His father had died a couple of years back of a heart attack. He had been a brilliant businessman but lived the extravagant lifestyle of the rich. After his divorce, he never lacked for female company. Seth was sure that he never lacked for it while he was married; he just tried to hide it better than he had afterward. He had vowed to never remarry and Seth was grateful that he had kept that vow. Having to deal with a stepmother was something that neither he nor his brothers had wanted.
He jumped when Margie snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Can I have that contract or do you plan to sit there clutching it while staring into space for the rest of the day?” He handed the papers over without comment and watched as she flipped through the pages. When she was finished, she shook her head saying, “Man, it sucks to be you. Talk about bad memories.”
Margie was one of the few people he had told about the fiasco with Beth and he now wished that he hadn’t. He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Well, obviously,” Margie snorted. “That kind of shit happens to you every day. I think whoever came up with the idea for Myrtle Manor was sitting at a table next to you that night and overheard your whole conversation. The only thing that would have made it any better was a possible paternity issue. Any chance that you could be the baby daddy?”
“You’re a horrible assistant,” Seth deadpanned.
Margie laughed. “We both know I’m fabulous and you could never hope to do any better. Who else would put up with your snarky comments and lousy pay?”
Seth smiled, enjoying their verbal wordplay. “What? You haven’t managed to talk payroll into giving you a raise? You’re slipping in your old age.” She probably had him on the snarky comments, but she usually started it. As for the lousy pay, he highly doubted there was a better-paid assistant in the area or even the state. She also enjoyed more perks than anyone else in the resort. Some of them he had given her, some the other employees showered on her. They all thought he didn’t know, but there was nothing that went on in the Oceanix that Seth was unaware of. He made it his business to be one step ahead of everything and everyone. Margie deserved it though so he didn’t mind. She held the chaos at bay and kept things running smoothly, something that was priceless to him. He loved her unwavering loyalty and also her ability to give it to him straight when others just tried to tell him what he wanted to hear. Margie never sugarcoated things for him. As far as the rest of the staff and their clients were concerned, the woman could sell shit to a manure farmer. She was smooth, sweet, and full of southern charm.
Margie straightened to her full height, which was an impressive five-nine, and smirked. “Trust me, honey, there is nothing slipping here. I pay good money to keep it all where it’s supposed to be. Now should I send this contract over to Danvers? Does Beth handle that?”
Seth waved her away saying, “Get out before I call Joe. I think something is wrong with my computer. It’s been freezing up a lot.”
The smirk left her face as she glared at him. “If you do that, I will personally ask for Beth when I send these contracts back. Or better yet, maybe Nick. Talk about awkward.”
“I’ll behave if you do,” Seth countered.
“Fine,” she snapped before closing the door behind her in a huff. He declared himself the winner of this round. He very seldom got one up on Margie, but Joe worked every time. The head of their IT department was a sore subject for her. A few years back at the company Christmas party, Margie had indulged too much at the open bar and had grabbed Joe in a drunken embrace. He had turned her down flat. Since Joe had been after Margie for years, she had been shocked when he said no. He didn’t want to take advantage of her while she was intoxicated. To him, that made Joe a good guy. To Margie, that made Joe the man who rejected her and the sting to her pride was still there. Seth knew that Margie liked him, but she just couldn’t get past the humiliation of the party and she tried to avoid him now at all costs.
Settling back in his chair, he took a minute to gloat before moving on with his day. It wasn’t often he got the best of Margie and he needed to enjoy the moment.
Chapter Two
Mia Gentry walked through the glass doors in the lobby of the Danvers International building singing to the music piping through her earbuds. At twenty-eight, she felt like some dirty old lady for listening to Justin Bieber, but she loved his music. She stuck the foot of her hot-pink pump in the door of the elevator to hold it. Suzy and her husband, Gray, were standing just inside the door as she made her way inside. God, she felt like such a frump standing next to her fashion idol and her GQ man. She wondered idly if they were into threesomes. She had never tried that, but she had a bit of a girl-crush on Suzy, and Gray was smoking-freaking-hot. Yeah, she wouldn’t think twice if they asked her. She smiled and muttered, “Morning,” as the doors closed.
