Waiting until his footsteps disappeared, Charlotte repeated his order into the phone, her stomach in knots. Even condemned prisoners got a last meal. Maybe Gabriel Bishop did the same for employees he was about to fire?
“Go,” Molly said. “And order the most expensive thing on the menu.”
“I’ll probably throw it up.” Her nerves twisted, then twisted again and decided to tie themselves into knots for good measure. “I better go—he said five minutes.”
Molly wished her good luck and they hung up. Tidying herself up by redoing the ponytail in which she wore her barely shoulder-length blond hair, the strands so fine they tended to escape and curl around her face, she got up and slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. Picking up her warm but shapelessly blocky brown coat afterward, she slid her feet into her abandoned shoes, then walked to the elevator.
She had a feeling her new boss intended for them to go to a particular upmarket bistro—the gossip pages liked to spy on him, though he didn’t court the attention, and he’d been photographed there a number of times. Mostly with business associates. Every so often with a stunning model or pro sportswoman or heart surgeon. Once, he’d been seen with an up-and-coming member of Parliament. That had sent the gossip into the stratosphere.
His only “type” appeared to be tall and beautiful.
This would be the first time with a short, glasses-wearing blonde dressed in a badly fitting sweater.
At least she didn’t have to worry a journalist looking for a scoop would snap a picture, Charlotte consoled herself. The fact she wasn’t a date couldn’t be clearer if she’d painted it on her forehead. Another piece of good news was that the bistro was only a two-minute walk away, so she didn’t have to put on her coat; carrying the heavy brown mass gave her a way to hide her hands, which kept fisting and locking together when they weren’t trembling.
“Ms. Baird.”
Startled for the third time in seven minutes, she looked up to find her new boss—whom she’d attacked with a stapler—had taken the stairs to this level, when she’d expected to meet him in the lobby downstairs. “H-hi.” Not so much a squeak this time as a croak.
Charlotte didn’t think that was an improvement.
Pressing the elevator button, Gabriel Bishop nodded at her coat, his chiseled jaw bearing a hint of dark stubble. “It’s windy out.”
Hands feeling white-knuckled, she managed to say, “I’ll be okay.” It wasn’t a total lie. Instead of her usual work outfit of a loose skirt-suit, she’d worn jeans and a round-necked navy sweater. Saxon & Archer had always been a little old-fashioned about appropriate office clothing, but everyone was more casual on weekends.
Even the boss wasn’t wearing a suit, but well-loved jeans that had a rip at the knee and a stone-gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his tanned forearms dusted with fine black hairs. What wasn’t on display was the tattoo she knew covered his left pectoral muscle and his shoulder before flowing partway down his arm. Thick veins ran below the skin of his forearm, his strength apparent even at rest.
Gabriel Bishop was definitely not a “normal” CEO in any sense of the word.
The elevator arrived then, and he waved her in before stepping in himself. The cage had never before struck her as tiny, but then she’d never before been in it with a man whose shoulders were twice the width of hers; it was obvious he stayed in shape despite not playing professional rugby anymore. Not that she hadn’t already known that from the photos she’d chosen for the new company brochure.
Anya was supposed to have organized that, but going through photos of the new boss was one task Charlotte hadn’t minded handling for the other woman, even if she had allowed herself to get sidetracked by searching out images from his playing days. She’d thought she’d appreciated the impact of him, but it was different seeing him in person.
The photos didn’t do him justice.
Gabriel Bishop wasn’t simply strong and tautly muscled—he was a force of nature.
The photos of him on the rugby field were unbelievably hot, but the seven years since then had honed him, made him impossibly more gorgeous. No wonder women across the spectrum fell at his feet. Only last week, Charlotte had seen a report of a flirtatious blog post where a singer with a recent platinum album had named Gabriel Bishop as the one man she wouldn’t kick out of bed for eating crackers.
Stepping out when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, she gulped in a cool draft of air and managed a shaky smile at the security guard when Steven rose from his post behind what was the main reception desk during weekdays.