He closed his new office door behind him and breathed in the scent of freshly-arrived mahogany. Connor couldn’t lie to himself—the office of the Trezor COO was sweet. He fell into the hand-stitched leather executive chair, breathed in the rich scent, and spun it around. He felt like a kid at Christmas. Or at least what he figured normal kids felt like at Christmas. His holidays had usually been spent vacationing in Saint-Tropez while hired nannies watched him and Sean.

Everything his father did was top notch. It was one of his few good qualities. The new Trezor building, just erected four years ago, had been designed by a contemporary architect under the watchful eye of his father. The tallest building in the up-and-coming area, it featured nothing but black glass and industrial steel piping.

It was a monster, and now Connor was at the top of it. Peering down from the eighteenth story, Washington, DC, looked like a miniature of a town. You can own this town if you play your cards right.

The corner office was opposite his father’s and offered stunning views. “Mr. Harris?” His newly assigned personal assistant poked his head in. James was dressed in a bright seersucker suit with brown and white Oxford shoes. “Your father asked me to go over today’s itinerary with you.”

Connor sighed. “Yeah, James, come on in.” He was well aware of why his father had hand-selected a male assistant for him. His father didn’t want any kind of office sex scandal marring the family name.

“It’s a busy day!” James said, settling into the heavy wooden and leather chair across from Connor. “I’ve also synced your calendar with mine and scheduled pop-up reminders at forty-minute increments along with GPS instructions when applicable.”

“You’re certainly… efficient,” Connor said.

“Thank you, sir,” James said. “At eight o’clock, so in one hour, you have a meeting with GQ Magazine. At eleven there’s a short meet and greet with Forbes. Then you have a lunch meeting at 1789 Restaurant with Entrepreneur—their veal sweetbreads are to die for if you haven’t had them yet—then, at two—”

“Whoa, whoa, this is all today?” Connor asked. “And why GQ? This is all to discuss security business?”

“Well… not exactly,” James said. “Your father thinks it’s prudent to take advantage of your Navy experience, try and get some photo shoots going to make a big splash about your joining the company.”

“SEALs,” Connor corrected him.

“Excuse me?”

“I was a SEAL, not just in the Navy. And I’m the Chief Operations Officer, not a goddamned male model.”

“Could have fooled me, sir,” James said.

“Look, James, I’m guessing you have my entire life scheduled on my calendar for weeks out, right?”

“Everything that’s been booked so far, sir, yes,” he said. “Although I must say, your father is ordering new appointments nonstop, so I don’t encourage you to consider your calendar set in stone by any means.”

“Right,” Connor said. “Can you just give me a few minutes? I’d like to look over my calendar in private if you don’t mind.”

“Certainly, sir. I’ll be back in twenty minutes to escort you to your first appointment.”

“I don’t need—”

“Your father’s orders, sir.”

“Yes, of course.”

James shut the door behind him and Connor fired up his tablet. The next six weeks were absolutely booked with meetings, lunch and dinner dates, and cocktail outings with the heads of magazines. You’re a goddamned figurehead of the company, not the COO. You don’t have a single damn responsibility besides looking good in a suit.

Connor groaned and rested his head in his hands. He pushed the old-school intercom button on the desk that connected instantly to James’s Bluetooth. “James?” he asked. “With all these lunch and dinner engagements on here, what does that ‘plus F’ mean?”

“Those are the appointments in which your fiancée is expected to accompany you,” James said.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“You know, she has her own job—screw it, can you send this schedule to Sam for me?”

“Doing it now, sir.”

“And while you’re at it, talk to her yourself. She’s going to need a new dress—scratch that, a new wardrobe for all this. Is that something you can help her with?”

“Definitely, sir,” James said, the excitement evident in his voice.

Connor rolled his eyes, switched off the intercom and leaned back in his chair. Does Sam have a family as crazy as this? Surely not as powerful, but maybe—just maybe—she has a hint of what it’s like.

Hell, he didn’t even know if she had much of a family. He thought of her and her mom during the holidays, an empty seat intentionally left there in memory of her father. Maybe she had a hot best friend who was like a sister and spent Thanksgiving with her. Perhaps she had a gaggle of cousins who played the part, from the protective older brother to the sniveling little snot of a kid.

“I need to know more about her,” he said out loud. He’d already made a royal mistake, making up where she’d gone to college on the fly. That was an easy fix, though. He could always find out the truth and say she’d just studied abroad for a year. Surely his father wouldn’t dig too deeply.

