Page 9 of Snowbound in Her Boss's Bed

He could lose himself in work and no one would find him.

But, of course, she wouldn’t know any of that.

And he intended to keep it that way.

Mystery was more powerful than pity.

For anyone to pity him was absurd.

He had been blessed with more love, happiness and success in a single lifetime than the vast majority of humans on the planet.

What did it matter if all that remained now was success?

Concealing his thoughts behind a polite smile, Benjamin did not answer the unspoken question about his family. Instead, he commented, “Thoughtful of you. Obvious, but thoughtful.”

Ms. Howard whipped around to face him, her eyes widening at him in offense in the process.

He wanted her offended. Offended was better than curious about his life.

She opened her mouth, but he spoke before she could. “I’ve buzzed my assistant to retrieve them. I’m sure they’ll be appreciated.”

He did not mention by whom.

She need not know they would simply be set out for his staff to enjoy at a later time.

“Shall we get started, Ms. Howard?” he asked.

She gave a decisive nod, then reached into her bag to pull out a dinosaur of a laptop. Setting up in front of her, she opened the ancient device and began a slow process of starting it up and loading programs. “What’s the Wi-Fi password?” she asked without looking at him, and Benjamin was amused.

He appreciated these brief moments in which she seemed to forget just who he was and treated him like a colleague, as opposed to her wealthy supervisor.

He answered her question as he continued to observe her.

She opened impressive, color-coded spreadsheets, electronic brochures and a number of emails.

Her fingers flew across her keyboard at an administrative clip, her well-shaped nails just long enough to click against the keys.

Her hands were softly padded and elegant, her simple manicure tasteful if not of the highest end, fingers moving with confidence and assuredness.

She continued to prepare, focused on the work in front of her, until his assistant arrived to remove the doughnuts.

At the interruption, Ms. Howard looked up with a smile and a warm, “Thank you.”

As she spoke, her cheeks lifted, her entire countenance brightening with the expression, and Benjamin found himself momentarily surprised, right alongside his assistant.

That Ms. Howard’s smile was enough to stop even his hatchet assistant in her tracks, an aging mountain woman who utterly lacked a sense of romance, spoke to its power.

Turning to Benjamin, Ms. Howard’s expression transitioned to one of focused seriousness, her eyebrows drawn slightly together as she asked, “Where would you like to begin, Mr. Silver?”

But though he had recovered from her arresting smile, Benjamin nonetheless did not answer her immediately.

Before that, he slid out the chair beside her and took it, reaching forward to press the subtle round button in the desk’s surface. Soundlessly, a panel in the center of the desk opened and his large, thin monitor rose from its compartment within the desk.

“Let’s begin with the venue,” he said before booting up his own system with the voice command, “Load!”

The system, and the wealth of very proprietary coding contained within it, was programmed to respond only to his voice. For additional security, his keypad, which rose from its own panel within the desk at his word, responded to his fingerprints alone.

He was a man who appreciated his privacy, his security and his world programmed exclusively to himself.

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