Lean In

I jumped a mile when I heard the voice at my elbow. 

“I’m off,” Martine said. “See that that schedule is in my inbox first thing in the morning. And I mean first thing.”

“Of course,” I said, biting my tongue. Good thing I’d had practice. 

It was four long—and I mean long—days into my new job. Martine had given me the scrawled notes and hasty instructions for the Paris show’s publicity schedule at four-thirty—at least two hours of work. And I was also supposed to have her wildly disorganized expense report in her inbox “first thing.” That one had seemed possible. In fact, I’d already finished it. And then she’d given me the schedule.

“I know it feels like a lot,” she said, her elegant features softening. “But you’ll get the hang of it soon, and it’ll go much faster.” 

Was that a compliment, or a slam? Was I really incompetent? Then why had she hired me? I choked back the retort—or the excuse—that rose to my lips and said, “I’m sure you’re right. Have a good evening.”

She sighed. “I hope so. Dinner and the opera. Opera can be so tedious, can’t it? Especially Wagner, you know? But my friend loves to be seen there, so—” She shrugged an elegant shoulder. “Needs must.”

No, I didn’t know. Wagner had never come around my way. But whatever. 

The atmosphere settled a little with her departure, as if the very air molecules were calmer once she wasn’t there. Nathan, my fellow Publicity Assistant, popped his razor-cut head of black hair over his cube and made his Prairie Dog face, his front teeth chomping on his lower lip, and I laughed. 

“Ding-dong,” he said softly. “The witch is—well, gone. You can’t have everything.” 

“She’s not that bad,” I said. “You’re spoiled, if you think that’s bad.”

“All I can say is, thank God you’re here.” His head disappeared, and I could hear him scuttling around in there before he appeared at my cube doorway. 

“Better,” I told him. “It’s poor cube etiquette to play Prairie Dog.” 

He laughed. “Aw, you love it.” He bent down and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Flirting, but no more seriously than usual. “Bye, pretty girl. I’m off, and you’re not. Isn’t life grand?” 

I swatted him away. “Go.”

He hesitated a moment. “No, but really. Want me to do some of that?” He nodded at the stack on my desk.

“No, thanks. Not a two-person job.”

“What, you already did the expenses?” He whistled through his perfectly straight white teeth. “You’re faster than me, girl. Anyway, I can’t. Just thought it was polite to make the offer. I’ve got to get myself devastating, though.”

As if he weren’t already. Nathan didn’t have to keep himself looking put together on his assistant’s salary. Only son of a Manhattan ad exec and a former model, he’d gotten the job some months earlier through “connections, baby,” and didn’t seem to care too much about keeping it. Which, ironically, made him terrific at publicity. Instead of scurrying and sweating like I did, he made his calls, chatted and laughed and charmed, knew every assistant from New York to Rome, and made it all look easy.

“Hot date?” I asked. 

“Warmish. Old friend with potential new benefits. The only way to fly.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “So if you’re in the market…”

“Wow. You really know how to turn a girl’s head. That’s so…special. Go away.”

He laughed, not in the least fazed. “See you tomorrow. We’ll go out for a drink after work and celebrate you surviving, how about that?”

“Thanks. Sounds good.” No, it sounded great. But first, I had to make it through to tomorrow. 

He took off, and I grabbed my phone and called Karen. One last thing before I got back to the spreadsheet.

“I’ll be late again,” I told her. “Call for takeout.”

“OK.” Her voice was listless. 

“You all right?” I asked. “Something happen?” Oh, no. I had to get this done. 

“Just tired.” 

I frowned. Karen could be so withdrawn these days. But fifteen-year-olds could be moody. Not that I knew. I hadn’t been able to afford to be moody at fifteen. But her school was tough. Were they putting too much academic pressure on her? It was so much work for a freshman, but we’d both been so excited when she’d been admitted on scholarship to Brooklyn Friends. She’d assured me she could do it, and that she wanted to. She was very bright, but it was a big change from her public school, and a huge leap. 

“Is it school?” I asked. “The work?”

“No. I’m fine.”

A boy? I wondered. The other girls? She was a scholarship student, and she didn’t have the right clothes or know the right people. She couldn’t afford to go out for lattes after school like the other kids, and I knew that must sting, even if she didn’t say it.

