On his way back down the hall, he stopped at Latonya Stevens’s door. He couldn’t figure out what it was about the woman that triggered the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he hoped he knew enough to stay away from her. He realized that if he had any sense he wouldn’t have been standing in front of her door.
He was about to turn away when she looked up from the paperwork on her desk. His stomach turned over and he almost smiled. However, the look on her face turned quickly into a frown when she saw him standing there. Before he could talk any sense into himself, his feet were heading directly into her office.
Latonya gritted her teeth. After weeks of managing to avoid prolonged contact with Carlton Harrington III, he’d just come barging into her office. When she heard footsteps in the hallway, she thought it might have been Jeff coming back to try to convince her to come with them to Soka’s again. Flirting playboys, she could handle. Brooding, sexy bosses, she needed help with. Her immunity to men didn’t seem to work at all with Carlton.
She had been with Harrington Enterprise for almost a year when the boss’s grandson, Carlton Harrington III, had temporarily taken over her division. He had just returned from heading up an expansion project that pushed the Bahamas and Miami-based company farther into the Caribbean and seemed intent on making changes and making his mark.
The first Monday that she worked with Carlton she realized that she had several reasons to be nervous. The most unsettling were his ruggedly handsome looks and the powerful sensuality that she swore dripped from his pores. She had never seen a man so fine in all her life. His custom-made business suits, starched-shirts and silk ties draped his perfect form in a manner that proved the man made the clothes. She couldn’t imagine any other man exuding a tenth of the cool, suave confidence he did in those suits.
The perfect combination of smooth dark chocolate with just barely a hint of milk, he had broad shoulders and well-defined muscles. His lush lips appeared soft to the touch. Although he never smiled at her, when she saw him smile at others, she had to admit that the perfect teeth along with those lips made for one delightful grin.
His eyes called to mind deep, dark pools of water; they were liquid fire and full of expression. The only problem was, from the time he first laid eyes on her, she felt as if all his eyes could express were irritation and dissatisfaction. His perfectly squared jaw-line and sweet lips were always set in a frown whenever Latonya entered the room.
She couldn’t seem to do anything right for the grumpy man. He never managed more than grunts toward her, but with others he seemed cordial, even friendly. She told herself by the end of their first week working together that she really could not stand the man, no matter how handsome he was.
If only that were true. Honestly, for the first time in her young life she was finding herself intensely attracted to a man. She got heart palpitations whenever she was in the same room with him. She had to think of increasingly creative ways to maintain a façade of calm.
Finishing up a report that wasn’t due until the following week, she tried to still her rapidly beating heart at the sight of Carlton. Everyone else had long since clocked out, but she was staying late as she usually did, going above and beyond the call of duty because she needed to get a promotion.
“What the hell do you call this?” Carlton threw several pages held together by a gold paper clip onto her desk.
She watched the papers fall and took several breaths to compose herself before she picked them up. Before responding to the rude and insufferable man, Latonya noted that it wasn’t even her report. She peered up at him and blinked, startled by how handsome he managed to look even when brooding. She squinted, took a deep breath, and reminded herself that the man was her boss.
She pursed her lips a moment and then spoke, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “This is Jeff Weatherby’s report on the Biltmore project.”
The scowl on his face told her right away that she’d sounded sarcastic, anyway. Sighing, she reasoned her long week—the younger Harrington being the biggest contributor to its length—was almost over.
His eyes narrowed in on her. “No kidding! I know what it is. I want to know why it’s incomplete!”
“Did you ask Jeff?” Latonya’s sarcasm refused to be contained.
“I’m asking you.”
“Well, I don’t know.” Shut up while you still have a job, girl! She never listened to her inner voice when she should.
“Get him on the phone and ask him.”
She took a deep breath, rolled her eyes and picked up the phone. She knew Jeff wasn’t home. Rather than telling Harrington, she looked up the number and dialed it, anyway. When Jeff didn’t answer, she left a detailed message, and then turned to face Carlton. Her pleasant smile dropped as soon as she noticed him glaring at her as if she were the bane of his existence.
