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She walked to the desk she suspected was hers, removed her jacket and dropped it and her backpack to the chair. Then she gingerly made her way to the grand office.
Standing behind the carved desk, Tucker Engle removed his black suit coat and carried it to a hidden closet. His back to her, he slid it onto a hanger, and her gaze fell to his butt. Perfect butt. His trousers were cut with such precision that they all but caressed him. His simple white shirt outlined a swimmer’s back. She could virtually see the ripple of his muscles through the silky fabric. If he didn’t do laps in a pool every day, he did something.
She swallowed just as he turned.
“What?”
She swallowed again. Add what appeared to be a perfect body to his dark hair and chiseled features, and he had to be one of the most handsome men on the planet. And he’d just caught her staring at him.
“Nothing.”
“Good. Because we have lots to do.” He sat and motioned her to one of the two captain’s chairs in front of his desk. “Anything you hear in this office is confidential.”
She bit her tongue to stop the duh that wanted to escape. Not only was that immature, but she had to work with this guy. For weeks…maybe months!
“I’ll need more than a dumbfounded look, Miss Prentiss. I’ll need a verbal yes.”
“Yes. I know about confidentiality. I took ethics classes.”
He leaned back. His shirt stretched across his muscular chest. “Lots of people take ethics classes. Not everybody has ethics.”
Her eyes narrowed. After two years of being called a liar—a girl who “claimed” she was attacked, most likely in the hope of extorting money—she hated having her integrity questioned. Fury surged through her, but she stopped it. Anger had never gotten her anywhere. A cool head and resolve had.
“I have ethics and I’ll keep your secrets.”
“Great. Then let’s start by filling you in on my latest project. It’s the reason I couldn’t muddle through the next few weeks with the help of only secretarial support staff.”
“Mrs. Martin said you wouldn’t tell me your project. That you’d give me assignments piecemeal so I wouldn’t be able to guess what you were doing.”
“Mrs. Martin is ill informed.”
“Maybe you should correct that impression.”
His eyebrows rose. “Maybe you should remember with whom you’re speaking. You don’t get to tell me what to do. Or even make suggestions. Your only job is to perform the tasks I give you.”
Embarrassment flooded her. Damn her defense mechanisms for clicking in. She might be proud of the confidence and courage she’d developed to deal with the bullies who’d pushed her around after Cord Dawson attacked her, but Tucker Engle wasn’t pushing her around. He was her boss. He was supposed to give her orders.
“Are we clear?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Good.” He rose, came around to the front of the desk and rifled through some files sitting in the corner. “Constanzo Bartulocci is looking to retire. Do you know who he is?”
“No.” The spicy scent of his aftershave drifted to her and her gaze ambled along his torso, down the neat crease of his obviously expensive trousers to his shiny, shiny shoes. If this guy hadn’t grown up with money, somebody, somewhere had taught him how to dress. “I don’t know who Constanzo Bartulocci is.”
“Of course you don’t. The über-rich have ways of keeping themselves out of the limelight.”
Well, that explained why she hadn’t found much about Tucker Engle on the internet.
He located the file he was looking for and returned to his chair. “He never married and he has no children. But he has two nephews and a niece, all three of whom claim to speak for him. Our first job is to weed through the baloney and see who really does know his plans. Our second is to get that person to give us the inside scoop so I know exactly what to offer him for his entire operation.”
“You’re going to buy a whole conglomerate?”
“Not your place to question, remember?”
“Yes. Sorry.” She drew in a breath. How was she going to deal with this guy? Rich, successful and good-looking were bad enough. But she wasn’t accustomed to corralling her tongue. Sometimes she even prided herself on being sassy—never letting anybody push her around, condescend to her, make her feel less than.
It would be a long eight weeks if she didn’t soon figure out how to keep her place. That is, if he didn’t fire her for insubordination.
He handed a file across the desk to her. “Your first assignment is to check the financial reports and records of all of our Bartuloccis.”
