“Almost nine,” he said. “I was thinking about breakfast. Then I was thinking about
clean clothes and my luggage. And then…”
“Then you were thinking about going home,” she said quietly and sat up beside him.
“It’s okay for you to leave, Jason. I don’t expect you to move in or anything just
because we slept together.” She was only being slightly defensive but she was trying
to protect herself. Just because they finally gave in to their obvious attraction
to one another didn’t mean that she thought Jason was in love with her or anything.
If this was all they were going to have was the one night, she would find a way to
be okay with it.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked, sitting up beside her.
She huffed with frustration. “Please don’t answer my question with a question, Jason.
It’s annoying. All I’m saying is that I know that you have a life to get back to.
Obviously you didn’t go home after we landed yesterday and just like I’ve got things
to do around here to get settled back in before we have to go back to work on Monday,
I’m sure that you have things to do at your place. It’s okay.”
He leaned in and kissed her squarely on the mouth. Short and sweet. “I know that
I have stuff to do but I just wasn’t ready to…leave yet.”
That made Maggie smile. “I’m not kicking you out, Jason.”
“That’s good,” he said and his smile matched hers. “But I am hungry and leftover
pizza is not something that I ever want to have for breakfast. How about I go and
get us some bagels and coffee or something?”
Maggie shook her head. “I know you’d never know it after all of the breakfasts we’ve
shared in the last month but normally I am not a breakfast person. I think I gained
a good five pounds just in breakfast foods. I’m kind of anxious to shower and get
laundry going and then hit the grocery store. Monday will be here before you know
it and I want to get settled back in.”
He nodded in understanding. “Can I take you to dinner tonight?”
She blushed and her smile grew. “I would like that very much.”
“That’s good. I want to take you out someplace nice and not talk about business and
not have to share you with anyone.”
Maggie liked the sound of that. “You don’t have to make a fuss, Jason. I’d be happy
just going someplace casual.”
He knew that she would put up an argument but he also knew that for one night, he
wanted to spoil her a little. “You’ll just have to wait and see,” he said distractedly.
“How will I know what to wear?” Maggie asked, leaning in to trail kisses down the
column of his throat and down to the sculpted chest she was beginning to enjoy touching
too much.
“Whatever you wear, Maggie, will be perfect.”
She raised her head and looked at him doubtfully.
In a move she never saw coming, Jason whipped the sheet away from them both and scooped
her up into his arms. “Personally, I can’t wait to see you wearing nothing but bubbles…”
****
Jason arrived back at Maggie’s promptly at seven and when she opened the door, she
simply took his breath away. “Wow,” he said, stepping inside and handing her a bouquet
of white tulips. “You look absolutely beautiful.”
Maggie blushed. All day she had worried about what to wear because Jason had essentially
seen most of her wardrobe over the last several weeks but then she remembered a cocktail
dress that she hadn’t had the opportunity to wear because it was during that brief
period after
New York
when he stopped inviting her to social events.
Now, dressed in the curve hugging black dress with the tiny straps and wearing a pair
of killer skinny heels, Maggie knew she had made the right choice. “Well, I wasn’t
sure where we were going so I decided that I couldn’t go wrong with a little black
dress.”
He leaned in and kissed her slowly and thoroughly and when he lifted his head, he
scanned her slumberous and sexy eyes and smiled. “It’s perfect.”
Maggie turned and grabbed her purse and a wrap to take with her and then walked out
the door that Jason was holding open for her. “Are you going to tell me where we’re
going?”
“We’ll be there soon enough,” was all he said as he placed a strong hand on the small
of her back and led her over to his sporty BMW.
Within minutes they were in downtown
Charlotte
and pulling up in front of one of the best steakhouses in the state. Maggie was
more than a little impressed with Jason’s choice of and then heard a commotion across
the street. A sports bar. She sighed wistfully and jumped when Jason called her
on it.
“Is there a hockey game on tonight?” he asked with a knowing smirk.
“I don’t know…maybe.”
Indecision marked his face. On one hand he wanted to take her out for a romantic
dinner where it was just the two of them and he could spend time getting to know her
and then he remembered how much fun Maggie had when they had gone to see the game
at
Madison
Square
Garden
. His mind made up, Jason walked around the car and took Maggie by the hand and began
leading her across the parking lot.
“Jason? The restaurant is back there.”
“Yeah, but you know you’d rather be over here watching the game and eating a burger,”
he teased and was surprised when Maggie stopped short and stood her ground. He turned
and faced her. “It’s not a big deal. As long as I’m with you, I don’t care where
we eat.”
She closed the distance between them and kissed him. “I can watch the game later
on the DVR. I’d very much like to have a quiet dinner; just the two of us.”
