From Boss to Bridegroom

An enormous weight has just been lifted from my tired old shoulders. I just received an anonymous message assuring me that my missing foster daughter, Emily, is alive and well and will return home soon. I've shared the news with my eldest son, Rand, and also confided my concerns about my crumbling marriage. Rand seems to know more about his mother's bizarre behavior than he's letting on, but he'll tell me what's on his mind when he's good and ready. Rand always did me proud, but I do worry about his ruthless determination to succeed. He needs a good woman to show him what's important in life—and he may have found her in his feisty new legal assistant, Lucy Lowry. Why, this pretty spitfire lights up the office with her spunk and energy, and she is no pushover, let me tell you! She has zero tolerance for Rand's overbearing ways, which of course doesn't sit well with my hot-tempered son. Mark my words, all that simmering sexual tension between them is bound to set off some major fireworks….

Meet the Coltons—a California dynasty with a legacy of privilege and power.

Rand Colton:
The beast.
A powerful mover and shaker, this attorney is used to getting his own way—until his new assistant quickly turns his well-ordered life upside down!

Lucy Lowry:
The beauty.
Capable of giving as good as she gets, Rand's new assistant tempts him like no other woman he's ever met. And it's not long before her boss has only one item on his “to do” list—to move their relationship from the boardroom to the bedroom….

Dr. Martha Wilkes:
The baffled therapist.
Her patient calls herself Patsy Portman, and yet none of her memories match that woman's life. Is this a case of multiple personality disorder…or something more nefarious?

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

“W
ell, of course, you know I need the money. There were all the moving expenses and the cost of the mailings and ads for the business. And there's no way of knowing how long it will be before I get any kind of work, but—”

“But nothing. The job is only until Rand finds someone else, and it'll give you the opportunity to become familiar with downtown, plus get your foot in the door with one attorney and make contacts with several others. That's what you want, isn't it? Then they'll send their research work your way and you'll have your start here.”

Here
was Washington, D.C.—Georgetown to be specific—and Lucy Lowry had to admit that her aunt, Sadie Meeks, was right.

Lucy had just moved cross-country from California with her four-year-old son Max and the move itself had been expensive. Now that she was settled into one of the four row houses her aunt had invested in, she needed to concentrate on earning an income, hopefully doing legal research so she could work out of her home and still be with Max as much as possible. But until all her efforts to drum up that kind of business succeeded, she intended to do secretarial work and/or bookkeeping to make ends meet. Which was exactly what her aunt was proposing—the secretarial work, anyway.

“Being downtown is the problem,” she said to her aunt. “Not only would I not be working out of the house, I wouldn't even be nearby.”

Sadie waved away her concern. “But it would only be for a little while. I told you I spoke with the director of the day care and they'll let you leave Max there as a favor to me for reading to the kids once a week and because the director is my old sorority sister. It's a very exclusive day care and there's a mile-long waiting list that we're circumventing. Max will get the chance to meet some friends of his own. And he can stay with me some of the time, too. We'll work on my Gameboy skills.”

Sadie paused and switched gears. “Do it as a favor to me, if nothing else, darling. I'm enjoying my retirement and as fond as I am of Rand Colton, I just don't feel like going back to work. But he's in such a bind….”

Lucy knew she couldn't argue with that tack. Her aunt—her
favorite
aunt—had only recently bought the row of four town houses and offered one to her and Max rent-free. Sadie had insisted that the rent on two of the places paid the payment on all four and if Lucy and Max moved to Georgetown to help manage the properties, particularly when Sadie traveled, it would more than make up for the lack of rent on the town house they'd occupy. Because of that arrangement Lucy could afford to freelance rather than work a nine-to-five office job and so she'd jumped at the offer. But now she couldn't very well refuse to do Sadie a favor in return.

“Just interview with Rand,” Sadie urged. “Who knows, you may not even get the job. And even if you do, it's really only a matter of cleaning up the messes a string of incompetent secretaries have left behind since I retired. Rand will be looking for someone else in the meantime. It might only be a few days before a wonderful whiz of a secretary walks through the door and you'd be finished just that quick. But he says he's going crazy with the people the temp agency sends him.”

“I still don't understand why he's had such bad luck with secretaries.”

“I won't lie to you, he isn't an easy man to work for. He and I got on just fine but only because I took most of his bluster with a grain of salt. Deep down he has a good heart, but it's not always evident behind his brusque manner. And he's quite demanding. But
then he's a man, after all, and even the best of them need some taking care of.”

