The twins continued to chat as Lauren approached her office building, confirming plans to meet up the next time she was in San Francisco. After losing her job in October – and suffering through a brief, ill-fated fling a few weeks prior to that – Julia had given up her tiny Manhattan apartment and moved back to California. She’d been staying with their parents in Carmel for the past couple of months, but was in the process of moving to San Francisco where she was due to begin a new job.

Lauren gave a little wave to the security guard as she flashed her I.D. badge, and immediately began to unzip her quilted down jacket and unwind her cashmere scarf. As cold as it was outside, it was stifling inside the lobby of her office building, and she knew the office itself would be even hotter. It was too bad, she though snidely, that Nadine didn’t turn the heat down and use the money saved to pay for decent flights instead.

As the elevator ascended up to her floor, Lauren ignored the admiring glances she was receiving from two of the men to her right. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the whispered comments they made to each other, their voices pitched not quite low enough to avoid being overheard. But the things they were saying, the semi-dirty innuendoes, weren’t anything she hadn’t heard hundreds of times before. And the two men, who were dressed to the nines in designer suits and cashmere overcoats, were definitely not her type. Julia salivated over a good-looking man in a suit, but Lauren didn’t even spare them a glance.

As the elevator stopped on her floor, she couldn’t resist the urge to turn and smile wickedly at her two admirers. “Sorry, boys, but you just aren’t my type. Unless you like being tied up and blindfolded, that is. Have a nice day.”

She chuckled to herself as she walked down the hallway towards the conference room as she recalled the look of shock on both men’s faces. Julia was always cautioning her to watch her sassy mouth, fearful that one of these days she was going to say the wrong thing to the wrong guy. Or worse, that one of them would actually take her up on the seductive offers she made strictly in jest.

Since the only member of the team who worked full time in the office was their producer, the rest of the group didn’t have official desks or cubicles. When they were required to be at the office for planning sessions, they typically commandeered one of the smaller conference rooms for their use. As Lauren made her way towards the one they were almost always assigned to, she paused to greet several staff members, wishing them a Happy New Year, or asking how their holidays had been.

She popped her head inside Nadine’s office, scowling at the administrative assistant whose main responsibilities included making travel arrangements, and pinching every penny she could find along the way. “Thanks a bunch for another great flight, Nadine,” she grumbled. “Can you at least get me an aisle seat next time? I was stuck in between this three hundred pound guy whose gut kept intruding into my personal space, and another guy who reeked of curry and cheap aftershave – two scents that do not mingle well.”

Nadine’s tight-lipped expression looked almost painful as she replied primly, “If you want a better seat next time, Lauren, then please answer my emails on a timely basis instead of waiting until the last minute. You can’t expect to get your preferred seat when I’m forced to make last minute reservations.”

Lauren shrugged unconcernedly. “Hey, it wasn’t my idea to cut my time off short by four days. And how come nobody’s whining about the cost involved in two extra cross country flights? We could have used that money to upgrade me to business class for the flight to Sydney.”

Nadine shook her close-cropped chestnut head. The pixie style should have looked cute but Lauren thought it made her look a tad on the butch side instead. Same thing with the black nerdy-chick glasses. Rather than being cute and stylish they just looked – well, nerdy.

“You know that all of the crews fly coach no matter what,” reiterated Nadine firmly. “Only the editors and executives get to fly business. Speaking of which, they’ve been waiting for you in the conference room for over an hour now to meet the new boss. I suggest you hustle over there instead of harassing me yet again.”

Lauren resisted the urge to roll her eyes – or flip Nadine off – and thought, not for the first time, that the tall, skinny admin assistant was the perfect person for this job, what with her uptight, almost OCD personality. Even her clothes reflected her anal retentive character – a mud brown sweater worn over a beige shirt buttoned up to the neck; khaki slacks that didn’t have even a hint of a wrinkle and looked like they’d been bought in the men’s department; and brown leather loafers that were so butt ugly Julia would have cried to see anyone actually wear them – male or female.

As she continued on down the hallway towards her destination, Lauren forced herself not to turn back and snidely remind Nadine that it was really her fault that she was late – due to the flight delay in Chicago that wouldn’t have happened if Nadine had actually booked her on a nonstop flight for once.

Sweat was beading her forehead as she removed her jacket and breezed into the conference room. “Jesus, how high is the heat cranked up in this place anyway? I’m either freezing my ass off outside or feeling like I’m in a sauna inside.” She unceremoniously dumped her jacket, scarf, and bulging messenger bag on the closest chair and plunked her coffee cup on the table.

“You’re late. Really late. We’ve been waiting for you for more than an hour.”

This time she didn’t even try to resist the urge to roll her eyes heavenward as the other major pain in her ass in this office scolded her.

Lauren smiled with false sweetness and gave the team’s new producer a rather patronizing pat on his chubby cheek. “Sorry, Georgina. Thanks to Nadine’s usual tight-fisted flight arrangements, my connection got delayed a couple of hours. And being stuck in O’Hare of all places is definitely not my idea of a good time.”

Stefan, the team’s longtime producer, had resigned last fall to return home to Sweden. His replacement had been George, a recent college graduate who was always overly eager to please his superiors, and so annoying that Lauren had to constantly hold herself back from swatting him like the pesky little insect he was.

“Don’t call me that,” pouted George. “You don’t hear me calling you by the masculine version of your name, do you?”

She gave Karl a conspiratorial little wink before giving him a hug. “News flash, Georgina. Lauren is used as a man’s name, too.” She whispered to Karl, “If you see me reaching inside my boot for a knife, do whatever you can to stop me. Otherwise, I swear I’m going to stab that annoying little shit someplace where he’s going to bleed a lot.”

“Down, girl,” Karl murmured in a low voice. “And best behavior, hmm? The new boss is anxious to meet you, and you don’t want his first impression of you to be with a blade pressed against George’s throat.”

Lauren shrugged as she turned to give Chris a hug. “Like I give a rat’s ass about what sort of impression I make on anyone. Especially since I had to sacrifice four days off and endure the flight from hell in order to meet His Lordship. And if he’s so anxious to meet me, then where the hell is he anyway?”

“Right here,” said a voice from behind her – an achingly familiar voice that she had never expected to hear again.

Lauren extracted herself from Chris’s embrace and turned slowly, her gaze colliding like a head-on crash with those dark blue eyes that had haunted her dreams for far too long, telling herself that this couldn’t possibly be happening; that the man who stood regarding her solemnly from the doorway wasn’t the same man she’d never stopped loving – even when she’d cursed him to hell and back for breaking her heart.