Nothing could have pleased him more. They walked back toward the restaurant and were
seated immediately at a quiet corner table. Maggie was overwhelmed by the atmosphere
as well as the menu but it didn’t take long for her to relax and order. When all of
the preliminaries were out of the way, Jason reached across the table for one of her
hands. “Thank you for coming out tonight.”
“Thank you for inviting me.” She took a look around and sighed at the beautiful surroundings.
“So tell me,” she began, “do you think that we accomplished everything that you wanted
on this trip?”
“Oh, no. No talk about business tonight. Tonight I want to learn more about you,”
he said seriously, his thumb gently stroking her knuckles. “I want to know about
your family, where you grew up and…everything.”
Maggie blushed as she ducked her head on a chuckle. “That’s quite a list. I grew
up in
Virginia
and went to college at the
University
of
Richmond
. My parents are great; they’re retired now and down in
Florida
.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? We could have stopped to see them,” Jason said, concern
marking his handsome features.
“Jason, we were working
and
on a tight schedule. Believe me, there is no such thing as a quick visit with my
family. I don’t see them as much as they’d like and so whenever I do make arrangements
to visit, it’s for at least a week. Anything less and I get the huge guilt trip.”
“Should my dad ever retire and he and mom move away, I think we’d have to deal with
the same thing. Working with dad ensures that we see him every day and mom stops
in enough that we see her several times a week. I think it would be strange to not
see them so often.”
“You get used to it,” she said and reached for her water. “Luckily I have older siblings
who are each married and keep my parents entertained with grandchildren. As the baby
of the bunch I do get a little more smothering than they do but they claim it’s all
out of concern.”
“They just want to make sure that you’re okay and taken care of.”
“Yeah, well, it’s nice to not have them living so close by. When everything happened…three
years ago, I didn’t tell them. I didn’t want them to worry and being that your father
stepped in and took care of everything, all they needed to know was that I had gotten
a fabulous job offer and jumped on it.”
Jason nodded and then felt his rage building just thinking about her ex-boss again.
“Maggie, I hate to bring up an uncomfortable subject, but I need to know. Was this
guy at any of our meetings? Was he with any of the companies that we met with?”
She shook her head. “No, no…I hadn’t seen him anywhere else and the company that
he ran back in
Virginia
was owned by his brother-in-law. I greatly doubt that he left that. It was all
just a terrible coincidence that he was there.”
“Can I ask his name?”
Maggie’s head snapped up and she looked at Jason in horror. “Why? Why would you even
want to know?”
“Maggie, if there is even the slightest chance that this guy is doing business in
the same circles as I am, I need to know who he is so that
Montgomery
’s doesn’t do business with him. The last thing that I want is to do business with
someone who would treat a woman the way that this creep treated you.”
For a moment she felt oddly deflated. Secretly she had hoped that Jason wanted to
know the name so that he could track Martin down and defend her honor. It was a ridiculous
thought, she knew, but still, it was easy to picture Jason in the role of knight in
shining armor. “Martin Blake,” she said quietly.
Jason simply nodded and quickly changed the subject. “So, two older siblings? Tell
me about them.”
Maggie was relieved that he wasn’t going to pursue the conversation about Martin any
further and smiling she took a sip of her water and launched in to a funny story about
growing up as the baby of a family of five.
Chapter Nine
Being back in the office on Monday wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as Maggie had thought
it would be. After debating greatly about how wise it was to continue working together,
ultimately neither one was ready to admit that it wasn’t a good idea. So it was with
confidence that she walked through the executive office of
Montgomery
’s and went about getting settled at her desk.
“Maggie!” William Montgomery’s voice boomed from across the room. “You’re back from
your whirlwind trip. I saw from all of the reports that it was a rousing success.”
He walked over and gave her a hearty embrace that made her smile. “Not that I expected
anything less from you and Jace. I knew that you would be the perfect assistant for
him. So tell me, did everything go okay?”
She couldn’t help the smile that was growing across her face. “Everything was wonderful.
We met so many people and while not all of them were a good fit for
Montgomery
’s, we had some interesting stories to talk about afterwards. Then there were the
places that we stayed and the things that we saw…I got to stand next to John Lennon’s
guitar at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Then we went to see a hockey game at the
Garden…oh, it was just amazing!”
William couldn’t help his own grin. He knew that pairing the two of them together
was the right thing to do! While he couldn’t be sure that anything had clicked romantically
yet, from the exuberance that Maggie was talking with and the way that Jason had come
in earlier with a spring in his step, William knew it was just a matter of time.
“I am so glad that it went so well,” he said when she finished talking. “I know you
were worried about going on the trip but it sounds to me like you had nothing to worry
about. Jason would never do or say anything to hurt anyone.”
