Chapter 1 #2
Either way, Ellie was aware of every muscular inch of Knox Wilder.
In a way she couldn’t ever remember being with any man before him.
“Nor, as I know there is a perfectly good coffee maker in your office,” she added sharply, “should you expect a temporary PA to make or go out of the building to get you coffee.”
He scowled. “How do you know about the coffee machine in my office?”
She shrugged. “One of the first things I did when I came in this morning was check out all the rooms on this floor, as well as their purpose. I always like to be fully aware of my surroundings.” There was a reason for that, but it wasn’t something she intended to discuss with this man.
“Fine,” he accepted.
She studied his truculent expression for several seconds. “You don’t know how to work the machine, do you?”
His jaw tightened. “Karen told you that.”
Ellie held back a smile at his continued disgruntlement. “She might have…mentioned your inability to master the intricacies of that particular device.”
His teeth grated. “Before or after you had agreed to come here in her stead today?”
“I don’t think the when is particularly relevant, do you?” she dismissed.
His eyes narrowed. “If a temporary PA doesn’t collect laundry, or do overtime, or go on business trips without ‘negotiation,’ or make coffee, what the hell do they do?”
“Everything a good PA is supposed to do. Arrange your appointments and make sure you get to external ones on time, check emails before forwarding the relevant ones to you, and saving or deleting the rest from the system. In your case, they should also bear in mind that a person named Angel is always to be put through to you, no matter what the circumstances.” She’d memorized Karen’s last request, after a long list of them, earlier this morning before Geoff drove his wife to the hospital to have their babies.
“She or he will also ensure no one gets in to see you without an appointment, and take minutes during meetings,” Ellie continued.
“Anything else, including all of the above, will, as I said, need to be agreed upon between the two of you.”
He looked completely baffled. “The two of who?”
“The young woman who is your actual replacement PA and, as Karen was so insistent upon it, is currently collecting your dry cleaning, putting in your order for lunch now that I’ve texted her and told her what it is you want so that it can be delivered at the appropriate time.”
“I assumed— You aren’t my replacement PA?”
She chuckled. “Sorry, no.”
“Then who the hell— Yes, we’ve already thoroughly covered what your name is,” he conceded as she raised her eyebrows. “But why are you here?”
“To ensure that smooth changeover once you realized Karen wasn’t here and you reacted this strongly toward Sally.
Because that would upset Karen. And I’m sure neither of us wishes to upset the new mother,” she added pointedly.
“Sally will also be bringing back your favorite coffee from the coffee shop on the corner when she returns to the office in…oh, probably half an hour or so,” Ellie murmured after a glance at her wristwatch.
“I suggest that if you need coffee before then, you make use of the machine in your office. I’m told it usually helps with a hangover.
” Ellie couldn’t quite keep the aversion from her tone.
“I didn’t say I had a hangover—”
“I believe you were about to when you finally looked up and realized I wasn’t Karen.”
* * *
Knox stared at the disapproving wrinkle at the top of this woman’s cute little nose.
Cute?
For fuck’s sake…!
Ms. Ellie Hall—her hands were bare of any rings, and her prim attitude said she would prefer to be a Ms. even if she were married or engaged—didn’t look as if she would appreciate hearing her nose described in that way either.
Mainly because, in the black power suit, white silk blouse, and with her hair secured in a smooth bun at her nape, she looked every inch the executive herself, PA or otherwise.
In the meantime, Knox had absolutely no idea who she was. Apart from Geoff Taylor’s cousin.
It was probably taking him longer than it should to understand this situation because he did have a hangover.
He also looked like shit. Oh, his shirt and suit were clean and uncreased, unlike the one he had taken off earlier this morning before showering in readiness for coming into work.
But he knew his eyes were slightly bloodshot from a lack of sleep, the scruff on his jaw was scraggier than usual, and his mood was definitely hair-trigger rather than his usual genial demeanor.
He’d met up for a few drinks with half a dozen members of one of the security teams employed by the company the previous evening. The six of them, four men and two women, had just returned from successfully completing a delicate security issue for one of the company’s clients in England.
They had met at a bar downtown. The whisky was good, the conversation even better, and the next thing Knox knew, it was four o’clock in the morning, and he’d needed to go home and shower and put on fresh clothes before coming into work this morning.
Finding this strange woman sitting behind Karen’s desk—a woman who, it now transpired, was Karen’s cousin-in-law and not his temporary PA—wasn’t something he had been prepared for when he drove himself to work through the heavy early morning traffic in New York.