She glanced up into his bright green eyes and her stomach fluttered. The assignment was pretty much what she’d expected to be doing in the accounting department. So part of the flutter was relief. But the other half came from those striking emerald eyes. He really was one gorgeous guy.
One gorgeous, difficult guy, she quickly reminded herself. The difficult canceled out the handsome. And even if it didn’t, she’d gone this route before. Cord Dawson had been rich and smart. And in the end, he’d attacked her, nearly raped her. No matter how gorgeous, she wanted nothing to do with another rich guy. She wasn’t in their league. Didn’t know how to play in their world. It was a lesson she’d never forget.
Taking the file, she rose. “Okay.”
He returned his attention to the papers on his desk. “Shut the door on your way out.”
She gladly left his office. Closing the door behind her, she squeezed her eyes shut in misery. Even if she learned to hold her tongue, it would be a long eight weeks.
* * *
Tucker Engle picked up the employment application, college transcripts, private investigator’s report and reference letters HR had sent on Olivia Prentiss. He’d reviewed it all before he’d chosen her, of course, but after meeting her, he needed to be reminded why she’d been his choice to stand in for Betsy.
Excellent grades.
Reference letters that sang her praises as if she were the next Queen of England.
A Facebook profile without pictures of cats—always a plus.
A Twitter account that barely got used. So she wasn’t a talker, someone who might inadvertently spill secrets.
Private investigator’s report that showed only one incident that had happened her second year at university. A kid from Starlight had sued her for slander. But he’d later dropped the suit. Tucker suspected it was one of those young-love, he-said–she-said things.
Otherwise, she came from a normal blue-collar family in Middle America. Which, he grudgingly admitted, explained why she didn’t understand that working directly with him was a coup, not a punishment. God knows, he would have loved someone to give him this kind of opportunity when he’d been through school and starting out in the work world. But after years of moving from home to home as a foster child, he knew it wasn’t wise to get close to people he could lose. So, there had been no one to so much as offer him a word of advice when he’d finally started his career. Still, he’d been okay. He’d worked his way to the top—the same way the professors who’d written Olivia’s reference letters said she wanted to. Actually, she was a lot like him. Bright. Ambitious.
Unfortunately, she was a little prettier than he’d expected with her long strawberry blonde hair and her big blue eyes. But he would never get involved with a coworker. Plus, he didn’t get involved with women just because they were pretty. He liked his dates to have some class, some charisma and a lot of knowledge. Etiquette and protocol could be taught. And there might be charisma lurking behind Olivia Prentiss’s quirkiness. But knowledge? The ability to chat with his peers at a cocktail party or gallery opening? She wouldn’t come by that for years. Thus, she did not appeal to him.
Luckily, he hadn’t chosen her to be a date. He’d chosen her to write reports, change reports, analyze reports. Her high marks in her accounting classes indicated she could probably do anything he needed to have done.
Satisfied, he made two conference calls. Just as he disconnected the second, his door opened.
“I’m sorry—”
Temper rumbled through him. It was one thing to be clueless about the etiquette of an executive office, to need some experience. It was another to be rude and open a door without knocking. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know how to operate the space shuttle’s worth of computer equipment you refer to as a phone, and a call—”
He sighed. “You’re supposed to screen calls. I don’t talk to just anybody who phones. Go find out who it is. Take their number. I’ll decide if I’m calling back.”
Her mouth thinned. Her pretty blue eyes filled with storm clouds.
Fine. He didn’t like wimps. But he also didn’t like interruptions. And there was no better way for an assistant to learn that than by having to go back to her desk and apologize to a caller.
“It isn’t a caller. At least not a call for you. The security guard in the lobby is on the line. You have a guest.”
“Same instructions. I don’t see people who just drop in. Call the lobby, tell them to get the person’s name and if I want to I will call him back and schedule an appointment.”
“Okay. I guess that means you don’t want to see Maria Bartulocci.”
