One of the most powerful men? Abby gulped
nervously. “I’m scared, ok?” If you can’t be honest with yourself,
at least be honest with your sister.
“No, really?” Lil rolled her eyes.
“Shut up.” Abby teased, amazed that the
tension that was often part of their discussions was not present.
Abby remembered a time, years ago, when they had bantered like this
about boys.
“So, one of the richest men on the planet is
sending a limo for you tomorrow morning and you’re not going to get
in it?” Lil challenged.
Abby hopped off the counter and resumed
filling the dishwasher. “Exactly. I’m going to…”
“Hide,” Lil finished her sentence for her.
She lifted Colby up in front of her and spoke to her daughter,
“Colby, Auntie Abby has been taking care of me for so long that she
is afraid to do something for herself. We’re going to have to stop
relying on her so much or she’s never going to get laid.”
Abby gasped, “You can’t say that to
Colby!”
Lil laughed, “She’s five months old. She
doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but I hope you do.” Lil moved
to lean on the counter next to Abby. “Seriously, I’m not worried
about the job. I know I can find another like it easily enough and
before long I’ll have my degree. You’ve done more than anyone could
have asked you to, but it is time for you to start living a little.
This guy sounds like your way to jumpstart the next phase of your
life.”
Running shaky hands under the water, Abby
asked, “Which phase is that?”
Lil put an arm around her shoulder. “The one
where you stop parenting me and simply become my sister again.”
Abby’s eyes filled with tears. “Was I so
awful?”
Lil hugged her closer. “No, but it’s nice to
have you back.”
Twenty minutes later Abby was flipping
blindly through an educational newsletter when Lil entered the room
with the cordless phone in her hand. Lost in her thoughts, Abby
hadn’t heard it ring.
“It’s for you, Abby.” Lil said with a wicked
grin and held out the phone. “It’s Mr. Corisi’s personal assistant.
Hmmmm, wonder what she wants.”
“Tell her I’m busy,” Abby said even as
excitement swirled through her. He hadn’t given up.
Never one to do as she was told, Lil handed
her sister the phone. “Tell her yourself.”
Abby glared at her sister in annoyance.
“You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“Payback is so sweet.” Lil chuckled as she
sat down on the couch next to Abby, a rapt and unavoidable
audience.
“Doesn’t Colby need a bath or something?”
“Already had one before you came home. She’s
asleep now.” Lil said shamelessly not taking the hint.
Whatever.
“Hello.” Abby said with less warmth than her
usual greetings.
“Hello. Thank you for taking my call, Miss
Dartley. I’m Marie Duhamel, Mr. Corisi’s personal assistant.”
“Yes, I know.” Abby sighed. “I don’t mean to
be rude, but if I wasn’t going to say yes to him, why does he think
that having his secretary call me is going to change my mind?”
“Personal Assistant,” the woman correctly
gently, but continued on in a sweet, woman next door tone. “I
apologize for interrupting your evening, but after everything
Dominic has been through this week, I had to try to help him.”
“Everything he has been through?” That caught
Abby’s attention. She leaned forward, not caring that Lil
practically pressed her own ear to the other side of the phone. In
resignation, Abby turned her hand so Lil could hear better.
“He didn’t tell you? I should have known he
wouldn’t. He’s not very good at asking for help.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,”
Abby said with growing interest.
There was a short pause. “Miss Dartley,
Dominic’s father passed away a few days ago. He came back to Boston
for the reading of the will.”
“Oh, my God,” Abby and Lil said in union.
Abby shushed her sister with a wave of her hand. “So, tomorrow he
wanted me…?” It was almost too embarrassing to ask. She’d assumed
that he was sending a limo over to whisk her away for an afternoon
of lovemaking in some secluded suite. However, it was looking more
like her initial instincts about him were correct.
“He was hoping you would join him for the
reading of his father’s will,” Mrs. Duhamel said, confirming Abby’s
sinking feeling. Had she completely misread the entire evening?