But I couldn’t worry about that now. I’d talk to her over the weekend. I’d have work to take home, I’d already figured out that much, but I’d steal some time. We’d watch a movie, take a walk. I’d find out what was wrong then, but I couldn’t afford to quiz her now.

“All right,” I said reluctantly, because I really did have to get all this done, or there would be no takeout, and no apartment. “I’ll see you later.”

“’Kay. Bye.”

Two hours later, I was still working. I’d be lucky to be home by nine-thirty. There was nothing so silent, so lonely as an empty cube farm. Fluorescent lights lighting nothing, the doors to the coveted outer offices closed, their windows dark and blank. The janitor had been through already to empty my wastebasket and exchange a word. I was getting to know Clarice pretty well. And I was squinting so hard at a scrawled note that ran up the side of a page, the letters blurred. Or maybe that was just fatigue. 

“How you goin’?”

I leaped again, and—yes. I squeaked. I whirled in my chair, and it was him. Hemi. Umm…Mr. Te Mana.

I jumped up with such haste that the chair rolled out from under me and I stumbled over the wheels, and he put a big hand out, caught my upper arm, and steadied me. Except it wasn’t so very steadying, because he was so tall, and his chest was so broad. Way too tall and way too broad for comfort.

 Tall men made me nervous anyway. I always felt so little next to them, and I could feel them enjoying being so big, and…well, it never seemed like a good idea. Just like eating dessert every night isn’t a good idea. Too much of a good thing is the very definition of a bad idea, isn’t it? 

He wasn’t wearing a jacket tonight, just a white shirt that must have been custom-made, the way it stretched across that expanse of chest and still managed to be so form-fitting all the way down to his waist, showing off his absolutely flat abs. Dark trousers covered his powerful thighs—and everything else I was not looking at. 

Wait. It wasn’t just that he was so tall. It was that my shoes were off. Oh, God. 

“Umm…” I glanced wildly down to where my shoes were scattered under my desk. “I’m sorry. I’ll just…” 

His hand was still on my arm, and I could smell the hint of his aftershave, faint and spicy. He was so close, I could see the dark stubble of five o’clock shadow along his bronzed jaw. He had a heavy beard. Of course he did.

“What?” he asked, a faint smile lifting one corner of that mouth. “You’re sorry about what?”

“I’m…barefoot,” I whispered.

He looked down. “So you are.” The smile was a little more in evidence now. “And very nice it looks, too. I like your pink nail varnish.”

I sat down again without all that much grace and scrabbled with my feet for my shoes, but one of them was so far under there that I was going to have to crawl to get it. And I wasn’t crawling in front of him. Not again. 

“Well, this is embarrassing,” I said, trying to laugh it off.

He laughed himself, the sound sudden and rich. “Is it? Let’s scoot you back, then, so I can get them.”

He had his hand on the back of my chair, so close to my shoulder, and was shoving me gently out of the way, and then, yes, Hemi Te Mana was under my desk, pulling out my pumps. Swiveling around on his powerful haunches, taking an ankle in his hand and slipping on one shoe, then doing the same with the other.

When he touched my skin, I jumped, because it was as if a current had leaped straight up my leg. I could feel my heart pounding, my cheeks were heating, and surely his hand was around my ankle now. It couldn’t be, though. Could it?

I sneaked a peek. It was. He was holding it, and then he’d reached for the other one. He was kneeling in front of me with an ankle in each hand. 

Oh, help. What was he going to do? More to the point, what was I going to do?

I should tell him to stop. I should make a joke. The problem was, it felt good. His hands were so big and my ankles so small that his hands wrapped all the way around them with room to spare. And just like that, everything in me was pulsing, my breasts were tingling, and I was…liquid.

He let go and stood up in one fluid motion, and the moment was over, and I swallowed. 

“You need new shoes,” he said, and the smile was there again. Small, but real. 

“I need lots of things,” I managed to say. “Needing isn’t getting.”

“Oh,” he said softly, “I find it is. So often. If you need it badly enough.” 

I caught my breath, the sound audible in the silent space, and he wasn’t smiling now. His gaze was dark. Fierce. 

“Um…” I managed to say. “Can I…do something for you?”

He looked like he was going to answer, and then caught himself. “Came by to have a word,” he said after a moment, glancing at Martine’s door. “Gone?”

