High Sierra’s gaming tables. The kind known affectionately in the industry as whales.

Aaron had joined these particular whales for their comped gourmet dinner in the Placer Room. He’d asked Celia to be there, too. She’d been in what she thought of as “fetch-and-carry mode.” If there was anything he needed that, for some reason, the wait staff or immediately available hotel personnel couldn’t handle, Celia was right there, to see he got it and got it fast.

The phone was ringing when she entered her rooms. She rushed to answer it.

And she heard her dear friend’s voice complaining, “Don’t you ever return your calls?”

Celia scrunched the phone between her shoulder and her ear and slid her thumb under the back strap of her black evening sandal. “Sorry.” She slipped the shoe off with a sigh of relief, then got rid of the other one and dropped to the couch. “It’s been a zoo.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“Well, it’s always a zoo.”

“But you love it.”

In her mind’s eye, she saw Aaron. “That’s right,” she said bleakly. “I do.”

“Okay, what’s wrong?”

“Not a thing.”

“You said that too fast.”

“Jane. I love my job. It’s not news.” Too bad I also love my boss—who does not love me. “What’s up?”

“You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Uh-huh. What’s up?”

Jane hesitated. Celia could just see her, sitting up in her four-poster bed in the wonderful Queen Anne Victorian she’d inherited from her beloved Aunt Sophie. She’d be braced against the headboard, pillows propped at her back, her wildly curling almost-black hair tamed, more or less, into a single braid. And she’d have a frown between her dark brows as she considered whether to get to why she’d called—or pursue Celia’s sudden strange attitude toward her job.

Finally, she said, “Come home. This weekend.”

Celia leaned back against the couch cushions and stared up at the recessed ceiling lights. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”

Jane made a humphing sound. “I don’t know any such thing. You work too hard. You never take a break.”

“It’s Thursday. Home is five hundred miles away.”

“That’s why they invented airplanes. I’ll pick you up in Reno tomorrow, just name the time.”

“Oh, Jane…”

“There will be wine. And a crackling fire in the fireplace. The valley is beautiful. We had snow, just enough to give us that picture-postcard effect. But there’s none in the forecast, so getting here will be no problem. And Jilly’s coming.”

Jillian Diamond, Celia’s other best friend, lived in Sacramento now and got home almost as rarely as Celia did.

“Also, I’m cooking.” Jane was an excellent cook. “Come on, Ceil. It’s been way too long. You know it has. At some point, you just have to put work aside for a day or two and come and see your old friends.”

Celia gathered her legs up to the side and switched the phone to her other ear. Why not? She thought. She hadn’t had a weekend to herself in months. And she could certainly use a break right about now. Yes. A change of scenery, a little time away from the object of her hopeless desire—and everything connected with him.

“Celia Louise?”

“I’m here—and I’m coming.”

Jane let out short whoop of glee. “You are? You’re serious?”

“I’ll get a flight right now, then e-mail you my flight schedule. But don’t worry about picking me up.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Forget about it. I’ll rent a car, no problem.”

“I’m holding you to this,” Jane said in a scolding tone. “You won’t be allowed to back out this time.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there. Tomorrow afternoon. Expect me.”

“I will.”

Celia hung up and ran upstairs to her loft office nook, where she scheduled a flight online—quickly, before she could start thinking of all the ways her unexpected absence might be inconvenient for Aaron. She sent Jane a copy of her itinerary.

Jane e-mailed her right back: Since you’re driving yourself, I’ll go ahead and stay at the store until six.

Jane owned and operated a bookstore, the Silver Unicorn, in the heart of New Venice, right on Main Street. It was next door to the Highgrade, the café/saloon/gift shop that Caitlin Bravo, Aaron’s mother, had owned and run for over thirty years.

Celia stared at the computer screen, remembering….

Aaron and his brothers used to hang around on Main Street. They all three worked on and off at the Highgrade—in the gift shop or in the café, where they bussed tables or even flipped burgers on the grill. But they were a volatile family. People in town said those boys needed the influence of a steady father figure and that was something they would never get with Caitlin Bravo for a mother.

They were always getting into trouble, or just plain not showing up when it was time to go to work. Caitlin would pitch a fit and fire them. Then they’d end up hanging out on the street with the other wild kids in town—until they got into some mischief or other. Then Caitlin would yell at them and put them to work again.

Once, when she was eight, Celia had borrowed her big sister’s bike and ridden it over to Main Street. It was twenty-six inches of bike, with thin racing wheels, and she’d borrowed it without getting Annie’s permission. But she figured she wouldn’t get in trouble. Annie was over at the high school, at cheerleading practice. By the time Annie got home, the bike would be back on the side porch where she’d left it.

It was a stretch for Celia’s eight-year-old legs to reach the pedals and she kind of wobbled when she rode it. She had wobbled onto Main Street—and lost control right in front of the Highgrade. The bike went down, Celia with it, scraping her knees and palms on the asphalt of the street as she tried to block the fall.

Her legs were all tangled up in the pedals. She grunted and struggled and tried to get free. But it wasn’t working and she was getting more and more frustrated. She was on the verge of forgetting all about her eight-year-old dignity, just about to start bawling like a baby in sheer misery.

