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“Christina? Christina? Are you listening?”
Her eyes snapped up as she looked up to find Lucas’ assistant, Desiree, looming over her. Desiree’s face was red and angry. Her look made Christina cringe. For some reason, whenever they were alone, Desiree turned into a viper.
“I’m sorry, Desiree,” Christina said, shaking the daydream from her head. “What were you saying?”
Desiree rolled her eyes and set her hands on her hips. “I found an error in the design you turned in! If Lucas had seen it first, well, I can only imagine what would have happened. He has a zero tolerance for shoddy work.”
“Shoddy work?” Christina echoed. Christina was a girl given to harsh reaction. In the old days, she was quick to bite back when bitten, but she held in her emotions and pushed herself up from her desk. “I’m sorry… What did I do?”
“You’d better be glad that I caught this before it went to Lucas,” Desiree said, waving the printed pages at her. “I smoothed it over for you, so he’s not too mad.”
“I’m sorry,” she stuttered. “I don’t know what happened.” It was a lie. She knew exactly what happened. Lucas knew that she’d been bored doing gopher work the past few days, so he let her help design the layout for the fashion center. Although it was only two pages and she was just a helper, it was a huge responsibility, and Christina really wanted to impress him.
Unfortunately, she also had a paper due for class that morning, so she hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before.
“You set a full page ad in a quarter page ad space. If I hadn’t checked it, it would have gone to press, and there would have been some angry advertisers.” Desiree smiled smugly. “It looks like you’re not ready for real work.”
“But, Desiree, it was a mistake. I promise…”
Desiree held up a hand and cocked her chin. “Not another word. For your sake, I won’t say anything to Lucas, but for now you need to stick to getting coffee and running errands.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Christina said quietly. She wasn’t used to being chastised. She bit her tongue and stared at the floor.
Christina noticed that Desiree was holding Lucas’ empty coffee cup. Desiree set the cup on the desk and said, “You can start now. Lucas would like a fresh cup.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Christina was practically in tears by the time she’d filled the cup almost to the rim and walked slowly with it back to Lucas’ office. She paused outside the open door and mustered her courage. Desiree wore a snide smile as she watched her standing there with hot coffee dripping onto the toe of her best shoes.
“You wanted coffee, Mr. Powers,” Christina said meekly. Lucas was focused on his computer screen. He was leaning into it with a serious look on his face. He waved a hand to tell her to enter.
“I’m really sorry,” she said as she crossed the floor to his desk. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Please let me do something to help fix this. Please.”
Lucas looked up alarmed as she put the coffee down. A bit sloshed out on the desk, and Christina gasped. She leaned over and wiped it up with the sleeve of her white shirt. It was hot and burned her skin through the fabric, and she cried out.
“Jesus, Christina. What is wrong with you?” Lucas said as stood quickly and grabbed her arm. He immediately pushed her sleeve up to inspect her skin. “Are you trying to burn yourself?”
“Is everything OK, Mr. Powers?” Desiree asked from the door, a look of genuine concern on her face.
“Just a little coffee accident,” he said, waving her away. “Please close the door.” Desiree hesitated a moment, her face red, then closed the door with a slam.
Lucas held her wrist and blew a cooling breath across it. Suddenly, Christina found it hard to breathe. In the week that she’d been there, he hadn’t touched her once since that initial handshake. Now his lips were an inch away from her skin. His touch was warm and comforting, and Christina gently tugged her arm back.
Lucas immediately stiffened, realizing their closeness. He said, “I’ll get the medical kit, some burn ointment.”
“No, please, it’s not necessary,” she said, embarrassment burning her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
“Forget it,” he said with a smile, mopping up the mess with tissues from a box on the desk. “It’s just a little coffee.”
“Not about the coffee,” she said, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “About the ad that I screwed up.”
He stared at her until her words registered. “Is that what you’re upset about? Christina, I never turn in ad pages without checking them first. Desiree caught it, but if she hadn’t, I would have. That sort of thing happens all the time around here. You’re new at this. I expected that you were going to make a few mistakes.”
Christina felt a new emotion rising to the top: anger. “Desiree made it sound like I had put the entire company at risk”
“Desiree can be a bit of a drama queen sometimes,” he said, rolling his eyes toward the door. “I’ll talk with her about it.”
“Oh no, please don’t do that. I don’t want her to know how much it upset me. And she had every right to point it out.”
