That First Kiss (4 page)

Piper blanched. “Is he really that bad?” Could anyone really be that bad? Her mother was bad, intolerable, really, but bad enough that you couldn’t put a price tag on it? Now that was a scary thought.

“I’ve heard he makes Scrooge look like a saint. Since I’m his boss I suppose I get special trea
tment, but I’ve heard things…” He trailed off, but the lift of his eyebrow said it all. The man was horrid. What had she gotten herself into?

Felix clapped his hands together loudly. “One last thing before I leave you to it. It will be up to you to figure out what needs to be done and in what order to do it. So long as it all gets taken care of, you will be the master of this ship. Okay?”

There was nothing left to say, so Piper nodded her understanding. Once she was sure that Felix was gone, she released a long, heavy breath and got to work.

6

Where was his goddamn assistant? For the hundredth time Tate Larson glanced to the door
watching another suit enter and approach the counter to place his order.

Checking his watch
again, Tate gritted his teeth and dropped his eyes back to the screen before him. So help him God. Felix promised he had found a good one this time. He swore this was the one. Foolishly, Tate had believed the man, though why he did was beyond him. The last dozen or so certainly hadn’t worked out, so why should this one? Was it too much to ask for a person to be on time these days? Well, Felix was going to be pissed to hear that he fired this one on the spot. He didn’t tolerate incompetence well.

             
The bell over the door chimed again, announcing another arrival. Pausing mid-sentence, his fingers hovering over the keys, Tate lifted his eyes to the door once more, pausing on the pretty little thing that stepped inside.

Dressed as a professional in a nice buttercream blouse and fitted
pencil skirt, he was unable to keep his eyes from wandering over her luscious curves. She wasn’t as tall or slim as the women he normally chose, but there was just something about her that drew the eye. Maybe it had something to do with the woman he had hooked up with at the club over the weekend—lush lips, curvy body and bedroom eyes. Exactly the type of woman he went for and actively avoided.

He was still reliving that moment nightly, hell, daily.

He never should have kissed her. It went against his personal code of never kissing a one-night stand. But kiss her he had and now he was suffering the memory of that kiss and the way the woman tasted endlessly.

Glancing around, he noticed that half the men in the shop ha
d paused what they were doing to take notice of the woman, too.

             
He watched curiously, studying her form, the way the morning sunlight created a total body halo making her look positively heavenly, the way her eyes darted around the room nervously, landing on each man only long enough to disregard them and move on. Hmm, why only the men, he wondered as those innocent brown eyes snagged on him.

             
Oh, hell no.

             
Tate straightened from his slouched position and dropped his feet from the chair in front of him to the floor with a dull thud.

It c
ouldn’t be.

This had to be some kind of trick. Some sick twist of fate. Two things occurred to him at once: he was looking at the obje
ct of his current fantasies—the woman he had screwed in a women’s bathroom and hadn’t been able to shake from his memory since—and he was pretty damn sure she was his new assistant.

             
He knew she recognized him by the way her mouth dropped open in a small O and her brown eyes widened. She started toward him, her steps faltering only slightly before she visibly pulled herself together. His eyes narrowed as the woman stopped in front of his table and peered down at him.

             
“Hey, fancy meeting you again.” She smiled, showing off pretty white teeth that weren’t exactly perfect but still managed to set off her smile. His gaze lingered on her full, pouty bottom lip, remembering how it had tasted against his tongue.

             
“Yes, fancy that,” Tate replied tightly. “Piper was it?”

Dressed the way she was, looking the way she did, he never would have
figured her for the business type. Judging from their first encounter, he pegged her as easy, just some bimbo, good for taking to bed and not much more.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. She seemed different from the women he normally screwed. Compelling him to kiss her was proof enough of that.
Not that he would have minded taking this woman to bed, though. Hell, he already had her once bent over a bathroom sink, but he needed an assistant just now. What he didn’t need was the aggravation of working with a woman who he’d already slept with. Sitting back, he folded his arms over his chest and propped his foot up on the chair across from him.