But then a pair of dusty boots appeared on the street about three feet from where she lay in a clumsy tangle. She looked up two long, strong legs encased in faded jeans, past a black T-shirt, into the face of the oldest of those bad Bravo boys, Aaron.

He knelt at her side. “Hey. You okay?”

She didn’t know what to say to him. She pressed her lips together and glared to show him that she wasn’t scared of him and she wasn’t going to cry.

He said, “Here. I’ll help you.” He gently took her beneath the arms and slid her out from under the bike. She was on her feet before she had time to shout at him to let go of her.

He stood her up and then he knelt again, just long enough to right the bike. “There you go.”

Her tongue felt like a slab of wood in her mouth. She knew if she tried to answer, some strange, ugly sound would be all that came out. She managed a nod.

He frowned at her. “You sure you’re all right?”

She nodded again.

“Maybe you should get a smaller bike….”

The cursor on her computer screen blinked at her. Celia ordered her mind back to the present and read the rest of Jane’s note. Key where it always is. Jane.

She typed, Can’t wait. See you. And sent it off.

Then she shut down the computer and went to bed. She didn’t sleep all that well. She kept obsessing over what Aaron might say when she told him she had to be at the airport at four.

He did depend on her. He could be angry that she was leaving for two days on such short notice. He often needed her on the weekends.

Well, if he said he needed her, she’d just have to cancel, she’d have to call Jane and—

Celia sat up in bed. “Oh, what is the matter with me?”

She flopped back down.

Of course, she wouldn’t cancel. She’d promised her dear friend she’d be there, and she would not break her word.

And what right did Aaron have to be angry? She’d worked weekend after weekend and never complained.

She was going. And that was it. No matter what Aaron said.

Chapter Two

A s it turned out, she needn’t have stayed awake stewing all night.

Aaron was staring at his computer screen when she mentioned her plans. “Hmm,” he said. “You’ll be here until four?”

“Well, I’d have to leave by three or so.”

“Three…” He frowned at the screen, punched a few keys, then added, “No problem. God knows you deserve a little time to yourself. Your parents all right?”

“I’m not going to visit them. They don’t live there anymore. None of my family lives there anymore. Remember I told you my folks moved to Phoenix last year?”

“Yeah, that’s right. You did.” He typed in a few more commands. She knew that he hadn’t really heard her. The next time she went home, he’d be telling her to enjoy her visit with her parents.

“I’ll be staying with my friend, Jane Elliott,” she volunteered brightly—as if he really cared or needed to know.

“Jane. The mayor’s daughter, right?”

The Elliotts were the closest thing New Venice had to an aristocracy. Jane’s father was a judge, like his father before him.

“No,” Celia said. “It’s Jane’s uncle, J. T., who’s the mayor.”

A half smile lifted one side of that wonderful, sculpted mouth of his—though he never took his eyes off his computer screen. “J. T. Elliott. Her uncle. Got it.”

J. T. Elliott had once been the county sheriff. If Celia remembered right, he’d locked Aaron up in his jail more than once in the distant past. Or if not Aaron, then surely his baby brother, Cade, who was the wildest of the three bad Bravo boys.

“So it’s all right, then, if I go?”

“Of course. Have a good time.”

Somehow, it felt worse that he didn’t seem to care she was leaving than if he’d been a jerk and demanded she cancel her plans and remain at his beck and call the whole weekend through.

Celia told herself to snap out of it. She was getting what she’d asked for and she would take it and be happy about it.

She worked until two-thirty and she was on that plane, flying to Reno, by a little after five that evening.

It was the second bottle of Chianti that did it. Celia probably could have kept her mouth shut if they’d stuck with just one.

But it was such a perfect evening. The three of them—friends since the first day of kindergarten, bosom buddies all through high school—together again, like in the old days.

Jane had cooked. Italian. Something with angel-hair pasta and lots of garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. After the meal, the three of them kicked off their shoes and gathered around the big fireplace in the front parlor. Jane had the stereo on low, set to Random, playing a mix of everything from Tony Bennett to Natalie Imbruglia.

Jillian raised her glass. “Triple Threat.” That was the three of them, the Triple Threat. Though, of course, they really hadn’t been much of a threat to anyone.

They were three nice girls from a small town, girls who studied hard in school and got good grades and didn’t get breasts as early as they would have liked—well, not Celia and Jillian, anyway. At the age of twelve, Jane had suddenly sprouted a pair of breasts that instantly became the envy of even the most popular girls at Mark Twain Middle School, eighth-graders included.

They were all well behaved. Yep. Jane and Jillian and Celia were good girls to the core, their transgressions so minor they generally went unremarked. They only dreamed of rebellions—at least until their senior year, when Jane ran off to Reno and married Rusty Jenkins.

That had been a real mess, Jane’s marriage to Rusty. He was trouble, capital T, that Rusty. He’d ended up getting himself killed three years later. Jane had scrupulously avoided all forms of rebellion ever since.

Jillian had tried marriage, too, when she was twenty-two. Her husband had a problem with monogamy—a problem he never bothered to reveal before the wedding. But it turned out that Benny Simmerson found being faithful way too limiting. That marriage had lasted a little over a year.

“Triple Threat,” echoed Jane. Celia said it, too. The three of them clinked glasses and drank.