She’d let her own attraction to him blind her to the reality that
Dominic was a man who simply didn’t want to be alone due to a
recent loss.
That stung.
So much for being irresistible.
Her nurturing vibes must have drawn him in.
People turned to her when in crisis. She should be used to it by
now. “Doesn’t he – I mean shouldn’t he bring someone he knows
better than me to something like that?”
“My dear,” the older woman’s voice was full
of the kind of emotion a mother would have for a son, “Dominic is a
busy man. He doesn’t have time for friends. Business associates,
yes. People who want to say they are part of his social circle,
yes. But no one he felt he could take to something like this.”
Abby and Lil exchanged a look. To have
everything and still have nothing was so sad. No matter how awful
their parents’ death had been, at least they’d had each other. “I
feel for him, Mrs. Duhamel, but I just met him for the first time
tonight. I don’t know what he told you, but we barely know each
other.”
“He said he needed you there. That was enough
for me.”
“He said that?” Abby’s heart clenched in her
chest. Lil practically clapped her hands in excitement and then
made a form of a heart on her chest with her hands. Abby swatted at
her.
He needs me? Was all of his tough talk just
that – talk. He’d lost his father and didn’t want to face a painful
situation alone. She understood, too well, how the loss of a parent
could shake ones very foundation.
Mrs. Duhamel said, “Yes, and you should know
that I have never, in all the years I’ve worked for him, made a
personal call for him.”
So, he wanted her there enough to involve his
assistant in this endeavor. What did that mean?
“Did he ask you to explain about his father?”
Abby asked.
Mrs. Duhamel dismissed the idea with a short
laugh. “Oh, no. I think I was supposed to call and threaten you or
wave some magical wand and convince you to go with him. All he said
was that he knew if anyone could get you to come it would be me.
I’m flattered by his confidence, but I think your decision will
have more to do with your level of compassion than my ability to
persuade.”
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Lil
muttered.
Abby shushed her.
Lil shrugged and stage whispered while
pointing to the phone, “Come on, she’s good!”
Too true
. The older woman’s soothing
voice had made fulfilling Dominic’s outrageous request sound like
an act of kindness, rather than recklessness.
Mrs. Duhamel added, “I realize that Dominic
said the limo would come for you at 11, but if possible I’d like to
pick you up at 7 for a morning at a local spa and then some
shopping.”
Oh, first I’m fat, now I need a
makeover?
“Tell your boss that if I’m not good enough as I
am…”
Mrs. Duhamel hastily interrupted, “Oh, no!
Dominic didn’t suggest this. I just thought that if I were going to
attend a multi-million dollar will reading, I’d want to primp
first.”
Wow.
Put that way, Abby was in full
agreement. “Mrs. Duhamel, I think I love you.”
The woman laughed sweetly. “I’m just doing my
job. And call me Marie.”
Abby suspected it was a bit more than that.
This woman obviously cared about Dominic. “Then please call me
Abby. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t seem like you’d
be Dominic’s assistant. You’re so…nice.”
The maternal tone returned. “Don’t let your
first impression of Dominic taint your opinion of him. He’s much
more than he lets people see. My husband worked for him when he
first started his company, but left before it took off. Stan was a
good husband, but not much of a businessman. He died about seven
years ago and left me deeply in debt. There I was, in my late
fifties, broke, with no skills to get a job. I called Dominic on
some desperate whim that he might remember my husband. He did. He
said Stan had been a good man and he hired me as his assistant that
day. I’ve worked for him ever since.”
Abby shared a look with her sister. Dominic
couldn’t be all that bad if he’d taken an old employee’s wife under
his wing. What was holding her back? She wanted to go just as much
as he wanted her there. Could her sister be right? Was it time for
her to shrug off the responsible role she’d donned out of necessity
and allow herself this one crazy adventure?
“Ok,” Abby said in a shaky voice. “I’ll do
it.”
“That’s fantastic,” Mrs. Duhamel said. “Now
get some rest, dear. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
Before hanging up, Abby asked, “Are you sure
about all this? There must be someone else he…”
The older woman rushed to reassure her.