“
Ah, you remembered.”

“
What can I say? I’m good with names, and I never forget a pretty face,” he replied smoothly.

She blushed, which oddly pleased him
. Too bad he was going to have to wipe that pretty look off her face. “So, what are you doing here?”

“
I’m supposed to be meeting my new assistant,” he said, looking up at her meaningfully, “but they’re late.”

Brows pinching, Piper frowned at him. He knew the exact moment that she put two and two together. “You’re Tate Larson?
” she screeched.

             
He pursed his lips. “I am. Are you the assistant?”

             
She swallowed, her hands twisting nervously in front of her. “Yes, that’s me.”

             
“Good. You’re fired.”

*****

“Excuse me?” Piper struggled to overcome her shock as she stood there before this man—this man she had sex with and was never supposed to see again!—who regarded her with bored indifference. “You can’t fire me. I haven’t even started yet!”

             
He watched her for a long moment, and then sighed as he turned his attention to the laptop in front of him. “Fine. You can start by getting me a coffee, large, black and a slice of coffee cake.”

             
Piper glared at him. Was this guy for real? This was exactly why she preferred one-night stands. When she banged someone in the back room she never had to see their assholian faces again!

With a huff, Piper spun around to place his order. When she returned she placed the steam
ing cup of coffee and the plate of cake that was now picked clean of its streusel topping on the table.

Take that, asshole!

              “Will there be anything else?” she asked, barely able to restrain the anger brewing inside.

             
“Nope.” He shook his head as he absently reached out his hand to draw the cake closer. “This looks different,” he said, leaning forward to inspect it. “Is it missing something?”

             
Piper shrugged and said innocently, “I don’t know. Is there?”

             
He eyed the cake, then her, and the cake again and frowned, but without proof he eventually let it go and proceeded to eat every bite. As she watched him, Piper took a bit of satisfaction from the small victory while resisting the urge to point and shout that she had stolen the streusel. Some might call her passive aggressive. She liked to think she chose her battles wisely. 

             
Sighing and happy to see that he had overcome whatever little tantrum had been plaguing him, she plunked the tote containing her new PDA and mini laptop on the table and yanked out the chair with a little more force than was necessary.

             
“Hey,” Tate snapped at her when his feet hit the floor. “I was using that.”

             
She thought about apologizing, she really did, and she would have, had she not already witnessed what a Grade A jerkoff he was, but she changed her mind. Shrugging, she plopped down. “So, where do you want to start?” She could make this work. She had to make this work. There was no way she was going back to Alabama.

             
“We can start with you leaving.”

             
Piper snorted. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” She flattened her hands on the table and sighed deeply. “Okay, look. I think we got off on a bad foot here. Working together after, well, you know, doesn’t have to complicate things. I had a nice time, I’m thinking you had a nice time, and we’re both adults here. I’m capable of putting the past behind me if you are. What do you say we start over?”

             
“That’s not going to work for me.”

             
“Why not?” She was losing patience with this man.

             
“Because you’re fired.”

             
“So we’re back to this again?” Piper stared at him as he went back to work, disregarding her completely. “Alright, buddy, I don’t know what crawled up your ass this morning, but this is ridiculous. You need an assistant, and I am one. I fail to see what the problem is.”

             
He tapped at the keyboard a couple more times before slowly closing it and placing his palms down on the table. “The problem is,” he said slowly, “that you were late. I don’t work with irresponsible people.”

             
Piper looked at him, incredulous, as she held up her phone to display the time. “It is five after nine and I have been here for at least five minutes.”

             
“Obviously no one ever explained to you the business side of being on time. Allow me to enlighten you. Ten minutes early is on time. On time? Not so much. You were late.”

             
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Piper practically yelled, drawing attention from a few people in line and from the surrounding tables. She didn’t care. “You are willing to dismiss probably the last person willing to work with your miserable ass without even giving me a chance?”

