The Dragon's Gold (Exiled Dragons Book 12) Read online

  He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, laughing as we went. Sitting her down by the bed, he told her he would be right back. Claire struggled to get undressed before his return, but was having a hard time getting out of her panties while maintaining her balance. After a couple of attempts, she gave up slipping out of them and instead grabbed a handful of the delicate material, ripping them free and discarding them to one side.

  Chapter 4

  Early the next morning Claire awoke feeling a bit disoriented. It took her a moment to realize where she was, but as soon as she did, panic set in. She couldn’t believe she had picked up a stranger and brought him back to her room just to have sex with him. Creeping slowly out of bed, Claire fished around in the dark for her clothes and got dressed before contemplating how to get rid of the naked man in her bed.

  “Hey, Harper. Wake up.”

  He stirred sleepily, looking up at her with a smile. Patting the bed beside him, he invited her back in. It was very tempting, but she had no time for it this morning.

  “I can’t. I should get to the office. I, um, well…I need you to go.”

  “I feel so used,” he laughed, climbing out of bed and stretching.

  Claire pretended to do something else while he got dressed so that she wasn’t standing there gawking at him. When he was finally clothed, he walked over and kissed her on the cheek, letting a single hand run down one arm.

  “Will I see you again?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

  “Playing hard to get, huh? Okay. I’ll just leave my card on the dresser and you can call me if you would like. Good enough?”

  “Yes. Good enough.”

  As soon as he was out the door, Claire jumped into the shower and got ready for her first day at work. She had intended to get up much earlier and take her time, but she no longer had that luxury. Now, she would have to get ready quickly and take the subway rather than walking and maybe stopping for coffee as she had planned to do. Still, she couldn’t complain. She had just spent an amazing night with an older man who was incredible in bed.

  Claire walked into the office a little over an hour later and was shown to the personnel department by the receptionist. After what seemed like an unnatural amount of forms were completed, she was sent up to meet her new boss, one Howard H. Tanger. Claire had heard quite a bit about him, though she had not been able to interview with him directly before being hired. She was selected by his partner and the personnel director while he was in Tokyo on business. She just hoped he approved.

  “This will be your office space. It is beside Mr. Tanger’s office. There is a door adjoining the two of you, though you have separate entrances.”

  “Will I not be performing duties for the rest of the agency?”

  “No. Mr. Tanger requires his own graphic design artist. You will be at his complete disposal and report directly to him for anything he needs.”

  “Okay. I can’t wait to meet him and get started.”

  “He should be here in an about an hour. You can use the time to get settled in and get your bearings. Feel free to visit the areas you have access to and get a feel for them.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  “We’re glad to have you. You’ll be a great asset to the company.”

  Though she was perfectly polite, her words came out rehearsed as if she had said them a thousand times to a thousand different employees, which Claire was sure she had. Claire guessed that in her position, that was perfectly natural.

  Looking around her office, Claire was pretty pleased. It was very large and modern, though there wasn’t a lot of privacy from her boss. While the front walls were solid, there was a large window between their offices. She did note that it had blinds and wondered if they were normally closed.

  Claire set her purse in a drawer of the desk and took a walk to familiarize herself with the office space around her as the personnel director had suggested. She was impressed at how well everything was set up.

  All the equipment was the latest, so creation and reproduction should be a cinch. During her brief stroll, Claire met several of the other graphic artists that welcomed her aboard much more genuinely than the personnel person had. She was already feeling at home in her new environment.

  Chapter 5

  Back in her office, Claire began moving things around a bit to better suit her tastes. She wanted to be settled in and ready to work when Mr. Tanger arrived. She was organizing the bank of proof sheets on one side of the office when she felt someone staring at her. Turning around, her eyes widened as she caught sight of the man in her doorway.

  What was he doing here? It hit her that he must work here, too. Just her luck that her one-night stand was a coworker.

  “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” Claire blurted out.

  “Nice to see you again so soon, too, Claire.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. That sounded horrible. I just wasn’t expecting to see you here. Look, I don’t mean to be rude, Harper, but can we talk later? I really don’t want to have to explain how I know you to my new boss. He should be here any moment.”

  “I doubt you’ll have to explain anything to him.”

  “Why is that?”

  He stuck out his hand in greeting and smiled broadly at her.

  “Howard H. Tanger. Welcome to the company, Claire.”

  “Oh, dear Lord.”

  Her knees suddenly felt weak and she thought they might buckle or that she might hyperventilate. Claire looked at him as a bright red flush zoomed up her face and burned across her cheeks. This wasn’t happening.

  “No, not the Lord. Just your boss.”

  “But you said your name was Harper.”

  “My name is Harper. What do you think the “H” in Howard H. Tanger is for?”

  “This is so bad.”

