Christmas Boss

Chapter Two

The next day, muffled voices signaled Vivacious to take a much needed break. She'd arrived at the office two hours before her people were scheduled to come in, going over their bare bones proposal they had come up with yesterday. She had a sinking feeling they weren't bringing anything new or spectacular to the table. Besides, she hated the formality of a proposal and wished she could march over to Stern Demolition and just ask for the blame contract. In the old days, she could do that...

She pushed the sheets back into the folder and sighing, ran a hand through her hair. Thinking so hard made her sleepy, it was time for a second cup of coffee and a trip to the yard. Although her people were very competent, she still liked to oversee the day to day operations whenever she could.

Toeing off her heels, she took clean, thick socks out of her desk drawer and rolled them over her hose. Then picking up her heels, she set them beside a pair of steel-toed boots and zipped herself in a pair of faded blue overalls. After she put on the boots, she twisted her hair into a bun and securing it with pins, placed a hard hat on her head, leaving her bangs exposed.

Suppressing a yawn, she grabbed her favorite mug that read I CANNOT BRAIN TODAY. I HAS THE DUMB, and opened the door upon a strange scene.

"Ah, here's Miss Cruise," Gert said in a higher than normal voice, her face blooming with heated color. Vivacious suspected the seated man she was leaning over had something to do with her obvious discomfiture. Gert stepped back. The man rose.

Vivacious almost dropped her mug. Suddenly she felt disheveled and unkempt dressed in her overalls, a new level of self-consciousness she'd never experienced before. Perhaps, it was because he appeared so immaculately dressed in well-fitting, well made clothes, a model stepped live from the pages of a popular fashion magazine. She wanted to cover herself and slink to her office away from his piercing gaze. Never had she been looked at so frankly by a man. It was true that her line of work put her in the path of all sorts of men—from the rude and the lewd to the gallant gentleman. But this man, he seemed to zero in on her soul. He had no use for the usual observations of eye and hair color, height and weight—mundane descriptions found on anyone's driver's license.

She stared back at him, frowning. Did she know him? He was tall and muscular, appearing to be in his early-to-mid thirties with black hair styled in short waves combed away from an exquisitely proportionate face. His straight nose was shaped like an arrow pointing to generous lips, topped by a thin mustache and surrounded by a well-trimmed dark beard. And those eyes....Where had they met? She pressed her memory for any sign of him and discovering none, sank into the shining depths of his eyes. Surely she would never forget a man like him. He was larger than life, taking up every place in her mind and she guessed even a little bit of her soul too.

Then the seductive tones of Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby playing through the sound system bullied its way into her subconscious, breaking the spell she'd fallen under, giving her the chance to regain her undignified composure. Aware of her unconventional mug, she stashed it on the filing cabinet behind a festive poinsettia. She didn't want to appear any more uncouth than she looked.

Gert huffed around the desk, waving to the man to follow her. "Miss Cruise, this is Timothy, er..." she looked at him for help.

"Jackson," he supplied and Vivacious wondered at his slight hesitation.

Gert beamed. "And Timothy, this is Vivacious Cruise, our founder and CEO and the best boss in the world."

Smiling graciously, Vivacious said, "I appreciate the platitude, Gert, but I wouldn't go that far."

They shook hands and she was relieved to discover that he wasn't the type to prolong a handshake. All too often she'd meet the type who'd try to stroke her hand or hold it too long, seeing her as nothing but a pretty face and an easy bed partner. Those types she had to outmaneuver, the only part of her business she didn't like.