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Lucy wondered if the woman could have spoken a little louder, so the shoppers on the second and third levels could have heard that as well.
“Don’t look so disturbed, Divine. I know my own son,” the woman continued, pausing to peer into a glass display that held a glimmering assortment of eighteen-karat-gold jewelry. “I saw the way he looked at you yesterday.”
Lucy choked on her own saliva and after swallowing hard, made an impressive recovery. Her voice shook only mildly when she spoke. “He didn’t look at me in any particular way.”
“Ha!” Irene scoffed. “The day I don’t notice when my son’s hot for a woman is the day I die!”
“Irene, please, I’d rather not discuss this.”
“Oh, pooh. Then what else are two grown women to talk about while on a shopping spree? I sure as hell don’t want to talk about menopause. I’ve got enough of that, thank you! Oh my, will you look at that bangle?”
Lucy stared blankly down at the wide yellow-gold bangle bracelet and absently watched as a sales lady withdrew it from the vitrine and handed it to a restless Irene.
“We can discuss other things,” Lucy said worriedly.
Irene waved her hand dismissively and watched in fascination as the bangle twinkled on her wrist when she did so. “What do you think about this?” Irene asked.
“It’s beautiful. I like the encrusted gemstones.”
“All right, all right, you’ve convinced me. I’ll take it.” Irene handed it to the saleslady, along with the two handbags she carried. “And this and this.”
“Not the Balenciaga,” Lucy interjected. “Please, Irene.”
Irene frowned and begrudgingly placed the Balenciaga back on the shelf. “Oh, all right. But you’re being very silly and very stupid, Divine.”
Lucy knew the woman had no idea just how much so. She’d gotten involved with her boss, how much more stupid could that be? “I know.”
While the sales lady calculated the total, Irene rested her elbows on the vitrine and fixed her green eyes right on Lucy. “My son is a good man. And if he’s gotten somewhere in this world, he didn’t get there easily. God knows what our family went through to put him through college, and what he’s gone through to get where he is. He’s made some great sacrifices, and for all the social calls he gets, I know for a fact he’s really very lonely. I would love to see him settle down. I had at one point wished Katrina would be the one. But you know how it is with wishing, someone always seems to get it wrong!”
“I’m sorry,” was all Lucy thought to say.
As for the wishing part, if Lucy had one wish, one single wish at this very moment, instead of wishing to get to the top of her game, win the lottery or have eternal good health, she would have wished to disappear. Irene Holden’s know-it-all eyes—like her son’s darker ones—pinned her, and all Lucy could do was try to futilely ignore the way her stomach twisted at her words, because if Irene had expected Holden to settle down with Katrina, then Lucy concluded that Patrick Holden slept with all his assistants. How kinky and sick was that?
When the shoppers finally returned to Holden’s penthouse, the wearied Irene took to her bed, saying she couldn’t stand on her feet, and ordered “Pipsqueak” to bring dinner to her room. Meanwhile, Lucy did what she’d done every night since she’d become Holden’s assistant. She strode into his spacious closet, stared blankly at his business suits, all of them nearly identical, and then studied the ties hanging by color next to them.
Walking across his room to the chair beside the window, Lucy carefully set down the tie and the simple black Hugo Boss suit she’d selected. The tie was Hèrmes, a horse-pattered one that was very elegant and attractive with its light pale yellow background color.
She held her breath when she heard footsteps in the foyer and silently prayed it wasn’t him. She wasn’t going to get lucky. Turning to face the doorway, she watched him walk into his bedroom, busily removing his jacket.
They both froze, Lucy beside the chair, while he stood motionless a foot inside the door, a curled finger serving as a hook for the jacket now hanging idle on his hand. If he was at all affected by seeing her, he didn’t show it much. He was very still, his face unreadable except for a nearly imperceptible muscle twitching in his jaw.
Flustered, Lucy straightened her spine and needlessly said, “I was just choosing your tie,” before she crossed the room, suddenly knowing that it was imperative for her to leave now. And yet try as she might, she couldn’t get to the door fast enough. Holden was much faster.
“Lucy.” He thrust a hand out to halt her just before she made it to the threshold. She looked down at his grip, at the long, tanned fingers around her arm, then up at his face, her heart pounding. He had the blackest eyes she’d ever seen. They were deep and dark and shining with lust.
“I hope my mother didn’t give you any trouble?” His voice was low and husky.
She, on the other hand, had to swallow in order to speak, and when she did so, she sounded like a bad soprano with a sore throat. “Not at all, Mr. Holden.”
His eyelids seemed inordinately heavy and he looked at her through dark, spiky lashes. “Yesterday I was just Holden.”
For some reason, his mention of yesterday and the way she’d acted only infuriated her, and suddenly remembering his casual, cool dismissal made the blood in her veins boil even further. She yanked her arm free of his hold and thrust her chin up—as if she had nothing in the world to be ashamed of, as if she had sex with her bosses just about every single day of the year—as if what happened yesterday had been nothing.
“Oh that,” she said dismissively. “I don’t even care to remember.”
His jaw clenched at her words, the blow to his ego blissfully apparent. It felt supremely good to see him suffer, even if only a little bit, but just to drive the dagger in deeper, she batted her eyelashes at him and asked, “Will that be all, sir?”
With a low growl, he tunneled his fingers into her loose blonde hair. “No Lucy, that won’t be all,” he said right before pulling her face forward and crushing his lips to hers. She gasped at the assault and he quickly slid his tongue into her mouth, taking advantage. Heat, scorching and blinding, shot into her sex like thunderbolts.
