The impossibly tall, intimidatingly muscular body clothed in an impeccably cut charcoal gray pinstriped suit looked as though it was still in the kind of shape needed to play pro football tomorrow, if he so desired. And the to-die-for body was just part of the whole package.
From this angle she could only see his face in profile, but that was more than enough to form an impression of strong, ruggedly handsome features, darkly tanned skin covered in an irreverent two-day stubble, and thick, expertly styled hair as black as her own locks. She wondered briefly if he had any Italian or Latin blood in his background, or perhaps even some black Irish.
And then she was no longer capable of even a single logical thought, including her own name, because Nick Manning chose that particular moment to glance across the room, his sharp, dark-eyed gaze locking on her like a laser beam.
She would remember that exact moment for weeks, months, and even years later – the moment when time froze in place; when her heart was beating so fast she thought for sure it would burst right out of her chest cavity; when her palms grew sweaty and her breasts suddenly felt swollen and achy. And when she fell deeply and helplessly under his spell.
That intense, all-encompassing gaze performed a swift but thorough inspection of her face and figure, and Angela offered up a silent prayer of thanks that she’d taken some extra pains with her appearance today. She’d known that the CEO of Jessup Prior would be at the meeting, as well as several other high-level executives from the home office in New York. Not to mention all of the local office management staff, and every one of the brokers, including the very top producers. She’d worn the best of her five suits – the chic black Vivienne Westwood that had been purchased at an end of season sale at Neiman Marcus. Her girlhood friend Julia – who was mad about clothes and a would-be fashion designer – had helped her pick it out, insisting that it made her look both professional and smokin’ hot at the same time. Angela wasn’t totally convinced about the latter, though she had to admit that the slim skirt and short, form-fitting jacket made the most of her slender, five foot eleven inch frame. With the three-inch black pumps she wore, she topped six feet easily, making her not only the tallest woman here but probably taller than at least half the men present as well.
She’d left her long, stick straight raven hair loose today, instead of clipping it back into a ponytail or coiling it into a messy knot at her nape. Her makeup was minimal but still managed to accent her big, dark eyes, sculpted cheekbones, and the full-lipped mouth that was a tad too wide.
And it seemed that Nick Manning approved wholeheartedly of the pains she’d taken with her appearance, judging from the gleam in his eyes and the slow smile he gave her as their gazes remained glued together. She smiled back at him, sending him a silent message that ‘yeah, you’re hot, I’m hot, and we really ought to get together and let spontaneous combustion take its course’.
But then their office manager took the podium and announced that everyone should take their seats so the meeting could begin. And just like that, Nick turned and made his way towards the seat that had likely been reserved for him in one of the front rows of chairs, breaking not just eye contact but any hope Angela might have been harboring that he was actually going to approach her.
She should have known better, she scolded herself as she took her own seat with the other trainees – towards the very
back
of the room, of course. From all the office gossip she’d overheard the last two weeks, it was a certified fact that Nick Manning did
not
date co-workers. And from some of the stories Angela had listened to – some with horrified disbelief – an awful lot of women before her had done their damnedest to change his mind. He’d been ruthlessly pursued by brokers, administrative assistants, receptionists, and even by his own clients, and had spurned every one of them. And, if the gossip could truly be believed, a few of the women had become so aggressive in their pathetic attempts to get his attention that they had either been fired on sexual harassment charges, or, in the case of a client, her account had been transferred to a different branch office.
So, she realized with a sigh of resignation, that smoldering hot look of awareness she had just exchanged with him was all for nothing. Oh, she didn’t doubt that maybe he had found her attractive – she wasn’t all that experienced with men but she certainly wasn’t naïve, either, and she knew quite well when a guy thought she was hot. But given Nick’s reputation, Angela realized that looking was as far as he would take it.
Maybe she should quit her job, she thought in mild amusement. It would be worth it for the chance to date the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Worth it to have wild, screaming sex with him even one time, to experience the barely leashed passion she’d glimpsed all too briefly in that burning gaze of his. But even as she thought of doing something so rash, she knew it would still be pointless and futile, not to mention foolhardy.
From a practical perspective, quitting a job she’d just started two weeks ago would be the height of irresponsibility. The recession that currently had the country in a stranglehold had made finding a decent job extremely difficult, even for someone like herself who’d just graduated summa cum laude from Stanford with a finance degree. Under normal circumstances, she’d have had her pick of high-paying job offers, but times were anything but normal right now, with so many firms laying half their workforce off, or going out of business altogether.
And even if she hadn’t worked at the same firm as Nick, any prospects of a long-term relationship with him were unrealistic, if not impossible. All the gossip she’d been unwillingly subjected to indicated that Nick went through women as often as he changed shirts. He was rarely if ever seen out with the same female more than once, and was extremely closed-mouthed about any of his relationships. He also, according to yet more gossip, favored blondes or occasionally redheads.
‘So you’ve got two strikes against you,’ she told herself in resignation. “Co-worker and brunette. Well, it was a nice little fantasy while it lasted.’
Angela forced herself to put the unattainable Nick Manning out of her mind and focused instead on what their visiting CEO was speaking about. None of the conference rooms back at the office had been large enough to accommodate everyone at once, so the meeting was being held at a hotel around the corner from the office. There was to be a cocktail reception after the meeting, where in theory she’d be able to meet the CEO and other executives. But she knew the chances of that actually happening would be highly unlikely, given the sheer number of people present, and of her lowly ranking in the office hierarchy.
One of her fellow trainees – there were a total of seven in the group, four men and three women – had joked that the office layout was just like the passenger decks on old-time cruise ships, where class distinctions had been very clearly enforced.