Jillian grabbed a sapphire-blue chenille pillow from the end of the couch, propped it against the front of an easy chair and used it for a backrest. “So, how’s construction going next door?”

About six months ago, Cade Bravo had bought the house next to Jane’s. Since then, he’d been remodeling it.

Jane sipped more wine. “Who knows? He’ll probably never move in.”

“Why do you say that?” prodded Jillian. “What? He’s never there?”

“He’s there. Now and then. You can see he’s got the new roof on and the exterior painted. And I do hear hammering inside every once in a while. I’d say construction is moving along.”

“The question,” said Jillian, “is why? Why buy a house here? I heard he’s got a huge place in Vegas. And one in Tahoe, too, right? What’s New Venice got to offer that he can’t get in Vegas or Tahoe? And why an old house? Cade Bravo is not the fixer-upper type.”

“A hungering for the home he never really had?” Jane suggested. “A yearning for a simpler, gentler kind of life?”

Jillian pretended to choke on her wine. “Oh, right. Cade Bravo. Not.”

Jane shrugged. “It’s only a guess.”

“And speaking of Bravos…” Jillian wiggled her eyebrows. “Rumor has it Caitlin’s got a new boyfriend.”

“Could be,” said Jane.

Jillian giggled, a very naughty sound. “Janey. Come on. Who is he? What’s he like?”

“Hans is his name. I’ve seen him tooling around town in that black Trans Am of Caitlin’s.” Caitlin had owned the Trans Am for as long as Celia could remember. She kept it in perfect condition. It looked just like the one Burt Reynolds drove in that old seventies classic, Smokey and the Bandit. Jane added, “Hans has come in the bookstore once or twice.”

“And…?”

“Sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Looks like him, too. At least from the neck down. Arnold meets Fabio. Remember Fabio? Long blond hair, major muscles. That’s Hans. Buys books on body culture and vitamin therapy.”

“A health nut.”

“Could be.”

“How old?”

Jane tried to look disapproving. “Honestly, Jilly. You’re practically salivating.”

Jillian let out a long, crowing laugh. “Boytoy! Admit it. I’ve got it right.”

Jane shrugged. “She always did like them young.”

“And vigorous.” Jillian giggled some more.

Jane gathered her legs up under her and stood. “I’ll get that other bottle.”

Celia looked down into her almost-empty glass, thinking of Aaron again, feeling disgustingly sorry for herself. There was no escape, really, from thinking of Aaron. Reminders were everywhere. She worked for him, they came from the same hometown where everybody loved nothing so much as to gossip about his mother. And now his brother was moving in next door to her best friend….

Jillian said, “What’s with you, Celia Louise?”

Celia looked up from her wine glass. “Huh?”

“I said, what’s with you?”

She made an effort to sit straighter and tried to sound perky. “Oh, nothing much. Working, as always.”

Jillian looked at her sideways. “No. I mean right this minute. Tonight. You’ve been too quiet.”

“A person can’t be quiet?”

“Depends on the kind of quiet. Tonight you are…suspiciously quiet. Something’s up with you.”

“You think so?”

“I do.”

Celia put on a frown, as if she were giving the whole idea of something being “up” with her serious thought. Then she shrugged and shook her head. “No. Honestly. Just…enjoying being here.”

“Oh, you liar,” said Jillian.

Jane came back with the fat, raffia-wrapped bottle. “She said there’s nothing bothering her, am I right?”

“You are,” said Jillian.

There’s something,” Jane said. “But she isn’t telling.”

Both Jane and Jillian looked at Celia, their faces expectant, waiting for her to come clean and tell them what was on her mind. She kept her mouth shut.

Finally, Jane shrugged. “More of this nice, rustic Chianti, anyone?”

Celia and Jillian held out their glasses and Jane filled them. They all sat back and stared at the fire for a minute or two while Tony Bennett sang about leaving his heart in San Francisco.

“Good a place as any,” Jane said softly.

Jillian sighed.

Celia drank more wine. She grabbed a couple of pillows of her own, propped them against the wall between the fireplace and the side door that led out to Jane’s wraparound porch and leaned back, getting comfortable.

“So, how’s the book biz?” Jillian tipped her glass at Jane.

“The book biz is not bad. Not bad at all.” Jane’s dark eyes shone with satisfaction as she talked about her store. “Events,” she said. “They really bring in the customers. Events. Activities.” Not a week went by that she didn’t have some author or other in to answer questions and sign books. “I still have my Children’s Story Hour, Saturdays at ten and Thursday nights at seven.” And then there were the reading groups. She offered the store as a place to hold them. “So far, I’ve got four different groups meeting at the Silver Unicorn at various times during the week. Now and then I’ve been doing a kind of café evening on a weekend night, with a harpist or a guitar player, that sort of thing. They can have coffee and tea and scones and biscotti. They can read the books while they enjoy the music. Folks love it. I’m building my customer base just fine. I get the tourists in the summer months and during the winter, the locals have started thinking of the store as a gathering place.”

Jillian said, “Speaking of speakers, how ’bout me? I am an author now, after all—more or less, anyway.”

Jane grinned. “I thought you’d never ask. Maybe we could set something up for next month. You could talk about the column. Give a few helpful hints on wardrobe basics, tell them what items they just can’t be without this year.”

