When she finally arrives at the towering glass building that houses Rodriguez International, Cassandra rushes past the front desk and makes a beeline for the elevator. The trip up to her floor seems endless, but the elevator finally pings, and she hurries to her desk. On the way, she runs into Rachel, Mr. Smith’s personal assistant.
“You’re late,” Rachel whispers.
“I know—I got held up. I hope no one noticed.”
Cassandra smooths down her plain, black skirt, thinking it’s seen better days.
“Mr. Smith isn’t here yet, but the big boss is, and he wasn’t too happy about finding your desk empty.”
~Oh no!~ “Where is he?”
“Back on his own floor, I think. Gotta go now.” Rachel quickly heads to her desk.
Their floor is impressive, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and black marble tiles. The office must have cost a fortune, but Cassandra loves it. It’s not every day that you get to look at a floor and see your own reflection staring back at you.
All morning, Cassandra waits for the inevitable call from the big boss—but the day is quiet and slow. Clients come and go, but it’s not until she’s sorting through some mail later in the day that Mr. Smith calls her desk.
“Ms. Miller, can you please come to my office?”
“Yes, sir.”
When she enters the office nervously, her boss seems busy. “Sit down, Ms. Miller,” he says. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
Cassandra complies.
On Mr. Smith’s glass desk are two photographs, one of his beautiful wife and the other of his two kids. There’s a couch near the window with a small table in front of it and a coffee machine in the opposite corner. A few gallery photos from original artists hang on the wall behind him.
Cassandra twines her fingers together in her lap. Mr. Smith keeps glancing at her and then pretending to be busy. She senses he’s waiting for the right moment to say something. The suspense is killing her.
~Oh Lord, don’t let me get fired. How will I pay the rent? It’s twice as much now that Gwen’s moved out…~
Mr. Smith clears his throat. “You weren’t at your desk this morning.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Smith. My train was delayed.”
“You take the subway?” He says it like it’s inconceivable.
The subway is cheap, and she needs to save as much as possible. “That’s what I can afford at the moment.”
“Mr. Rodriguez wasn’t happy about seeing the front desk empty. He wanted me to fire you—”
Her heart nearly stops.
“But I refused. You’ve done a great job these past two months, and I don’t want to let you go. I’m happy with your work; I just hope this won’t happen again.”
~Oh God. Mr. Rodriguez really isn’t messing around.~ From now on, Cassandra will have to be on her toes; Mr. Smith saved her this time, but next time, she might not be so lucky.
“I promise, sir. It won’t.”
“That will be all, Ms. Miller.”
Cassandra stands up, but when she reaches the door, Mr. Smith calls her back. “I understand you have some mail for Mr. Rodriguez.”
Her stomach tightens. She has mail, all right. But she doesn’t have the top-secret file she swore to deliver.
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Smith holds out a file. “Can you please take this up to his office, along with his mail? I sent Rachel out on an errand, and he is expecting this file now.”
~Great.~ Now Cassandra has to meet the big bad wolf, who is probably still mad that he didn’t get to fire her over his first cup of coffee this morning.
She takes the file from Mr. Smith and goes back to her desk, where she collects all the mail addressed to Mr. Rodriguez.
By the time the elevator gets her to the right floor, her heart is pounding in her chest.
She’ll have to tell him about the file she left at home.
What are the chances she’ll still have a job in twenty minutes’ time?
Emiliano Rodriguez is standing by the window of his office, looking out at the city. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.
His mother had a heart attack eleven days ago.
She’s okay now, resting at home with the private nurse he hired, but it was a close call.
He spent three days at her bedside in the hospital in Barcelona, holding her hand whenever she woke up. Handling calls and emails whenever she slept.
He can’t bear the memory of her pale face under the fluorescent lights, of the tube going into her nose, of the needle buried in her arm beneath layers of medical tape.
He can still hear the terrifying beep of the heart monitor—and her words, faint and weak, as she whispered directly into his ear: ~I always…thought…I’d live to see…my grandchildren…~
Emiliano rakes a hand through his dark hair. He’s not the settling-down type, and his mother knows it.
Besides, the doctors say she’ll make a full recovery, that she’ll be as good as new—no, better—now that they’ve inserted a stent in her blocked artery. She’s only in her fifties, after all—she has years of life ahead of her.
