I tore my eyes away from the Walking Dead marathon playing on the tiny screen above my elliptical, creasing my brows together as I faced her. “Oh? Which woman?”
“Your attempt at sounding nonchalant sucks so hard,” she said dryly as she pushed a damp strand of dark hair off her forehead. “But, since it might be important—Finley Scott.” The name didn’t ring a bell, and I grabbed my phone from its spot inside the machine’s cup holder. “Ugh, just screw the man already. You’re seconds away from falling on your face just so you can look up his ex-girlfriend. That’s kind of sad, sweetie.”
I narrowed my dark eyes into a glare as my fingers tapped across the smooth keypad. “He’s my—” My words caught in the back of my throat as several images of Finley Scott popped up on my screen. With her chin-length, shiny mahogany hair, startling hazel eyes, and Yoga body, she was hot. Outrageously hot. But what the hell did I expect when it came to Oliver?
“If you were about to give me that stepbrother crap, I’m going to knock you off that damn machine myself,” Pen stated hotly, rubbing her towel over her face before tossing it over her shoulder. “I’m more related to you than he is.”
I returned my phone back to the tiny compartment on the elliptical, adjusted the incline, and pumped my legs even harder than before. “So now what?”
“You want my opinion on Oliver?”
“I’m talking about his mom,” I said between clenched teeth.
“Ahh.” I couldn’t miss the grin that moved across her face. “I’m going to work on getting into her laptop, but in the meantime, you need to figure out how to get into her house.”
“Great,” I whispered under my breath.
Pen turned to me abruptly. “You can do this. You’re her personal assistant, so she’s bound to send you there for something eventually. Figure out a way to speed that up.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“Don’t worry, if there’s anything to figure out, we’ll get it.”
“And if there’s not?” I asked miserably. Though I hated to admit it to Pen, there had been many times where I doubted myself for coming to L.A.
“Well, at least it got you out of Vegas for a while. You can’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed taking ... a break.” She was quiet for a moment, and then she said so softly I could barely hear her over the hum of the exercise machines, “August is helping me get a copy of your father’s will.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and hated that the mention of my dad’s last will and testament automatically brought to mind the conversation I’d had with Margaret’s lawyer seven years ago. “I’ve seen it before.”
“But you don’t have a copy of your own,” she reminded me. “And now you have me. I’m not about to let some lawyer scare me into backing down.”
Opening my eyes, I laughed because it was the only thing I could do not to burst into tears. “No, you’re bypassing lawyers and a paperwork trail so you can look at it.”
Pen lifted her shoulders, making an unconcerned face when her eyes dropped to her sweaty skin. “Yeah, well, there’s that too.”
Chapter 7
The next morning, I walked in to my office to find a pleasant surprise. The event planner coordinating Margaret’s fourth annual Halloween Charity Ball had left me a voicemail over the weekend. Although she sounded somewhat irritated, her message still took what felt like a hundred pounds of pressure off my chest.
“Ms. Connelly? This is Natalie Roche, from Natalie Roche Events. I received your messages, and I’ll be able to accommodate your needs. I can meet you at ten-fifteen Monday morning in the Heritage Ballroom. If you can’t make it, please call my cell. Once again the address is—”
Sliding Margaret’s coffee to the edge of my desk, I grabbed my LCD tablet and jotted down the address. I replayed the voicemail to make sure I got it right before hanging up my work phone and texting everything I’d written down to myself. It was 9:28 now, which meant I’d have to leave to meet Natalie as soon as I was finished checking in with the stepmonster. Balancing her latte, my purse, and the folder full of information she’d requested last week, I flipped off the light switch and went across the hall to her office.
She was already behind her desk, looking formidable in a white tailored suit that only Margaret Manning-Emerson could pull off in October, and her blond, highlighted hair was twisted into an elegant knot at the nape of her slim neck.
“Did you enjoy your trip to New York?”
“Did you rearrange the Paris trip like I asked you to?” she countered, referring to one of the instructions she’d given me in the email she’d sent while she was away last week.
I lowered her coffee to the silver coaster by her right hand and the folder next to her desktop monitor, eyeballing the laptop she was hastily pecking away on without pause. God, I couldn’t wait to get a look at what she kept hidden away on that thing. Dragging my attention from the second computer, I pointed to the folder.
“Everything for the Paris trip is right here. Also, the hotel upgraded you to the presidential suite free of charge after I let them know what you said about your last stay there.”
“Good enough.” Although I’d hoped I wouldn’t be thinking about him so soon, hearing her mutter those two words instantly reminded me of Oliver. I thought back to what he’d told me last week in his office, about her reaction to his speech problems when he was a child, and I fought to keep my gaze neutral. To keep myself from slamming her computer screen closed, regardless of what flesh might be in the way.
“Any progress with Roche?” she questioned.
“I’m actually headed out to meet her now.” Pressing the point home, I reached into the side of my used Prada bag and fished out my car keys. “She’s expecting me to meet her at the venue in less than an hour.”
Margaret’s head popped up, her fingers hovering motionless above the laptop. “What did you say?”
The smile I offered her was the first genuine one I’d managed since stepping foot in her office, even if there was an underlying smugness to it. “Natalie left me a message over the weekend and confirmed that she’d meet me this morning,” I explained as I started to back up to the double doors. I was still a little stunned about that myself, considering last week the event planner had sworn up and down that meeting today wasn’t a possibility.
My boss blinked once, twice, and then a third time, and I thought I would explode from the delight rolling through me. Sliding her chair closer to the desk, she tilted her thin body forward. “Make sure you record it on your phone.”
“Excuse me?”
“Make. Sure. You. Record. It.” She swallowed a drink of her latte, the fact that it was still steaming hot not seeming to bother her one bit. “When I get the chance this week, I’d like to take a look. Have her explain where everything will go. This is a different location from previous years, and I’m absolutely kicking myself for letting Oliver convince me to change everything around.”
I froze the moment she said his name, and I prayed she couldn’t see my reaction. Then I tried to convince myself that my response was only because this was the first time I’d heard of Oliver’s involvement with the event.
“Is he co-sponsoring?” I asked nonchalantly.
“The Heritage is owned by Manning.” She returned her focus to her laptop, her manicured fingers beating a rhythm across the keys. “When you come back to the office this afternoon, I need you to start organizing lunch for fourteen to be delivered tomorrow. Do you think you can handle that?”
“Definitely. Do you have a particular restaurant in mind?”
Releasing a hiss of irritation, Margaret looked up from her screen. “Weren’t you an assistant before this?” she demanded, and when I replied that I was, she snapped, “Then you should realize I’m too busy to go through menus. If the menu is in the approved stack in your office, it’s acceptable. Surprise me!”