It would not happen on Angus’s watch. In fact, if he was on the hunt for a highlight, saving Remède from ruin would come close.
For, once upon a time, Louis Fournier had saved him.
Post-university, making waves as the youngest-ever junior partner in a whiz-bang upstart marketing firm, he’d met Louis at an industry night at which the older man had been a plus one.
They’d started up a conversation at the bar and found commonality in their disinterest in schmoozing and their love of French New Wave cinema.
The conversation had moved to the hotel lounge, leading to Angus missing the moment his team had won an award that night. Not that it had mattered. In the hour he’d spent with Louis he had already mentally moved on.
For Louis Fournier was the first man his senior who had seen straight through the cool veneer, the steely ambition, to the hunger beneath. The hunger to truly make a difference. And to show Angus that hunger had inherent value.
“Latte, Monsieur Fournier?” Lucinda asked, snapping Angus back to the present. “Milk, no sugar?”
“Oui. Merci.”
Lucinda didn’t need to ask for Angus’s order. She knew how he liked his coffee, his steak, his calendar. She knew his shirt size, his in-seam measurements and his favourite underwear—having restocked the closet in his private bathroom many times over.
She also knew when to pass the team baton to Angus, to switch off the glamour and melt into the background.
When she returned a few minutes later, bringing the neat silver tray and comforting aroma of hot coffee into the room, Angus hid his smile behind his hand. He couldn’t remember the last time Lucinda had brought him coffee rather than farming it out to an intern. The last time he’d asked if she’d be so kind, she’d laughed so hard he’d heard it even after she’d closed the door between them.
But Louis was old-school. The kind of gentlemen who would never enter a room before a woman, who smiled and nodded at every person who met his eye. And Lucinda had a huge soft spot for the man.
She placed Louis’s elegant, heat-resistant, double-layered glass on the table at his elbow, alongside a plate of small French pastries.
“Ah,” Louis said, eyes closing against the heavenly scent. “Parfait.” Angus recognised his mug in an instant. She’d bought it for him for… Lent? The Queen’s birthday? International Pirate Day? He’d lost track of the occasions once their gift-buying had become a blood sport.
He turned the mug. On one side it boasted his favourite Winston Churchill quote: Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. The other side of the mug had a tacky photo of a penguin pushing another penguin off an ice shelf.
When he looked up, Lucinda was leaning over him, placing a smaller plate of pastries beside him. The frills trickling fussily down the front of her shirt weighed the fabric down, giving him a glimpse of white lace. The swell of female curves.
He tensed and looked up. Her eyes were on her work, a smile curving the glossy red of her lips. Definitely a new colour for her. It suited her. A great deal. So much so, he’d found himself staring. Considering.
Reminding himself this was Lucinda. His assistant. His right hand. His foundation. His conscience. The yin to his yang. The light to his dark. He could not do what he did without her.
Therefore, there was no staring at her lips. Or beyond the frills of her shirt. Or at any other part of her. No matter how inviting. No matter how lovely. Those were the rules he’d set himself from day one when he’d first seen her sitting outside Fitz’s office waiting for an interview, foot tapping with nerves, the rest of her glowing with eagerness, charm and life.
Her eyes shifted to his.
“Appreciate it,” he murmured.
“My pleasure,” she replied, though the criss-cross of creases over her nose were back.
Damn it.
Angus schooled his features until he knew he appeared cool, unmoved, the very picture of ambivalence—an expression learned over many years at the feet of those who’d enjoyed it when he flinched.
It was an expression that had once made an intern cry. Not a deliberate move, but there you go. Lucinda, on the other hand, raised a single eyebrow. Slowly. As if she was bemused he was trying such a move on her.
“Need anything else?” she asked, under her breath.
I need you to stand up, he thought, his eyes starting to water with the effort not to stray. He wondered for a brief moment if Fitz’s tank-like assistant Velma had a twin sister he could hire instead.
Lucinda righted herself—thank everything good and holy—her glossy dark hair swinging past her shoulders and showering him in the scent of her shampoo; coconut and lime, making him think of cocktails. Of holidays. Of Christmas parties. One in particular that he did his very best not to think about. Especially in the middle of important business meetings.
“Shall I leave you boys to it?” she asked, hip cocking, swinging her pencil-skirt-clad backside right into his eyeline.
Angus’s gaze shot to the ceiling. Was that a spider’s web on the light fixture?
“Merci, Lucinda,” Louis said, saving Angus from having to answer. “You are not only an utter delight and a great beauty, with excellent taste in perfume, you can now add coffee angel to your list of super powers.”
“And I shall.”
“In fact, have you ever considered cosmetic modelling?”
Lucinda un-cocked her hip. “What’s that, now?”
“Your skin is like satin, cherie.”
“My skin?”
“Louis,” said Angus, his voice a little gruff. “Are you making a move on my girl?”
At that Lucinda twisted and pinned Angus with a look he’d never seen before. Her eyes were wide, pink sweeping fast across her cheeks. Her mouth opened as if she was about to say something before she snapped it shut and turned slowly back to Louis.
“Monsieur Fournier, beneath the satiny veneer of my glorious Remède foundation is the lamentable skin of the mother of an eight-year-old who refuses to sleep past five in the morning.”
Then she bent down and kissed the older man on the cheek.
“But you are sweet for pretending. Now, stop distracting me. I am an important person with important work to do.” With that she stalked out of the room.
Both men followed with their eyes.
Louis broke the silence. “Never let that one go.”
“Count on it,” Angus promised, even if the amazing Velma did in fact have a nicer twin.
Then, putting all thoughts of red lips and white lace aside, Angus got to work.
For the next hour, and even after Louis had said his goodbyes, Lucinda sat at her desk and vacillated between fuming and telling herself to stop being so ridiculously reactive.
But the moment Angus had said the words “Are you making a move on my girl?” something had snapped inside her.
She wasn’t usually so touchy. She knew it had been a joke. One she’d usually have played along with if it got the job done.
It was as if the conversation with Cat the night before had pried something