STEP BY STEP (5 page)

PRESTON

“Dinner’s here,” Mirabelle said as she
barged into my office with two brown bags in her delicate, manicured hands.

I opened my mouth to chide her for not
knocking and then stopped myself. “Thank you.”

She sat my bag on my desk and then took a
seat across from me. “I hope you don’t mind if I eat with you? It gets kind of
lonely in that great big office all by myself.”

“You get used to it,” I said, watching as
she unwrapped the plastic from her sandwich.

We sat, eating in silence, as the
sun set
over the city and my office grew dim. The light from
my table lamp illuminated the space around us until Mirabelle’s soft features
were cast in a romantic glow.

“I better get back to work,” she said as
she wrapped up her trash and put it in her brown bag. She stuck out her hand to
take mine too. “You usually stay here pretty late?”

I nodded as I caught myself staring at
her big, doe eyes once again, trying to avoid looking at anything below her
neck.

“Don’t stay too late,” I said as she
strutted out. Her hips swayed just enough to make me bite my lip and want to
rip off all of her clothes. I had to get out of there soon. A cold shower was
in order.

The last time I got caught up in a
gorgeous woman, things had gone south quickly. Sweet, sexy, succulent Sapphire Hart.
She had curves for days, smooth, fair skin and a short, platinum pixie
cut which
drove me completely and utterly insane. She was a real
spitfire,
which
originally drew me to her, but in the end
things weren’t what they seemed.
Not at all.

I sat at my desk for hours; unable to
concentrate knowing that Mirabelle was sitting twenty feet from me in her
office. If she wasn’t my intern and I wasn’t trying to mold her into tomorrow’s
leader, I’d have thought about asking her out for a drink.

Feeling completely useless, I locked up
my desk and office doors and walked past hers. The big leather chair swallowed
her up, and although she was young, she looked so dedicated and professional
sitting in that spot.

“Here you go,” I said as I walked in and
slapped a fifty-dollar bill on her desk. “For dinner.”

“Oh,” she said as she grabbed it. “This
is too much.”

I waved her off. “It’s fine. I’m sure
there will be others. Just keep it.”

I turned to walk out of her office and
stopped in the doorway. Just a few short months ago, I’d stood in that very
spot
while I watched Sapphire pack her things.

I recalled spinning around to face her.
Normally spunky and fiery and quick witted
,
she looked defeated
. Bags under her gorgeous blue eyes and
lips quivering, she said, “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.”

“Yeah. Right,” I said to her as I turned
my back towards her. I didn’t want to hear her out. I’d seen all I needed to
see the night before at dinner. She was a fucking liar and manipulator. Not
someone I intended on spending another second around. “You can see yourself
out. Collect your things and turn your keys into Ruthie.”

“Preston,” Sapphire called out to me.
“Wait…”

I didn’t wait, though. I kept walking
until I got to my office where I slammed the door and locked it behind me.

“Did you need something?” Mirabelle
called out softly, jarring me back to reality.

“No,” I said. I hung my head for a split
second, stuck my hands in my pockets and took a step forward. “Have a good
night, Mirabelle.”

MIRABELLE

Tuesday morning marked my second full day
on the job, and I was flooded with even more excitement than before. I jingled
the keys to my fancy office as I hopped onto the elevator with a bunch of other
interns.

“So I hear you’re working for Mr.
Woodfield
,” one of them, a petite blonde girl with a sleek
bob said. “How’d that happen?”

I shrugged. I didn’t want them to resent
me. I hadn’t asked to work for him – he just chose me. “I’m still trying
to wrap my head around it.”

“Lucky you,” a snarky Asian guy in a too-tight
shirt huffed.

The elevator dinged and the doors parted,
letting the interns off on floor four. I headed up to floor six and couldn’t
wait to tell Preston about all of my ideas for the Johnston account. I’d woken
up with a head full of crazy new things we could try to get their products
launched, and I knew he was going to be impressed.

My mama always told me I thrived too much
on other people’s approval, but I couldn’t help it. There was no better feeling
than putting a smile on someone’s face because they thought I was simply amazing.
I lived for that moment, especially when that person was super hard to
please…like Preston.

I unlocked my office and threw my purse
in a desk drawer before heading to the employee lounge to get a cup of coffee.
The
Keurig
brewer sat freshly filled with water,
likely thanks to Ruthie, and a myriad of different teas and coffees sat neatly
displayed for my picking.

I selected a Seattle dark roast and
popped the cup into the brewer. A minute later, my mug was filled with steamy
dark coffee and the aroma filled the area around me. I held it up to my nose
and breathed in the heady scent before spinning around to walk out…and bumping
right into Preston.

“SHIT!” he yelled out as my steaming
coffee dripped down the front of his white shirt and lavender silk tie.

“Oh, my God,” I said as I sat the mug
down and grabbed a handful of napkins. I began dabbing his shirt and tie, but
it was no use. They were ruined. “I am so, so sorry.”

I was afraid to make eye contact with
him, so I kept my eyes averted as I attempted to clean him up.

