Page 17 of Hers to Love
Marshall was so stunned he couldn’t form a cohesive thought for a solid minute.Who does she think she is?Did Brigham have to put up with this? He doubted she would’ve lasted longer than a week if this were how she had conducted herself.
At the top of his email came a forwarded message. He opened it, needing something else to focus on before he shoved his monitor off his desk.
A message from Kori.Great. She’d done a lot of talking in different ways today, and none of them he liked. She had forwarded a message from the board recommending Marshall see a counselor. It was dated ten months ago. Two months after his divorce was official, and right in the middle of the darkest period of his grief. Full on denial and self-condemnation.
So the appointment with the shrink wasn’t something she had come up with on her own. She hadn’t been completely out of line suggesting it, although he couldn’t exactly blame her if she were. Marshall continued reading the message and saw Kori had strung together a number of requests from the board for him to seek professional help.
Well, he had three months left. And Kori did pose the question: how did he want to go out? Kicking and screaming?
Or like a boss?
Marshall accepted the invitation and saw it immediately change colors in his digital appointment book. He then noticed a lot of meetings had been scheduled—with the departments he oversaw—and they were all awaiting his approval. He smirked. She had only asked his permission to schedule these appointments out of respect for his position. No way she had confirmed these—over a dozen—with the appointment heads in the few minutes she had left his office.
I could love you…
No, he couldn’t. She fascinated him. That was all.
And made him want to be a better man. But that wasn’t love.
One by one, Marshall checked yes to all the appointments.
And just like that, he was back to work.
Chapter 8
This was how it started.
Kori nervously bounced her right leg and tapped her fingers on her armrests. She let her eyes roam around the small restaurant on the bank of the river she and Marshall had sailed down a couple of weeks earlier. The sun was setting, and the streets were full of people walking about, enjoying the cooler evening air. Patrons sat around her conversing in Italian, and Kori pretended like she didn’t feel completely out of place by ordering a water…in Italian.
That ought to do it.
She had wanted to be more fluent by now—and conversing with the hotel staff had helped—but she spent most of her hours in the office, or in her hotel room doing her job, that the only time she had to venture out was to the hotel gym. The daily itineraries she had designed for Marshall had kept them both crazy busy. Outside of office meetings, they rarely spoke.
Which was a good thing. From day one, she felt like every time they conversed, she was snapping at him. And he was probably sick of hearing her voice.
So why did he invite her to dinner?
She blew out a breath and tapped her phone’s home button. Marshall was thirty minutes late. Her waiter had been eyeing her for well over fifteen of those minutes. In a minute, he would probably ask her to leave if she didn’t order something, so she raised her hand for him to come over. She managed to get out bread in Italian, and he briefly smiled before snapping his book shut. No, she wasn’t going to order one thing an hour. She just worked for a guy who came and went as he pleased without regard to people or the time.
She shouldn’t even be here. When she wasn’t discussing business with Brigham over a meal, she ate alone. Already she had had lunch with Marshall, and now he wanted dinner. If he asked for breakfast the next morning, she would have to firmly refuse. Meals would become parties with too much booze and then end in limos—or gondolas—with indecent proposals and Kori back in a sleazy extended stay hotel, jobless.
And she had already made Marshall angry by pointing out what an incompetent boss he’d become over the last year. His demeanor since had been coldly professional. It had suited Kori fine, except she did miss his easy smile—the one that made the corners of his eyes crinkle.
And her stomach flip.
Stop thinking about your boss.She accepted the bread offered by the waiter and tore into a piece.
It wasn’t her fault she had to call him out, she mused while chomping on the bread. But bosses always blamed their subordinates for their mistakes. She’d witnessed that behavior often from Brigham. She hadn’t been at work for more than a couple of weeks and would probably soon hear it from Marshall for however long this job lasted.
It wouldn’t last long. Kori was sure of it. Once Brigham started asking her to join her for “brainstorming” sessions, she should’ve seen the giant red flag waving in her face. He never wanted to hear her ideas about anything he was working on. Narcissistic to the core, Brigham didn’t appreciate any ideas other than his own. He’d built the company from scratch—much like Marshall’s—and that meant he was the brainchild. The brain. The only one whose opinions mattered.
She was just an assistant. Emails and appointments. Not too much thought behind that. And it shouldn’t have taken much thought to say yes to the boss. But Kori had a brain and wanted to be respected for it. Saying no was the easiest response she’d ever given him. Brigham had the gall to tell her she should be grateful for his advances. And as often as she was away from home and the position she had, when was she ever going to find a man who respected her? Marry her?
Never.
A man to love?
She wasn’t home long enough to form a relationship, and Brigham never would’ve authorized enough time off to get married.