Magnus, one of the four members of the Wynter family who owned the security company of the same name, and who Knox had taken over from in New York a year ago, had suggested he take on a driver for that very reason.
Until this morning, hungover and feeling less than patient with the world in general, Knox had never even considered it. But now he just might.
He also found something…unsettling about Ms. Ellie Hall. A something that had alerted him to the fact he was probably going to need all his faculties in complete working order when it came to dealing with this woman. Which he didn’t currently have.
She had one of those husky American voices that would sound sexy even if she was only asking to borrow a cup of sugar. The sort of husky voice that flowed so easily across, and had already lit up, Knox’s every nerve ending.
He had no idea how long her golden hair would be when it was released from the tight bun at her nape, and the precise color of her eyes was hidden behind overlarge, tinted glasses that also covered half her face, but he could see they were a light shade, so probably blue or green.
Her suit and silk blouse appeared to be expensive, even if they both looked a little loose on her slender frame.
As an indication she had recently lost weight?
If so, Knox wondered if that loss had been deliberate or had come about by other means.
Knox doubted she was any older than her mid-to-late twenties. Her face—what he could see of it beneath those overlarge and tinted glasses—also looked slightly gaunt. Probably another indication that her weight loss was recent and sudden.
Even so, she was beautiful.
Those glasses might cover the top half of her face, but the small nose keeping up those frames was slightly uptilting, with a smattering of freckles across the bridge, and yes, it was cute.
Her hollowed cheeks looked creamy smooth, and her mouth…
! Damn it, her rose-pink lips were a perfect sexy bow that Knox just knew would look fucking amazing wrapped around his—
Fuck!
He absolutely was not going to have erotic fantasies about this woman sucking his cock!
Especially when he still didn’t quite know who she was and what she was doing here.
Oh, she had told him she was Geoff Taylor’s cousin, that Karen had asked her to come here this morning, but Knox still had no idea why they had chosen Ellie specifically.
Or why she had agreed, come to that. And who the hell was Sally?
He straightened. “I appreciate Karen asking someone to stand in for her this morning, and I’m sorry you have been inconvenienced, but I would prefer to choose my own temporary PA.”
“Except you didn’t.”
Knox had no intention of telling her that was because he simply couldn’t imagine working so closely every workday with anyone but Karen.
Magnus had moved to England after he and Sapphie were married. At the time, they hadn’t known whether it would be a temporary or permanent move, but the couple had recently had twin boys, and they now wished to remain in the UK near the rest of the Wynter family.
Knox had been head of one of the Wynter Security teams for years, and becoming CEO, although a promotion, was a completely new role for him.
Karen had helped make that transition easier.
Replacing her, if only for the time of her maternity leave, had seemed insurmountable when he’d thought about it, so he’d decided not to think about it.
Except, he had now been presented with a fait accompli.
“I’ll talk to our usual agency and arrange my own temporary replacement,” he insisted.
Ellie Hall tilted her head to study him from behind those shaded glasses. A shadowed gaze so piercing, it made Knox shift uncomfortably. “What agency would that be?” she finally prompted.
“Halliday Executive Recruitment Agency.”
“HERA,” she absently provided.
“Is it? Oh yes, so it is. Whatever.” He shrugged, dismissing the abbreviation.
“I’m sure Karen thought she was doing her best by asking you to fill in for her this morning, keeping in mind the emergency of her needing to be rushed off to hospital to have her babies.
But I really think I should choose my own replacement, considering I have to work with her for the next six months. ”
“Sally is very capable.”
“But I don’t know you or Sally,” he persisted stubbornly.
The two of them frowned at each other for several seconds before Ellie broke first and gave a rueful smile.
“The immovable object meets the unstoppable force,” she appreciated softly, her smile having revealed she had very white and even teeth, and an endearing dimple in her left cheek that only appeared when she smiled.
Fuck it, there he went again with the uncharacteristic observations about this woman’s looks.
Because, despite his own and this office’s outwardly sophisticated appearance, he lived in a world that often involved violence and death.
An example of that being that the head of the team Knox had met yesterday evening, a team he had once worked hands-on with, had the graze of a bullet wound concealed on his left arm beneath the sleeve of his shirt.
The words cute and endearing didn’t normally enter Knox’s vocabulary.
Except when it came to Angel, but that was a different situation altogether.
“Would you care to explain why you think Sally is unsuited to stepping in as your PA?” Ellie prompted calmly.
“Well… Well… I…”
“Especially when I haven’t even told you what her qualifications are or provided a reference.”
Why was the challenging raise of one of this woman’s eyebrows making Knox feel like a naughty fucking schoolboy?