Rescued in a Wedding Dress Read Online Free PDF Page B

Flatbush Boys Choir.”
    “I know that now,” she said, defensively. “I had just started here. Six of them came in. The most adorable little boys in matching sweaters. They even sang a song for me.”
    “Here’s a check written annually to the Bristol Hall Ladies’ Lunch Group. No paperwork. No report. Is there a Bristol Hall Ladies’ Lunch Group? What do they do? When do they meet? Why do they get money for lunch?”
    “That was grandfathered in from before I started. Miss Viv looks after it.”
    “So, you’re project manager, except when Miss Viv takes over?”
    “She is the boss,” Molly said uneasily, her defensive tone a little more strident.
    “Ah.” He studied her for a moment, then said softly, “Look, I’m not questioning your competence.”
    She looked disbelieving. Understandably.
    “It’s just that some belt-tightening is going to have to happen. What I need from you as I do research, review files and talk to people is for you to go over your programming in detail. I need exact breakdowns on how you choose programs. I need to review your budgets, I need to analyze your monitoring systems.”
    She looked like she had been hit by a tank. Now would be the wrong time to remember the sweet softness of her skin under his fingertips, how damned protective he had felt when he heard about the cad. Now he was the cad!
    “How soon can you have that to me?” he pressed.
    “A week?”
    A chief executive officer needed to work faster, make decisions more quickly. “You have until tomorrow morning.”
    She glared at him. That was good. Much easier to defend against than sweet, shocked vulnerability. The angry spark in her eyes could almost make him forget her hair, that tender place at her nape. Almost.
    He plunged forward, eager to get the barriers—compromised by hands in hair—back up where they belonged. Eager to find out what he needed to know about her—professionally—so he could make a recommendation when the job here was done and move on.
    “I’ve been sorting through paperwork for a number of weeks,” he told her. “I have to tell you, after a brief look, it’s quite evident to me that you’re going to have to ax some of your projects. Sooner rather than later. I’ve short-listed a few that are on the block.”
    “Ax projects?” she said with disbelief. “Some of my projects are on the block?”
    He nodded. He felt not the least like a knight riding in to rescue the business in distress. Or the damsel. He was causing distress, in fact. The feeling of being the cad intensified even though he knew in the long run this would pay off for Second Chances, guarantee their good health and success in the coming years and possibly decades if this was done right, if they had the right leader to move ahead with.
    “Which ones?” She went so pale a faint dusting of freckles appeared over the bridge of her nose.
    He was annoyed that his feeling of being the cad only deepened, and that she was acting as if he had asked her to choose one of her children to float down the river in a basket. He was aware of feeling the faintest twinge of a foreign emotion, which after a second or two he identified, with further annoyance, as guilt.
    Houston Whitford did not feel guilty about doing his job! Satisfied, driven, take charge, in control. Of course, generally, it would be fairly safe to say he didn’t feel, period.
    He used a reasonable tone of voice, designed to convince either her or himself that of course he was not a cad! “We have to make some practical decisions for the future of this organization.”
    She looked unconvinced about his cad status, and the careful use of the we did not even begin to make her think they were a team.
    She looked mutinous, then stunned, then mutinous again. Her face was an open book of emotion.
    “Is it that bad?” she finally sputtered. “How can it be? Miss Viv never said a word. She didn’t even seem worried when she left!”
    He had actually sheltered Miss Viv