Masters for Hire Read online

  MASTERS FOR HIRE

  Book I of the Masters Saga

  By

  Ginger Voight

  © 2015 by Ginger Voight

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

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  Just a little taste…

  “Mr. Masters.”

  Of course he was Devlin Masters. I would have known him anywhere. That dark hair, those piercing hazel eyes… those even, white teeth flashing that perpetual smirk. It all had immediately caught my eye when I scrolled down the list of photos of hunky men on the Internet, suggesting this was a bad boy up to absolutely no good. That was why I had ordered this tasty little morsel…

  #justlikeacheesecake…

  “Call me Devlin,” he said in a deep voice that reverberated over my tightly drawn nerves. He firmly closed his large hand around mine and wedged himself beside me at the bar.

  “Devlin,” I tested, and his name dripped like honey from my lips even though my voice shook. Part of me hoped he wouldn’t notice. Part of me hoped he did.

  He was tall, towering practically a foot over me. His suit molded to his muscular body like a second skin. There was the merest hint of an accent left from his days in Belfast, which indeed gave him a worldly air. His eyes darkened as they swept over my exposed cleavage. “Nice dress,” he commented as he motioned to the wine-colored number that lovingly hugged my curves.

  “You should think so,” I quipped. “You picked it.”

  The grin broadened. “So I did.”

  A waiter joined us, carrying a tray filled with flutes of bubbly champagne. Devlin snagged two and handed one to me. “To a wonderful night,” he toasted. His eyes remained locked with mine as he drank. There I saw every promise of every romance novel I had ever read come to life. His eyes consumed me with a hunger I’d spent years searching for; the look that suggested it was all he could do not to throw me across the bar and take me in front of everyone.

  It was all part of the fantasy, of course. Made to order, for just one night.

  Well, one date at least. Technically just four hours. That’s all I had paid for. That’s all I could expect. That was all I had wanted. But my God, he was delicious as he stood closer, and I could feel his body heat through my sumptuous velvet dress. His muscular leg brushed against mine, so rock solid against my soft curves. He stood so close that I could feel him stir, which instantly took my breath away.

  #IShouldHavePaidfortheWholeNight

  As if he read my mind, he bent his face toward my ear. I could practically feel the stubble on his chin against my cheek. “Come on, beautiful. Let’s go have some fun.”

  ***

  CHAPTER ONE

  The whole thing started like things in my life usually started… in total chaos.

  As one of the marketing directors for Cabot’s, a high-end department store headquartered in Los Angeles, I was used to juggling ten chainsaws at once. Sure, it was inevitable that one day I’d end up sawing off an appendage or two, but everything else–my family, my honor, my heart–I thought I kept closely guarded under lock and key. Everything I had done my whole life had been to protect and preserve those very things. It only took me two weeks to realize that no matter how diligently you plan, or how carefully you execute said plan, some things you can never, ever predict.

  To put it in way our hashtag-obsessed world will understand… #FML.

  And I knew that was a little ridiculous for someone with all my money and advantages to say. If I didn’t know me, and if I didn’t know what happened next, I would have probably dismissed me as some whiny rich girl too. But I swear to you on my sainted mother’s grave that I never could have predicted Devlin Masters. I had no idea that such a creature loomed in my immediate future like a tornado forming out of the clear blue sky, ready to toss my peaceful, predictable, safe little existence just like a salad.

  Unlike a tornado, there were no warnings to alert me something big was about to happen. The morning had started like any other, and I expected it to follow the pattern of every day before it. There was no reason to doubt it. My life had worked like clockwork for the past five years. It was chaos, yes. But it was carefully controlled chaos. So I had absolutely no clue what was coming this beautiful morning in May, when the biggest decision I had to make was how many shots of espresso I’d need in my morning coffee.

  I had barely shrugged on my jacket as I flew down the spiral staircase of our sprawling estate, which sat on five acres of prime Bel Air property. Since I was starting the day ten minutes late for every appointment clogging my daily planner, I didn’t have time to face off with the stern six-foot blonde impeding my path. But that didn’t make much difference to Gretchen Hildebrand.

  “You need to eat breakfast,” she said, glaring at me from under her defiant unibrow. Though she was an attractive lady, she sported that dark, fuzzy caterpillar with pride, almost like her own personal “No Trespassing” sign.

  I had a lot of respect for it–and her–but I had no time.

  “I don’t have time for breakfast,” I insisted as I tried to sidestep her. She was unmovable. “I’ll get something on the way in,” I bargained, albeit uselessly.

  “Along with your coffee-flavored milkshake?” she shot back, arching that unibrow with a look I had grown quite familiar since the age of three. That was the look that said she was the boss, and I was going to do what she said.

  As a personal servant, you couldn’t get more devoted than good ol’ Gretch. She started as my nanny, promoted to my governess, then cozied into her positions as my right-hand-gal/personal assistant/maid and occasional warden–all the titles that allowed her to grow with me for the past twenty years. My father had always paid her well, but after so many years of service it wasn’t even about the money anymore. It was about family, and Gretchen was as close to any kind of mother I could ever have.

