After ensuring that Tessa was safely employed elsewhere, he would have pulled out all the stops to make her his own. Ian had rarely courted or seduced a woman before, for he’d never really had to make the effort. From the time he’d reached his teens, women had flocked to his side, attracted not only by his looks but by his money, his well-bred British family who could trace their roots back several centuries, and by his high-powered position in arguably the top luxury hotel chain in the world. He could at any given time have his pick of gorgeous women – executives, socialites, celebrities, models.
But Ian was picky and somewhat fastidious about his taste in women, unlike his brothers. Hugh had married his longtime sweetheart, a girl he’d met at university, and they’d been happily wed for years, parents to four children. Colin had been quite the notorious playboy for years, much to their mother’s dismay, until he, too, had finally settled down just two years ago. He was married to a strikingly beautiful Eurasian woman from Hong Kong and they were expecting their first child in a few months.
That left Ian as the only bachelor among his siblings, and he didn’t envision that status changing anytime soon. Since his one failed engagement more than six years ago, he’d kept busy with work and hadn’t really let himself think about settling down.
That is, until a ridiculously young, breathtakingly beautiful, and delightfully sweet girl had tentatively walked into his office a short time ago. He’d known – just known somehow – that she had been made for him. It had been the biggest shock of his life to realize that she’d already been claimed by another man.
And now, he was going to have to man up and find some way to keep his wayward emotions under control in her presence. Transferring her out of the team would raise too many red flags, especially given her level of competency and the shockingly glowing recommendation from Mrs. C. Ian knew he’d have to call on every ounce of self-control he possessed to treat young Tessa in a professional but impersonal manner, to keep her and his rampaging desire for her at arm’s length at all times, and to remind himself constantly that she was strictly forbidden to him for more reasons than he wanted to count.
‘Damn it,’ he cursed beneath his breath. ‘What in hell was Mrs. C. thinking of sending her my way? If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that old witch was still trying to let me know who’s really in charge around here.’
Chapter Two
September, two years later
Tessa Lockwood did not like Wednesdays. She was well aware that most people didn’t share her feelings, that the majority of the world thought of this day as “hump day”, when their busy work weeks were half over and they could begin winding down for the weekend ahead. But for Tessa, it seemed that nearly every bad thing that had happened in her life so far had occurred on a Wednesday.
Bad things didn’t happen every Wednesday, of course, but when they did she usually had some sort of uneasy premonition. Like the butterflies kicking around in her stomach as she brushed her hair and got ready for work this morning. Or the chill that shimmered up her spine as she hurriedly ate a piece of toast with jam and drank a cup of tea before dashing out the door of her apartment.
The unsettled feeling continued during the crowded bus ride to work, and she tried desperately to quell her nerves. She wondered if her sense of unease had anything to do with the fact that Peter was supposed to be flying home today. After almost two years, one would think she’d stop worrying when he had to take a long flight home from a job assignment in Asia. Even though he frequently flew in and out of some less than stable socio-political countries, he’d never had any problems, at least none that he’d ever told her about. So she knew that her unsettled emotions this morning weren’t due to unnecessary worry about her husband’s incoming flight from Cambodia. But there was definitely something, some niggling little fear that something bad was going to happen. And her spidey-sense had yet to be wrong.
Tessa had to stand on the bus, as usual, and she assumed her normal position of never really making eye contact with anyone else on board. Most of the people riding the bus at this time of the morning were either going to work like her, or to school, but there were definitely a fair number of weirdoes along, too. San Francisco was a very diverse city, after all, with people of varying ethnicities, sexual orientations, and socio-economic classes, and Tessa was pretty sure she’d seen a really good sampling of them all in the two years she’d been living here and riding the city buses.
The bus left her off a block away from her office building, and she exited the stuffy, crowded vehicle with relief. It had taken her a long time to get used to relying on public transportation when she and Peter had moved here from Tucson. Because both of their cars had been old and in dire need of repairs, they’d unloaded them before moving to San Francisco. Now they relied on buses, rapid transit, and walking to get around, which made good economic sense because the cost of maintaining even one car in this very expensive city would not have fit into their extremely tight budget.