Married to His Business / Six-Month Mistress: Married to His Business. Elizabeth Bevarly

to get too deeply involved with any of it. It had been so perfect. Until his brother, Luke, had come along and, as had been a habit with Lunkhead since their childhood, screwed up a perfectly good thing.

      But it wasn’t Lunkhead Luke who had screwed up things with Kendall, Matthias reminded himself. Kendall, who was exactly what Matthias did want and need in a personal assistant: pragmatic and professional, enterprising and efficient. In the five years she’d worked for him, she’d been his calendar, his clock, his coordinator. His bartender, his astrologer, his conscience. His butcher, his baker, his candlestick maker. His tinker, his tailor, his spy.

      That last word hit Matthias hard, since it was precisely what he’d just accused Kendall of being for someone else. Even though he knew she wouldn’t. Even though he knew she couldn’t. Although there was no question that Stephen DeGallo’s motive in hiring her had been driven by his hope—hell, his certainty—that he could persuade her to share information about both Matthias and Barton Limited that would work to his benefit, Matthias couldn’t honestly see her turning on him that way. He’d just been so surprised by her announcement that she’d already accepted a job somewhere else—and with his biggest competitor—that he hadn’t known what to say.

      Whenever she’d tried to tender her resignation before, Matthias had always been able to talk her out of it. And he’d always talked her out of it because he’d needed her here. Hell, he knew she was overqualified for her position. That was why he’d given her so many raises over the years that she was now making almost twice what her predecessors had made. Yeah, okay, maybe she could be doing more with her degree and her savvy, he conceded reluctantly. But she didn’t have to do it for OmniTech.

      There was no way Stephen DeGallo had recruited Kendall for her résumé. He didn’t see her the way Matthias did—pragmatic and professional, enterprising and efficient. She was just an opportunity to mine the practices and policies of Barton Limited. Nothing more.

      He expelled a disgruntled breath of air as he continued to look at the closed door. Well, he’d just have to get along without her, wouldn’t he? He’d just hire another personal assistant, that was all. Someone else who was pragmatic and professional, enterprising and efficient. Someone else who would be his calendar, clock and conscience. That shouldn’t be so hard, right? He’d put Kendall on it right away.

      His finger was actually on the buzzer to call her in before he realized what he’d been about to do. Ask Kendall, the woman he’d just fired—not to mention insulted—to hire a replacement for herself. He shook his head and chuckled at himself for the gaffe, even if he couldn’t find anything especially funny about it. Man. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think he couldn’t do anything without Kendall. And that, he knew, was nuts.

      He was a captain of industry. He had made his first million less than a year after graduating from college, and he’d multiplied it dozens of times over since. He headed a Fortune 500 Company that employed thousands of people all over the world.

      So he’d lost his personal assistant, he thought. So what? Personal assistants were as easy to find as cheap champagne on New Year’s Eve. He’d hire another one tomorrow. Have the person trained well enough by the time he left for Tahoe that they would at least have the basics down. Actually, the timing, as Kendall had said, was perfect. He could use the month in Tahoe with his new assistant to mold him or her to his liking.

      Matthias would get along just fine without Kendall Scarborough. Hell, yes, he would.

      Hell, yes.

      Two

      Kendall made the trip to Tahoe courtesy of OmniTech, enjoying the brief flight in first class. A rental car awaited her on arrival, a luxury sedan that was quite the posh way to travel, compared to her little economy car at home. Maybe on her new salary, she could ultimately buy something like this, she thought as she settled into the leather seat and pushed the button to open the sunroof. As the balmy summer air tumbled into the car, she donned her sunglasses, fastened her seat belt over her white oxford shirt and khaki trousers and tuned the radio to the jazz station. Then, feeling like a corporate executive for the first time in her life, she pulled out of the rental lot at the airport basking in contentment.

      Until she thought about Matthias Barton. Then her contentment fled. And what she’d hoped would be a peaceful, introspective drive that was filled with planning for her future at OmniTech suddenly turned into a grueling marathon of disgruntlement instead.

      But then, thoughts of Matthias—never mind disgruntlement—had been regular companions over the two weeks that had passed since she’d last seen him. So as she merged onto the highway, Kendall did her best to think of something— anything—else. How she needed to replace the hardware on her kitchen cabinets. The fact that women’s shoe manufacturers still hadn’t figured out how to wed style with comfort. Why the sky was blue and the grass was green. The atomic weight of boron. Where the contestants of Survivor should go next—though, admittedly, it probably wasn’t polite for her to say aloud where she thought they should go. Whatever it took to keep from hearing again those two little words she’d never thought she’d hear Matthias say to her.

      You’re fired.

      She still couldn’t believe he’d done it. After giving him five years of her life, years she could have spent building her own career instead of bolstering his, he’d cut her loose in the most insulting way possible. She’d seen him fire plenty of people during the time she’d worked for him, but they were people who’d deserved the boot. Employees who had been, at best, ineffective, and at worst, dishonest. People who had cheated him, or lied to him, or stolen from him. Now Kendall, who had never missed a day on the job, and whose work ethic had been irreproachable, had been relegated to their ranks.

      But even that wasn’t what bothered her the most. What bothered her the most was her own reaction to having been fired. She told herself she should be angry with Matthias for the way he’d dismissed her. She should be resentful. She should be outraged. She should be reporting him to the Equal Opportunity Commission. Instead, what she felt was hurt. Hurt in the same way a little girl feels hurt when she’s always picked last for kickball. And hurt feelings were not something a consummate professional like Kendall should feel.

      Matthias was right about one thing. She hadn’t learned as much from him as she’d thought she would when she accepted the position, if she couldn’t be the focused, unflinching businesswoman she’d envisioned becoming. She could be as ruthless and determined as Matthias was, she told herself. She could. And she would be, too. Starting the moment she passed through the doors of the Timber Lake Inn.

      That must be a new hotel in Tahoe, Kendall thought as she exited onto the road that would take her to her final destination. She’d never heard of it before. It was kind of an odd name for a conference hotel, too. They must be trying to make business travel sound less businessy or something.

      She glanced at the numbers on a shop window to get her bearings and calculated that the hotel was another eight blocks down, toward the lake. She hadn’t been to Tahoe since college, she realized as she drove, smiling at the shops boasting kites and artwork and jewelry and clothes. In the winter, there would be skis lined up everywhere, but during the summer, there were water toys and rafts instead. People dotted the streets in their bright summer colors and sunglasses, lolling at café tables and sauntering in and out of stores. The weather was perfect for being outdoors, the air kissed with just a hint of the cool breeze gliding off the lake, the sky a faultless blue streaked with gauzy clouds.

      Kendall smiled at the promise inherent in the day. It was a good omen. She had been right to leave Matthias’s employ. Stephen DeGallo’s offer couldn’t have come at a better time. Funny how things just worked out perfectly sometimes. She had a full week to spend in one of the most beautiful places on earth, learning about a new career that, she hoped, would be hers for the rest of her life. Her future at OmniTech was wide-open. If she worked hard and did everything right—who knew?—she might even become the CEO of the company herself someday. Stephen DeGallo was a confirmed bachelor in his late forties with no family he was bringing up through the ranks, and he was known for rewarding his workers with generous benefits