“Stop,” he said. He placed his hand on my
wrist and gently pushed it away. “Go to my office. There’s a closet in the back
full of pressed and dry cleaned shirts and a tie rack. Pick something out and
bring it back to me. Go. Now.”

I scrambled out of the employee lounge
and ran into his office as instructed. Just as he’d said, there was a closet
full of clean, pressed dress shirts and probably a hundred ties. I grabbed a
shirt and picked out an icy, blue tie, one to match his eyes, and ran it back
to him.

“Shut the door,” he said as I returned
with his things. He gently tugged off his jacket and began unbuttoning his
dress shirt, his eyes never leaving mine, and I couldn’t help but blush.

He loosened his tie before tugging it off
and throwing his coffee-soaked shirt on the back of a chair. Preston had a
rocking body that was for sure. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help but
notice his smooth chest and rippled abs. I remembered him being a runner back
in the day, and apparently he never stopped running.

He finished buttoning his new, fresh
shirt and wrapped his tie around his neck. Without a mirror, he seemed to be
struggling a bit.

“Here, let me help,” I said as I reached
up and began tying it. “I used to help my dad all the time before he’d go to
work. He said it was always better when someone else did it.”

I cringed at the mention of my father. My
mother had divorced my father, married Preston’s dad in a fit an irrational
midlife crisis, and then left Preston’s dad and reconnected with my father. It
was a weird year or two, and a time in my life my mother refused to discuss
anymore.

Standing mere inches from him, the scent
of his white pepper and sandalwood cologne filled my lungs, and the faint
sensation of his warm breath brushed the top of my head. I wondered if anyone
had ever been this close to him before. He seemed almost uncomfortable.

He cleared his throat before taking a
step back and double-checking the knot with his hands.

“It’s straight,” I said with a laugh. “I
promise.”

I reached for his dirty shirt and tie.
“I’ll get this dry cleaned.”

“No need,” he said. “Give it to Ruthie.
She’ll handle it.”

We headed out to the hallway, my cheeks
still slightly warm from embarrassment, and went to our respective offices. My
little excitement high from that morning was fading away thanks to making a huge
fool of myself in front of him.

PRESTON

“We have an eleven o’clock conference
call with the Johnston account,” I said to Mirabelle as I leaned in her doorway
an hour after the coffee incident.

Her head popped up and away from her
computer screen. “Oh, I had no idea.”

“That’s…why I’m telling you now,” I said
to her. Damn she looked good that morning. Curve-hugging tan pants with a peach
blouse and dainty gold necklace with
an
single diamond
pendant that fell right between her generous breasts. “Come into my office in
an hour. We’ll prep for it. This one’s all you.”

I stepped away reveling in the fact that Mirabelle
was being baptized by fire. This was going to be her chance to really show me
that she could take the ball and run with it. I loved testing my employees, and
in a way, it made them better for it.

The sound of rustling papers and computer
clicks told me she was frantically preparing, and knowing Mirabelle, she was
not going to disappoint.

An hour later, she rapped lightly on my
door before letting herself in. She had a lot of nerve just walking in all the
time like that, but I chalked it up to her naivety. Even Sapphire never had the
audacity to just barge in like that. Mirabelle was reminding me of a bratty
little sister I had once upon a time, only this time she was a sexy, young
woman.

Mirabelle took a seat across from me with
a stack of handouts. “Here’s your copy of my marketing plan. I really think
it’s going to work. I think it’s going to blow them away and have them signing
on the dotted line by this afternoon.”

“You’re that sure, are you?” I asked as
my eyes scanned the papers. For someone so young, she had the presentation of a
seasoned executive.

“Positive,” she said. “Let me know if you
have any questions.”

My eyes scanned the papers once more,
looking for something, anything. A flaw that I could point out and tear her
apart for, but I found nothing. Her plan was, quite simply, flawless. It was
better than anything I could’ve come up with on my own.

“This’ll do,” I sighed. I didn’t want her
knowing she’d blown me away quite yet. “For now.”

“Oh,” she replied, her eyes dropping to
her papers in disappointment.

“Johnston account’s on line one, Mr.
Woodfield
,” Ruthie’s voice came through on the loudspeaker.

“Ready?” I asked as I studied Mirabelle’s
face. She seemed only slightly nervous, and for an intern, that was damn
impressive.

“Ross, Brenda, Steve,” I said with a
charming smile in my voice. “How are you doing today?”

“We’ve been better,” a man’s voice said
on the other end. “What do you have for us? We don’t have a lot of time, so
make it quick.”

“I’ve got my newest exec, Mirabelle, here,”
I said. I hoped that by calling
her an
exec, it
wouldn’t go to her head, but I’d be damned if the Johnston account knew my most
talented employee was a twenty-three year old intern.

“Hi,” Mirabelle drawled sweetly. “How’re
you doing today?”

“Good,” they said in unison. “What do you
have for us, Mirabelle?”

“Okay, so did you get the documents I
emailed you earlier?” she asked. I had no idea she’d done that. She was already
way ahead me of me. I sank back in my chair, impressed, and let Mirabelle take
the reins.