“Don’t second guess yourself. Take it one step at a time. For now,
just focus on the fact that you’re going to be pampered tomorrow
like you’ve never imagined.”
“That does sound nice.”
“You have no idea, Abby. I’ll see you at
7.”
Lil leaned back into the couch while a
bemused Abby placed the handset back on its charger on the wall.
“If it helps, Abby, I think you made the right choice.”
Abby softened her response with a smile.
“That’s actually the part that scares me.”
Lil threw a small cushion that Abby deftly
avoided with a chuckle. No matter how tomorrow turned out, things
were already much better than they had been in a very long
time.
Chapter Six
Late morning, Abby stood before a full-length
mirror in the changing room of an expensive clothing boutique which
had instantly closed its doors to further customers at her arrival.
She barely recognized herself. Her dark brown curls had been tamed
into soft waves around her now flawless face. Her eyes had never
looked so large or her nose so petite. She’d always considered
herself to be average in appearance, but Marie had been correct
that all the waxing and primping had given her a new level of
confidence. She felt beautiful.
If she were honest, there was also a spark of
anticipation in those eyes that stared back in the mirror. She
might have told herself that she was getting dressed for the
lawyer’s office, but she knew she was hoping that whatever hunger
she’d felt from Dominic yesterday had not been in her imagination.
Her body came alive as she remembered how he’d made her blood pound
with just the heat of sexual interest in his eyes. Would his touch
contain the same promise of barely restrained, primal lust?
Could anything that good survive the light of
day?
The strapless black dress she’d been handed
clung to her every curve, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Demure on the hanger, it hung too low on her ample chest to be
publicly appropriate, barely concealing her present state of
excitement. “Marie, this one is too sexy for me. How about
something looser with sleeves?”
“Show me.” The male voice that answered her
was definitely not Marie.
Dominic!
Abby gasped, covering her
cleavage with one hand and grabbing the doorknob with the
other.
“Do not open the door,” Abby ordered. “What
are you doing here?”
There was the sound of slight movement in the
outside room and of the outer door closing. “I’m checking on your
progress. We have just enough time to catch lunch before the
meeting if you hurry.”
“The dress doesn’t fit,” Abby lied. She
wanted him to find her attractive, not consider offering her cash
again. “I need Marie to get me another style.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
“I dare you.”
“You think I cave to adolescent peer pressure
techniques?”
“Show me.”
“It’s not appropriate for today. Ask Marie to
get the dark blue one we looked at.”
“I will. After you show me.” If the sound of
a chair being placed near the changing room door was any
indication, Dominic wasn’t going anywhere.
Abby released the door handle and squared her
shoulders, which only made the bodice dip lower. The dress was
barely decent, but if he wasn’t going to leave without seeing it –
well, then she was going to give him an eyeful.
Her confidence should have doubled as she
noted his reaction to her attire. His folded arms went slack, along
with his jaw. But the rumpled man from the day before was gone. His
crisp dark gray suit looked like it had been made for him and his
hair was contained to a disciplined style. Everything about him
screamed wealth and power.
He’s way out of my league.
Abby lost
the desire to spin joyously before him; instead, she put her arms
out a bit awkwardly and said, “See, I told you it wasn’t
appropriate.”
“You’re right,” he said in a husky voice,
leaving the chair with predatory swiftness. His gaze swept over her
again, but became surprisingly critical. “They covered your
freckles,” he said almost in accusation.
Her chest heaved in irritation and her hands
went to her hips. “This is where you’re supposed to say that I look
beautiful.”
He pulled her against him, forcing her to
crane her neck back to look at him. “You know you do.” He brushed
his lips over hers before whispering in her ear, “But I’m going to
enjoy scrubbing all that makeup off you later.”
She stiffened in his arms, “Mr. Corisi –“
He kissed the nape of her neck. “Say my
name.”
“Dominic, this isn’t why I came here
today.”
“Just my name.” He ordered again while taking
her earlobe gently between his teeth. “Say it.”