             
“I just did. You screwed up.” His expression was smug, almost as if he enjoyed pissing her off.

             
“I did not screw up,” she growled, unaware that she was leaning across the table until he angled forward, bringing their faces so close together that she could smell the coffee on his breath.

             
“Face it, lady, you screwed up. If you can’t make it to your first day on the job on time, then how can I trust that you won’t fuck up my schedule? I’ve dealt with enough lax workers to know one when I see one, and, honey, you scream disaster.”

             
Ass. Hole. “I brought you coffee and cake.” She was fuming. It was all she could think to throw at him.

             
He sat back, all trace of annoyance gone from his handsome face. Damn his handsome face! “And I thank you.”

             
She glared at him. “So that’s it, you’re firing me?”

             
“Yep.”

             
“Fine.” She grabbed her tote and shoved out of her seat.

             
“Fine.”

             
“Fine!” She saw his leg stretch out, his foot seeking the edge of the chair, and rather than allowing him to have it, she grabbed the back and dragged it toward the door with her. “Would you like another chair?” she asked a woman who stopped with her powdered doughnut halfway to her lips to look at her with a slightly fearful expression.

             
“Um, sure?”

             
Piper slid the chair under the table with more control than she was feeling and darted out the door, but not before she took the time to flip Tate Larson the bird.

7

“Forget something?”

              Piper looked up to find Poppy standing in the doorway. After getting fired, Piper decided the least she could do before she went on a Ben and Jerry’s binge was stop back at the office, clock out and inform Mr. Sinclair that she wouldn’t be back. Plus, she had to return all those fancy tech gadgets she hadn’t gotten to use yet.

             
“Nope.” She sighed. “Just dropping in to say goodbye.” She smiled grimly.

             
“What?” Poppy stood there, shocked. “You mean Felix let you go?”

             
“No, not Felix. The other one.” By the look on her face, Piper didn’t need to explain.

             
“Oh, you mean him.” Poppy waved her concern away, slanting a look at her that said she thought it was utter nonsense. “Don’t listen to anything he says. Tate is all hot air.”

             
“He’s my boss.”

             
“No, he’s your
second
boss,” Poppy clarified.

             
Piper recalled Felix saying just that earlier, but still she was unsure. “But a boss is a boss, right? I mean, one call from Mr. Larson and Mr. Sinclair will let me go anyway.”

             
Poppy shook her head emphatically as she stepped deeper into the room. “Between you and me, Felix is at his wit’s end looking for someone who can fill this position. If a person can last the day, he’s willing to overlook everything else. Tate is like a spoiled teenager. He barks loud enough, he gets his way. He needs someone who isn’t afraid to stand up to him.”

             
“And what if he bites?” Piper had met plenty of dogs with a loud enough bark to scare half the neighborhood away. She was leery, but never afraid, because she recognized their reaction as nothing more than fear of someone getting too close. Was that Tate’s problem? Was he afraid of her? The idea was intriguing. It made her tempted to test her theory, but just the thought of subjecting herself to more of his nasty demeanor was enough to make her think twice.

             
“Trust me, Tate Larson is all bark. When you get to know him, he’s just a big teddy bear,” she assured.

             
Piper scoffed openly. “Right, a teddy bear that will rip my head off in a blink for his personal enjoyment.”

             
“He’s really not that bad,” Poppy insisted. “Trust me. Go back to that diner, march up to him and tell him to go stuff himself. Don’t let him chase you away. Everyone runs from him and that’s why he thinks he can keep doing what he does. He needs someone willing to get in his face and refuse to back down.”

             
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Piper muttered. She wasn’t much for confrontation and he would probably just fire her again anyway. It would be like adding insult to injury and she was not a glutton for punishment.

             
“You can.” Slinging an arm around her shoulders, Poppy pulled her toward the door. “Besides, you promised to go to lunch with me today.”

