His Off Limits Best Friend - Vivian Wood Page 0,10

in the up-and-coming area, it featured nothing but black glass and industrial steel piping.

It was a monster, and now Connor was at the top of it. Peering down from the eighteenth story, Washington, DC, looked like a miniature of a town. You can own this town if you play your cards right.

The corner office was opposite his father’s and offered stunning views. “Mr. Harris?” His newly assigned personal assistant poked his head in. James was dressed in a bright seersucker suit with brown and white Oxford shoes. “Your father asked me to go over today’s itinerary with you.”

Connor sighed. “Yeah, James, come on in.” He was well aware of why his father had hand-selected a male assistant for him. His father didn’t want any kind of office sex scandal marring the family name.

“It’s a busy day!” James said, settling into the heavy wooden and leather chair across from Connor. “I’ve also synced your calendar with mine and scheduled pop-up reminders at forty-minute increments along with GPS instructions when applicable.”

“You’re certainly… efficient,” Connor said.

“Thank you, sir,” James said. “At eight o’clock, so in one hour, you have a meeting with GQ Magazine. At eleven there’s a short meet and greet with Forbes. Then you have a lunch meeting at 1789 Restaurant with Entrepreneur—their veal sweetbreads are to die for if you haven’t had them yet—then, at two—”

“Whoa, whoa, this is all today?” Connor asked. “And why GQ? This is all to discuss security business?”

“Well… not exactly,” James said. “Your father thinks it’s prudent to take advantage of your Navy experience, try and get some photo shoots going to make a big splash about your joining the company.”

“SEALs,” Connor corrected him.

“Excuse me?”

“I was a SEAL, not just in the Navy. And I’m the Chief Operations Officer, not a goddamned male model.”

“Could have fooled me, sir,” James said.

“Look, James, I’m guessing you have my entire life scheduled on my calendar for weeks out, right?”

“Everything that’s been booked so far, sir, yes,” he said. “Although I must say, your father is ordering new appointments nonstop, so I don’t encourage you to consider your calendar set in stone by any means.”

“Right,” Connor said. “Can you just give me a few minutes? I’d like to look over my calendar in private if you don’t mind.”

“Certainly, sir. I’ll be back in twenty minutes to escort you to your first appointment.”

“I don’t need—”

“Your father’s orders, sir.”

“Yes, of course.”

James shut the door behind him and Connor fired up his tablet. The next six weeks were absolutely booked with meetings, lunch and dinner dates, and cocktail outings with the heads of magazines. You’re a goddamned figurehead of the company, not the COO. You don’t have a single damn responsibility besides looking good in a suit.

Connor groaned and rested his head in his hands. He pushed the old-school intercom button on the desk that connected instantly to James’s Bluetooth. “James?” he asked. “With all these lunch and dinner engagements on here, what does that ‘plus F’ mean?”

“Those are the appointments in which your fiancée is expected to accompany you,” James said.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“You know, she has her own job—screw it, can you send this schedule to Sam for me?”

“Doing it now, sir.”

“And while you’re at it, talk to her yourself. She’s going to need a new dress—scratch that, a new wardrobe for all this. Is that something you can help her with?”

“Definitely, sir,” James said, the excitement evident in his voice.

Connor rolled his eyes, switched off the intercom and leaned back in his chair. Does Sam have a family as crazy as this? Surely not as powerful, but maybe—just maybe—she has a hint of what it’s like.

Hell, he didn’t even know if she had much of a family. He thought of her and her mom during the holidays, an empty seat intentionally left there in memory of her father. Maybe she had a hot best friend who was like a sister and spent Thanksgiving with her. Perhaps she had a gaggle of cousins who played the part, from the protective older brother to the sniveling little snot of a kid.

“I need to know more about her,” he said out loud. He’d already made a royal mistake, making up where she’d gone to college on the fly. That was an easy fix, though. He could always find out the truth and say she’d just studied abroad for a year. Surely his father wouldn’t dig too deeply.

Connor looked at his schedule again. James would be prancing through the door in ten minutes. Why wait to