From Boss to Bridegroom Read Online Free PDF

exhilarating, if she were honest with herself or had had the time to ponder it.
    She did manage to sneak in a phone call to Max while Rand was in court, but beyond that the day flew by. Before she knew it, it was nearly 6:00 p.m. and they switched gears to tackle what Rand called the mess in the library—stacks of papers and files that previous secretaries had obviously set aside to deal with after the maelstrom of Rand’s workday and then never gotten back to.
    But the evening’s work was actually a nice change. After hours her sometimes-hard-to-take boss grew much less intense. Off came the exquisitely tailored suit coat he’d worn from the moment he’d gotten out of the car that morning, joined over a chair-back by his tie. Then he opened the collar button of hishardly wrinkled shirt and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, exposing a thick neck and forearms so sinewy any construction worker would have been proud of them.
    â€œGet out those comfortable shoes you said you were bringing,” he advised Lucy as he led the way to the room he less formally referred to as the research room.
    Rand was still all business as they passed the evening going through the stacks of papers. He checked each sheet to make sure what it contained and where it belonged, then handed it to Lucy, telling her which file to put it in.
    It was a monotonous task that didn’t allow for conversation as Rand concentrated on what he was doing. But Lucy found herself waiting almost breathlessly for each of those silences to be broken by the deep tones of a voice so rich it could have come from a jazz singer in a smoky New Orleans bar.
    When all the papers were tucked neatly into the files, Lucy excused herself for a bathroom break and used her cell phone to call Max and bid him good-night. By the time she returned to the office Rand had transferred all the files to the file room where they spent the remainder of the evening sifting through the deep drawers of the cabinets to put the files away.
    She was surprised to find Rand joining her in that portion of the job. Making sure the papers got into the correct files had required his participation, but finding the right slot for them was certainly notsomething he needed to attend to. Yet there he was, doing just that, right alongside her.
    It was nice, Lucy admitted reluctantly. Nice to see that no job was too small for his attention. Rand Colton might be a bear to work for but he didn’t demand any less of himself than he did of anyone else, and somehow that seemed to cushion the weight of his heavy expectations.
    By ten o’clock Lucy was beat and glad when they finally finished.
    Even Rand seemed worn out as he raised long arms above his head, flexed his broad shoulders and stretched toward the ceiling.
    â€œOkay, enough is enough,” he said to the accompaniment of his back cracking. “That was quite a day’s work.”
    â€œNo argument here,” Lucy agreed, rubbing at a crick in her neck.
    â€œI didn’t even let you stop for dinner.”
    â€œI didn’t let you stop for dinner either,” she countered with a small laugh.
    â€œI think I owe you that much. What if we hit the diner around the corner before we go back to Georgetown? My treat for a job well done.”
    That was all the invitation sounded like, too. It wasn’t as if he were asking her out on a date or even angling for that. Which, for no good reason, felt slightly demoralizing to Lucy.
    But it was the way things should be, she told herself. He was just her boss, she was just hissecretary. They’d put in over fourteen hours of work and he was trying to reward her for it. That was all there was to it.
    Still, though, she knew she should decline the offer. Despite the fact that Sadie was baby-sitting and had long since put Max to bed, Lucy knew she should go home.
    But she was hungry.
    And Max would be asleep and wouldn’t know the difference if she were gone