Jillian had her own business, Image by Jillian. She showed executives and minor celebrities how to spruce up their wardrobes; she gave makeovers and seminars on dressing Business Casual. She also wrote an advice column, “Ask Jillian,” for the Sacramento Press-Telegram.

Celia sipped her wine, growing dangerously mushy and sentimental as she listened to her two oldest and dearest friends talking shop. Really, she was glad she had come. It was just what she’d needed, to be sitting here by the fire at Jane’s, getting plotzed on Chianti.

And also, I need truth, she thought, with a sudden burst of semi-inebriated insight. Truth. Oh, yes. I need it. I do. I need to share the truth with someone—and who better than my two best friends in all the world?

So she said, “Well, the truth is, I’m in love with Aaron Bravo.”

Chapter Three

J illian, who’d been making a point about flirty reversible bias-cut skirts in light, floaty fabrics, shut her mouth right in the middle of a sentence. Jane turned to Celia and stared.

Celia took another large sip of wine.

“Get out,” said Jillian, after several seconds of stunned silence. A wild laugh escaped her, but she cut it off by clapping her hand over her mouth. Finally, she whispered, “You’re serious.”

“I am. I love him.” Celia looked into her glass again and wrinkled her nose. “Maybe I’ll become a drunk. Drown my sorrows…”

Jane reached out and snared the glass.

“Hey,” Celia protested, but without much heat.

Jane scooted over and set the glass on the coffee table, then scooted back to the nest of pillows she’d made for herself on the pretty lapis-blue hand-woven rug in front of the fire.

Jillian asked, “Does he know?”

Oh, no, Celia thought. Here come those pesky tears again….

Well, she wasn’t having any of them. She jumped to her feet and looked down at her friends. She swallowed. Twice. Finally, her throat loosened up enough that she could tell them, “He hasn’t got a clue.”

“Oh, honey,” cried Jillian. She reached up her arms. So did Jane.

With a tiny sob, Celia toppled toward her friends. They embraced. It felt really good, really comforting.

So much so that she didn’t end up bawling like a baby after all.

Once they’d shared a good, long hug, Jane gave Celia back her wineglass. “But don’t get too crazy with that.”

“I won’t. I promise. This is all I’ll have. I was only joking about becoming a drunk.”

“Good.” Jane folded her legs lotus-style and adjusted her long, soft skirt over them. “So. All right. Talk to us. Tell us everything.”

Celia explained about V-day.

“Wait a minute,” Jillian said. “So you’re saying, all this time you’ve been working for him and you were—what—fond of him and nothing more?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Fond? Is that the word that comes to mind when I think of Aaron Bravo?”

Jillian made a low, impatient sound. “What I’m getting at is, this is way too sudden, don’t you think? Out of nowhere, you’re in love with him? On Valentine’s Day?”

Celia nodded. “Yes.” Then she shook her head. “No.” And then she looked at the ceiling. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“Well, that clarifies it for me.”

“Jilly, I can’t be sure if it started on Valentine’s Day. Maybe…I’ve loved him for months. Maybe years. But if I did, I didn’t know it until a week ago.”

Jillian started to say something. But Jane shot her a look. Jillian blew out a breath.

Jane said, “Go on.”

Celia poured out her woes. “He doesn’t notice me. Not as a whole person. And certainly not as a woman. I’m…a function to him. And it hurts. Bad. Which I know is totally unreasonable. My falling for him wasn’t in the job description. He hired a secretary/assistant. Not a girlfriend. He doesn’t need a girlfriend. He’s got his pick of those.”

Jane was nodding grimly. “Showgirls?”

“That’s right. Nice showgirls, too. I hate that. It makes it even worse, somehow. I can’t even despise the competition—not that there is any competition.”

“Does he seem—” Jillian sought the right words “—as if he could be interested, if you told him?”

Slowly, pressing her lips together and swallowing down more tears, Celia shook her head.

“You’re sure of that?”

Jane jumped in. “Oh, how can she know for sure? She’s not objective about this. Look at her. She’s gone around the bend over the guy.”

“That’s right,” Jillian said. “Of course, she can’t be objective.”

“I can be objective.” Celia protested. “I am objective. I’m sure he’s not interested in me as a woman.”

Jane scooted over and took her by the shoulders. “Look at me, Ceil.”

“Fine. Okay.” Celia met her friend’s eyes.

“Are you sure this is the real thing? Are you sure it’s really love? Are you sure it’s not—”

“Stop,” said Celia. “Yes. I’m sure. It’s all I’m sure of lately. This is love, I know it. I’ve known it since V-day. I can’t explain it. I can’t convince you if you won’t believe. But it is the truth. I’m in love with Aaron Bravo.”

Jane stared at her for a several long seconds more, her eyes narrowed, probing. Then she whispered, softly, “I see.” She let go of Celia’s shoulders and went back to her pillows.

Jillian grabbed the bottle and refilled her own glass. “I’m going to ask you again, because I don’t think you really gave this question a chance before. Could he be interested, if he only knew how you felt?”

“No.” Celia sank back against the wall again. “I don’t think so. I really don’t.”

“But you don’t know, not for certain. You’ll never know for certain, not if he never knows how you feel.”