“Um…yes. To the opera,” I added lamely.

“Ah.” The faint hint of a smile again. “The opera. But then, it’s late. Isn’t it? It must be. There’s nobody here.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Well, yes. It happens to be night. It happens to be…” I looked at my computer. “Eight.”

“Does it?” He rubbed the back of his dark, close-cropped head, and I noticed again how perfectly cut his hair was, the sharpness of the line of it against the planes of his face, the back of his strong neck. “Time flies, I reckon.” He looked at me more sharply. “So why are you still here?”

“I have a lot of work. I’m new.”

“Yes. You are. Hard work?”

“Just a lot of work. But, of course, I’m happy to do it,” I hastened to say. 

“Mm. You’ll be with us in Paris soon, eh. May be as much work, but better surroundings.” 

Did he know everything? “I—” I began, then stopped and got hold of myself. You are as good as he is, I reminded myself. He may have more money and more power. All right, he may have a boatload more money and power. But he’s not any more of a person than you are.

“I’m afraid it’s…difficult,” I went on, once I was able to speak more calmly. “The possibility of travel wasn’t mentioned when I took the job, and I have obligations that don’t allow me to leave town at such short notice.” 

“What obligations?” He was frowning now, his expression hardening. “I didn’t think you were married, or that you had children.”

“That’s because,” I said, striving for poise and trembling inside at what I was saying, “those kinds of questions aren’t allowed. In an interview, on an application, or anywhere.”

There was banked fire in the deep brown eyes now. “You’re telling me that I’m not allowed to ask you personal questions.” His voice was soft, but the intent behind it was anything but.

“Not unless they relate to my work.” I was shaking, but that didn’t matter. I couldn’t stand to lose this job, but I couldn’t let him run me over, either. Holding my ankles, and now this? 

Vincent had wanted fringe benefits, too. That was probably why he’d hated me so much. Because I’d said no. Because I always said no. But that was men. If you looked like I used to, they ignored you. If you looked like I did now, they wanted to…we’ll call it “use you,” just to be polite. And the odd thing was, the more you said no, the more they wanted it. Like it was a game. There was a reason they called it “scoring.”

Which was why it had never been all that hard to say no. Until now. But the fact that Hemi wasn’t Vincent, that my treacherous body insisted on responding to all that hard masculinity, didn’t change a thing. Or rather, it did. It made me more certain than ever that “no” was the way to go.

I waited for endless seconds while he held me with his eyes, willing myself not to drop my gaze. And then, to my shock, he laughed. 

“I can see I’ve underestimated you,” he said. “We’ll try it another way, then. I’ll ask you, how can we accommodate you so you can come on this trip? I’d like you to be there. Let’s make it happen.”

I smiled tentatively back, and there was that warmth again in the brown eyes that met mine. So hard to keep that “no” in mind if he was going to laugh, and smile, and look like…that. So very hard. 

“I have a sister,” I told him. “She’s fifteen. I’m her guardian.”

I could see something in his face now. Was it…relief? “Then let’s get her looked after so you can come on this trip and look after me. Look after my interests, that is,” he added smoothly. “And meanwhile…have you eaten?”

“Um…no. I have this work.”

“Right. The work.” He frowned again. “How much of it?”

“A half hour.” What was he asking me?

“Then I’ll come back down here at eight-thirty. Take you to dinner, then take you home. It’s too late for somebody as small as you to be out on the streets alone.”

“I’m here doing my job. For you,” I said, and then snapped my mouth shut in horror. “Sorry. I mean, no, thank you, that’s not necessary. And I can look after myself.”

“Oh?” His tone was silky. “How?”

“I have…pepper spray?” Don’t end with a question mark, I reminded myself furiously. Lean in. But how were you supposed to lean in when six-foot-three of gorgeous Maori muscle was leaning over you? “I have pepper spray,” I said more firmly. “I do this all the time. This is my life.” 

“Not tonight, it’s not. I’m going to need some details if I’m going to work out how to get you to Paris. And I’m a very busy man. I have exactly a one-and-a-half-hour window for this, and it starts at eight-thirty.” 

He leaned forward suddenly and put a hand on either arm of my swivel chair, his pant legs brushing my knees, his face a foot from mine. 

“Be ready,” he said softly. And he left.