The Boss's Marriage Plan Read online

  He kept his expression as unrevealing as he could manage. He knew she’d be embarrassed if she thought he’d overheard too much of that call. “I want you to be safe when you’re here alone. Keep the blasted thing turned on.”

  Sending a salute toward him that was just short of impertinent, she said, “Yes, sir. I’ll do that.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Insubordination. Remind me again why I keep you around?”

  She laughed easily, slipping back into the comfortable relationship they’d forged during their years of working side by side. “Because you know this entire enterprise would collapse without me.”

  He chuckled after she pretty much echoed his thoughts from earlier. He had to concede her point.

  She’d made her mark on every aspect of his business, from the state of the reception area to the total of the bottom line.

  Speaking of the reception area... He suddenly noticed decorations that hadn’t been there a few days earlier. A Christmas tree sat in the front corner, decorated with gold-and-white ornaments and tiny white lights. A strand of garland wound with gold ribbon draped the front of the reception desk, matching the wreath on the door. On the tables sat frosted glass holders with fat white candles. All very subtle and tasteful—very Tess, he thought with a faint smile. She could have assigned one or two of the clerical workers she now supervised to decorate, but she’d no doubt taken care of it herself, as she had every Christmas since she’d started working for him.

  “You came in today just to decorate?”

  “I thought I’d get the decorations up while I had a quiet afternoon to work on them. I’m almost finished.”

  “Looks nice. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “I’ve got it, thanks. There are only a few more things I want to do.”

  Nodding, he moved toward the closed door of his own larger office to the right side of hers. “Let me know if you need anything. I’m going to review the paperwork for that Springdale job we start Monday, just to make sure everything is lined up.”

  “I left a couple of contracts on your desk for you to look over and sign. They could have waited until Monday, but since you’re here...”

  “I’m on it.”

  He glanced over his shoulder as he opened the door with his name engraved on a brass plaque. Tess stood half-turned away from him, frowning in concentration at the Christmas tree, which looked perfect already to him. She really did look pretty today. He thought fleetingly about telling her so, but something held him back.

  He made a cup of coffee with the pod brewer on his credenza. “Would you like a hot drink?” he asked through the open doorway as the enticing aroma filled his office. The rack beside the pot always included a variety of herbal teas that he knew Tess liked. They often shared drinks at his desk as they discussed business.

  “No, thank you,” she called back without making an appearance. He told himself he wasn’t disappointed that she was too busy for a cozy chat, which meant he had no excuse to procrastinate any longer with the work he’d come in to see to.

  Taking a seat at his desk, he tried to concentrate on paperwork for the next twenty minutes. Despite his resistance, his thoughts kept returning to the one-sided conversation he’d accidentally overheard, and the glimpse of insight it had provided into Tess’s personal life. Of course, he couldn’t have worked so closely with her for six years without knowing some things about her.

  Through night classes and online courses, she’d completed her business degree and had earned postgraduate hours since she’d started working with him. He knew she took pride in those accomplishments. During that same time, he’d seen her deal with the illness and loss of both her parents. He’d gotten the impression the majority of the caregiving had been on her shoulders because her sister had been so busy with her young children. Yet he’d never once heard Tess complain. Whatever she dealt with in her off-hours, she’d always reported to work with her usual serene efficiency.

  Serene. He repeated the word in his head, thinking how well it suited his assistant. Throughout several major work upheavals, when he’d been edgy and bad-tempered amid the confusion and mayhem, Tess had remained...well, Tess. She came in every morning with a smile, an encouraging word and a roll-up-her-sleeves attitude that let her tackle each day’s tasks with single-minded focus.

  One would think someone so agreeable would be a bit of a doormat, easily intimidated, perhaps. Not Tess. He’d witnessed her hold her own with even the most belligerent, disgruntled employees and clients. One of his job foremen had confided to Scott that Tess reminded him of a nun who’d taught his junior high math classes. “Nice lady most of the time,” he’d clarified. “But get out of line, and you’d get a ruler across the knuckles before you could spit.”

  Scott could imagine Tess wielding a mean ruler if necessary. But he’d never thought of her as a nun—had he?

  He cleared his throat and reached hastily for his quickly cooling coffee, almost knocking over the cup in his clumsiness. He salvaged the papers on his desk at the last moment and with a muttered curse.

  “Everything okay in there?” Tess called from the other room.

  “Yes, fine, thanks.”

  Maybe he hadn’t thought of Tess as a nun, but before that overheard conversation, he’d had no idea she’d tried online dating, or that she’d been actively looking for a match. Meeting strange men online was dangerous, he thought in disapproval. Sure, people did it all the time these days, but it just didn’t seem right for Tess.

