The Complete Boardroom Collection. Yvonne Lindsay

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       Two

      Nothing like a new challenge and a gorgeous woman to work with.

      Sloan listened to Ziara’s movements in the outer office as he sat at his desk. He’d wondered whether she’d postpone coming in until the last minute, but here she was thirty minutes early, moving into her new office.

      Yesterday she’d both confounded and fascinated him. Her exotic, Indian beauty stirred many un-bosslike urges. Her attempts to keep that beauty under wraps teased his senses. Did she think pulling her luxurious dark hair tight into a bun and covering those shapely legs made her a better employee? It probably did in Vivian’s eyes, but Sloan was a whole other matter.

      Something she’d learn soon enough, and hopefully enjoy. Though he’d never seduced any of his employees—he spent more time running from than running after—he wasn’t above using this mutual attraction as one more tool to secure control of Eternity Designs. He would need her help to understand how things worked around here, to facilitate his relationships with the other employees after being shut out in the cold since his father’s death. If tempting her loyalty in his direction meant the reports to Vivian became fewer and further between, or even stopped, all the better.

      Crossing the room with a heightened sense of anticipation, he eased through without alerting her to his entrance. She stood behind the desk, the chair pushed aside to give her room to reallocate her personal stuff. Her movements were elegant but efficient as she placed pens and papers in the desk drawers. Her careful concentration told him she had a precise way she wanted things and she’d find a way to create order in this new space.

      He barely held back laughter as he sized her up. He was a red-blooded male and his body naturally heated despite her choice of clothes. She’d opted for a longer skirt and boxier jacket, as if that would hide the curvy shape of her hips and ass. But it was the scarf he found most amusing. From the back, he could see the curl of material around her neck. Did it merely cover her throat in the front, or had she gone all out to hide every single hint of bare skin, tucking the ends into her jacket?

      Didn’t she realize that don’t touch me attitude set her up as his own personal challenge?

      “Settling in okay?” he asked.

      Her jerk of surprise should have made him feel guilty, but he suspected he had to sneak up on this one before she cut him off at the knees with her stern librarian attitude.

      “Yes,” she said. “I’m almost ready.”

      “No hurry,” he murmured, tracking the glide of her fingers over a few pictures. No people that he could see, just atmospheric photographs of simple wooden bridges, each in a different season. She arranged them carefully along the top of the nearby shelf, then reached into the remaining cardboard box once more.

      Pulling out an object wrapped in cotton batting, she uncovered it layer by layer. She steadily revealed a glass object inscribed with words that she rubbed over a few times with the wrapping.

      Too quick for her to stop him, he lifted the object from her hands for a closer look. “What’s this?” he asked.

      “Be careful.”

      “Ziara, you wound me,” he said with a cheesy helping of drama. “I promise not to drop it.”

      The cut-glass award was shaped in the outline of a flowing gown, inscribed with the date and Employee of the Year. Ziara Divan. “Employee of the Year, huh?”

      “I’ve worked hard to get where I am.”

      “And where is that exactly?”

      “If all goes well, I’ll be promoted to Vivian’s personal assistant when Abigail retires next spring.”

      “Wow, a full-fledged executive assistant at the tender age of—”

      She drew a deep breath, as if he were a toddler trying her patience. “Twenty-seven.”

      “So young to be so buttoned-down.” He aimed a pointed look at her scarf, which did indeed СКАЧАТЬ