  In the past ten years, she was the only kind of mother I had.

  I sighed as I dropped my arms to my side. “I’m already late, Gretch.”

  “Then what difference does it make if you’re ten minutes later?” She wrapped her arm around my shoulders to guide me from the opulent foyer of my near 12,000-square-foot home towards the gourmet kitchen. She plopped me down at the edge of the counter, right in front of the massive window facing out over our meticulously manicured grounds. It was a window that crawled all the way up the vaulted ceiling and gave way to the skylight overhead.

  I sat, but needed to convey the dire nature of my particular conflict. “As a matter of fact, it matters to Lucy.”

  Gretch chuckled. “She’ll live.”

  Gretchen brought me a plate she had kept warm on the stove, plopping it down in front of me. It was a perfectly nice, perfectly healthy breakfast consisting of an egg-white omelet, some nutty, multigrain toast, a bowl of fruit, all topped off with a calming cup of tea.

  “What? No sausage?” I asked my German friend with good humor.

  She rolled her eyes as she set me in the chair. “Your father suggested we steer away from high fat meat products until after the wedding.”

  I
laughed to myself as I placed the napkin over my black slacks. “I’ll just bet.”

  “I told him there’s nothing wrong with a woman with a little meat on her bones, but you know your father.”

  I nodded. Indeed I did. I only carried about twenty-seven pounds more than polite society deemed I should, which I thought made me a little fleshier but generally average overall. But because I was shorter this meant I was stouter than my proud French father, Charles Cabot, preferred. Worst of all I was top-heavy, with weird measurements that made me impossible to find clothes that fit.

  Given our business was fashion; it was an ongoing battle between the two of us.

  Did I forget to mention that Cabot’s was my family business? It was reason number one my life was constantly in chaos.

  Reasons number two and three entered the kitchen before I shoved my second mouthful of diet-friendly food down my gullet.

  The fiery-haired seventeen-year-old plopped down across from me, but addressed the elegant brunette who trailed behind her. “Mother, I told you I had plans after school today.”

  “Aubrey, I don’t want to hear it. You know we have the benefit next week. We have to pick up our dresses, and tend to any last-minute alterations.”

  The redhead heaved a dramatic sigh. “Can’t I do it myself? Isn’t that why you bought me a car?”

  Margot Dupriest, a tall, striking beauty of purposefully indeterminate age (and my aunt,) glared down her thin nose at her petulant offspring. “Maybe this is something I wanted to do with you. Did you ever think of that?”

  Aubrey rolled her eyes, pouting as dug her spoon into the bright pink flesh of the grapefruit half sitting in the bowl in front of her. “This benefit may be a big thing for you, but I have my own life, thanks.”

  Margot slipped into the chair next to mine, elegant and beautiful as Gretchen poured her a cup of black coffee. “Another date with Jacob?” Margot asked as she nibbled on a small piece of dry toast. She always loved the high school dish, enough to focus her brief time at any meal on all the current teenage gossip.

  “Jacob is so last week, Mother,” Aubrey dismissed as she reached for the pot of coffee herself. Gretchen glared her disapproval, but Aubrey didn’t care. She poured herself a cup of strong coffee anyway. I was waiting for the day she’d light up a cigarette as well. Audrey Dupriest may have only been a teenager, but she was already used to living life by her rules. Like mother, like daughter, I supposed.

  “So which boy is it this week?” Margot finally asked.

  Aubrey shrugged. “Who says it has to be a boy? Maybe it’s a girl.”

  I knew she said stuff like that to get a rise out of Margot, which, predictably, it did.

  “Aubrey,” her mother promptly chided.

  “Good morning all,” boomed the jovial voice of my father as he wheeled into the room.

  Even at sixty-four, even bound to a wheelchair, Charles Cabot was the most commanding man I had ever known. Just his presence in the kitchen ground the hostile confrontation between his sister-in-law and his niece to a halt. Aubrey was audacious, but even she wouldn’t dare to say anything deliberately provocative in front of him. Instead she smiled and greeted him with a kiss on his cheek as he reached the table.

  “Morning, Uncle Charles,” she said.

  He grinned. Her affection had always pleased him. “Good morning, my dear,” he said as he patted her on her arm. “Margot,” he greeted before he finally turned to me. “CC.”

  CC was the name everyone had called me since I was a toddler, when my mother decided Coralie Caressa Cabot was a little too pretentious for a wee baby. My fondest, though fading, memories of my mother included her singsong use of my nickname as she bounced me in her lap. She never used my real name unless I was in trouble, and, as a model child, I tried never to be. As I grew, the name just stuck. These days I didn’t mind it, particularly because having initials instead of a feminine name had already benefited me in my education and career. My last name opened doors. I certainly wasn’t going to allow my first name to close them.

  “Daddy,” I greeted like a good daughter as I reached across the table to kiss his other cheek.

  “I’m surprised you’re still here,” he commented as he placed a napkin on his lap, ready for the hearty breakfast that Gretchen carried to the table.