“I’m certain enough.” Celia traced the rim of her glass with her index finger. “I just have to decide whether I can stand this anymore. Or whether I should just…spruce up my résumé and find another place to work.”

Jane and Jillian exchanged looks. Then Jillian said, “But you love that job. You’re making lots of money. You have points in the company. And it’s only going to get better. Aaron Bravo hasn’t gotten where he’s going yet. And until now, you’ve been looking forward to being there when he does.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“And it’s only been—what—a week since you realized how you feel about him? You don’t need to go rushing into anything too drastic.”

“Jilly, you’re not telling me anything I haven’t told myself at least a hundred times.”

Jane said, “Well, here’s my opinion. Honesty is the best policy.”

Jillian groaned.

Jane looked vaguely injured. “All right, so it’s a cliché. That doesn’t make it any less true.” She pointed a finger at Celia. “Tell him how you feel.”

Jillian slapped the edge of coffee table to get their attention. “No. Hold it. Bad idea.”

“Why?” demanded Jane. “Why is telling the truth a bad idea?”

“Because when it comes to love, you should…never ask a question you don’t know the answer to.”

Jane winced. “And you get paid to give people advice?”

“Well,” Celia reminded Jane, “she mostly gives advice on things like which fork to use and how to get peach-juice stains out of silk blouses.”

“I beg your pardon,” Jillian huffed. “I give advice to the lovelorn, if they write in. I’ll advise on any subject. That’s my job.”

“Scary, very scary,” muttered Jane.

“I heard that,” snapped Jillian.

“Sorry.” Jane adjusted her skirt over her knees.

Jillian said, “I mean it. There’s another way. A better way.”

Celia sat forward eagerly. “All right. What way?”

Jillian cleared her throat. “Absolutely first of all, you have to make him notice you as a woman.”

“Oh,” said Celia, sinking back, disappointed and letting it show. “And how do you expect me to do that?”

Jane stopped fiddling with her skirt. “Oh, my God. I think she’s talking makeover.”

It was an old joke between them. Jillian gave her first makeover when the three of them were twelve years old. Jane was her subject. She cut Jane’s hair and dyed it—green. Jane wore a hat for months.

Jillian sniffed. “Oh, come on. In case you’ve forgotten, I now get paid and paid well to do what you’re groaning about. And I act as an adviser now—an extremely knowledgeable adviser. I let the experts do the actual cutting and coloring. I’ve come a long way from that first haircut I gave you.”

“And a good thing, too,” Jane said.

Jillian pulled a face at Jane, then turned to Celia. “Brighter colors,” she instructed. “Softer, more touchable fabrics. We aren’t talking beating him over the head with you. We are talking subtle, sexy little changes—and I think you ought to bring out the red in your hair. With that gorgeous pale skin, you’d be a knockout. And you’ve got those darling rosebud lips—what are those called, those cute, fat old-time dolls with those darling rosebud mouths?”

“Kewpie dolls,” Jane supplied. “And you’re right—about her lips, anyway. She’s got Kewpie-doll lips.”

“Lips that she never makes anything of.” Jillian sent Celia an I-mean-business scowl. “A deeper, riper shade of lipstick. Are you with me?”

“She’s right,” Jane conceded. “You’d look great in brighter colors. Red hair would be good on you—so would darker lipstick. Go there if you want to. But as far as Aaron Bravo goes, tell him. Three little words. I love you. There is no substitute for honesty. It’s the place where every relationship should start. If you let him know how you feel, you give him a chance to—” The ringing of the telephone cut her off. “Don’t you move.”

Celia slumped among her pillows. “Where would I go?”

Jane uncrossed her legs and stood. She went to the phone on the table at the other end of the couch. “Hi, this is Jane… Yes…” A smug little smile curved her lips. “Of course. Can you hold on? Thanks.” She punched a button in the headset and turned to Celia, one dark brow lifted.

Celia frowned at her. “For me?”

Now Jane was grinning. “Speak of the devil, as they say.”

Celia’s heart started pounding so hard, it felt as though it slammed against the wall of her chest with every beat. It was a very disconcerting sensation. “Aaron?” She more mouthed the word than said it.

Jane nodded.

Jillian let out a short, loud bark of laughter.

“Shh!” Celia reached over and bopped her on the knee. She hissed in whisper, “He’ll hear you….”

“No he won’t,” said Jane. “I’ve got him on Mute—and did you want to speak with him or not?”

Celia shot to her feet and raced to grab the phone. She put it to her ear. “Hello?”

No one answered.

“Here,” said Jane. Celia held out the phone and Jane punched the right button. Celia put it to her ear again, opened her mouth—and shut it. Jane was still standing there, watching expectantly.

Celia made frantic shooing motions. With a sigh, Jane returned to her pillows.

Celia turned away, toward the wide double doors that led to the entrance hall, seeking just a tiny bit of privacy. “Hello. Aaron?”

“Celia. There you are. Good.” He sounded preoccupied, as always. Preoccupied and wonderful. His deep, rich voice seemed to pour into her ear and all through her body, melting her midsection, turning her knees to water.