His head snapped up. “What?”
“Maria Bartulocci is here. She wants to know if you have time for her. I guess the über-rich don’t just know how to keep themselves out of the limelight. They also drop in unexpectedly.”
He replaced the receiver of his phone. “Tell them to send her up. Then get a notebook. I want you to sit in and take notes.”
She nodded and raced back to her desk.
Missing experienced, polite, sophisticated Betsy, Tucker ran his fingers through his hair. Two minutes later the elevator bell rang. He listened as Olivia greeted Maria and sighed with relief when she was nothing but polite and efficient.
Thick cloying perfume reached him long before dark-haired, dark-eyed Maria did. Tall and regal, educated at Harvard, and well-versed in art and music, Maria was exactly the kind of woman Tucker liked to be seen with. Arm candy with a brain.
“Tucker, how sweet of you to make time for me.”
* * *
Vivi almost gagged. Holy cow on the cologne, but calling Tucker Engle sweet? This woman obviously wanted something.
“I’m sorry for the wait.” He glanced at Olivia, then smiled at Maria. “A little miscommunication with my assistant.”
Vivi shook off the insult of that. He hadn’t told her any of his preferences, especially not about calls. But he probably assumed she knew those kinds of things, which meant she’d have another assignment that night. Not only did she have to figure out how to stifle her tongue, but she’d have to call her mom, a lifelong administrative assistant, to learn a bit about working for the top banana of a company.
“I’m thrilled you decided to drop in on us.” Tucker seated Maria with him on the sofa and motioned for Vivi to sit on the chair beside it.
She opened her notebook.
Maria smiled at her. “No need to record our conversation, darling.”
“Miss Prentiss isn’t going to record our conversation, just the salient points.”
Laughing, she patted Tucker’s knee. “Is your memory that bad, Tucker?”
He slid his arm across the sofa, and nearly around Maria. “There are three of you. I’m going to talk with all of you and compare stories.”
Her lips turned down into a pretty pout. “Really? You don’t trust me?”
He chuckled. “A man doesn’t get to where I am without having fail-safe mechanisms in place. Miss Prentiss is one of them.”
Maria’s gaze crawled over to her.
She took in Vivi’s khaki trousers and simple white blouse. Then the long strawberry blonde hair Vivi had put into a ponytail that hung over her shoulder.
“I see.”
A flush crept up Vivi’s neck to her cheeks. As if the condescending appraisal wasn’t bad enough, Maria Bartulocci’s tone dripped with disapproval.
Memories of walking down the street, being pointed at, whispered about and called names rushed through her. It had been a long time since she’d remembered that, but it had also been a while since she’d been with someone who so clearly disliked her.
Still, those bullies had nothing to do with her job, so she ignored the feelings, the memories. She’d learned lots of coping skills in the three years that had passed, and it would take more than a crappy look from a snotty socialite to drag her down.
Tucker said, “Rumor has it your uncle is considering retiring.”
“That’s not a rumor. It’s true.”
“Has he set a date?”
“More like a time frame. Next spring.” Maria rose. “Take me to lunch and I’ll tell you about your competition.”
Tucker followed suit, rising to stand beside her. “I know my competition.”
“Such a smart man,” Maria purred, stepping up to him and running her hand down his tie. “Let’s leave the little one behind and get ourselves a drink.” She flicked her gaze at Vivi with a laugh. “Really, Tucker, where did you find this one? And why don’t you pay her enough to buy decent clothes?”
Vivi’s mouth fell open. Seriously? A stinky debutante who was throwing herself at a man had the audacity to criticize her clothes?
Tucker caught Maria’s hand and led her to the elevator, leaving Vivi behind without a backward glance or even a nod toward telling her how long he’d be gone or how he could be reached in an emergency.
“I don’t care what my employees look like. They only have to be able to do their jobs.”
The elevator door opened. “I know, but seriously. Did you get a look at her?”