             
“I forgot my lunch,” Piper confessed, thinking over all the ways her day was quickly spiraling down the toilet.

“Then we’ll eat out. My treat,” she added, cutting her off before she could
object. “You wouldn’t want me to eat all by myself, would you?” She batted her eyelashes shamelessly.

Piper laughed. “Alright, yes, we’ll do lunch.”

Poppy’s face brightened. “Great.”

“Back so soon?” They both turned to find Felix coming toward them. He had an almost catlike grace that both women paused to a
ppreciate. He really was a good-looking man.

“Tate fired her,” Poppy said loudly, drawing a few heads their way.

Piper dropped her gaze to the floor, more than a little embarrassed. Felix burst out laughing, which puzzled her. “You didn’t even make it to the lunch hour, huh?” Piper shook her head, wondering what the hell was so damn funny. “Then my instincts must have been right. I don’t know what you did to piss him off, but anything capable of drawing that kind of reaction out of him this fast tells me we’re on the right track. Keep up the good work.”

“But, he fired me,” Piper spluttered.

“And I hired you.”

“First boss,” Poppy muttered
beside her.

“Look.” Felix stepped closer and lowered his voice
so it didn’t carry beyond their little circle. “Ignore what Mr. Larson says. I have first and last say over who gets hired or fired around here where he is concerned. You just concentrate on getting him from A to B. As long as you are doing your job, you’ll continue to have one. If you have any concerns, come to me. My door is always open. Don’t let him run you off so early in the game.”

“Okay.” Okay. Could she do this? She could do this.

Felix patted her on the shoulder and continued toward his office. “And Poppy, I need to see you in my office please,” he called over his shoulder.

“Go show that punk what you’re made of.” Poppy gave her a sympathetic smile and
flitted after him.

Bolstered by the
pep talk, Piper marched back to the coffee shop. Upon entering, she saw Tate typing away at his computer, oblivious to the world.

And he had found himself another chair.

Grinning internally, Piper approached the table and yanked the chair he had his feet propped on out from under it, then took a seat.

“What the fuck!
” Tate leveled her with his steely glare.

“Let’s start over, shall we?” Piper smiled sweetly. “Hi, you must be Tate Larson. I’m Piper Donovan, your new assistant.” She held out her hand, but he refused to take it. Shrugging,
she dug into her tote until she found her organizer. Finding the schedule Poppy had made up, she ignored the look of pure outrage Tate was sending her way, and got to work. “Oh, and just so you know, I am not fired.”

***
**

“I can’t believe you flipped him off.” Poppy sat across from her sipping at a mug of warm tea and eating a wilted sandwich. Piper hadn’t fared much better with her own lunch. Thanks to Tate’s constant demands, she had been running late and by the time she got back to the office, they only had a half hour left for lunch. Poppy suggested they eat at the cafeteria downstairs instead of going out.

Unfortunately, b
y the time they had reached the little cafeteria located on the first floor of Bookish Temptations, the only thing she had left to choose from was a deli sandwich with shriveled tomatoes or a tuna on white, which she had opted for. It was better than starving, which she was dangerously close to doing. Had Tate kept her over any longer then she might have torn into him, but one look of death from her was enough to have him shooing her away.

             
“I can’t believe I did that either.” What could she say; the man seemed to bring the worst out of her. Who would have guessed, especially considering how much good he had wrung from her just days ago. She shuddered. Even though she was sure she detested the man, her body had yet to receive the memo.

             
“Well, I think it was probably for the best. You can’t let a man like Tate Larson learn your weaknesses. He will exploit them like that.” Poppy snapped her fingers.

             
“It sounds like you speak from experience.”

             
“Oh, honey, you have no idea. My ex-husband was a master at exploiting women.”

             
“Which is why you’re divorced?”

             
“You know it.” Draining the last of her tea, Poppy began gathering her trash.