She asked, quite calmly, she thought, “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? No.” She heard the telltale clicking sounds that meant he was sitting at a computer. “I was typing a note to Tony Jarvis….” Anthony Jarvis was Senior Vice-President of Project Development. For Aaron, High Sierra was just one step in the road—a big step, but not the only one. Silver Standard Resorts, High Sierra’s parent company, had to keep growing. Tony Jarvis was the main man responsible for scouting future venues. “The note has vanished. Can’t seem to bring it back up.”

She couldn’t help grinning. Since he never typed his own e-mails, he’d forgotten the finer points of the program they used for them.

“Celia. Find my memo.”

She told him what to click on.

“Ah,” he said after a moment. “There it is. Thank you.”

“No problem—Aaron?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you get this number?”

A pause, then, “You’re irritated, that I called you there?”

“Not at all.” Never. Ever. Call me anytime. Anywhere. For any reason… “I just wondered.”

“You said you were going to Jane Elliott’s. I called information. It’s a listed number.”

He’d remembered that she was going to Jane’s! She could hardly believe it. He so rarely remembered anything personal she told him. Her heart pounded even harder, with pure joy. “Oh. Of course. You called information. I should have known….”

“Celia?” He sounded puzzled. “Are you all right?”

“Oh. Yes. Fine. Just fine.”

“Have a good weekend.”

“I will….”

The line went dead. She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it, wild joy fading down to something kind of hollow and dejected.

Really, the call had meant less than nothing to him. She had to face that, had to accept it.

Jillian said, “See? He can’t live without you.”

Celia put down the phone. “That is so not the case.” She returned to her spot against the wall, dropped to the floor and flopped back on her pillows.

Jillian was adamant. “He can’t live without you. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Tell him,” Jane commanded for the third time that night.

“Give up,” Celia cried. “I’m not telling him. And I’m not changing my hair color, either.”

“Then what will you do?” asked Jane.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Her friends groaned in unison.

They worked on her all weekend, advising, cajoling, prodding and instructing. They wore her down, little by little.

Jane kept pushing honesty. Jillian talked hair and wardrobe and subliminal seduction. Celia moaned and protested and begged them to let it go. They would, for a while—and then they’d start in again.

She couldn’t hold firm against them forever. And she loved that they listened to her, that they cared. They really were the best friends any woman could have.

By noon Sunday, when she got in her rental car to drive to the Reno airport, she had made a decision.

She would take Jane’s advice and tell Aaron of her love.

Chapter Four

C elia’s course of action seemed perfectly clear to her when she was waving goodbye on that crisp, snowy Sunday in front of Jane’s wonderful old house.

First she would tell Aaron of her feelings. And depending on how he reacted, maybe she’d consider some of Jillian’s suggestions—if she wasn’t too busy nursing a broken heart while pounding the pavement looking for another job.

It was the “if” part that ruined her resolve.

Because how could she help fearing that the “if” part was reality? She would tell him she loved him. And he would tell her, very gently, because he was a kind man at heart, that he was sure she’d be happier working for someone else.

She’d lose him and her job.

All right, she was miserable now. But she was miserable and employed. She just couldn’t see the tradeoff. If she told him, she’d still be miserable. And she’d be out of work, as well.

“Oh, that’s negative.” She’d lie in bed at night, staring up at the dark ceiling, giving herself advice. “I am so negative.” She would tell herself, “Celia Louise Tuttle, you’ve got to snap out this. You’ve got to give it up, get over him—or tell him how you feel.”

Jillian called on Tuesday. “Well? Did you do it? What did he say? How did it go?”

Celia let too long a pause elapse before answering.

Jillian figured it out. “You didn’t do it.”

“I’m trying.”

“Celia. If you’re going to do it, do it.”

“I will, I will….”

“Tomorrow morning. The minute he comes in the door. Look up from your desk and say, ‘I have to speak with you privately about a personal matter.’ Get him to set a time. Have him come to your suite.”

“Oh, God.”

“Better if it’s on your turf.”

Right, Celia thought. Easier for him to get up and walk out.

“You can do it, Celia.”

“Yes. I can. I know….”

The next morning, when he called her in to go over the calendar, she was ready. She truly was. She stood from her desk and she straightened her fawn-colored skirt—brighter colors, hah! Like wearing fire-engine red and Jolly Rancher green could make him love her. She tucked her yellow legal pad under her arm, grabbed her pencil and her miniature tape recorder and crossed to the high, wide door that led to his private office.

She paused there to smooth her hair and tug on the hem of the jacket that matched the fawn-colored skirt. I’m okay, she thought. Pulled-together. Calm. Collected. Ready to do it.

She pushed open the door and there he was, right where she expected him to be, at his big glass desk in front of the wall of windows, engrossed in something on his computer screen.

She quietly turned and made sure the door was shut. Then she marched across the room and stepped between the two black leather visitors’ chairs that faced his desk, planting herself in front of him.

It took him a moment to stop punching keys and look up. His bronze-kissed dark brows drew together. “Celia?”

That was it. All he said. It was way too much. It was, Is there a problem and do we really need to address it right now?

No. They didn’t.

She sidled to the right, dropped into one of the two chairs, indicated her legal pad and chirped brightly, “Ready when you are.”

Jane called next. On Thursday, after midnight. “Did you do it?”

“Oh, Janie.”

“You didn’t.”

“I almost did.”

“But you didn’t.”