His right eyebrow slanted and a smirk spread across his face. “Since you can’t get in touch with Weatherby, you can fill in the missing facts. I need this before the end of the evening.”
“What? It’s not my report! Why should I have to spend my Friday night finishing Jeff’s work?” All false pleasantries fell from her face and her voice.
“It shouldn’t be that much of a problem. You are familiar with the ins and outs of the project, aren’t you? You should be. There is no reason why you can’t go through the files and data and finish this report within a few hours.”
“What if I have plans, Mr. Harrington?” She had no personal plans, but she did need to relieve her grandmother’s home health aide.
“Cancel them. I’d like that report before you leave.” Turning, he walked briskly away.
Watching his retreating back, she cursed herself for noticing how his muscles filled out the shirt he wore. To her, Carlton was simply an insensitive jerk—albeit an extremely fine insensitive jerk—that she would have to learn how to work with until, God willing, he got sent off on some other plush assignment. He wasn’t even her real boss. He was just filling in until the company decided on a replacement for the former head of the marketing department. Latonya hoped, perhaps unrealistically, that even though she hadn’t been with the company long, she would be considered for the position. However, her on-going battle with the younger Harrington, made that seem less and less like an attainable dream.
Latonya angrily added the missing information and printed out a new report within an hour. Because of her desire and pressing needs to rise quickly in the company, she was on top of all of her projects and the projects of her coworkers.
Without bothering to knock, she walked into Carlton’s office, dropped the report on his desk and didn’t wait for his response. The ogre looked up from his computer and his gaze narrowed in on her, but she refused to acknowledge his glare. With briefcase and purse in hand, she headed to the elevator and left the building before saying or doing anything that would put her job in further jeopardy.
Instead of heading straight home, she stopped at Soka’s. She had a few choice words for Jeff Weatherby and she planned on giving them to him straight away. He would get the telling off she’d had to hold back from their temporary boss.
Filled to capacity, the bustling brewery was a vibrant melting pot, filled with people from various races and ethnicities all laughing, drinking and partying together. Decorated in bright blues, subtle greens and warm tans, the inside of the brewery captured the colors of the water, sand and palm trees that surrounded the city. The deejay played a mixture of salsa, reggae and popular American music, and people had already taken to the dance floor.
“Hey, look who decided to grace us with her company. It’s Stevens. What are you drinking, beautiful?” Always charming, Jeff gave Latonya his best dazzling smile. He’d removed his tie and rolled up his sleeves.
Jeff stood to greet her and gave her a hug. Latonya smiled in spite of the fact that she was there to tell him off and thanked God she considered herself playa-proof.
Latonya leaned into his embrace and the perpetual flirt pecked her on the cheek. “Don’t ‘beautiful’ me. I just got reamed out by the boss because of your half-finished report. He made me finish it.”
Jeff gave a shocked expression and opened his mouth to respond, but Stan chimed in first.
“No shit?” Stan rubbed his chin. “Wow, the boss really seems to have it in for you. It’s crazy, because you’re like the hardest worker out of all of us.”
Latonya cut Jeff a nasty look. “Well, at least you know it, Stan. And, Jeff, if you’re going to hand in incomplete reports, let a sistah know so she can get out of the line of fire.”
“That report would have been just fine for the old boss,” Jeff countered playfully. “I’ll tell you, I think Carlton Harrington III just has something to prove because he’s the boss’s grandkid. I say we all keep doing the caliber of work we did for Samuels and let him get used to our way of doing things.”
Jeff was using his charm to try to incite insurrection, but Latonya wasn’t having it.
“Well, I always make sure my reports are thorough. And since he didn’t have me finish anyone else’s report but yours, why don’t you step it up a notch?”
Pouting, Jeff shrugged before breaking out a sulking frown. “Oh, come on, beautiful. You’re bringing me down. It’s Friday. Let me buy you a drink and let’s just forget this. Come on. Sit down and take a load off. White wine, right?” The consummate charmer, Jeff knew when to give up a losing battle.
