His Executive Sweetheart
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Christine Rimmer
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Chapter One
It happened on Valentine’s Day.
Which was just a coincidence, really. An irony. An accident of timing that made the whole thing all the more pitiful, somehow.
It was Valentine’s Day and it was a Wednesday, at 9:15 a.m. in the Executive Tower of High Sierra Resort and Casino. Celia Tuttle was taking a memo—well, getting e-mail instructions, really. Her boss, Aaron Bravo, never actually composed the in-office e-mails he sent out to the managers and senior vice presidents who labored under him. He told Celia what he wanted to get across. As his executive secretary/personal assistant it was her job to put appropriate wording to his commands.
Her boss said, “We’ve got to do something about the line for that damn raft ride….”
Celia smiled to herself as she scribbled on her notepad. High Sierra contained its own river, complete with rushing rapids and a whitewater raft ride. The ride was incredibly popular—so much so that the long lines of customers waiting their turn sometimes got in the way of casino traffic. At High Sierra, as in any gaming establishment worthy of its name, nothing was allowed to get in the way of casino traffic. They called it a resort and casino, but everyone knew it was really the other way around.
“Send an e-mail to Hickock Drake.” Hickock was a senior vice president. “Tell him to sit on Carter Biles.” Carter Biles was Director of Rides and Attractions. “It’s too many people standing around in a line when they ought to be at the tables or playing the slots. Carter should know that. Up the price on the ride till no one will pay it. Shut the damn thing down. Whatever. The line is in the way and I want it out of there.”
It happened right then. Celia looked up from her legal pad, still smiling a little at the whole idea of an amusement park ride upstaging the mighty gaming tables. Aaron said, “And before the meeting with the planning commission, I need you to check with…”
She didn’t really catch the rest of it because everything seemed to spin to a stop. It was something out of a sci-fi movie, the kind where the world freezes in place and one woman is left walking and talking in the usual way while trying to deal with the fact that everyone she knows is suddenly a statue.
Yes. The world went still. All of it.
Including Aaron. He was sitting in his glove-soft black leather chair at the huge glass-topped chrome-legged table that served as his desk, in front of a wall that was also a window. Behind him and below him lay the Las Vegas Strip, a modern-day Mecca, a land of turrets and towers, sphinxes and circus tents. Beyond the strip stretched the glittering sprawl of the magical, impossible city in the desert.
But it wasn’t the city of Las Vegas Celia Tuttle was staring at.
It was Aaron.
And all of him, every last physical detail, was suddenly achingly clear.
Tall, she thought, as if that was news. Broad-shouldered. Lean. A face that wasn’t quite handsome. Long and angular, that face, with a cleft in the strong chin. And a nose that would have been bladelike, had it not been broken at some point in his checkered past.
He wore a gorgeous lightweight designer suit. Navy, chalk stripe. A lustrous silk shirt. A paisley tie in plum and indigo. The suit had been handmade by his ultra-exclusive Manhattan tailor, everything in the best fabrics.
He had his computer in front of him, a little to the side. He’d been clicking the mouse as he spoke, his blue gaze mostly on the screen, but now and then flicking her way. What did he see on the screen? Probably his e-mail—to which Celia would end up composing the replies.
Or could be he was looking over some marketing or design prospectus. Aaron rarely did just one thing at a time. He was a driven man. Only thirty-four and part owner and CEO of one of Las Vegas’s top super-casinos. Multi-tasking was not a concept to him. It was the way he lived his life.
In that frozen moment, as his image seared itself into her brain, it hit her.
She loved him.
Somehow, the thought of that, the admission of that, brought the world to life again.
She heard a siren, out there somewhere in the vast city beyond the window wall. And far out over the desert, just above the rim of the mountains, a silver jet streaked by, leaving a white trail in its wake.
And in the huge office room, Aaron was clicking his mouse again, frowning at the computer screen, giving her instructions at the same time.
Not that she was capable, right at that second, of making sense of anything he said to her. But it was okay—at least the part about not really hearing him. She had her mini-recorder going, as she always did for their morning meetings, providing a backup in case her own notes fell short. She would need it big-time later, since right now, incoming information was not getting through in any rational form. She felt…so strange. Disordered. Confused. Embarrassed. In complete emotional disarray.
