Roberta led her down a long, wide corridor lined with paintings Chloe wished she had time to examine more closely. They were clearly originals and one looked like a Van Gogh, her favorite artist. Well, she would be able to admire them when she took a bathroom break. She assumed her new boss allowed those.
At the end of the corridor, massive double doors made of dark wood stood open. A beautifully sculptural wood-and-chrome desk sat just beyond them, empty.
“That’s your workstation,” Roberta said as they passed by the desk. “I’ll get you set up with a password and show you the internal office system once you meet Mr. Trainor.”
The head of human resources was going to show her how the computer worked? Usually she was lucky if a fellow admin told her which desk she should use. Were the staff members so intimidated by their boss?
Roberta knocked on the inner door, which was slightly ajar. “Mr. Trainor?”
“Yes, come in.” His voice sounded muffled.
Roberta pushed the door fully open and walked through. Chloe fiddled with her scarf again and went in behind her.
No one was there. The burgundy leather chair behind the huge U-shaped desk with three widescreen computer monitors sat vacant. She glanced right, toward one wall of windows, to see a couch and four chairs comfortably arranged like a living room. All unoccupied. The conference table and chairs to the left were also empty.
“Mr. Trainor?” Roberta appeared as baffled as Chloe.
“Just a second. My processor needed an update,” the voice said, this time emanating from somewhere in the vicinity of the desk. A large hand appeared on top of the desk, and then a man rose up behind it, his broad shoulders going up and up and up.
Chloe let her eyes skim over the tall, lean body, lingering a moment on the muscles the rolled-up sleeves of his white dress shirt revealed in his forearms. She checked out the shoulder breadth again. Definitely impressive. But it was the clean, sharp line of his jaw, the thick waves of his longish brown hair, and the intensity of his gray eyes that lit a spark of something irritatingly primitive deep in her belly.
She’d never met a CEO who looked like this before. They were usually older, balder, and chubbier.
“We have techs to do that,” Roberta said.
“I like to feel a circuit board every now and then,” her new boss said.
Chloe had to smother a spurt of laughter.
Roberta gestured Chloe forward. “Mr. Trainor, this is Chloe Russell, the temporary executive assistant who’s filling in for Janice while she’s sick.”
Chloe stepped up to the edge of the desk and stretched out her hand across the wide surface. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Trainor.”
“Chloe.” He nodded and shook her hand before he turned to Roberta. “A temp?”
The HR manager spread her hands in apology. “There’s a flu epidemic. The temp agency has total confidence in Chloe’s ability to work at a high level.”
“Right,” he said. With a smile that was clearly forced, he looked at Chloe. “Well, we’ll figure it out.”
Squelching the little flare of annoyance at Trainor’s assumption that she wouldn’t be able to figure it out, Chloe managed a tight smile in return.
“I’m going to get her set up on the computer at Janice’s desk,” Roberta said. “Then she’ll be ready to go.”
Trainor nodded and sat down in the big chair, swiveling away from them toward a computer screen before they’d started to leave. So that was how it would be. All business. Chloe was good with that.
After Roberta gave her a quick tutorial on the executive e-mail and messaging system, Chloe smoothed her hair back, picked up a pad of paper and a pen, and knocked on Trainor’s door.
“Come in.” This time he was leaning back in his chair, contemplating one of the computer screens. He rotated to face her and gestured to the two square leather chairs set in front of his desk. “Have a seat. So all I do is answer e-mails, read and write reports, and go to meetings. You’re in charge of facilitating those functions, particularly the meetings. I value punctuality.”
Then he gave her a smile. It drew fascinating brackets at the corners of his very masculine lips. Chloe had a hard time breathing.
She sat down abruptly and sucked in oxygen as she tried to remember what she’d wanted to ask him. “Roberta showed me your calendar. Would you like an e-mail reminder twenty minutes before each item on your schedule if the meeting is in-house?”
“Good suggestion,” he said. “How are you at proofreading?”
Feeling on firm ground now, she said, “I majored in English.” Typos seemed to jump out at her when she read anything, something that often drove her crazy when reading articles on the Internet.
He turned his chair and swiped his fingertip over his screen first in one direction, then another, then a third. He had long, tapering fingers, so he looked rather like a magician casting a spell. “I’ve just sent you a report one of my associates drafted. It needs cleaning up. That’s your first job.”
“Yes, sir,” Chloe said.
His brows drew together. “Sir?”
“Mr. Trainor.”