Oh my god, he had his hand on her ass.
That was it for Mia. Any man confident enough to feel up his wife in a corporate America elevator was the total shit as far as she was concerned. She knew she had just found some new material for the session with her battery-operated boyfriend tonight. Suzy and Gray stepped out on the fourth floor and as the doors were closing, Suzy flashed her a grin saying, “I love your shoes.” Luckily for Mia, she managed to contain her squeal until the elevator was moving again. Yeah, this day was looking up. Her fortune cookie from last night was right; good things do come to those who wait.
She stepped off at the sixth floor into the hub of the installation and support department for Danvers International. This place was heaven for a geek such as herself. She had worked here for three years now and had loved every minute of it. She had started out doing customer support and had eventually moved up to site installation. She supervised a crew of ten people, and depending upon the job, some or all of them traveled to each site. Although, when she had moved into management, she had given up a lot of the travel that had been required. She now only went on-site for a few days for the larger jobs or to fill in if necessary.
She grabbed a cup of coffee from the break room on her way to her corner office. Her space was small, but she treasured the window with the view of downtown Myrtle Beach. It was a big upgrade to her starter cubicle in the cube-farm down the hall. Just as she was running through the emails that had accumulated since yesterday, her boss, Hank, walked in and sank down in the chair in front of her desk.
“How’s it going, kid?”
She smiled at his standard greeting. Hank was in his forties and saw everyone around him as his kids. He had a thick mane of gray hair and if she squinted just right, he reminded her of Richard Gere. He had more than a few admirers in the office, both male and female, so apparently everyone else agreed with her assessment of his looks. “It’s going, no problems to speak of.”
Hank shook his head, giving her a rueful smile before saying, “Well, I’m about to mess that up for you. I know you’ve got half of your crew in Alabama this week, and Nikki is out with her . . . um . . . lady problem, but I’ve got a local install that just came through and it’s VIP.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “First of all, Nikki just had a baby; how is that a ‘lady problem’? And secondly, who’s the local VIP? Unless we’re talking about something for the city, it should only require a couple of technicians, tops.”
“You know the Oceanix Resort?” Mia nodded even though it wasn’t really a question. Most locals could never afford to stay there but everyone still knew the Oceanix Resort. It was high-end luxury. She would never voluntarily admit it to her coworkers, but she suspected that Hank knew she might be familiar with the resort. “They are replacing their entire system with ours and the Myrtle Beach location is to be the first install. If things go well, the other nine locations will be next. The catch is they want to start on Monday, which means that the preliminary work needs to be laid out this week. Since you’d normally send Nikki on a local job, that only leaves you, kid. This needs to go off without a hitch so we can’t send some wet-behind-the-ears newbie and besides, those are your people, aren’t they?”
Indeed they had been at one time. You didn’t grow up as the only child of Jefferson and Madeline Gentry without rubbing elbows with some of the privileged elite. Her parents were what you would call “old money.” If there had ever been a poor Gentry in the family tree, it was too far back to be found. She had bowed to parental pressure and attended an Ivy League college, which was probably why Hank suspected that she was from money. After she graduated, she had started to pull away from the crowd she had grown up with. The pressure to fit in had long ago gotten old and she was eager to experience life without a constant safety net under her.
Of course, her parents had been less than thrilled with her choices. She would have thought her computer science degree would have tipped them off, but apparently they just assumed she had spent four years in college to study a hobby. When she moved out of her gated childhood home in a posh oceanfront section of Garden City Beach, they had been quite vocal in their disapproval. She had struck a compromise with them and had moved into a condominium that her father owned in nearby Surfside Beach. She wanted to hate it, but truthfully she loved her two-bedroom home right on the ocean. It was a small twelve-unit building and even though she was well paid at Danvers, it would have been out of her price range.