“The top floor is where all the big producers are,” Noah Whitmore had related. “So that’s like – I don’t know – the first class cabins, the big suites. The middle floor is where all the manager’s offices are located, plus some of the mid-level producers. I guess we’d call that the promenade deck. And the bottom floor – well, kids, that’s where they’ve stuck us. The trainees, the junior brokers, the mailroom. We’re in what they would have called steerage in the old days.”
And while Noah had certainly been a bit dramatic about the whole thing, he hadn’t been all that far off the mark. It had been made very clear to the new batch of trainees that they had no reason to venture to the uppermost of the three floors occupied by Jessup Prior in this high rise building smack in the middle of San Francisco’s Financial District. But from various comments Angela had heard, it was rather like a different world up there. The offices were rumored to be huge, every one with a jaw-dropping view of the city, and each one more lavishly furnished than the next. The talk was that they had their own private lunch room, several spacious conference rooms, and an espresso cart available at all times of the day.
Angela contrasted those images with the one of her own tiny cubicle two floors below. The top of her desk had several scratches on it, and one of the drawers was constantly sticking. Her desk chair squeaked every time she rolled it back and forth, and whatever cushioning had once existed in the seat had been worn away a long time ago. Like the other trainees and very junior brokers, she pretty much had to beg, borrow or steal basic supplies like pens, paper clips, and notepads.
As trainees, they were also constantly getting stuck with what one of them had termed grunt work, another had labelled slave labor. In the two weeks she’d been employed here, Angela had already been required to man the reception desk, unpack and inventory office supplies, help one of the manager’s PA’s get caught up on a year’s worth of filing, and bring some documents over to a client’s residence for their signature.
In between the many and varied mundane tasks they were assigned, the trainees also had to study like mad for their upcoming brokerage license exams, complete a strictly prescribed series of training modules, and sit in on a never-ending schedule of podcasts, webinars, and conference calls. They were expected in the office by six a.m. – though Angela was typically the only one in quite that early – and required to remain until at least five p.m.
But as grueling as her schedule was, and as demeaning and unpleasant as some of the tasks dumped on her were, Angela knew it was all a necessary evil. She’d be finished with the training program in just over three months’ time, at which point she would take her exams – and hopefully ace them on her first attempt – and obtain her brokerage license. Then she’d be a full-fledged stockbroker, ready to start opening accounts, doing business, and making money – a lot of it.
And, she vowed to herself silently, she wouldn’t remain stuck down in steerage for very long if she had anything to do about it. She had plans, ambitions, goals, and they all involved moving to the top floor within a relatively short amount of time. She had a knack for this business, she just knew it. Her professors at Stanford had told her more than once that she had a great analytical mind, and that she could be extremely successful in this business provided she worked very hard and didn’t let anything stand in her way.
The meeting dragged on for over an hour, with the CEO fielding a dozen or so questions from the audience after a time. Predictably, the majority of the questions he answered were ones posed by the top producers and longest tenured brokers, and he all but ignored the few tentatively raised hands in the back of the room.
Angela tried valiantly to stifle a yawn, bored beyond belief with the predictable, pointless questions being raised. It was rather obvious that no one was going to ask anything that could be deemed the least bit controversial, and that everyone was sticking to topics considered safe.
At least until Nick Manning very leisurely raised his hand, lounging back in his chair as though he was attending a baseball game. The CEO obviously recognized him, and gave the tall, dark-haired broker a wide smile.
“Yes, Nick. What’s your question? Knowing you, I’m sure it’s going to be a good one!”
Like a great jungle beast unfolding itself from the crouching position it had been curled up in, Nick stood slowly, rising to his full, impressive height. Angela knew she wasn’t imagining the collective sigh of feminine voices around her as every pair of eyes in the room fixed themselves firmly on the charismatic, devilishly handsome man.
His voice was deep, lazy, and held a hint of amused arrogance. “Thanks, Steve. And while
I
think it’s a great question, and very relative to our current situation, I’m not so sure you’ll agree. I wanted to ask about the rumors flying around that Jessup Prior is considering closing a quarter of their branch offices over the next year.”
There was an immediate buzz of reactionary chatter around the room, with Noah, who was seated to Angela’s right, muttering, “Dang, that guy’s got a huge pair of
cojones
, doesn’t he?”
Angela grinned. “Figuratively or literally?”
Noah laughed. “Probably both. But I meant the former in this case. Hey, nobody else has had the guts thus far to ask anything controversial. He’s just a badass.”
The CEO – Steve Schaeffer – was very visibly taken aback by Nick’s forthright question, and stammered awkwardly as he tried to fob him off with an obviously lame reply. Nick looked anything but satisfied with the reply he received, but didn’t seem inclined to pursue the matter further, merely shrugging casually before sitting back down.
Angela thought it was no coincidence that the Q & A session ended immediately after that, and then the meeting itself was adjourned mere minutes later.
“Thank God,” breathed Noah in relief. “If that wasn’t a totally useless waste of ninety minutes I don’t know what was. At least there’s free booze and food. C’mon, Angie, let’s go grab a drink.”
Angela didn’t need to be asked twice. She admittedly liked to drink – sometimes quite a lot and more than she ought to. Her drinking had started as an act of defiance when she was about fifteen, sneaking alcohol none too subtly from her parents’ liquor cabinet in a futile attempt to trigger a reaction of some sort –
any
sort – out of them. But she might as well have been drinking lemonade for all her disinterested mother cared, and the thrill of taking a forbidden swig or two from the vodka bottle had quickly lost its appeal.