  He knew she’d been in a relationship about three years back that hadn’t worked out. That was about the same time he’d been briefly engaged to a stunning but capricious woman who’d understandably—and angrily—chosen to pursue a career in modeling over marriage to an often-neglectful workaholic. He still winced when he remembered the scene Sharon had caused when she’d broken up with him in a crowded restaurant, and all because he’d been a few minutes late meeting her there. Okay, twenty minutes late, but he’d texted to let her know he’d been held up—again—by yet another work crisis. She’d known going into the relationship that his business required a great deal of his time, but like others he’d dated before her, she’d expected more from him than he’d been able to give. She’d stormed off furiously when she’d finally concluded that his construction company meant more to him than their relationship. The split hadn’t been amicable, but then for some reason, his breakups never were.

  He wondered if Tess had remained on good terms with her former flames. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had. Unlike the volatile Sharon, Tess was the practical, pragmatic type. In the years she had worked for him, he’d never heard her carry on about romance and unrealistic fantasies.

  Of course, he rarely allowed himself to think of Tess as a vibrant, available single woman. After all, she worked for him, and he’d never even considered overstepping their professional boundaries and risking their comfortable work relationship. She had just turned twenty-three when she’d applied for the clerical job with him. He’d been a couple months shy of thirty-one, and had already owned the business for over three years. Perhaps that was why he’d thought of her all this time as much too young for him, though the actual gap was only seven years. She would soon turn thirty, he mused, surprised by how quickly time had passed. He supposed it was only natural that she would now be considering marriage and children. After all, he’d given quite a lot of deliberation to those things lately, too.

  She strolled in through his open doorway. “I thought I’d put this candle on your table. I know you don’t like a lot of froufrou in your office, but this isn’t too much, is it?” She held a hurricane glass candleholder with a little garland around the base. “You’ve got a few meetings scheduled in here during the next couple of weeks.”

  He often eschewed the main conference room in favor of the cherry table in his office. Everything
he needed was available to him in here—a projector and screen, whiteboard and display easels and blackout shades to hide the distracting views of the Arkansas River and the distant rolling hills. He loved his office. It was exactly what he’d envisioned back when he’d first started building his own business.

  “I don’t mind a candle on the table,” he assured Tess, making her smile.

  “How was your Thanksgiving?” she asked as she fussed with the garland.

  “Nice. Noisy. The kids were wound up from all the attention.”

  Both his brothers were happily married fathers. His older brother, Eli, a family practice physician, had twin girls, Madison and Miranda. Cute as little bunnies, they were almost five years old and full of energy. He was their “uncle Scotty,” and he adored them, just as he did his little nephew, too. Six-month-old Henry was his younger brother, Jake’s, kid. Both his brothers had been lucky enough to find their soul mates—Eli and Libby had started dating when both were in medical school, while Jake, an attorney, had met psychologist Christina at a cocktail party a couple years ago.

  As much as he’d enjoyed the gathering, Scott had been painfully aware that he was no closer to having a family of his own than he’d been during the last solo holiday season. None of his relatives was actually nagging him to marry—after all, the next generation of Princes was already well established—but he couldn’t help wondering if they thought something must be lacking in him. Increasingly, he wondered the same thing about himself.

  Without arrogance, he could admit he’d accomplished a great deal in his almost thirty-seven years. Valedictorian in high school. Summa cum laude college graduate. A master’s degree. His own business. He had a nice home he’d remodeled himself, with a couple of empty bedrooms he hoped to fill someday. All his life he’d heard about biological clocks, but he’d never quite understood the term until he found himself only a few years from forty without any immediate prospect of a wife and kids. During these past twelve months, he had attended cocktail parties and professional mixers—more than he would have liked, actually. He’d gone on blind dates, been to clubs and bars and charity fund-raisers. He’d met a lot of nice women, had some good times, made a few friends...but he’d yet to find anyone he thought would be a lifelong partner.

  After his brief engagement to Sharon had ended so disastrously, he’d wondered privately if he was destined to remain a workaholic bachelor. He was accustomed to success, to achieving the high-reaching goals he set for himself. His only experiences with failure had been in the romantic area of his life. He really hated failure.

  Tess stepped back to critically study the centerpiece she’d created. Apparently deciding it would suffice, she turned to the door, asking over her shoulder on the way out, “Have you signed those contracts?”

  He reached hastily for the stack he’d yet to touch. “On it.”

  He wondered half seriously what she’d have said if he shared that he’d been fretting about how to find a mate. Knowing Tess, she’d set her mind to solving that issue for him. He’d probably come in on Monday to find a line of qualified applicants standing outside his office door. Having trouble in her own quest wouldn’t stop her from setting to work on his if he asked.

  His smile faded as it occurred to him that maybe he was on to something here. Oh, not the part about asking Tess to find candidates for him, but the idea that he’d been going about this all wrong. Perhaps he should approach this endeavor with the same attitude he’d used in establishing his successful business. Practicality and analysis were his strengths. Romance obviously was not. There had to be nice women out there who didn’t require all the fancy trappings of courtship, but simply wanted to marry an upstanding, decent guy and start a family. Surely a union based on common goals and values, preferably even friendship, would appeal to someone besides himself. Maybe if he spelled out from the start what he had to offer—and what he didn’t—there would be no artificial expectations that could only lead to another disappointing failure.