She rarely saw any of her childhood friends now. Most of them just didn’t understand her anymore. As was often the case, they had all moved on. She had new friends now such as her good friend and coworker, Nikki, who was currently on maternity leave and had named Mia the godmother of her first child. Indeed, life was different, but better now. Her parents might never understand her, but she hoped in some tiny way, they respected her need to make it on her own.
Hank snapped his fingers, jerking her from her trip down memory lane and back to the present.
Damn, what was his question again? Oh, yeah, her people, hmmm, how to answer that.
“I don’t know about that. I’m not familiar with the owner or owners.”
He grinned, obviously amused with her efforts to sidestep his question. “Have you ever been inside the Oceanix Resort?”
Well shit, he had her there and he knew it.
“Er . . . a few times. They have a good Sunday brunch.”
“Whew, I can only imagine how much a meal in that place would set you back.” Without waiting for an answer, he continued on. “So, at least you’re familiar with it. Bullshit aside, Merimon asked that we send you.”
Mia’s heart stuttered. Oh my God, Gray Merimon knew she existed? Maybe that threesome idea wasn’t all in her head. “Wow, okay. If Gray asked for me.” Before she could start mentally picking out lingerie, Hank busted her bubble.
“Gray? No, the other one, Nick. He handled the contract and requested the team leader. He even mentioned you by name.”
Talk about having the rug pulled out from under you. It wasn’t that she didn’t find Nick attractive; he was delish. His fiancée, Beth, was hot as well, but she was pregnant. It seemed wrong to have a fantasy about someone knocked up. Oh, well, it was probably for the best. She would just continue to admire her idol from afar. “Yeah, I’ll head on over there this morning and get everything started. Who do I need to ask for?”
Hank pulled some paperwork that he had rolled in his shirt pocket and handed it over to her. “Seth Jackson is your contact. He also indicated that you can speak with someone named Margie if he isn’t in.” Hank’s name was paged for a call and he left her office with a curse.
Mia spent the next hour answering emails and returning calls. She packed a bag with her iPad and a notebook to jot down some quick notes. She stopped off at the restroom to survey her reflection before she left. She had dressed a bit casually for a customer visit, but it would have to suffice. She was wearing black skinny pants, with her high-heeled pink pumps and a matching pink-and-white striped top. Her wavy, brown hair was styled in the usual intentionally messy look, and her makeup consisted of pink blusher and a sheer lipstick. Yeah, it would have to do. She seldom spent a lot of time with management in the preliminary stages anyway.
Chapter Three
God, he needed a drink. This day had been nothing but a pain in the ass so far. He had spent the past hour dealing with a customer who swore that the cleaning staff had stolen her wedding ring. The cleaning staff had gotten defensive and plainly pissed off over the accusations and the customer had been rude and obnoxious. After an hour of dealing with it from both sides, the customer’s husband had returned from his round of golf and reminded his wife that she hadn’t brought her ring; it was at home with the jeweler having one the settings repaired. She hadn’t even bothered to apologize. It was as if the whole thing had been an inconvenience to her. Seth intended to ensure that they had no vacancies in the future to accommodate them. He would not subject himself or his staff to that type of treatment again.
Margie wasn’t at her desk so he assumed she had gone on to lunch. She didn’t like to deviate from her schedule. She was usually on some crazy diet and making her wait to eat could damn near get everyone in the vicinity killed. He had just sat down at his desk when he noticed the light on in the attached communications office. Margie was probably in there using the cameras to snoop on Joe again. He got back up and went toward the office with the intention of pulling her out. He came to an abrupt halt when someone very un-Margie-like almost backed her ass up into his crotch. When she continued to shimmy and kept singing, “I’m sexy, and I know it,” he thought he had possibly died and gone to heaven. He settled back against the doorframe to enjoy the show. When she flipped around, he saw her nametag with the words
Danvers International
and
Mia Gentry
below it. Well, fuck. Couldn’t Jason Danvers employ someone homely for once? Sadly, the dance moves had stopped and a pair of stunning blue-green eyes looked up at him in question. “So you’re from Danvers?”
Brilliant, Seth, way to state the obvious. Follow it up by asking her sign.