But then in walked Martha Aldridge.
Julien threaded his fingers together behind his head and leaned back in his office chair, peering out the picture window. From this angle, he could make out a corner of one of the glass triangle spires that was the geometric rooftop of the Tennessee Aquarium. Beyond that, a sliver of the Tennessee River.
It was weird how time worked. He hadn’t been to the aquarium since he took a field trip for biology class, and chances were things had changed since then. But if he were to step through the front doors at that very moment, he’d expect everything to look the same, the way his memory painted it.
When he’d seen Martha’s name in his schedule for the day, he unconsciously figured the same principle applied. Actually, it had taken him a minute to realize why the name sounded familiar in the first place. Once he’d placed her, however, he hadn’t put any more thought into it.
The point was, he’d not been prepared for the very grown woman who’d walked into his office. For him, Martha Aldridge had always been the daughter of his parents’ on-property hired help. He had vague, fuzzy memories of her as a small child at her father’s side in the gardens or helping her mother dust the furniture around his parents’ estate. They hadn’t ever spent much time together even though she’d grown up in the little cottage just beyond the rhododendron bushes in the backyard. He’d moved out of his parents’ house over twenty years ago, and even on his occasional visits home, he rarely saw a glimpse of any of the Aldridges, much less Martha. In fact, the last time he remembered laying eyes on her, she hadn’t been much older than thirteen or fourteen.
Which meant he’d known she was grown now. He could do basic math. But still. Knowing and being prepared were too different things. And he had definitely not been prepared.
His mental image of Martha had been frizzy, braided pigtails and technicolor animal print T-shirts. He wasn’t expecting a woman with soft, full curves in a pair of high heels that accentuated her feminine form to walk through his door. Nor for the way his pulse had skipped a beat, tripping over its imaginary feet, then picking up speed at that first sight of her.
Her figure and clothing weren’t the only things to have changed either. Her face had matured over the years as well,age rounding out the apples of her cheeks and defining the plumpness of her lips. Her eyes too. He hadn’t remembered the honey tones being so rich or captivating. Honestly, he couldn’t have been held at fault for the way his gaze kept inadvertently taking her in, cataloguing all the changed features and enjoying the view.
He was a forty-six-year-old man, so he knew what his reaction to her had been. Physical attraction, plain and simple. Martha Aldridge had grown up to be a very beautiful woman.
Guilt should be gnawing at him. One of the many jobs he’d had over the years in the company was proofreading for their romance imprint, Queen. He was familiar with this trope, the May/December age-gap conflict. And when he considered the fact he’d been starting college when she was still in elementary school, yeah, the age difference did have a certain ick factor. But neither of them were kids anymore. They were both adults. Thirty-eight and forty-six just didn’t seem all that taboo or off-limits.
Of course, there wasn’t a reason to read into anything. His feelings were only a chemical-based physical attraction. And as stated, both he and Martha were adults. Two adults were capable of acknowledging the good looks of the other without anything romantic occurring between them. On top of that, they were now in a soon-to-be-legally-binding working relationship, as soon as his assistant, Tomiko, emailed the contract for Martha to sign. Julien didn’t mix business with pleasure.
Oh, who was he kidding? He didn’t mix business with anything. He was well on his way to following in his workaholic father’s footsteps. It was why he was still single at forty-six. He’d been married to proving his worth to his dad for as long as he could remember, and there was no way that relationship status was changing any time soon. Especially not now that he was so close to his goal.
A knock sounded at the door, drawing Julien’s attentionback to the present. He straightened in his chair and lowered his hands from behind his head. “Come in.”
The door opened, and his mom peeked her head in. The diamond earrings Dad had given her for their thirtieth wedding anniversary dangled from her ears, almost as dazzling as the smile she flashed him. “Sorry to interrupt.”
He stood and walked over to her, giving her a quick hug. “You’re not interrupting, though I am surprised to see you. What’re you doing here?”
Though King Publishing was a family business, started by Julien’s great-grandfather with almost everyone with the same surname having a hand in the operations, Tabitha King had never been interested in joining the publishing house’s ranks. She rarely made an appearance at the office at all.
She held up a take-out bag from Whitebird. “I’ve brought dinner.”
Julien frowned. “Dad usually has Sasha grab him a burger from Urban Stack on Tuesdays.”
“I’m well aware.” The wrinkles around her pink-stained lips deepened as she scowled her displeasure. “I can’t force him to cut back on work, but I can make sure he starts eating a little better.” She looked at Julien, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “This is all a part of my new plan. Step one: bring him food and guilt-trip him into pausing work to have dinner with me here at the office. This forces him to take a break and makes him eat something healthier than greasy pub food that doesn’t even require a fork. When he’s once again used to sitting down for a meal and putting business aside for an hour instead of working through dinner, I’ll chip away at the location. Eventually I’m hoping he can start making it home for the evening meal again.”
“We all have our dreams, don’t we?” Julien teased.
She poked him in the arm. “At least I have a plan. What’s yours? He has to retire, Julien. We have to convince him.”
Julien rubbed the back of his neck. “I know, Mom. I’m working on it.” Had been for years, without success.
But the stakes were higher now. Julien had caught his dad lying on his office sofa with the shades drawn and the lights out. His dad had tried to brush it off. Headaches happened to everyone, he’d said. And the time he’d stumbled into the wall, he’d blamed his lightheadedness on missing breakfast and barked for someone to bring him a banana.
“Good. Now, come on. It’s time to eat.” Tabitha King turned, fully expecting him to follow.
She’d brought food for him as well? “Wait. I still have—”
She pivoted on her kitten heels and gave him a stern look that brooked no argument. “What you have to do, young man, is march your hiney up into the conference room and sit down to have a meal with your family. You’re just as bad as he is. If you’re not careful, your blood pressure and cortisol levels are going to be just as high. I do not want both my husband and my son dying prematurely because they worked themselves into heart attacks and strokes.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Julien let his head hang in chagrin.
His mom sniffed. “Good. Now let’s go have a nice dinner.”
John King was just as surprised to see Tabitha as Julien had been. He also put up a big fuss about the amount of work that needed to be done and that there just wasn’t any time to stop to eat. And yet not five minutes later, all three of them were seated around the conference table that had supported the titling committee meeting earlier that day.
“What’s this?” John looked down at the food his wife had placed in front of him, a napkin tucked into his starched collar to protect his silk tie from any spillage.