             
“Do you ever think about getting married again?” Piper asked as she got up from the table and trailed after her.

             
“Every day.” Poppy wore a secret smile that was contagious.

             
“Ah, does that mean you already have someone in mind?” Piper teased.

             
Poppy looked up at her, her eyes dancing. “I’ve been seeing this guy…” she sighed dreamily. “He is amazing. Everything I could have ever wanted but never thought I would have. After my divorce, I thought this is it, Poppy; you’re going to die an old maid now. I’m glad I found him.”

             
“You sound happy.” Piper walked alongside Poppy as they headed back toward the main lobby. “How did you two meet?”

             
Poppy’s cheeks flamed red. “Oh, God, it is so cliché it’s embarrassing.”

             
“Well, now you have to tell me. I won’t take no for an answer.” Piper nudged her playfully, spurring her on.

             
Poppy snickered. “It was a dark and stormy night…” she said dramatically, using her hands to paint the air in front of them.

             
“Seriously?” Poppy shot her a look that said she would never joke about such a thing, and Piper barked out a laugh. “Oh that’s too good. Keep going, I have to know more.”

             
“Okay, so,” she began, excitement lacing her words. “It was raining cats and dogs and this man shows up on my doorstep. He looked so pitiful. So being the incredibly generous and amazing woman I am, I decided to take care of him, and the rest, shall we say, is history. That was over six months ago and I swear to you, it is as good today as it was the night we met.”

             
“Sounds like love.”

             
“It is. I’m crazy about him. Some days I feel like a silly school girl, I love him so much.”

             
Piper couldn’t help feeling a little envious. The way this woman felt about her man was written all over her face. She was happy for her. One day, she hoped to find a man who would sweep her off her feet like Poppy had so clearly been swept off hers.

             
“I should head back before
mien slave driver
decides to put a hit out on me.” Piper sighed, dreading having to return to work.

             
Laughing, Poppy caught her in an unexpected embrace. “I’ll catch you later then.”

             
“Okay, later.” As Piper took her first step out the door her phone chimed. She didn’t have to look to know who was calling. It was as if the very air surrounding her shrunk in apprehension.  “I’m on my way,” she said without preamble.

             
“Good,” Tate said gruffly. “And bring the draft for
Blood Stone
with you.”

             
“Blood Stone?”

             
She heard his exasperated sigh come down the line and could just imagine the frown he was sending her way. “Yes, it was delivered yesterday. Don’t tell me you haven’t checked the inbox yet.”

             
She hadn’t checked the inbox. No one told her about an inbox. Had they? She couldn’t remember. Twisting around, Piper darted back into the building and rushed to the elevators.

             
“Piper,” he growled, his deep voice rumbling in her ear. She tried to ignore the fluttery feeling in her stomach and the sensual pictures her mind called up at his tone.

             
“Fine, I won’t tell you that I haven’t checked the inbox yet,” she said flippantly.

             
“Dammit, Piper—”

             
“See you soon!” She clicked off and breathed deep, praying that she would be able to locate his latest novel. It was running through edits and she knew from the notes Poppy had made for her that he had to check everything over each time they came back until everything was perfect. The delay would no doubt piss him off, but what else was new? In fact, she had a feeling that this would be a common theme for them.

             
Half an hour later, Piper slapped the deep stack of papers on the table. “Here you are,
sir
.”

             
“About damn time,” he grumbled, dragging the stack in front of him. He began flipping through the papers, scanning briefly before casting them aside. Judging by the stern set of his jaw and the fact that he wasn’t snapping at her, she must have done something right.
Finally!

Grinning, s
he tugged the chair out swiftly, a little disappointed not to have sent his feet slapping to the floor.

             
Tate smirked. “I learn fast.”

             
“Mmm, how unfortunate.” Piper held his gaze. When he finally released her with a shake of his head, she felt triumphant. Maybe she could survive the monster named Tate Larson after all.