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“Ms. Gray was on an important call. I’ll see if she’s done.” Turning his impressive girth to the door, the man hesitantly cracked it open and poked his head inside.
Give me a break, Ethan thought. This wasn’t the Oval Office. The executive on the other side of the door ran a chain of day spas, not the free world. He couldn’t imagine her having to discuss anything more vital than the latest innovations in face goop.
Ethan reached past the burly barricade, shoved the door wide open and strode through it. Finding the chair behind the frosted-glass desk empty, he scanned the room for the busybody responsible for upsetting the balance of his well-ordered life. Not to mention threatening to ruin his first vacation in years.
He spotted a woman standing near a corner window, partially hidden by waist-high potted plants. She was talking on the phone.
Ethan immediately stalked toward her. The sooner they had it out, the quicker she could get busy fixing the shit storm she’d stirred up.
“Cole, this static is awful. I can barely hear you,” she shouted into the phone.
Tia Gray stepped away from the potted shrubbery, the movement allowing Ethan an unencumbered view. His gaze swept over her, caught and held.
Ethan’s sure steps faltered. The obstacle at the door was nothing compared to the one confronting him now—his weakness—a great pair of legs. And the woman before him possessed the sexiest he’d ever seen.
Ethan stood transfixed. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his suddenly dry throat as his gaze involuntarily slid up the endless length of the legs before him, taking in trim ankles and shapely calves along the way. He didn’t stop until her dress hem brought the delectable glimpse of toned thighs to a regrettable end.
Apparently, having noticed him standing there, she covered the phone receiver with her palm. “What is it, Max?” she hissed at the receptionist. “You know this call is crucial.”
Her tone snapped Ethan out of his gam-induced trance. He retracted his eyeballs into their sockets and pushed from his mind illicit thoughts of those legs dangling over his back. He was here for a reason and it wasn’t to ogle this interfering troublemaker.
Moving closer to the woman in just two steps, Ethan plucked the phone from her hand.
“There’s nothing more important than the conversation we’re about to have, Ms. Gray,” Ethan said, disconnecting the call.
Her peach-glossed mouth dropped open in surprise. “D-do you realize how long it took me to track down the person on the other end of that call?” she sputtered.
“You should have thought about that before you stuck your nose in my business.”
“Your business?” Her words were more of a question than a statement. “I don’t even know you.”
Gargantua sided up to his boss. “Sorry, Tia. I was only checking to see if you were still on the phone.” He cast a scowl in Ethan’s direction. “I didn’t expect him to barge in here.”
She patted the man’s massive forearm. “Relax, Max. It’s not your fault.”
“I’ll try to get your brother back on the line.” The receptionist inclined his head toward Ethan. “After I see him out.” A series of pops sounded as the big man rolled his head around his thick neck and stepped toward Ethan.
“You’d better call off your secretary,” Ethan warned.
The man shuddered, visibly affronted. “I’m not a secretary,” he snapped. “I’m Ms. Gray’s executive assistant.”
Yeah, right, Ethan thought. And nowadays truck drivers called themselves freight-relocation specialists, and the guy he’d hired to paint his house last year used the title color-distribution technician. “I’m not going anywhere until I speak to your boss,” he said.
Tia stood between them and held up her hands in a halting gesture. “I think we all need to stand down,” she said. “Let’s take a few deep breaths and then reconnect?”
“Recon... What?” Ethan asked.
“Calm down so we can straighten out what I’m sure is simply a misunderstanding,” she translated.
Ethan looked on in astonishment as Beauty, along with the Beast, inhaled a gulp of air and blew it out with a whoosh. They did it again. And again.
He glanced at his watch. “You two about done?”
“Please, join us,” she said. “Deep breath in through your nose and out of your mouth.”
Ethan blew out a breath, all right. A long, frustrated one. In his grandmother’s nonstop chatter about Tia Gray lately, she’d omitted the fact the woman was a certified fruit loop.
“Now, don’t you feel better?” she asked.
Before he could answer, she turned to her gigantic minion. “Max, I’d like you to go down to the relaxation room and bring our guest and myself some of our tranquil tea.”
“But he’s no guest, not the way he shoved his way—”
“Regardless—” she cut off the protest “—he’s here now. So please bring the tea.”
The man nodded once, glaring at Ethan as he left the room.
“Ms. Gray,” Ethan began.
“Tia,” she interrupted. “And you are?”
“Ethan Wright,” he said.
“Have a seat. Max will be back with our tea momentarily.” She walked behind the glass desk and sat in the white leather executive chair. “Your name sounds familiar. Have we met before?”
“No, but you know my grandmother, Carol Harris.” Ethan continued to stand. He crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s the reason I’m here.”
“Carol? Is she okay?” Concern creased her perfectly symmetrical features, and Ethan reluctantly noted her legs weren’t her only pretty feature.
“She’s fine, at least physically,” he said, the outrageous encounter with his grandmother earlier this morning stoking his annoyance. “But thanks to you, she’s gone off the deep end.”
Ethan heard a clinking noise and looked around to see that the receptionist, no, rather her executive assistant, had returned bearing a dainty tea service that looked almost comical in his oversize mitts.
“Great. Our tea is here.” Tia smiled as her assistant poured steaming green liquid into two small cups, and then dismissed him with a thank-you.
“Did you hear what I said?” Ethan asked, flummoxed at her placid expression.
“Of course. You’re standing right in front of me.” Her soothing tone was a cross between one a parent adopted to cajole a stubborn toddler and one used to talk a jumper down from the ledge of a tall building. “It’s good to finally meet you, Ethan. Oh, you don’t mind if I use your first name, do you? Carol’s talked about you so much over the years it seems silly to call you Mr. Wright.”
“Fine,” he said. “Now—”
She cut him off. “Come on, have a seat and try your tea. Then we’ll talk.”
Ethan plopped down in the club chair in front of her desk. The damn tea appeared to be the last hoop he had to jump through before he could have a conversation with the woman, so he picked up the miniature cup and swallowed the contents in one gulp.
Hopefully, the minty concoction didn’t contain a mind-altering substance that would make him as batty as everyone else in this place—and the stranger now masquerading as his grandmother.
“Now, can we finally talk about what you did to my grandmother?”
“Go right ahead.” The woman eyed him over the