LITMIR.BIZ

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genius and the Big Picture partner in charge of Client Finance—followed in Fitz’s wake, giving Lucinda a shy smile before heading over to Angus’s desk and launching straight into a story about financial irregularities in one of their client’s accounts.

      The three of them in one room was a formidable thing. The three of them in one company made for one-stop business branding, recruitment and financial strategy.

      From her upside-down vantage point she saw Angus raise a finger to his mouth to ask Charlie to shush.

      “Lucinda was just telling me about this weekend’s plans,” said Angus, his voice a deep rumble.

      “Exciting plans?” Fitz asked as Lucinda slapped him on the arm until he brought her back upright.

      “Do any of you men know the meaning of the word ‘boundaries’?”

      Fitz shrugged. Charlie blinked. While Angus’s intense hazel gaze remained locked onto her.

      When Fitz cleared his throat, Lucinda realised the room had gone quiet. How long had she been staring back?

      In a panic, she covered herself by crossing her eyes. When she uncrossed them, she found the corner of Angus’s mouth had kicked into a half-smile.

      Her heart fluttered like a baby bird in her chest.

      “Look it up,” said Lucinda, not giving them even an inch. “If I don’t see you before I head off, have a good night.”

      Fitz shot her a grin. “Count on it.”

      Charlie lifted his hand in a wave.

      Angus motioned the others over to the couches by the bookshelves and just like that he’d moved on to business. His one true love.

      Lucinda turned and walked out of her boss’s office, shutting the door behind her with a snick. She moved back to her desk where she sat and waited for the tremors in her hands to subside.

      Why hadn’t she just told him? Told all of them?

      “Told them what, exactly?” she muttered as she put her notebook in her bag, deciding to type it up later that night, and closed up her desk for the day. “That you’ve been seeing a really fabulous man but you didn’t tell anyone as you didn’t want to jinx it? That, although he’s absolutely perfect on paper, you know you’ve been holding back because of this hopeless crush you have on your unsuspecting boss that has kept you in an emotional wasteland for the past several years? So now, even though you haven’t managed to light any real spark with Mr Perfect-on-Paper yet you’ve planned a dirty weekend with the guy because you’re not getting any younger.”

      Yeah. She could just imagine their reaction.

      Boundaries. Boundaries were a good thing. Angus did not need to know every minor detail of her life.

      Lucinda slipped into her jacket, whipped her scarf around her neck, grabbed her bag and strode down the hall towards the bank of lifts, lifting a hand to wave to any stragglers still at their desks.

      Lucinda pressed the Down button and waited, recalling another “minor detail” she’d kept to herself; the phone call she’d received just that day with a job offer most executive assistants would kill for.

      What was the point? It was hardly news. Recruiters attempted to headhunt her all the time.

      But, whatever challenging conditions came with their working relationship, she’d never leave Angus. Their connection was rare. The repartee, the respect, the shorthand, the success they shared. Every other assistant she commiserated with over then phone made her realise how lucky she was.

      While without her he’d fall apart.

      Being the best assistant Angus Wolfe could ever ask for meant she’d come to know the man better than she knew herself—literally.

      His favourite colour? Charcoal grey.

      Hers? Who knew? Bluish? Periwinkle? Was that more purple? She did like her yellow kettle a great deal.

      She also knew he was even more hopeless when it came to romance than she was.

      Though he’d say otherwise. He called himself a dedicated bachelor. A strident holdout when it came to romantic entanglements. Too busy. Too set in his ways. That not imposing those constraints on any one woman was a public service.

      All of which meant that even if by some strange twist of fate Angus ever saw Lucinda in the same light in which she saw him, he would still not be the man for her.

      For Lucinda liked entanglements. She yearned for constraints.

      So, she, Lucinda Starling, planned to put an end to her self-imposed emotional wasteland.

      None of which Angus ever needed to know.

      “Honey, I’m home!”

      Voice echoing down the hallway of her small cottage in suburban Abbotsford, Lucinda took off her jacket and scarf, not bothering to disentangle either from the handle of her bag as she dumped the lot in a heap on the hall table.

      “In the kitchen!” called Catriona, Lucinda’s big sister, housemate and godsend.

      Lucinda sniffed the air in the hope there might be a little leftover dinner she could snaffle and caught a whiff of chicken and potato wedges—the good ones she’d found on sale. She hoped Cat had added a little chopped carrot for colour and health. Maybe some baby spinach leaves.

      Then she sighed as she kicked off her heels and padded down the hall.

      Cat was in the kitchen, one foot tucked up against the other knee, chomping down on a piece of buttery toast.

      Her sister had inherited their dad’s lanky genes. Lucinda was shorter and curvier, like their mum. She grabbed a carrot stick in lieu of the toast.

      Thinking of her parents gave Lucinda a sad little clutch behind her sternum, as it always did, even though it was over ten years since the crash that had taken them.

      Then she looked past her sister to the small room beyond. Her heart swelled, her lungs tightened and her head cleared of any and all things that had seemed so important only a moment before.

      For there sat Sonny. Her beautiful boy. Hunched over a book at the tiny round table tucked into the nook beside the small kitchen, distractedly polishing off the last potato wedge. His plate was wiped clean bar a few spinach stems. Go Cat!

      “Hey, sweet pea!” Lucinda called.

      Sonny looked up from the adventures of Captain Underpants, hair the same dark brown as Lucinda’s hanging into his eyes. A blink later, his face broke into a smile filled with gappy baby teeth, one wobbly. “Hey, Mum!”

      She edged around the bench and pressed back Sonny’s hair to give him a kiss on the forehead, making a mental note to book in a haircut. She caught scents of sweat and sunshine. “Good day?”

      “Yup.”

      “What’s the newsy news?” she asked as she headed into the kitchen.

      Cat tilted her head towards the microwave, where a plate sat covered in a little mound of cheap, easy goodness. Lucinda nodded her thanks then plonked onto a chair tucked under the kitchen bench.

      Sonny looked off to the side, searching his data banks for whatever snippet he’d tucked away, knowing she’d ask. “Mr Fish, the fighting fish that lives in the library, is missing.”

      “Missing, you say? That is news.”

      Sonny nodded. “Jacob K and I went to the library at lunchtime and saw the tank was empty. Jacob K asked if it was dead. Mrs Seedsman said, ‘Many believe they know what happens when a creature is no longer with us, but nobody knows for sure’.”

      “Did she, now?” Lucinda looked to Cat who was biting back a laugh.

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