He loves his mother more than anyone in the world, but he won’t let her blackmail him into changing his ways.
His mind drifts to the warm body he left in his bed this morning. What was her name? He can’t remember, but she was good with her hands. And her tongue. And God knows he needed the distraction after that harrowing week in Barcelona…
He’s all about the bachelor life—no strings, no obligations. It’s a transaction—women share his bed for his wealth and the perks that come with it. They’re not averse to his skills as a lover, either. He satisfies his needs—and they satisfy theirs. Nobody gets hurt.
He’s more than happy to entertain between the sheets, but when—~if~—he one day gets married, he wants it to be to someone he trusts. Someone he feels more for than just simple lust.
But most of all, he wants to find someone who values him for more than just his money.
Once or twice, he’s even given a woman a false name so that he can gauge whether she’s interested in him or in his billions. But the only woman he played that trick on and then actually wanted to see again—a beautiful redhead he met at an office party—apparently was playing tricks of her own.
The phone number she gave him wasn’t in service.
Mind you, he only tried the number two weeks after their night together. He would have called her sooner, but a business crisis had blown up in Rome the very next day, and he’d had to fly out there to deal with it.
It was weird that the redhead had given him a bad number—because their night together had probably been the most glorious sex of his life… But still. If she wasn’t into him, he obviously wasn’t going to pursue her.
Emiliano shakes his head. He doesn’t pursue women. They pursue him. Why is he still thinking of some one-night stand that happened more than a year ago?
His phone rings. “It’s Mr. Phillips,” his secretary announces anxiously.
~Damn~. Emiliano is in no mood to see his estate planning attorney—but it has to be done. “Send him in.”
Phillips consults with him once a year to see if Emiliano wants to make any adjustments to his will. The aim is to maximize wealth and minimize taxes—but, as always, Phillips also checks in about Emiliano’s heirs.
“Are you absolutely sure that you still want Rafael Perez to be named?” Phillips asks. Rafael is Emiliano’s first cousin. “He’s wilder than ever these days. Word has it he knocked up a cocktail waitress in Vegas, and she’s keeping the baby.”
Emiliano groans. Of course, Rafael is producing bastards. Why can’t he use a condom? You don’t see Emiliano leaving a trail of love children. That boy is out of control. Reckless and irresponsible.
It pains him more than he likes to admit to think of his younger cousin in control of Rodriguez International.
“Isabel will keep him honest,” Emiliano says. Isabel is Rafael’s younger sister, and she’s also named in the will. She’s only twenty now, at college in Barcelona, but already she’s more sensible than her party-boy brother.
“But if Isabel marries some chancer?” Phillips demands. The man is relentless. “You’d be much better off getting married and securing a direct heir, you know. Rodriguez International has been a family-owned bank for four generations. Are you going to let it stop with you?”
“Fuck’s sake, I’m thirty-one. Plenty of time for that.”
“You never know when you might be hit by a bus,” Phillips says. “It would be different if you weren’t an only child…”
“Enough,” Emiliano says, dismissing the man. But for some reason, Phillips’s lecture is sticking with him this time.
Maybe he needs to make a list of all the women he knows, detailing their pros and cons. Maybe he needs to think about who he could tolerate as his wife.
Emiliano groans.
He’s wiped out. He needs to rest, but he knows that’s not going to happen, especially since he’s ~still~ waiting for the financial report that Scott was supposed to send over with his assistant.
Not to mention the fact that he received an anonymous tip-off that someone left a highly sensitive file in the hands of the new receptionist yesterday—the woman who wasn’t at her desk when he came in this morning.
He can’t stand people who aren’t on time. What if he were a client or a customer needing information about the bank and its services? Delay is unprofessional, and it has no place in his bank.
Emiliano strides over to his desk and dials Scott. “Where’s the report I asked for?”
“I sent it with Ms. Miller. I thought she’d have given it to you by now.”
“Miller?”
“The new receptionist. Rachel’s out running errands.”
~That explains it,~ Emiliano thinks. The woman is probably scared to show her face. He still can’t fathom why Scott ignored his directive to fire her.
Emiliano notices another call coming in. “I’ll call you back,” he tells Scott. Switching lines, he says, “Nicole,” to his secretary.
“There’s a Ms. Miller here to see you, sir. She says Mr. Smith sent her.”
“Send her in.”