  Claire’s voice was little more than a mumble. Her mind whirled with thoughts about how she was going to get out of this. Claire was barely aware that she had said the words out loud, but the smile that crossed his face told her that not only was he a stallion in bed, he could also read lips. Looking away quickly, she fumbled with the pens she had been putting into a caddy when he had arrived.

  “It’s not so bad.”

  Chapter 6

  How could Claire have known that the man she had spent the night with was going to turn up in the office the following morning as her boss? She had always maintained a policy of not getting involved with people that worked with her and now, here she was, looking at a man she slept with last night. A man that she reported to as his employee.

  “Okay, let’s just not make a big deal out of this, Claire. Neither of us knew. We’ll just pretend it never happened.”

  “That’s easy to say, but I feel so embarrassed now. You must think I’m horrible.”

  “Why? Because you are an attractive young woman in a new city that decided to let her hair down for a night? I hardly know you at all and know that isn’t something you’d normally do.”

  “How do you know? How do you know I’m not a complete slut?”

  “I just do. I have a sense about people.”

  “This is a nightmare.”

  “Look. It happened. We can’t change it. I’m not happy about crossing the line with an employee either, but it’s done now. Let’s just make the most of things. We won’t speak about it again. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. Now, since this is your first day, let’s get you settled in and ready to work. I don’t mean to be a ball buster, but I’ve been without my own graphics person for a couple of months and having to squeeze into other people’s schedules. I need to get on top of some things and get them going.”

  “Let’s get going then.”

  The unfortunate part of her position here would be that their work would require that they often be in close physical proximity and she could already see that was going to be a challenge for her. Being so close to him was having an effect on her that sh
e was having to stave off with all she had.

  “Okay. We’ll work on this later. Right now, we need to get down to the conference room to meet with a new client, Mr. Turner.”

  He didn’t give her time to respond, sliding out the door between their offices and returning to his own. After a few moments of gathering up things in there, which she thought might have been more to regain his own composure. He stepped back into hers and told her they needed to go. Walking down the hall toward the room, she found herself once again lost in his smell, remembering how he had felt last night. Damn it.

  Chapter 7

  “Oh, there you are,” a tall, regal-looking woman greeted them as they stepped into the room, as did the man across from her who had been facing away as they entered. “I’d like for you to meet your new client, Taylor Turner. He says that he’s familiar with your work and wants to work with you exclusively on his new project.”

  “Good to meet you, Mr. Turner,” Harper told him, shaking his hand before waving in her direction with proper introductions.

  A brief flashback of that same hand on her body last night sent a tingle down her spine directly to her groin. It was followed by remembering the way he had kissed her. Claire felt completely discombobulated as she bit her tongue to drive away the errant thought and extended her hand to the client even as she felt the bright crimson flush that ran up her face.

  “Delighted to meet you, Mr. Turner.”

  “The pleasure is all mine.” He flashed a brilliant smile of as he shook her hand and sat back down in his seat. His eyes never left her as they all took their seats at the large table and Ida covered the basics of what he was looking for.

  “Mr. Turner has developed a new brand of feed and a feeding system to deliver it on his ranch upstate. He wants to bring it to market as a commercial product and is looking to us for the advertising,” she began.

  “I will be overseeing the project, but Mr. Tanger has indicated that he would like to handle the account rather than one of the junior ad execs. I’m going to leave it to the three of you to work out the details, so if you will excuse me, I’ll let you get to work.”

  Ida said her goodbyes and left us them alone, closing the door behind her. They quickly got down to brass tacks after that as he described his systems and pulled some diagrams of the finished product out of his briefcase for them to see.

  Claire couldn’t help noticing that he was wearing an expensive suit, looking the part of a wealthy businessman rather than that of a cowboy. It was apparent that he had taken notice of her too.

  It was awkward sitting there with the two men, one who was not being the least bit bashful about looking her up and down, and the other, her boss and man Claire had bedded last night. It was nice to feel wanted, desired, but there was a time and a place for everything and she was having a tough go of trying to be professional under the circumstances.

  A huge part of her wanted to excuse herself and not come back until this awkward meeting was over. Another part wanted to not come back at all.

  Chapter 8

  “Sonja, you are not going to believe this, but I went out last night and met this gorgeous guy. I decided to just let go and have a bit of fun. So, I brought him back to my room and we had sex. When I got to the office this morning, I found out that the guy is my new boss.”

  “You’re shitting me,” Sonja replied incredulously. “How was he?”

  “That’s beside the point. How am I supposed to work with him, knowing what went on last night?”

  “That good, huh? If it was bad, you would have no problem putting him on the chill rack, but what you’re telling her is that you’re ready to turn the oven back on and bake some more.” Sonja obviously had no clue how bad this was.

  Leave it to Sonja, the wannabe chef, to make everything a cooking reference.

  “Sonja! Stop it. You should see him. He’s like a young Robert Redford in that old movie with Paul Newman. I could hardly breathe with him sitting so close to me.” Even thinking about it was making her heart race again.