She heard Tucker’s voice, but couldn’t make out what he said or Maria’s reply. The door closed on his laugh.
Vivi glanced down at herself. These were her best trousers, her best blouse. And even she knew she looked like a street waif.
She might have coping mechanisms, but she couldn’t argue the truth. She didn’t belong here.
Copyright © 2014 by Linda Susan Meier
Resisting Her Ex’s Touch
Amber McKenzie
Anger became the dominant emotion as she turned to look at Matt, who was asleep on top of the blankets with one arm extended across her.
That explained the weight.
He was wearing a ragged Brown University T-shirt and jeans, and looked too much like the old Matt—her Matt.
As if on cue he opened his eyes, and a few inches away she saw the familiar blue that looked softer than she had seen it since their reunion. Her heart fluttered and she forgot her anger. He didn’t say anything, and she was too overwhelmed with memories of the past to tear her eyes from his, still trying to understand the man she’d thought she once knew.
His eyes didn’t have the answers—seemed only to have more questions for her. She watched as he propped himself up on one arm. His other hand moved from her waist to the side of her face, his wide palm spanning her cheek, his fingers in her hair. His eyes changed then, darkening as his pupils widened and his mouth came down on hers.
Dear Reader
It is my true belief that at the heart of every woman is a romantic. In some way or another we all envisage our hero and the moments that will perhaps change our lives forever. My parents, however, raised a very practical young woman who was taught from an early age not to look for a hero to complete me, but instead to complement and enrich a life I had built for myself.
Throughout my prolonged fourteen years in postsecondary education I gained that partner, and a further respect for my parents’ teaching. I have been privileged to have met and worked with some of the finest, most beautiful and most dedicated female physicians around. By the end of my training, when life was moving away from textbooks and on to ways to maintain a decent work/life balance, a spark began to burn.
As a lifelong reader of Harlequin Mills & Boon® books. I always had dreams of what I considered the perfect book—And then I realised. Who would be better heroines than my friends? Women who are gorgeous, smart and by all means successful, but maybe have some unconsidered challenges when it comes to finding love. Meet Kate, a combination of many of my friends, and aptly named, as thirty percent of my colleagues at one time were named Kate. Her story is completely original, though, featuring some of my most favourite romantic gestures, from emotional torment in the rain to forehead-kisses.
My debut novel, RESISTING HER EX’S TOUCH, is the first of hopefully many forays into the perfect romance. I hope that you fall in love and gain the same admiration that I have for the men and women who devote their lives to the world of medicine.
Amber
AMBER McKENZIE’s love of romance and all the drama a good romance entails began in her teenage years. After a lengthy university career, multiple degrees and one formal English class, she found herself happily employed as physician and happily married to her medical school sweetheart.
She rekindled her passion for romance during her residency and began thinking of the perfect story. She quickly decided that the only thing sexier than a man in scrubs was a woman in scrubs. After finishing training and starting practice she started writing her first novel. Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write contest came at a perfect time, and after a few good edits from her wildlife biologist childhood best friend the manuscript was submitted and the rest is history!
Amber currently lives in Canada with her husband. She does her best to juggle her full-time medical practice with her love of writing and reading and other pursuits—from long-distance running to domestic goddess activities like cooking and quilting. Multi-tasking has become an art form and a way of life.
RESISTING HER EX’S TOUCH
is Amber McKenzie’s debut novel for Mills & Boon ® Medical Romance ™
There is nothing better in life than the people who love and support you and inspire you to be better than you ever thought you could be.
My love and gratitude to my mom Linda, my ultimate best friend Jennie, and my amazing husband Kyle.
Table of Contents
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER ONE
HER HEART POUNDED against her chest, keeping cadence with the rhythm her heeled boots made against the linoleum floor. She had everything to lose and little to no control over an outcome that was going to decide her future. Some people would take comfort in knowing they were in the right and hadn’t done anything wrong, but not Dr. Kate Spence. She had learned early in life that bad things happened whether you deserved them or not.