Connor looked at his schedule again. James would be prancing through the door in ten minutes. Why wait to get to know the basics?

He dialed Sam’s number—or Sandra Brewer’s as his phone indicated. “Hello?” she said. Her voice was groggy.

“It’s past seven, why aren’t you awake?”

“Who is this?” she asked sleepily.

“Your fiancé,” he said.

“Oh!” she said, suddenly awake. “Sorry, I haven’t saved your number in my phone yet.”

“Yeah, well, you might want to get on that. Look, you’ve probably already got your schedule for the next few weeks from my assistant James. But I think it’s best if we meet up before this mess of black tie affairs to get to know each other a little better. I’d rather get our stories straight rather than thinking up basic facts on the fly.”

“I agree,” she said. “That whole thing with you saying I went to school in the UK—”

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I panicked. This whole thing, it’s new to me.”

“I’d hope so,” she said. He ran through his head of possible places to meet her. Somewhere nice, upscale. Somewhere she might wear another one of those sexy little dresses. He felt himself start to harden thinking about that black dress from the night at the bar. Even the suit she wore to meet his family, with that feminine low-cut neckline had sparked his interest.

Not that he was attracted to her by any means. At least not beyond appreciating a sexy body when he saw it. But what was the harm in looking? After all, she was his fiancée.

“Oh my God! Connor? Did you see this? Do you know how many appointments I’m supposed to be at?” Clearly, James really was on top of everything.

“Of course I saw it,” he snapped. “I scheduled them.” She didn’t have to know it was his father pushing for all of this.

“How am I supposed to make time for all of this? I’m not going to quit my job to play your arm candy, if that’s what you have in mind—”

“Calm down, nobody asked you to quit your job, did they?” he asked. “If you’ll actually look at the calendar instead of flipping out, you’ll see they’re all short lunch meetings and dinner engagements. Surely you have a lunch break, don’t you? And you eat dinner, correct?”

“Well, yeah,” she said.

“Good, then I don’t see what the big deal is. Your office is close to downtown anyway. I’ll pick you up and make sure you get back to work in a timely fashion. I’m sure the clients will understand that you’re a career woman.”

“A career woman?” she asked. “Really? What, did you step right out of a Mad Men episode?”

“You know what I mean,” he growled.

“Mr. Harris?” James asked, sticking his head in again. He tapped his bare wrist and raised his brows. “GQ,” he mouthed.

“Alright, alright,” Connor told him. “I’m coming.”

“Sandra, we need to talk about this later. I’ll text you the time and place to meet tonight and we’ll talk about this in person. Consider this a day off from appointments. I’ll explain to the clients that you had a conference all day today.”

“It’s Sam,” she said in exasperation.

“Yeah, yeah, you know what I meant,” he said.

From the door, James tapped at his wrist with more insistence.

“I see you!” Connor said. He hung up on Sam without saying goodbye.

“You’re just going to adore the E in C of GQ,” James gushed. “He’s fantastic, really.”

“E in C?”

“Editor in Chief,” James said slowly. “The last time I met him, he was wearing the most delicious pair of Helmut Lang trousers, and I told him—”

“James, if you don’t mind, can we keep the chattering to a minimum? It’s not even eight o’clock and I already have a headache.”

“Oh my! That’s my fault. We’ll swing by and I’ll get you your coffee to enjoy on the way. Americano with a dash of cream, one sugar and a shot in the dark. Correct?”

“Yeah, how’d you—you know what, never mind. That’s right.”

James smiled at him. “I know how important the ritual morning cup of coffee is,” he said. “Have you tried French press before? I personally find it to be quite…”

Connor sighed and let James babble on. By the time they pulled up in front of the building to meet with GQ, Connor was adept at tuning him out almost completely. In fact, James’ voice was quiet soothing background noise. Either that, or the coffee was working its magic.

As they walked through the lobby and James led him toward the tucked-away café in the back, Connor’s phone buzzed in his jacket. He pulled it out and there was a text from Sandra Brewer. WTF does your assistant need to know my bra size for?

He smiled to himself. James was nothing if not thorough, and probably oblivious of how intimate the question was. “Hey, James,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” James replied, eager to be of service.

“When you find out Sam’s bra size, can you let me know? I uh, want to surprise her with something for the anniversary of the day we met.”

“That’s so sweet, sir! Of course I will. But wouldn’t it be easy for you to just peek in her dresser?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” he asked.