  When he’d drawn up his original business plan, he’d made lots of lists. Where he needed to focus his efforts, how he wanted to solicit clients, specific steps for growing the business in a sensible, feasible manner and at a reasonable, sustainable pace. Perhaps he should approach his marriage plan in a similar vein.

  He visualized a mental list of the type of woman he thought would suit him best. It should be someone organized and efficient, much like himself. Practical—the kind of woman who would understand he was never going to be a smooth-talking Romeo, but that he would be loyal, generous, committed, dependable. That was the type of husband and father his dad was, and that his brothers had become. Maybe they had married for more emotional reasons, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make his own future partnership just as successful. Middle kid that he was, he’d always had his own way of doing things, as his mother had pointed out on many occasions. His way had turned out well for him in business, so why not in marriage?

  His wife didn’t have to be model beautiful, as his ex-fiancée had been, but it would be best, of course, if he was attracted to her. He’d always been drawn to kind eyes and a warm smile, and he had an admitted weakness for dimples...

  He heard Tess moving around in the other room. She had nice eyes, he thought, along with a generous smile with occasional flashes of dimples in the corners. She never wore much makeup, but he’d noted some time ago—just in passing—that her skin was creamy and flawless without it. He supposed she would be considered girl-next-door attractive rather than strikingly beautiful—but then again, there was nothing he’d have changed about her appearance. On more than one occasion, especially during the past year or so, he’d found himself admiring her attributes in a manner that had made him immediately redirect his thoughts, chiding himself that it was inappropriate to even notice those things.

  A muffled thud and a disgruntled mutter drifted in from the lobby. Curious, he stood and walked around his desk to stand in the open doorway. “What are you doing?”

  Tess was on the floor beneath the big artificial tree, propped on one arm as she stretched to reach something he couldn’t see. “I knocked off an ornament when I was trying to straighten a branch. Oh, here it is.”

  Holding a sparkling gold orb in her hand, she swiveled so that she was sitting cross-legged on the floor looking thoughtfully up at the tree. After a moment, she leaned forward and hooked the ornament to a branch, then leaned back on her hands to gaze upward. Tiny white lights glittered among the thick green branches, their reflection gleaming in the dark red highlights in her hair.

  “How does that look?” she asked.

  “Looks good,” he murmured slowly, his eyes on her. “Really good.”

  She pushed herself to her feet and brushed absently at her slacks. “Do you think a candle in a snowflake-shaped holder on the reception desk would be too much?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. What?”

  When she realized he was staring at her, she cocked her head to eye him with a frown. “Scott? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. Just...absorbed with a dilemma.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” she said encouragingly. “You always do.”

  Her steadfast confidence in him had bolstered him through some of his most challenging periods during the past six years. Her absolute dedication to the company had been instrumental in its success. She understood why it was so important to him in a way that perhaps no one else did, because it seemed almost equally valuable to her. In some ways, he thought she knew him better than anyone outside his immediate family. Even some of his longtime friends were unable to read him as well as Tess. She was more than an employee, more than a professional associate. Not exactly a personal friend—but whose fault was that? His or hers? Both?

  Tess had often teased him about being “blessed with strokes of inspiration,” in her words. Solutions to thorny problems
tended to occur to him in sudden, compelling flashes, and he had learned to respect his own instincts. They had let him down only on very rare occasions.

  He had just been staggered by another one of those brilliant moments of insight. In a near-blinding flash of awareness, he’d realized suddenly that the woman he’d mentally described as his perfect mate had just been sitting under the Christmas tree.

  Chapter Two

  Tess wasn’t particularly concerned about Scott’s sudden distraction. This was an expression she knew very well, the way he always looked when he’d been struck with a possibly brilliant solution to a troublesome dilemma. She would wait patiently for him to share what he was thinking—or not. Sometimes he had to mull over details for days before he enlightened anyone else about his latest inspired idea.

  Glancing around the reception area, she decided she’d finished decorating. The offices looked festive and welcoming but not over the top. “I’m calling it done,” she said, more to herself than Scott, who probably wasn’t listening anyway. “Any more would be too much.”

  He gave a little start in response to her voice—honestly, had he forgotten she was even there?—then cleared his throat. “Um, Tess?”

  Picking up an empty ornament box to stow away in a supply closet, she responded absently, “Yes?”

  When he didn’t immediately reply, she glanced around to find him studying her with a frown. The way he was staring took her aback. Did she have something on her face? Glitter in her hair? She thought he might look just this way at finding a stranger in his reception room.

  “Scott?”

  He blinked, then glanced quickly around them. “Not here,” he muttered, apparently to himself, then addressed her again. “Have you eaten?”

  “I was going to stop for takeout on my way home.”

  “Want to share a pizza at Giulia’s? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  It wasn’t unusual for them to share a meal after working late, and the nearby casual Italian place was one of their customary destinations. Because she had no other plans for the evening, she nodded. “Sure. I’ll just grab a notebook.”