All she could think was, How can this be?
She and Aaron Bravo enjoyed a strictly professional relationship. The only time he really noticed her was when she wasn’t getting her job done—which, at least in the past two and a half years or so, was pretty much never.
It had always been just fine with Celia that her boss didn’t notice her. He was a fair boss. Yes, he worked her very hard; she rarely got a weekend off. But he also paid her well. She had a great benefits package and points in the company.
And she loved her job.
But she didn’t love her boss. Or at least, she hadn’t until about forty seconds ago.
Then again, maybe she just hadn’t realized it until now. Maybe it had been happening for a long time, coming on slowly, like a nagging cold that never quite catches hold for weeks and weeks and then—bang—in a flash it hits you. You’ve got pneumonia and you’ve got it bad.
Oh—she held back a small, anguished groan—this was ridiculous.
Over time, it was true, she’d grown…rather fond of Aaron Bravo. He was really a much nicer person than a lot of people thought. And all those rumors about junk bonds and Wise Guy connections? Patently untrue.
Celia was certain of that now, after three years of working for him. He wasn’t a shady character at all, but an honest businessman with lady luck in his corner. He’d made a few very risky investments—in computer games and real estate. He’d seen those investments pay off in a major way and put the profits into carving out a niche for himself in the gaming industry.
Frankly, Celia had been a little nervous when she first took the job with him. After all, they’d grown up just blocks from each other, up north in New Venice—yes, named after that famous city in Italy, though New Venice, Nevada, was pronounced Noovuneece, with the accent over the “neece.” It was nowhere near the sea and it didn’t have a single canal. Instead, it lay tucked against the eastern slopes of the Sierras in the beautiful Comstock Valley not far from Lake Tahoe.
Celia was eight years younger than Aaron, but she’d grown up on the stories of the notorious Caitlin Bravo and her three wild boys—each of whom, by the way, was now doing nothing short of spectacularly in his chosen field.
And yes, all right. Maybe there was an air of danger, of risk, of something not quite safe, about Aaron Bravo. But that, Celia had decided, was part of his charm. He was the kind of man you didn’t challenge unless you were willing to fight to the brutal end.
He was tough. And uncompromising. He had to be. But at the core, she knew him as a fair man, and essentially kind.
And she was proud—yes, she was—to work for him. She had, at least in the past couple of years, felt warmly toward him.
But love?
How could this be happening?
“Celia? Are you all right?”
Celia blinked. Aaron was staring at her—noticing her—because she was very obviously not doing her job.
She checked her recorder—working fine, thank God—and straightened her shoulders. “Uh. Yes. Okay. Really. I am.”
“You’re certain? You look a little—”
“Honestly Aaron, there’s nothing. I’m okay.” Yes, it was an outright lie. But what else could she say?
Right then, the phone in his pocket rang.
Saved by the bell, she thought with an inward sigh of relief.
Aaron pulled out the ringing phone, flipped it open, spoke a few sentences into it, swung it shut and put it away.
Celia cleared her throat and poised her pen. “Now. Where were we?”
They got back to work.
But from that frozen moment on, for Celia Tuttle, nothing was the same.
The hours that followed were pure misery. Insanely, now that she’d acknowledged its existence, the longing she felt seemed to grow stronger minute by minute. It hurt, just being near him, going over the rest of the calendar with him—and having him not once look up and make eye contact.
Now, really, why should that bother her? It certainly never had before.
But all of a sudden she was…so hungry for any kind of contact.
And yet, when she got contact, it hurt almost as much as having none at all.
Take, for instance, his hand brushing hers….
It happened all the time, though she’d hardly noticed it before. He would ask for something—an update, a file, a letter, a cup of coffee, black—and she would see he got it. And if she had to come near him to deliver it, he would touch the back of her hand or maybe her wrist or her forearm. It would be just a breath of a touch, a little thank-you, without words. Something that was so small, so unremarkable, that she hardly recalled it once it had happened.
Well, until now she’d hardly recalled it.
