Christine Rimmer - His Executive Sweetheart

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.

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.