Kristin Hardy - Nothing But The Best

And then it wasn’t anything but sensation, her own surging pleasure and the shuddering soon after in his body as he released and let himself follow.

IT WAS THE SOUNDS from the atrium, coming in through the open French doors, that woke her the first time. Cilla crossed over to close the doors and shut the blinds against the pitiless day.

“What time is it?” Rand rasped.

She squinted at the digital clock. “Nine.” Only three hours after they’d finally gone to sleep. It was easy to slide back into oblivion.

When she woke again, it was closer to one, and real life was beginning to gather at the edges of her mind. The Danforth cocktail reception was less than five hours away and she needed to get her game face on. Board members, managers, lawyers…she might know them all, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have to make a good impression.

Showing up looking freshly boffed was probably out of the question.

The hot water in the shower beating on her cleared her mind and left her with that wonderful sense of well-being that followed a night of truly great sex. Or a few hours of it, anyway. She’d found herself a clever, talented lover, indeed, she thought, smiling at herself in the mirror as she dried off.

Cilla wrapped herself in a towel and walked into the room to find the blinds open and Rand sitting out on the balcony in just his pants, the newspaper open on his lap.

He smiled at her. “Good morning.”

She spent a moment or two just staring at him. Such a beautiful, beautiful man. “Good morning.”

“You do nice things for a towel,” he said, and rose to cross to her.

Cilla lost long minutes to his kiss, and then the feel of his hands when the towel dropped. It would be so easy to slide back into bed and let him take her away.

Easy but not smart. She took a deep breath and moved back from him, plucking her towel from the floor. “As much as I would love to dive back in with you, my hooky’s over. Time to go back to the real world.”

Disappointment flickered over his face. “I was hoping for a rematch.”

“No can do. Sorry.”

He sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Being a grown-up sucks.” Every fiber hummed and waited as she hoped to hear some word of the future. For God’s sake, they hadn’t even properly had sex. They couldn’t let it drop here. Edgy with nerves, she crossed to the closet and pulled out some underwear.

Rand grabbed his shirt from the floor and put it on. “So where do you live?”

She slid into a denim miniskirt and a Mark Jacobs T-shirt. “L.A. And you?”

“I travel a lot, but L.A. is sort of my base.” He buttoned his shirt and turned to her. “Can I call you next time I’m in town?”

She beamed—she couldn’t help it. “I’d like that.”

He scooped her against him. “I’d like that, too.”

THE USUAL FACES, Cilla thought that evening, as she walked into the Danforth cocktail reception. The usual conversations. Danforth had reserved a private atrium room at the resort for the welcome dinner. Standing in little groups by the floor-to-ceiling windows were the five board members, most of the division heads for Forth’s, the department managers for Danforth and the financial cadre. It was maybe fifteen or sixteen people all told, the brain trust of the Danforth empire.

Given that she wasn’t in the direct management chain, she probably ought to have been pleased to be involved.

She wasn’t.

What she was was frustrated that she’d had to work twice as hard and twice as long as any normal employee to make headway in the company. Only when she’d sent in her résumé under a false name and received an immediate callback on a management position had she been able to get her father to take her seriously.

He’d spent much of his lifetime dismissing his wife.

He wasn’t going to dismiss Cilla.

She watched him now as he stood by the windows talking with the CFO, the head of legal and a board member. Sam Danforth wasn’t particularly tall, but something about the way he held himself commanded attention. She could see herself in the cleft of his chin and the green of his eyes, the eyes she often felt didn’t really see the grown-up her. And until he saw her and respected her, no one in his chain of command was really going to do so.

She could tolerate that for the time being. Cilla was nothing if not patient. She’d gotten the education, she’d gotten the experience. She’d grown up learning strategy from her father. Now all she needed was the opportunity to prove what she could do.

With the skill of long practice, she stepped into the room and began circulating, a chat here, a joke there. Having a drink to hold on to kept her hands busy, though she’d learned from her father long ago to stick with club soda and lime at business receptions. “You’ve got to keep your wits about you,” he maintained. “You never know what might come up and you want that edge.”

Her father turned now and waved her over. She’d known the men he was talking with since she’d been in braces.

“Here she is, our secret weapon,” her father said.

“How go the fashion wars?” asked Danforth’s CFO Bernard Fox, portly but still dapper in a beautifully cut Armani suit.

“A Hun dressed in Versace is still a Hun,” Cilla said lightly.

“Good point. I hear Sam here wants us to come up with a strategy for thirty percent growth over the next three years,” said Burt Ruxton, longtime board member. “Since you’re the first timer at the meeting, we’ll let you come up with it.”

“Are you still holding a grudge over that time I dropped your satellite phone in the swimming pool, Uncle Burt?”

“Not at all. Although if profits go up thirty percent, you might finally get around to replacing it.”

Cilla’s father looked over her shoulder and brightened. “Ah. Here’s someone I want you to meet. About time you showed up,” he said more loudly.

“Checking my e-mail,” said a voice behind her.

A very familiar voice.

And Cilla turned and found herself nose to nose with Rand Mitchell.

“Rand, this is my daughter, Cilla. Cilla, this is Rand Mitchell. He’s doing some business development for us in Europe.”

She’d always thought jaws dropping was a figure of speech, at least until her own did. Surprise? Shock, more accurately. And she couldn’t help it. She laughed.

A corner of Rand’s mouth tugged up into a rueful smile in response.

“What’s the joke?” her father demanded, looking between them. “Do you two know each other?”

“Sort of,” she managed, working to tuck away her amusement. “I had a flat on the highway coming in and Rand was my good Samaritan.” He stood now in a gorgeous suit, looking polished, professional and entirely good enough to eat.

That probably wasn’t such a good idea anymore, she thought. Getting her body to agree, of course, was going to be the challenge.

“Well.” Sam Danforth clapped Rand on the shoulder. “Nice to see that you’re looking after Danforth’s important assets. Rand is our man in Europe,” he said to the rest of the group and introduced Rand around. “Thanks to him, we’re finally making a name for ourselves over there.”

“I bet you’re making a name here, too,” Cilla said.

SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, Rand was fairly sure, had written a “Top Ten Business Don’ts” list, and at the top of that list had to be sleeping with the boss’s daughter. Stupid, brainless, dense. Normally, he’d be kicking himself up one side of the room and down the other.

Oddly, he wasn’t. The whole thing was too absurd to be taken seriously. After all, what were the chances?

As a committed fast-tracker, he supposed he had to wonder what impact his adventure with Danni—or Cilla, it now appeared—might have on his future. Then again, he’d never planned to stay at Danforth longer than the obligatory year, maybe less, if something appealing came calling.