“No, I know now that he wouldn’t. You’ve raised an amazing son and I’m so glad that
I’ve had the opportunity to work with him.”
“Well now, you’re going to keep working together, aren’t you? I mean, Jason still
needs an assistant and I can’t imagine after all of the interesting things the two
of you managed to do on this trip that you’d be too anxious to go back to customer
service.”
“Actually, Jace and I talked about that and we’re going to see how it goes. We still
have a lot to do to wrap up all of the dealings from the trip and then we’ll see if
it’s really necessary for me to stay up here.”
“Nonsense, Jason has always had an assistant. Granted, he and Mac both had Rose working
for them and splitting her time between them for a while but with all of this new
growth, Jason’s going to need his own assistant. Plus, I think that Mac likes having
an assistant of his own, too.”
Maggie shrugged and gave a non-committal “We’ll see” before reaching over and getting
her computer booted up. “I hope that you’re right, but for right now I’m content
to just live in the moment and see where Jason needs me to be.”
Her tone was light, her features relaxed and it was a side of Maggie that William
had never seen before. He wasn’t sure of any of the specifics of her relationship
with Jason but he had a pretty good feeling after observing her for a few minutes
that something had definitely happened. “So, um…how did the whole husband-thing work
for you? Did you have to play the married-card much?”
Maggie blushed. “Actually, it didn’t come up to much while we were on the trip but
in the end, I did end up telling Jason the truth. I’m not sure how to go about doing
that around here.”
“No worries,” William said. “I’ll take care of it. We’ll just tell people that you’ve
been legally separated for some time and now you’re finally getting a divorce and
would like everyone to respect your privacy.”
“I can’t ask you to do all of that for me again. I got myself into this mess, I’ll
get myself out.”
William waved her off. “Maggie, it is worth it for me just to see you looking so
happy and relaxed. I’ve never seen you smile so much. So for as much as I hated
pushing you into this trip, I’m glad now that I did.”
“Me too, Sir,” she said whole heartedly. “Me too.”
****
It was almost lunchtime when Jason finally had time to call Maggie into his office.
From the moment he had gotten in earlier he had been wrapped up in conference calls
and returning messages and then meeting with his father and brother to discuss all
of the contacts that he’d made while he was away and where he saw all of this expansion
going. His frustration level at not having a minute to himself was getting to him.
Picking up his phone he buzzed Maggie’s desk and essentially barked for her to come
into his office.
Less than a minute later she was standing in his doorway, notebook in hand and looking
anxious. “I wasn’t sure what else you needed me to bring,” she said nervously. “I
left all of the essential files on your desk while you were in with your father and
brother.”
“Come in and close the door, Maggie,” he said sternly and while her back was turned
and she was closing the door, he quickly moved around his desk and was right behind
her when she turned around.
Maggie nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of Jason so close to her. “Oh,
Jason! You scared me half to death.” It was the last thing she got to say for a
long time. Jason’s mouth came down on hers and claimed her in a slow, wet kiss that
just went on and on and on. When he finally released her, Maggie sagged against him.
“Oh, my…”
Jason reached up and cupped her face and just took in the flushed skin and slumberous
eyes and smiled. “Hey,” he said softly.
“Hey, yourself. How is your day going?”
“Much better now that I have you to myself for a few minutes,” he said and took Maggie
by the hand and led her to the sofa to sit down. “How about you? How has your day
been so far?”
They talked business briefly and when Jason invited Maggie to join him for lunch she
hesitated. “I don’t know, Jason,” she said, chewing her bottom lip. “I don’t think
it’s a good idea for us to be socializing here at the office.”
“We’re not; it’s just lunch, Maggie. It’s not a big deal.”
“Trust me, it is. None of the other assistants go out with their bosses.”
“Emma used to go out with Lucas all the time!”
“They’re married; it’s not the same thing.”
Jason sighed with frustration. “Fine, I get it. You don’t want anyone speculating
on the nature of our relationship. I can respect that. How about dinner? Can I
take you to dinner tonight?”
She smiled. “Actually, how about I make dinner for you? You can come by when you’re
done here and we’ll just hang out and relax. What do you say?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Is there a hockey game on? Is that why you don’t want
to go out?”
Maggie couldn’t help but giggle. “Maybe. Either way, after a long day back at work
I think it will be nice to just be able to relax and be casual and
maybe
catch a game on TV.”
Jason leaned forward and kissed her on the nose. “Sounds good to me. I normally
leave here around six so I could be to your place by six-thirty. Will that work?”
“Perfectly.”
****
When six-thirty rolled around, Maggie was ready. She had the table set, a salad made,
sauce simmering on the stove and a pot of water ready to come to a boil for the pasta
she had waiting to go, all she needed was Jason.
