From Boss to Bridegroom by Victoria Pade Read Free Book Online Page B

your own today.” Nothing but one task after another that she was to take care of.
    He doesn’t owe you any more than that. You’re just his secretary, she lectured herself, trying not to let it bother her as she read the list.
    1. Pick up dry cleaning
    2. Make enclosed bank deposit
    3. Go to florist to hand-pick three arrangements and sign cards: Happy Birthday Deidre. Rand/Congratulations on your promotion, Bunny. I had a great time celebrating. Rand / Thanks for a wonderful evening, Veronica. Rand
    There were other items on the list but she was too struck to read them in any detail. Instead she reread the first three things, the third several times, feeling her pique rise higher with each reading.
    What did he think she was, his handmaiden? His servant? His social secretary? Laundry and bankdeposits and flowers to girlfriends. Girlfriends! Plural. Deidre and Bunny and Veronica.
    Did he imagine himself to be some kind of playboy potentate? Dishing out orders without so much as a please or thank-you. Forcing her to write his love missives to other women at the same time she was supposed to play wife with his cleaning and banking?
    What nerve. What gall. What—
    What was she doing getting mad?
    Lucy put the brakes on the things going through her mind, on the anger that was gaining momentum.
    You’re just his secretary, she reminded herself yet again.
    Granted, she hadn’t assumed the job would entail his personal errands. That wasn’t what she had agreed to and it also wasn’t something she would have agreed to. But that wasn’t all that was making her mad. Every time she read that third item on the list and saw those other women’s names, she could feel her blood boil.
    And why? she asked herself.
    Because she was jealous.
    She abhorred the very idea. But there it was—unwarranted, unwanted jealousy. Jealousy she had no right to. No reason for. No rational excuse for.
    You’re just his secretary!
    Her aunt had told her Rand was a man-about-town. But somehow Lucy hadn’t taken that intoconsideration. Why should she have? It didn’t have anything to do with her.
    Except that one day of working for him and she was feeling possessive.
    It was insane.
    She had no business feeling that way.
    Social and interpersonal deprivation or not, this was uncalled for.
    On the other hand, she thought as she fought to regain some control, some equilibrium, maybe this was just the wake-up call she needed today. Maybe it was good to have the evidence right under her nose that Rand was the man he was. That he wasn’t some uncomplicated, ordinary nice guy who might break down her barriers to convince her that she should allow him into Max’s and her life.
    No, what she had there in front of her was written proof that Rand Colton was an entirely different breed. A breed that juggled women and didn’t have time for kids.
    And she was just his secretary. His temporary secretary.
    And she’d better not forget it.
    But still, as the car stopped at the curb in front of the dry cleaners for her first chore of the day, she couldn’t untie the knot in the pit of her stomach left by that renewed knowledge that she and Rand Colton were on two very different tracks.
    That she was on the mommy track with Max.
    And that Rand was on the fast track with Deidre, Bunny and Veronica.
    Â 
    â€œSo, Max, have you told your mom what you want to be when you grow up?”
    Sadie had invited Max and Lucy to dinner that night and while she and Lucy put together a salad, Max sat at the kitchen table coloring in his new coloring book.
    â€œNo, not yet,” Max answered.
    â€œToday’s story at day care was about what to be when you grow up and then everybody got a turn talking about it,” Sadie explained to Lucy.
    â€œLast I heard you wanted to be a fighter pilot or a policeman,” Lucy said.
    â€œNot anymore,” Max informed her matter-of-factly, without looking up from