“Did the estimates come in on the South Tower remodel?” At High Sierra, the hotel rooms and the rides, the casino and the showrooms, were in a constant cycle of remodeling. Things had to stay fresh to lure in the crowds.
She told him where to look for it.
“It’s not coming up.”
She put down her legal pad and went around behind him where she had a view of the screen.
Oh, Lord. He did smell good. So clean and fresh and…male. She’d always liked the aftershave he used. She liked his hair, short but kind of wavy, a dark brown that sometimes, in the right light, still managed to show glints of gold. And the shape of his ears…
He glanced back at her, one eyebrow lifted.
Her heart lurched in her chest and she ordered her face not to flush beet-red. “Hmm,” she said. “Let’s see…” She reached for the mouse. Two clicks and the information he wanted appeared.
“Good. Thanks.”
As she withdrew her hand, he touched the back of it—just that quick brush of warm acknowledgement. She almost gasped, but somehow held back the sound. Her skin flamed where his fingers had grazed it—so lightly, so fleetingly. For Aaron, she knew, the touch was the next thing to a subconscious act. He did it and forgot it.
Not for Celia. Not anymore. Suddenly, his slightest touch seared her to her very soul.
She made herself cross back around the desk and return to her chair. She picked up her legal pad again and waited for him to go on.
For the next ten minutes, the situation was almost bearable. They got through his calendar for the day, the rest of the memos and letters he would be wanting, the reports he needed her to get in hard copy and bind for the next managers’ meeting.
They were winding things up when he added offhandedly, “And would you get something nice for Jennifer? Since it is Valentine’s Day…”
It felt like a knife straight through the heart, when he said that. Get something nice for Jennifer….
Jennifer Tartaglia had a featured role in the hit review, Gold Dust Follies, playing nightly in High Sierra’s Excelsior Theatre. Jennifer was Cuban and Italian, drop-them-in-their-tracks gorgeous—and a very nice person, as well. The first time the showgirl had visited the office tower, she’d made it a point to say hi to Aaron’s secretary.
“Hello, so nice to meet you.” Jennifer had stuck out her hand and beamed a radiant smile. “I hear you take fine care of Aaron.”
They shook hands. “I do my best.”
“You are the best. He tells me so.” Still smiling that wide, friendly, breathtaking smile, Jennifer tossed her honey-blond mane of hair and turned to walk away. Celia had found herself staring. The rear view of Jennifer Tartaglia—especially in motion—was something to see.
But so what if no woman had a right to look that good? Celia liked Jennifer. She considered Jennifer a good person who was, no doubt, very good to Aaron—not that the relationship was anything truly serious. It never was, with Aaron.
Aaron Bravo…enjoyed women, and a man in his position had his pick of some of the most beautiful, talented and seductive women in the world. But none of them, at least in the years Celia had worked for him, had lasted. Aaron always gave them diamonds—a bracelet or a necklace—at the end. Eventually, Celia knew, she’d be buying diamonds for Jennifer.
He really was married to his work. And so busy he thought nothing of asking his assistant to buy his girlfriend thoughtful gifts and expensive trinkets whenever the occasion arose—like for Valentine’s Day.
“Something nice for Jennifer,” Celia parroted in the voice of a dazed windup doll.
He was frowning again. “Are you certain there’s nothing wrong?”
“I am. Positive. No problem. Sincerely.”
An hour later, Celia left High Sierra to get Jennifer that gift. She found a heart-shaped ruby-encrusted pin in one of the elite little boutiques at Caesar’s Forum Shops. High Sierra had its own series of exclusive shops, the Gold Exchange, in the central court between the casino and the 3,000-room hotel. But Celia never shopped in-house for gifts “from” the boss. To her, it seemed more appropriate, more personal, if she went outside Aaron’s realm of influence to get little treasures for his lady friends.
And hey, wasn’t that great reasoning? she found herself thinking, now unrequited love was souring her attitude. He wasn’t even choosing the gifts. How personal could they be?
She bought the pin, brought it back to High Sierra and showed it to him, so that he’d know what lovely little trinket Jennifer was getting from him.
“Great, Celia. She’ll love it.”