“It sounds more like the description of a big baby. A big
spoiled
baby,” Lucy commented with a laugh.

“He's a long way from being a baby,” her aunt answered with a hint of innuendo in her voice. “He's all man. All very formidable man. He carries a killing caseload and works insane hours, then can party until dawn and still make an impressive appearance in court by nine. He just doesn't seem to understand that not everyone can keep the same pace or accomplish all he can. Plus, he's blunt and outspoken. I've heard him called arrogant. And he doesn't suffer fools gladly. But I wouldn't be throwing you into the lion's den unless I knew you were up to it. Besides,” Sadie added as if she were sharing a confidence, “he's one of the most handsome men you'll ever meet. So when he's at his worst just sit back, take in the scenery and tune him out.”

Not an easy man to work for? Brusque manner? Demanding? Formidable? Blunt, outspoken, arrogant? And that was coming from a woman who considered herself Rand Colton's biggest fan.

Rand Colton had to be a bear of a boss.

“Please, darling. I've given all my work clothes to charity and I've grown accustomed to lounging around in my bathrobe until midmorning. I just don't
want to go back to work. But Rand really needs help right now.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes at her aunt. “You don't have an ulterior motive, do you? That business about how handsome he is—that was just to soften the blow of his personality flaws, right?”

Sadie was as tall a woman as Lucy was, both of them stood a full five-foot-six-inches, but where Lucy was slender, Sadie was more plump, with round apple cheeks that puffed out even more with the smile she granted her niece.

“No ulterior motives,” Sadie vowed. “I know you've sworn off men.”

“I haven't 'sworn off' men,” Lucy said, taking issue. “That makes me sound bitter and extremist, and I'm neither of those things. I have merely opted to—”

“Dedicate yourself for the moment to Max. I know. You've told me once or twice or fifty times. Not that I blame you for a lack of interest in men after what Max's father did. But believe me, Rand has more than enough female companionship and I'm the last person who would set up my own niece with such a playboy. This is strictly selfishness on my part. I'm trying to get him the assistance he needs without being the one to provide it myself.”

Lucy stalled for another moment just for effect and then said, “All right. I guess you can arrange an interview.”

“Done! Three o'clock this afternoon. I'll drive you
in myself and take Max for ice cream while you meet Rand.”

Lucy laughed again. “You've already arranged for the interview. Very sure of yourself, aren't you?”

“It'll work out for the best. You'll see. Now go change into a suit. You have to look professional. Rand is a stickler for that.”

“Oh good, a stickler, too,” Lucy said facetiously, adding stickler and playboy to the already long list of things that
didn't
recommend Rand Colton to her.

“Just keep thinking of all the other attorneys you'll encounter to hand out your card to,” Sadie advised airily. “Now scoot! You don't want to be late. He can't abide anyone being late either.”

 

“I think I should have two scoops on-account-a when you go someplace dressed like that we don't eat dinner till way late in the nighttime and by then I'll be hungry again.”

Lucy craned around to look at her son, strapped into the back seat of Sadie's car by seat belts.

Max was small for his age but precocious. He seemed more like four going on forty most of the time, making it difficult to argue with his reasoning.

“It's true that I dress like this to go to work. But today I'm just going to talk to a man, so it won't take that long. We'll have dinner at the same time we do every night now.”

Max wrinkled his pert little nose.

Lucy thought that even if she weren't his mother
she'd think he was adorable. He had chipmunk cheeks, big blue eyes that stared out at her from behind owlish eyeglasses, and whisk-broom brown hair cut close to his head.

“Two scoops, okay?” he said as if she should grant permission despite their previous exchange.

“Sorry. One scoop, buddy.”

“But what if they have the butter brickle kind
and
the bubble-gum kind? Then I should have a scoop of each and eat supper better tomorrow.”

“If they have both kinds you can have one scoop of one kind now and we'll get the other kind to take home for tomorrow.”

Max grinned victoriously, as if that had been what he was angling for all along.

Seeing it made Lucy's heart balloon. He had a silly habit of biting the tip of his tongue between his front teeth when he grinned like that and it was so cute she couldn't believe it. He also had heartbreaker dimples in each chubby cheek that made him look irresistibly impish.

“What if there are
three
kinds?” he suggested as if he knew her defenses were down.

“Quit while you're ahead,” she advised as both she and Sadie laughed.

