“How selfless of you to loan me Francesca Masseria.” He sat back in his desk chair and took his Kenyan brew with him.
“Isn’t it?” Coburn grinned. He took the seat opposite him. “Sometimes I can sacrifice for the greater good, H.”
Harrison frowned. He hated when Coburn called him H and he knew it. “How many times have you slept with her?”
His brother gave him a look of mock offence. “Not even once. Although it’s tempting. If God designed the perfect woman and set her down on this earth, it’d be Frankie and those legs of hers.”
“Francesca,” Harrison corrected, refusing to go there. “And you don’t speak about an employee in that manner.”
You just had hot, explicit dreams about them.
Coburn rolled his eyes.
“You’ve moaned about not having a good PA for years, then when you get one you love, you hand her over to me. Why?”
His brother trained his striking blue gaze on him the way he did the board when he wanted them on their knees. “Self-preservation. Frankie is a knockout. Of late, I’ve discovered she has a crush on me, although not one of her very proper bones would ever admit it. It’s only a matter of time before we end up in bed together and I want to prevent that from happening because I want to keep her as my PA.” He shrugged. “So I send her to the school of Harrison for six months, you train her with that regimental authority of yours, and I get her back when I am fully immersed in someone else, better than she was before.”
If Harrison hadn’t known his younger brother as well as he did, he would have assumed he was joking. But this was Coburn, who possessed every genetic trait the youngest born was created to feature, including an exaggerated sense of the need for his own independence from everything, including serious relationships with females and his responsibilities to Grant Industries.
“You do realize if HR heard even a quarter of that speech, I’d have to fire you.”
Coburn lifted a Rolex-clad hand. “Then I retire to the south of Italy, road-race most of the year and manage my shares from there. Either works for me.”
Harrison tamped down the barely restrained aggression he felt toward his younger brother. “She’s not experienced enough for the job.”
“This is Frankie we’re talking about. You’ll see when you meet her.”
“Francesca,” Harrison corrected again. “And I met her last night.”
Coburn frowned. “How? You’ve only just gotten back.”
“She was working late. Likely trying to make sense of things with Tessa’s abrupt departure... I stopped in for a file.”
“Your own fault,” Coburn pointed out. “You’ve known for months Tessa was leaving and you did nothing about it.”
Because he couldn’t bear to be without his mind-bogglingly good PA who made his insane life bearable. Avoidance had been preferable...
“Anyway,” Coburn continued, “it’s the perfect solution for both of us. Frankie is incredible. Green, yes, but just as smart as Tessa. And,” he added, pausing for effect, “she speaks Russian.”
“Russian?”
“Fluently. Plus Italian, but I’m thinking the Russian is going to be more useful to you right now.”
“How does she speak Russian?”
Coburn frowned. “I think she said her best friend is Russian. Something like that...”
Given his solitary goal in life at the moment was to obliterate Anton Markovic, the man who’d put his father in his grave, and negotiations to make it happen were at an extremely fragile stage with Leonid Aristov balking at the deal to acquire his company, a PA who could speak Russian could be a very valuable asset.
The amusement faded from Coburn’s face. “You don’t have to keep at this, you know? Father is ten feet under. He’s never going to see you bring Markovic down. You’re doing this for you, Harrison, not him. And lord knows you need a life.”
His hands curled tightly around his coffee mug, his knuckles gleaming white. His younger brother’s lack of interest in avenging the man who had built this company was a position he had long understood. His personal opinions on how he lived his life? Meaningless, when he had always been the only person holding this company together.
He put his coffee cup down on the desk before he crushed it between his fingers, and focused his gaze on his brother. “How about you keep playing with those international markets and making us money like you do and save your philosophical sermons for someone who cares?”
Coburn’s easygoing expression slid into one approaching the frigidness of his. “Someday you’re going to realize that cold heart of yours has left you alone in this big empty world, H. And when you do, nobody is going to care anymore. But that’s okay, because you will have your vengeance.”
Harrison flashed him a “see yourself out” look. Coburn stood, straightened his suit coat and paused by the door. “I gave you Frankie because you need her. But if you so much as cause one tear to roll down her face, you’ll answer to me for it. You hear me?”
His brother disappeared in a wave of expensive aftershave. Harrison glanced at the clock on the wall. Seven-thirty. It was 7:30 a.m. and already he was exhausted. His life exhausted him.
* * *
Frankie came to work armed and ready, although that might be an unfortunate turn of phrase given last night’s occurrences. “Okay,” she admitted to Rocky, who still looked less than thrilled to be in his new surroundings, but marginally calmer than yesterday, “let’s just say that was a bad choice of words.”
She had worn her most expensive suit today, which wasn’t very expensive given her limited budget for a wardrobe after paying rent for the brownstone apartment she shared with Josephine. But she’d altered it so it looked custom, the lightweight, charcoal-gray tailored jacket and skirt hugging her curves without broadcasting the depth of them. The color did something for her dark hair and gray eyes she considered inferior to those of her striking female siblings, and her chignon, well, it was the most perfect she’d ever attempted. Geri from Accounting had looked noticeably envious this morning on the elevator, and if there was a morning she needed to win their dueling hairstyle competition, it was this.
She needed all the confidence she could muster facing her new boss this morning. If he decided to keep her.
Dumping her purse in her drawer, she ignored her rumbling stomach. She’d tried to eat, but she hadn’t been able to get any breakfast down except a slice of toast and juice. She refused to call it nerves because she needed to have full armor on this morning. She’d been noticeably jumpy when the security guard had checked her ID downstairs and that scene of her boss in handcuffs kept replaying itself over and over in her head.
And then there had been his bedroom voice last night on the phone and her resulting descent into lunacy... Her stomach dipped. Today she was going to revert back to her usual, capable self: five steps ahead of her boss at all times, unruffleable and cheerful no matter what the request. And she was going to stay far, far away from that panic button. In fact, she was going to cover it with tape.
Mouth set in a firm gesture of determination, she ran her hands over her head to ensure every hair was in place and, satisfied she was all cool sophistication, walked toward Harrison’s office. His brisk, clipped voice directing a conference call stopped her in her tracks. This was good. It would give her time to get organized. Having a boss who came in at 7:00 a.m. left you a bit flat-footed.