Tears tightened her throat as she wrapped up that ruby heart. But she didn’t cry. She swallowed those tears down.
By then, it had been a mere six hours since she’d realized she was in love with him. She couldn’t afford to start blubbering like a baby from day one, now could she? And maybe, she couldn’t help thinking as she expertly tied the red satin ribbon, this sudden, overwhelming and inconvenient passion would just…burn itself out. Soon.
Oh, yes. Please God. Let it be over soon….
But her prayer was not answered, at least not in the next week. The days went by and the longing didn’t fade.
She managed, somehow, never to cry over it, in spite of how close she’d come that first day. And he never guessed. She was sure of it. She took a kind of bleak pride in that, in the fact that he didn’t know she was hopelessly, utterly gone on him.
Yes, sometimes he gave her a faintly puzzled look. As if he knew something wasn’t quite right with her. But she did her job and she did it well and after that first day, he never asked again what might be wrong with her.
Fresh torments abounded.
Simple things. Everyday things. Like his brushing touch, they were things that had meant next to nothing before. Things like following him around the executive suite taking last-minute instructions before he met his managers for lunch—as he stripped to the waist and changed into a fresh shirt.
She tried not to stare at his muscled back and lean, hard arms, not to let herself imagine what it would be like if he held out those arms to her, if he gathered her close against that broad chest, if he lowered that wonderful mouth to cover hers….
It was awful. She had seen him change his shirt fifty times, at least. She’d never thought of a fresh shirt as a new form of torture. Until now.
Really, their lives were so…intertwined. They both lived where they worked. Aaron had a penthouse suite. Celia’s rooms were smaller, of course, and several floors below his.
She’d always loved that, living on-site. She loved the glamour and excitement of her life at High Sierra. In many ways, the resort was its own city. A person could eat, sleep, shop, work and play there and never have to leave. The party went on 24/7, as the tired saying went.
Celia was far from a party animal. But working for Aaron, she felt as if some of the gold dust and glitter rubbed off on her. Growing up, she’d been just a little bit shy, and not all that popular—not unattractive, really, but a long way from gorgeous. She came from a big family, the fourth child of six. Her parents were good parents, but a little distracted. There were so many vying for their attention. She felt closer to her two best friends, Jane Elliott and Jillian Diamond, than she did to her own brothers and sisters.
She’d earned an accounting degree from Cal State Sacramento and worked for a Sacramento CPA firm before she stumbled on a job as secretary/assistant to one of the firm’s clients, a local morning talk-show host.
Celia adored that job. It suited her perfectly. She needed to be organized and businesslike—and she also needed to be ready for anything. She handled correspondence and personal bookkeeping, as well as shopping and spur-of-the-moment dinner parties. Her duties were rarely the same from one day to the next.
The talk-show host had done a segment on High Sierra. Aaron had agreed to a brief interview. And then he’d been there, behind the scenes, for the rest of the shoot. And he’d remembered the girl from his hometown.
Two months later, the talk-show host got another show—in Philadelphia. Celia could have gone, too. But she decided against the move.
Aaron’s human resources people had contacted her. She flew to Vegas to see him and he hired her on the spot.
“You’re just what I’m looking for, Celia,” he had said. “Efficient. Cool-headed. Low-key. Smart. And someone from home, too. I like that. I really do.”
It had been a successful working relationship pretty much from the first—impersonally intimate, was how Celia always thought of it. She was a true “office wife” and that was fine with her. She was good at what she did, she enjoyed the work and her boss knew her value. She’d had a number of raises since she’d started at High Sierra. Now, she was making twice what she’d made in the beginning. She’d been happy with the talk-show host, but she’d really come into her own since she became Aaron’s assistant. Now, instead of shy, she saw herself as reserved. Serene. Unruffled.
She was that calm place in the eye of any storm that brewed up at High Sierra. Aaron counted on her to keep his calendar in order, his letters typed and his personal affairs running smoothly. And she did just that, with skill and panache. She was a happy, successful career woman—until she had to go and fall for the boss and ruin everything.
Now, it was all changed. Now, it was the agony and the ecstasy and Celia Tuttle was living it. Everything about being near him excited her—and wounded her to the core.
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.