  “Good luck with that. I have no advice other than make the most of it and go back for seconds, thirds…you get the idea. It’s about time you moved past your asshole ex. It’s been months already and we all know you needed exactly this kind of stud in your life.”

  “I just wanted to get laid. You know, not overthink things for once. How much bad luck can one girl have?” Claire looked up to find Ida standing in her office door and wondered how much of the conversation she had heard. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Do you know where Harper is?” Ida asked.

  “No. He went in a different direction after the meeting with Mr. Turner and said he would be back in the office later.”

  “Okay. I’ll try his cell. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Claire watched as Ida left the room. There was something about the way she said his name that made her wonder if she was merely a coworker. Perhaps it was just conjecture. She had barely spoken, but there had also been a flash of something in the conference room. Claire wondered if perhaps she was the reason he had a no coworker rule as he had indicated.

  To her surprise, Claire felt a bit of jealousy at the thought. Shaking it off, she went to the notes they had made in the meeting with Turner and began working on some graphics based on what Harper had indicated he wanted to see.

  Chapter 9

  It was several hours before Harper returned. Despite herself, Claire felt a surge of electricity race through her at his presence when he stepped into her office and walked over to stand behind her, looking at her computer screen.

  “That is really shaping up nicely. It’s like you are a mind reader.”

  “Not really. You gave some pretty implicit details.”

  “I do tend to do that. Still, most people have a problem turning my words into pictures. What you are doing with it is brilliant. I should let other people do my hiring for me from now on. They seem to do a better job at selecting candidates than I do.”

  “Thanks.”

  There was no trace of innuendo or references to the night before. A part of her was grateful for that and another felt almost slighted that it could be dismissed so easily. Even though Claire knew it had to be put aside if we were to maintain a solid working relationship, she still found that it bothered her a bit that it was already not an issue for him.

  “You’re welcome. Let me know when you’ve finished the first draft.”

  “I was planning on doing several variations for your review.”

  “Don’t bother. You’ve captured exactly what I was looking for on the first go. We’ll tweak it if necessary once you are done.”

  “Okay. I’ll get it finished then.”

  “Looking forward to it, Claire. Welcome aboard.”

  He smiled at her and Claire melted. It was that same smile that had lured her in last night. How was she ever going to separate that memory from him as her boss? She tried to put it aside and focus on her work. She might not be very good at sorting out the opposite sex, but she was certainly great when it came to creating graphics. Claire had always had a passion for creating something captivating from nothing. It took several hours to finish the graphic’s raw form. There was no need to perfect until he had approved it.

  Walking over to the open door between their offices, she peered in and found him working on his own computer. Claire knocked quietly on the side of the door and he turned toward her, motioning for her to come in. “I’ve finished the draft.”

  “Great! I can’t wait to see it.”

  Walking back to her desk, she took a seat. He followed behind, leaning over her chair, and her, as he examined the screen. His brow wrinkled a bit as he looked at it and, for a moment, she thought perhaps he didn’t’ like it so much after all, but then he smiled again.

  “Brilliant. Let’s drop this segment here just slightly so that it looks like it is dipping to one side a bit. It will play much better with the logo and intended advertis
ing print. Other than that, I love it. I wouldn’t change a thing. Just finish the colorization and pixilation and email me a rendering so that I can start playing with the advertising portion. I’d like to take it home with me if you can get it done before you go.”

  “Sure. That isn’t a problem at all.”

  “Excellent work, Claire. Once you’ve finished that, you can head out for the day.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Her heart was racing from his proximity to her. Claire could smell his cologne and feel his breath close to her ear. It was all she could do to maintain a professional demeanor. As soon as he was gone, she let out a silence sigh and refocused on the work. The quicker she was finished, the sooner she could put some distance between them, at least for today. Perhaps she could regain her perspective regarding her new employer.

  It took her the better part of two hours to get it finished, but as soon as she did, she emailed it to him and began getting ready for home.

  “Claire?”

  Her heart sank at the sound of him calling her name from his office. She needed desperately to get away from him. She could only hope he wasn’t looking for more changes before she could go. Claire took a deep breath and stood, smoothing down her skirt and walking to his office before speaking.

  “Yes?”

  “This is perfect. I don’t see a thing that needs changing. I just wanted to say fantastic job, once again!”

  “Thank you. I’m going to head home now.”

  “Very good. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Okay. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Chapter 10

  Claire had barely cleared the front doors of the office when she called Sonja again to finish their conversation. She told her all about how things had gone with working with Harper all day.

  “I can’t believe this. Only you would wind up in such a pickle. It is so unlike you, too, the one-night stand and all. Just dumb luck he turned out to be your boss. How crazy is that!” Sonja exclaimed after she had caught her up on what all had happened.