Kylie rolled her eyes looking over at her boss, Max who poured himself another glass of Scotch, the liquid crackling the ice.
It had been one of those days when one glass just wasn't going to do it.
He had just breezed in from an out of town business jag and thrown his coat on the lounge seat before heading to his office to conduct a conference call. That would hook him up with five other CEOs of other business firms to discuss the recent legislation passed by the state senate. When Michelle, the receptionist and gatekeeper who manned the front desk handed him some contract forms, he simply nodded but said nothing.
Kylie looked up at him from where she sat dressed in her business attire which meant a stiffly ironed blouse over an even more pressed skirt. She had a jacket slung over the back of her chair and pumps on her feet
Only a necklace of small pearls around her neck spiced up her orderly clothes. God, she hated dressing up like this. When she had graduated from Hastings School of Law, she had dreamed of wearing business pants to work and not these ridiculous skirts. The nylons itched her lithe legs she kept in shape through running and hiking in the foothills surrounding the city.
But Max liked his staff attorneys in feminine attire, and Michelle had told her the first day of work that it had been because he favored females appearing for him in court to soften up the competition.
Max knew that the world of business still held a sexist bent and he planned to use that against his rivals by fielding a team of the top female attorneys all who would be underestimated simply for being female. Kylie hoped that this story which had traveled around the office building hadn't been the truth.
After all, she had grown up not too far away from Max in terms of geography even though they'd been farther apart in social status. Max's father had founded one of the top chains of hotels in the country. He hadn't owned more than a half dozen at a time but each one had been customized in the luxury it afforded the clientele who could afford to stay there.
He still traveled the globe looking for new frontiers and hotels that could be tailored to best fit them. Last month, he had been to the Arctic looking at spots to build one of the largest hotels made entirely out of ice. Another would be built more than 15 feet in the depths of the ocean, accessible only by a mini-sub.
Many analysts in the industry had called him eccentric at best and insane at worst but Max' father had known what he was doing. But the son of the successful hotel kingpin hadn't wanted his father's cash or his guidance. He had wanted to build his own empire and he had been doing that.
Only it had been in designing and selling customized security systems to a growing list of clients, who represented all the different fields that required such services. Max had just bought a chateau in the south of France to join to another growing list of prime real estate he had purchased. She had no doubt he would spend time in all his bases of operation though none for too long given his propensity to keep moving.
But right now, he stood still enough in front of her...for now. Good, because she loved looking at her boss given that his physique could lure every weakness inside of a woman to the surface. He stood tall enough at just over six feet and his body, muscled like a quarterback instead of a line backer. Hands that could curve around a football, legs that could power him through a marathon, Max had grown up loving all kinds of sports, especially those that thrived on constant motion.
Dark hair, curly at the ends that brushed his collar and eyes, pools of greenish aqua that hid a lot and lips that curved up into the sexiest smile that could and did warm her insides.
She'd had her fantasies about Max, what woman didn't? And more than a few of the socialites in a couple of the major party circuits had been able to do much more than that. Growing up just down the street she had seen him attract a throng of eager females since junior high school and that hadn't changed.
"Kylie..."
She looked up and that's when she had seen him get that refill on the Scotch. He had just finished an hour conference call. She saw the weariness on his face.
"That bad?"
He sipped his drink.
"Just business...it gets crazy when new product comes out."
Oh yeah, the new security alarm system that had just been released for sale after five years spent perfecting it. But it had passed its exhaustive round of beta testing with flying colors, so they had started promoting it at conferences and seminars around the country.
"It's going to sell like hotcakes."
He winced at her description.
"I hope to be able to keep production up with the orders because the list of orders is growing."
"Well that's good isn't it?"
He nodded and then loosened the collar of his silk shirt. She watched him because she liked it when he did that because if he tugged just hard enough...yes, a button would pop open and provide just a tiny glance at the muscles underneath.
The man had always been amazingly fit, since his line of work had involved field testing of his product which challenged his cognitive and physical skills. The last time he tested a system, he had to scale a 12 foot wall and sprint across several spans of damp grass lit up by the full moon. He had known that his new client had deliberately scheduled his test during that phase of the lunar cycle to test him but he had done his job anyway.
"What are you working on right now?"
She looked up from where she sat working on some files on the coffee table in front of her chair.
"Just filing the invoices in some files," she said, "My court hearing got postponed until Friday."
He took another sip.
"On the Blevins case?"