“It’s really…hard for me.”

Jane let out a long breath. “Look. I’ve been thinking….”

Celia clutched the phone as if it were a lifeline. “Yeah?”

“Maybe you’re not up for reality right now. Maybe you’re not ready to face him with the truth.” That was sounding pretty reasonable—until Jane went on. “Maybe you’re enjoying this a little, kind of reveling in your misery.”

“Jane!” That hurt. It really did. And partly because it had the sharp sting of truth.

She was getting kind of…used to being miserable. Yesterday was two weeks since V-day. Two weeks of suffering. She’d kind of gotten into a groove with it now, hadn’t she?

“Celia Louise, you are the classic middle child, you know that you are.”

“Is this a lecture coming on?”

“You are a middle child and you know how to be…ignored. Passed over. You don’t get out and make things happen like a first child. You don’t expect all good to come to you, as the baby in the family always does. You…accept being in the middle. You can easily become stuck.”

“And I’m stuck right now, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. You’re stuck in the middle, sitting at the trestle table, clutching your sad little bowl of gruel, knowing when you finish it, you’ll still be very, very hungry—and yet unwilling to get up and ask the headmaster for more.”

“My bowl of gruel?”

“Come on. You remember. Dickens. Oliver Twist. In the orphanage. We read it in Mrs. Oakley’s freshman English class.”

She remembered. “Shall we go into what happened when Oliver actually got up and asked for more?”

Jane was silent for a count of two. “Okay,” she conceded. “Bad analogy.”

“No kidding.”

“But in the end, Oliver succeeded in life. Because he was someone who could get up when he had to and ask for more.”

“Hooray for Oliver.”

Jane made a small sound in her throat—one that spoke of fading patience. “I’m merely saying, if you don’t want to tell him, fine. Maybe you should quit working for him. It wouldn’t be the end of the world for you to have to get another job. And at least that would be taking action, which I sincerely think it’s time for you to do.”

There was no getting around it. Jane had it right. “I’ll tell him. I will.”

“Good. When, exactly?”

“Tomorrow…”

Tomorrow came.

Celia went to the office tower a determined woman.

And when she got there, she learned her boss had taken off for New Jersey on a site-scouting trip with Tony Jarvis. He wasn’t due back until Sunday. He’d left her an e-mail.

TO: Celia Tuttle, clerical/PA

FROM: Aaron Bravo, CEO

SUBJECT: Trip to New Jersey

Back Sunday. Take a three-day weekend. Aaron.

And that meant, unless something came up and he really needed her, she wouldn’t see him face-to-face until Monday.

Reprieved, she thought. And felt mingled relief and despair—tinged faintly with worry. As his assistant, it was part of her job to be at his side when he traveled. Why hadn’t he wanted her presence on this trip?

She told herself not to make something of nothing. Now and then, he traveled without her. This was probably just one of those times.

She considered going home for another weekend. But she didn’t think she could bear facing Jane again until she had done what she’d sworn to do. And there were plenty of projects for her to dig into. She worked all day Friday and half a day on Saturday.

Every time she returned to her rooms, she expected to see the message light blinking on her phone—a call from Jane or Jillian to find out if she’d finally done what she’d vowed to do.

But her friends didn’t call. Maybe they’d given up on her. She could hardly blame them if they had.

Sunday, she woke early, thinking, He’s due back today….

But she didn’t know what time.

And what did it matter what time? She wasn’t going to ask him for a private meeting until tomorrow, anyway.

She lasted until noon and then she called his rooms. His machine picked up. Quietly, stealthily—without leaving a message—she returned the phone to its cradle. Then she went to her computer, logged onto the company system, and used her employee code to look up his itinerary. It was unethical, really. Celia Tuttle, secretary/personal assistant didn’t need to know exactly when her boss would arrive back in town. But Celia Tuttle, woman hopelessly in love, did.

He was due in at eight that night. Which meant he wouldn’t get to his own rooms till nine or ten at the earliest.

It helped to know that. Made it marginally easier not to keep dialing his number and hanging up when his machine answered.

The day dragged by on lead feet. She read the Sunday paper, watched a movie on cable, her mind hardly registering what her eyes were seeing. In the afternoon, she called down to Touch of Gold, High Sierra’s full-service luxury spa, and booked the works—mud bath, massage and two-hour facial. Maybe it would help her relax.

It did, while she was down there. And it took up four hours she would have spent stewing. She didn’t return to her own rooms until after six.

The rest of the evening was downright unbearable. As eight and nine came and went, she wondered.

Where was he now?

Had he reached the hotel yet?

Was he already in his tower suite—or was he down in the casino somewhere, or in one of High Sierra’s luxurious bars or fine restaurants, maybe having a last drink with Tony Jarvis, or possibly courting some recently arrived high rollers?

There was no way to know.

And it didn’t even matter. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, she had no intention of tracking him down tonight, anyway.

She put on her pajamas and she got into bed.

But sleeping fell under the heading, as if.

She reached for the phone more than once. But she never picked it up. She knew that if he answered, the sound of his voice would send her into a mindless state of pure panic. She’d hang up without identifying herself—and he would know who it was, anyway. After all, there was such a thing as caller ID.

Which she should have considered earlier, before she’d made that first call.