At six-forty-five she was mildly concerned and by seven she was on her way to being
severely pissed. She had put off calling Jason as long as she could and before she
could let herself be genuinely angry, she needed to call him and make sure that he
wasn’t hurt somewhere on the side of the road.
The fact that he answered and there were no sirens in the background confirmed that
he was perfectly intact.
For now.
“Oh, damn, Maggie…” he stammered distractedly. “What time is it?”
“It’s seven o’clock. I was just wondering if something came up or if you were still
coming over,” she tried to not come off sounding annoyed but she didn’t think she
quite pulled it off.
“Um…yeah, I lost track of time. I got a call from the people we met with in
Atlanta
and it turned into a conference call and then I was going over some projections with
Mac and we’re trying to figure out…”
“It’s okay, Jace, really,” she lied sweetly. “It’s not a big deal. It was just a
quick dinner and some TV; no worries. We can do it another time.”
He hesitated before responding. She heard him whispering “Give me a minute” to Mac,
she assumed, and then he spoke. “I really am sorry, Maggie. It’s just that this
project is so big and time consuming and it just didn’t all come to an end when we
got back.”
She wanted to yell that she knew that because she had been working on the damn project
with him for weeks! But she held her tongue and spoke sweetly. “Jason, I knew from
the get-go that your work is very important to you. I would never expect you to blow
it off for me.”
Now he felt bad. “Dammit, Maggie, you’re important to me, too. I just honestly lost
track of the time. I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “If it’s not too late…”
She smiled at his effort. “Jason, you’re obviously in the middle of a bunch of stuff.
Go back to it so that you and Mac can actually go home tonight. I’ll see you in the
morning.”
“But I wanted to see you tonight.” She could almost see the pout from the sound of
his voice.
“Go back to work, Boss,” she said, ignoring his statement. “I’ll see you in the morning.
Good night.”
He wished her a good night and wanted to say more but she had already hung up. Jason
reclined in his chair thinking about their conversation when his brother came back
into the office.
“Care to tell me why your assistant is calling you and what you were apologizing for?”
Mac was the oldest of the
Montgomery
’s and far more serious than his younger siblings. If Lucas had made the statement,
there would have been a hint of teasing, when Mac made it, it was an accusation.
That had Jason’s back up in defense.
“None of your damn business. Let me see that contract for
Atlanta
,” he said, leaning over his desk toward the file in Mac’s hand.
“Hell, no. I want to know what’s going on, Jace. You’ve been distracted all day
and walking around with a sappy grin on your face and now Maggie’s calling you after
hours and…”then it dawned on him. “Oh, no…you didn’t.”
Jason merely glared at him. “Choose your next words carefully, Mac,” he warned.
“After all of your bitching and complaining about your previous assistants all hitting
on you and you’re sleeping with Maggie? What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Maggie is nothing like those other women,” Jason defended. “And neither of us planned
on this happening, it just…did.”
“Geez, Jason, isn’t she married?”
Jason hated to betray Maggie’s confidence but he felt that it was best if his brother
understood the whole story. By the time he was done explaining about her former boss
and the way their father had saved her, Mac had visibly relaxed.
“I think you’re making a mistake, bro,” he finally said. “Sleeping with your assistant
never ends well.”
“It did for Lucas and Emma.”
Mac swiped a hand over his face. “I honestly wish that the two of them had met some
other way. I am tired of everything getting compared to Lucas and Emma. I mean,
don’t get me wrong, I am happy for them both and Emma is terrific but every time someone
has a problem around here, it all comes back to the two of them and how everything
worked out.”
“This is different, Mac. I mean, I fought it, I really did but there is just something
about her that I can’t explain. She’s smart and funny and we have great…”
“Sex?” Mac teased.
“Watch it,” Jason warned again. “I was going to say great conversations. She’s exciting
to be with.”
“So this is serious?”
“I think it could be,” Jason admitted and found that it wasn’t such a hard thing to
do.
“How does Maggie feel?”
“I’m not sure; we were supposed to have dinner tonight and I’m sort of treading carefully
with her because of her past. I don’t want to rush her or do anything to scare her
off.”
“So then what are you doing here with me working late when you had plans with her?”
Jason shrugged. “This is who I am; work has always been first and foremost in my
life. Maggie knows that.”
Mac laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, there’s a difference between knowing that
your boss is a workaholic and dating a workaholic. You may have to pay more attention
to the time, brother; otherwise you may find that she’s not as understanding as you
thought.”
Jason waved him off. “You don’t know Maggie; she’ll understand. But you’re right
and I will start paying more attention to the time and try to get out of here more
often at a reasonable time. How hard could it be?”