She walked through the corridors of Boston General with reluctant determination. For the first time in five years she felt out of place in the hospital. She was used to being in her element, dressed in surgical scrubs with her entire focus on her job as a general surgery resident. Today was different. Every fiber of her being was on alert and she was conscious of waiting for the intense foreboding sensation that had come over her in the past several weeks to be fulfilled.
After years of school and sacrifice, Kate had almost made it. She had made it as a doctor, as a surgeon, and in three months’ time would be starting a fellowship in New York, in one of the most acclaimed hospitals in the country. She had three months left of residency and then she was done in Boston and on her way to New York to complete her final training and have a second chance at a new beginning.
They had called it a strategy meeting, whatever that was supposed to mean. The only thing that had registered with Kate was that they were going to have to talk about “that night” and the guilt was overwhelming.
Kate took a deep breath and tried to gather her mind and her facial expression into that of the composed professional she was widely regarded as being. She was the chief resident of general surgery in one of the nation’s top five surgical programs. She arrived at work no later than five-thirty every morning and was never home before seven—and that was on evenings when she got home, because most nights she stayed and operated. Being in the operating room, fixing people, had become her salvation in life. She loved the feeling of working meticulously at something, never knowing what challenges lay inside and pushing herself to overcome all the difficulties and limitations that could arise.
In a place where things could easily get out of control, Kate felt the most in control, confident in her ability to get the job done and do what was needed for her patient.
Kate pushed through the frosted glass door leading to The conference room and took in the scene. Sitting at the large wooden conference table were all of the expected people. The hospital’s chief executive officer, lawyer, chief of staff, and Dr. Tate Reed, Vascular Surgeon, her co-defendant and ex-boyfriend as of six months ago.
She knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but it still hurt more than she had prepared herself for. No one liked facing their own mistakes and Kate rarely made mistakes. She had taken an oath to do no harm and had promised herself years ago that she would never be responsible for causing someone she loved pain, and she hadn’t until Tate. It had been six months and every day she regretted what had happened between them. She had never fallen in love with him and that horrible night she had been forced to accept that he wasn’t the man for her no matter how hard she had tried to feel otherwise.
When she walked in, every face peered up at her with acknowledgement, except for one, who refused to acknowledge her presence.
“Good afternoon Dr. Spence, please take a seat,” Dr. Williamson, the chief of staff instructed.
Then and only then did he look up and their eyes meet. The same combination of hurt and anger that had been there six months earlier stared back at her. The worst part was that she knew she deserved it. She felt every muscle in her face strain as she struggled to maintain a neutral expression and conceal the feelings of hurt and regret she felt every time she thought of Tate.
Kate walked towards one of the two empty places at the conference table, choosing the one farthest from Tate. She sat down in the leather chair and wished she could just keep sinking. She looked away and focused her gaze towards the other men, reminding herself that she needed to stay confident and collected. She was the only woman in a room full of the hospital’s most prominent male leaders. There would be plenty of time for guilt and remorse to torture her thoughts later, without an audience.
Jeff Sutherland, the hospital’s lawyer, started the meeting. “As you all know, four weeks ago Boston General, Dr. Reed, Dr. Spence and several other hospital personnel were served with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for wrongful death on behalf of the Weber family. The lawsuit alleges that there was a critical delay in Mr. Weber reaching the operating room, which lead to his death, and that had he received more timely medical and surgical attention he could have survived his condition.”
“They’re wrong,” Tate responded unequivocally.
Jeff looked up briefly, but continued. “In their affidavit, the Weber family alleges there was a twenty-minute delay and critical time lost between the diagnosis of Michael Weber’s ruptured aortic aneurysm and Dr. Spence’s ability to locate Dr. Reed and communicate the findings. Mr. Weber subsequently did not reach the operating room until fifty-five minutes following diagnosis, and by that time was so unstable that he did not survive attempts made by Dr. Reed to repair the aneurysm.”