Jane was so right, she thought, as the night wore on and sleep never came. Here I am, at the bare trestle table, clutching my sad, half-empty bowl of gruel, afraid to stand up and ask for more….

Not sleeping and worrying all night long did nothing for her appearance the next day. She troweled on the concealer to cover the dark pouches beneath her eyes and she put on her nicest suit, which was pale blue, of a particularly fine-gauge gabardine and usually looked very nice on her.

Today, well, nothing she could have worn would have made her look anything better than tired and washed out. Her hair, which was a color somewhere between blond and auburn, seemed flat and lusterless as a brown-paper bag. Her skin looked pasty.

Really, she couldn’t help thinking that maybe today just wasn’t the day. Maybe she should get to bed early tonight, get a good night’s sleep for a change. And then, tomorrow, when she felt fresh and didn’t look like the walking dead, she could—

“No!” She glared at her own pasty, pale face in the bathroom mirror. “No more excuses. So you look like hell. You’re telling him. Today.”

She was at her desk when he entered the office suite.

“Good morning, Celia.”

Her heart felt as it if had surged straight up into her throat. She swallowed it down and attempted a smile—one that never quite happened.

He was already past her, approaching the door to his private office. “Give me twenty minutes and we’ll go over the calendar.”

By then, her heart had dropped heavily into her chest again and begun beating so hard and loud she was certain any second she’d go into cardiac arrest. She stood.

“Aaron.”

He paused with his hand on the door and turned back to her. He looked puzzled.

Really, now she thought about it, he’d been looking puzzled way too much lately. Probably because she’d been acting so strangely, he couldn’t help but notice, even oblivious as he was to her as anything but a function most of the time.

He was waiting—waiting for her to tell him whatever it was she had stopped him to say.

“I…uh…” Her voice sounded awful. Tight. Squeaky.

“Yes?”

She coughed into her hand, to loosen her throat. And then, somehow, she was saying the words she’d been vowing she’d say. “I need to talk with you. Alone. It’s a personal matter. I wonder if you would mind stopping by my rooms this evening?” Suggest a time, the part of her mind still capable of rational thought instructed frantically. “Uh. About seven?”

He didn’t answer for a count of five, at least. He just stood there, looking at her through those blue eyes that really didn’t give away much of anything. Finally, he said, rather gently, “Celia. What’s this about?”

“I’d rather…wait. To speak with you alone.”

He gestured at the outer office, which was decorated in cool grays and midnight blues and was empty except for the two of them. “No one here but you and me. It’s as good a time as any to talk. Come on into my office now and we can—”

She put up a hand. “No. Really. I’m sorry, to be so vague about this. But I’d much rather we just kept it to business here in the office. I would honestly appreciate it if you’d just come to my rooms this evening. We’ll discuss it there.”

He looked at her for a long time. It was absolutely awful. What could he be thinking? Undoubtedly that she was inconveniencing him. Just possibly that he was going to have call down to human resources and get them to find him another PA.

Finally, he said in what seemed a half-hearted attempt at humor, “Well. Am I busy?”

She managed a pained smile. “Uh. No. Not at seven. Not as of now, anyway.”

“All right then,” he said. “Your rooms. At seven.” He turned from her and went through the door to his office, closing it quietly behind him.

Chapter Five

O nce in his office, Aaron Bravo stood at the door for a moment, his hand on the doorknob, thinking, What the hell is up with Celia?

Then he smelled coffee.

She had it ready for him, as always, waiting on the credenza. He went over, poured himself a cup and drank it right there, staring out the glare-treated glass beyond his desk, not really seeing the city sprawled across the desert landscape below.

He still had Celia on his mind. She didn’t look well. Hadn’t for a week or two now.

So could she be ill? And if so, was it serious? Was she planning to tell him she needed some time off—or worse, that she’d have to give up her job?

Damn. She was young, too young to be dangerously ill. And he’d sure as hell hate to lose her. She was the next thing to a genius at what she did. Always there when he needed her—and yet never in the way.

Pregnant.

The word popped into his head. He frowned. No. Not Celia. Celia didn’t have time to get pregnant, not with the kind of demands he made on her. He kept her working hard—too hard, really. He knew that. He also paid her damn well. And he tried to remember to cut her a little slack now and then. Like this last weekend, when he’d let her off the hook for the trip back east, leaving instructions for her to take three days off.

He poured another cup of coffee.

Re the pregnancy angle—on the other hand, why not? How much opportunity did it take, anyway? One encounter could do it. If she hadn’t been careful.

Not careful? Celia?

Hard to believe. She was such a model of efficiency. He couldn’t see her not being careful, couldn’t imagine her slipping up on something so basic as birth control.

But then, he could hardly imagine Celia having sex, let alone dealing with what method of contraception to use. He just didn’t think sex when he thought of Celia.

Well, and why the hell should he? She was his secretary. And her sex life was her business.

However, accidents did happen. And if she now had a baby on the way…

Well, if she did, okay. It should be manageable.

He’d be willing to deal with a kid in the picture. They could work around it, if she wanted to stay with him. It might be tough. There’d be some serious inconveniences for both of them. But his mother had done it; raising three sons and running the Highgrade all on her own after his father, the notorious Blake Bravo, had supposedly died.

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