Sadie pulled to a stop at a red light and nodded to the huge chrome and glass high-rise building on the next block. “Rand's office is in there. I'll just drop you off out front. The ice-cream parlor is two blocks farther down in the lobby of the redbrick building.
They have underground parking there so I'll be able to get a spot. Why don't you walk over and meet us when you're finished?”

“You don't want to come up and say hello?”

“Rand and I had a nice chat on the phone. I know how busy he is. I don't want to bother him with a drop-in.”

When the light turned green, Sadie pulled through the intersection and eased the car to the curb in front of Rand Colton's building. “He's on the twenty-third floor, Suite 2300. Good luck.”

“I probably need it,” Lucy said wryly. Then, with a quick glance back at Max again, she added, “Be good for Aunt Sadie.”

“He'll be fine,” Sadie answered as the car behind them honked.

Lucy took that as her cue and hurried out of the vehicle so her aunt could get going again.

As she entered the imposing building, she checked her watch. She had twenty minutes to spare and while she had no intention of being late, she also didn't want to appear overeager.

So with time to spare, she found a rest room in the lobby and went in to check her appearance.

She'd worn what she considered her power suit—a navy blue formfitting jacket with a high split-collar that helped disguise the length of her neck, and straight-leg slacks to match. She knew that some schools of thought held that a woman should wear a skirt but she didn't subscribe to it. Partly because
she felt more comfortable—and more confident—in pants, and partly because on her eighteenth birthday she'd taken a dare from a friend and been tattooed on the inside of her right ankle. It was a tasteful rose tattoo, barely an inch from bud to stem and not readily noticeable, but depending on how conservative the interviewer was, it could be detrimental.

She freshened her lipstick. It was a pale shade of burnished red and, along with mascara and blush, was the only makeup she wore.

She was glad to see that her blue eyes—the same shade as Max's—were clear of the slight redness an allergy had caused the day before. But she closed them for a moment to fight the burning that was a continuing result of having cleaned out the dusty attic.

Her shoulder-length mahogany hair was ordinarily a hard-to-tame mass of spiral curls, but for interviews she always wrestled it into a topknot. If she left it loose, she had a tendency toward a come-hither sort of appearance that some men read as a sexual invitation. It wasn't an impression she wanted to give.

She checked her watch again—2:50—and decided it was time to take the elevator to the twenty-third floor.

On the way up she felt the same anticipatory tension she always experienced when facing a job interview, but she fought it by reminding herself that this was only a temporary position and even if it could be an important step in making contacts in the
legal profession, she already had a foot in the door in the form of her aunt.

But still, knowing in advance that Rand Colton was a difficult man put her on edge. She took several deep breaths, hoping that would help and stepped off the elevator when the doors opened.

Suite 2300 was to her right, at the end of the hallway. Two oversize oak doors unlike any others on the floor marked the entry and a simple, elegant gold nameplate announced Rand Colton, Attorney At Law.

Lucy took a last deep breath, reached for the ornate gold knob and entered the office to the distant sound of female sobbing and male shouting. “It was a simple enough task—cancel an appointment. Instead you let the CEO of a major company come all the way down here when I was in court. You may just be a temp but surely someone somewhere told you that when your employer tells you to call a client and cancel an appointment you should actually pick up the phone and do it.”

More sobbing surrounded a pitiful, “I forgot.”

“You
forgot?
”

The booming male voice was loud enough to hurt Lucy's ears and she wasn't even in the same room.

“You rattled off so many things in such a hurry I couldn't write them all down fast enough and then you left and I tried—”

“Trying isn't good enough! Do you know what that man's time is worth?”

Apparently the temp had no answer to that because rather than feebly defending herself any longer, she came rushing out of the inner office, snatched her purse from a desk drawer and ran past Lucy out of the suite.

Definitely a bear of a boss. Assuming, of course, that the man delivering the tirade was Rand Colton.

“Incompetence and idiocy. Where do they find these people?”

This last part wasn't a shout, it was more a remark to himself that Lucy could still hear as she stood in the reception area.

If it hadn't been so close to three o'clock by then, she would have slipped out of the office and given the man she hadn't yet set eyes on a moment to calm down before their meeting.

Just then the man came storming out of the inner office. Without so much as a glance in Lucy's direction he charged the large oak reception desk to pound punishingly on the computer keyboard. He didn't show any indication that he'd even realized she was there, but with his eyes still on the computer monitor, he said in as derogatory a tone as she'd ever heard, “And who are you?”