“Black…if you don’t mind.”
Her full lips split into an instant smile. “Just like your father.”
A frustrated sigh escaped his chest before he thought better to contain his irritation.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, unfazed or ignoring the response. “You can go ahead and get started,” she tossed over her shoulder as she headed toward the door.
Malcolm’s gaze traveled down her, taking in her every curve until she slipped out of the door. He sighed and then shook his head clear of the direction his thoughts were heading. He turned around and crashed gazes with his father’s portrait hanging on the wall.
“What?” he mumbled toward his father’s stern expression. “Can’t a man look?”
Drawing a deep breath, Malcolm turned and walked to one of the sturdy mahogany shelves lined with photographs. As his eyes brushed across a collage of images that summed up his father’s life, tears rose unrelentingly.
Family pictures were mixed with his father posing with the president of the United States, the vice president, the speaker of the House and even his father’s good friends, Senator Cayman and Judge Hanlon.
Harmon Braddock in his element.
Was it a life well lived? Had his father accomplished everything he’d set out to do? Was his father happy about the man he’d become?
Malcolm drew in a deep breath, wondering if he would ever know the answer to any of those questions. His father certainly wasn’t the man he’d once idolized.
Selecting one iron-and-glass frame, he studied the photograph he’d known most of his life: the picture of his father and mother on their wedding day. His mother, an extraordinary beauty for any era, clung to and smiled up at her new husband through love-filled eyes. It was as if his mother knew without a doubt she’d married her second half, her heart, her soul mate.
Harmon Braddock held his wife with equal fervor; his promise to love and cherish was evident in his expression. Everyone who’d ever seen this photograph commented on how striking and in love the couple seemed.
To which his father always replied, “How can one not fall in love with Evelyn?”
Malcolm smiled at the sound of his father’s voice echoing from a distant memory while his gaze caressed the picture. He’d always loved this picture, for reasons more clear to him now than ever before. His parents’ love was a rarity. Nowadays, marriages didn’t last as long nor did they seem to strengthen over time. As much as their love was inspiring, though, it was also intimidating.
How did one know without any doubts they’d met their destiny? Malcolm thought he’d met her once but he’d been wrong.
Setting the photo down, he casually glanced at another. Shawnie receiving her law degree from the University of Texas, Ty and Felicia’s official engagement photo…
“Okay,” Gloria said, breezing back into the office with two steaming cups. “Black coffee for you and one hot tea for me.”
Whatever heartache Malcolm experienced was temporarily forgotten when he faced Gloria and noticed in her approach a fuller display of her creamy brown breasts thrust high in a black-laced bra.
“Here you go,” she said, trying to extend the mug out to him a second time.
He lifted his hand but his mouth had slackened.
She frowned and then followed his line of vision to see another button had worked its way free.
“Oh, my God!” She thrust the cup toward him; his coffee sloshed over the rim and burned them both.
Malcolm winced but managed to hold on to the cup.
Gloria jerked her hand back, waved it in the air as she turned toward the large desk and set her tea down in order to attend to the blouse. “You know you could have said something,” she snapped.
“Sorry,” he said with little conviction. “I was working on it.”
“Yeah. Right.”
Lips curving, Malcolm rather liked seeing Gloria’s feathers ruffled, especially since before now he didn’t think such a thing was possible. “Look, Gloria. I—”
“Forget it,” she muttered while glancing around the floor. “Just help me find the button.”
Still wearing a smile, Malcolm launched into an immediate investigation for the missing clear button against the office’s champagne-colored carpet. That is, until Gloria lowered herself onto all fours and drew Malcolm’s attention to her glorious apple bottom.
“It has to be around here somewhere,” Gloria mumbled, fanning her hands across the carpet as she crawled her way back toward the door.
Time seemed to stop as Malcolm watched Gloria inch her way up the carpet. A near-unbearable heat scorched up the column of his neck and burned the tips of his ears. Malcolm fingered his collar loose, mistakenly thinking that it was the cause of his inability to get air into his lungs. Not to mention the unexpected throb and ache against his pants’ inseam.
Just the sight of the uptight and always-proper assistant kneeling down on all fours made him fantasize about what else that position was good for.
“Here it is. I found it,” Gloria exclaimed, pushing up to sit on her haunches.
Malcolm came out of his trance quick enough to set his coffee down and offer his hand to help her up. “Glad that crisis is over with,” he joked, but his throat was still clogged with the residue of lust.
When Gloria arched a delicately groomed brow, he quickly coughed as a lame cover.
“Thanks,” she said, placing her hand into his.
At the feel of her silky palm sliding into his, Malcolm was sure his body temperature soared into the triple digits.
What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn’t stand Ms. Gloria “Know-It-All” Kingsley.
Right?
Just then, as if to rescue them from themselves, Mabel burst into the office with her arms bursting with packing material.
“I got everything you asked for, Gloria,” she said, finding a nice clear spot in the center of the room and dropping everything. “Whew!” She straightened her back just as her eyes widened to twice their size. “Malcolm,” she exclaimed, rushing around the pile of packing material and then pulling him into her pillow-soft body.
If Mabel was ever to enter into a celebrity look-alike contest, she would win for Star Jones (pre-surgery) hands down. “Gloria said that you were coming in here to help pack this stuff, but I kept telling her that it was just too soon for you to be dealing with all this right now.”
Malcolm shot a glance at Gloria, triumphant that someone agreed with him.
A frown settled around the corners of Gloria’s lips.
“It’s still work that needs to be done,” he said, quoting the efficient assistant and managing to bring a smile back to her face.
“I think we’d better get started,” she said.
Malcolm readily agreed. “Will you be joining us, Mabel?”
“Unfortunately not. I have four hungry teenage boys and a construction-worker husband who’d be rumbling up a storm if dinner isn’t on the table on time. But I’ll be seeing you again soon, I hope.”
He smiled. “You can count on it.”
“Good. Good.” Mabel turned toward Gloria and her smile dropped. “Ms. Kingsley,” she hissed, and then covered a hand over her own bosom. “Your blouse.”
“Oh, yes.” Gloria blinked. “I just found my button.” She turned toward the