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” I quipped before sharing a wink with Gretchen.

  He surveyed my plate, comparing the remnants of my meal to Aubrey’s and Margot’s scant portions. He said nothing, but his disapproval was clear. I knew it disappointed him that I wasn’t the lovely picture perfect copy of his late wife, and my mother, Madeline.

  She was a five-foot-nine natural raven-haired beauty. I was a five-foot-three, pudgy half-ling with coarse, unruly hair best secured to my head in a severe bun with a handful of pins digging into my scalp.

  “I thought you had an appointment with Lucy this morning,” he said before he dug into the sumptuous, plump sausages that graced his plate. They smelled so heavenly it made my stomach growl.

  “I do,” I confirmed. I checked my watch. I was now twenty minutes late of being a half-hour early, which was unlike me. With a client as important as Lucy Lyon, I had hoped to be more prepared. I could only pray that she hadn’t torn my office down waiting for me. So I stood and placed my napkin on top of my half-eaten breakfast. “Will you be coming by the office later?”

  Despite his advanced age and waning physical condition, Charles Cabot was the CEO of Cabot’s Fine Department Stores. While he left much of the operation to his trusted VP, he was still the face, and voice, of the business.

  He shook his head. “Not today. Going to do some video conferencing here at the house. Oliver can help you with whatever you need.”

  I fought not to roll my eyes. My father thought he was being slick, but his matchmaking efforts were crystal clear every single time he brought up Oliver’s name.

  Oliver Lavoie was the vice president of Cabot’s, hand-picked by my father and not just because of his Ivy League education or country club credentials. Oliver was Bachelor Number One for Charles Cabot’s spinster daughter who had reached the ripe old age of twenty-three without any serious marriage prospects.

  That Oliver’s ancestors were also from France was my first clue. Father had taken me to France twice a year every year since my birth, and made sure I could speak the language fluently. Needless to say, heritage meant a lot to my father, and was paramount when thinking about what kind of heirs I’d eventually give him.

  Oliver also had dark hair and blue eyes, like every other Cabot aside from Aubrey. He was tall, athletic and came from old money, like any ideal American son; he even attended our family church. His favorite color was red, like me. His favorite movie was The Godfather, like me. We loved spicy foods and sweet wine, with a penchant for the same scary novels.

  I would even venture a guess that our astrological signs were compatible.

  It was like Father ordered him out of a catalogue, which made his matchmaking damn near impossible to fight. It was a campaign Father launched in earnest about a year ago, when my best friend since childhood announced her engagement. She was the last of my friends to fall, which meant, as far as Father was concerned, the bell now tolled on my independent single life.

  Which reminded me…

  “I have to go. Lucy waits.”

  I kissed Father one last time before I sailed out the door.

  I made it to Cabot’s Century City location with two minutes to spare. I could tell by my assistant’s frazzled expression, I still arrived ten minutes too late. “She’s here?”

  Simon nodded. He was normally an elegant man, but dealing with Lucy can turn anyone into a basket case, especially with such an important event looming in front of her. There was so much to do and not much time left to do it. I knew she’d be climbing the walls.

  She had already changed into her white dress, peering at herself in all angles of the mirrors surrounding t
he room, when I finally entered our bridal department.

  “Oh my God, CC!” she exclaimed as she ran over to me with her bare feet. “I’ve gained two pounds. Two! And just look!”

  I tried my hardest to find the flaw she saw, but she looked amazing in her designer gown. It was a plain, white mermaid gown with very little frills. It was a snug fit, but the dress was supposed to be snug. Finally she lifted her arm so I could see the damage. Two stitches had come loose just under her armpit.

  “It’s a sign!”

  I suppressed my grin. I’d known Lucy since kindergarten. She always had a penchant for the dramatic, which was why she starred in every play in high school. On occasion this had included male roles whenever she didn’t think the female roles were meaty enough. And she got away with it, too, further convincing me that it was Lucy’s world–we were all just living in it.

  “It’s a stitch,” I corrected her in my best Lucy-soothing voice. “We can fix it.”

  She threw her arms down in frustration. “I don’t want it fixed. I just want it over.” She spun around to look at herself in the mirror. “I never liked this dress anyway.”

  “Then we’ll get another,” I suggested easily. With her money, she could have whatever she wanted. The Lyon family was as wealthy as the Cabots, which was why we had always been friends.

  Lucy flopped down on top of the white velvet seating in the middle of the room. “It’s not the dress,” she lamented. “It’s the wedding. It’s a circus. And I’m the clown. Look at me. All I need is a rainbow afro, some glitter and a red nose.” She pouted and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Do yourself a favor, Ceece,” she said, using her special nickname for me. “Never get married.”

  This tipped my chuckle to a full-blown chortle, nay guffaw. “No worries there. I’m nearly a quarter of a century old and never been asked.”

  She glared at me. “First of all, you’ve got a ways to go to reach that landmark. Secondly, you actually have to date in order to find a fiancé.”