Chapter 1 CHA

Leo rubbed the stubborn knot of tension at the base of his neck with the heel of his hand as he stared blindly at his computer screen. His personal assistant had walked out three days ago when her boyfriend had dumped her. She was so distraught that she was not even in a state to work out her notice. It annoyed him no end, but what could he do? Women! You can't live with them, and you can't live without them.

There was a knock on the door to his office.

"Come in," he said.

Precious, one of the general secretaries, came in with a large stack of papers in her hand.

Leo groaned inwardly at the stack of papers. What now?

"I do have some of the resumes for the personal assistant position, Mr. Joe," she said, getting down to business. "I've weeded out the absolute no-gos, and these are the ones that I think are feasible. If you can look them over and give final approval, I can forward them to HR and they can arrange for interviews right away."

He was tempted to say, "Just send the whole lot of them over to HR and let them fight it out," but he didn't. He did not need another outright mismatch. For one thing, he was a bit of a control freak, but he had built this company himself from the ground up, so he was used to doing everything himself. Now it was a multi-million-dollar corporation, but old habits were hard to break. "Thank you, Precious," he said, inclining his head toward one end of his desk. "Put them there, and I'll get back to you after I've had an opportunity to look them over."

She did so, smiled briefly at him, and hurried back out of his office.

If he could rush through these, HR might be able to set up the interviews for the latter part of this week, and if everything went smoothly, he might have a new personal assistant by his side on Monday.

He picked up the top resume from the stack and reviewed it. Mary Jackson. Excellent qualifications, plenty of experience. Nothing that raised a red flag. He started his keep pile with her. The next three he interviewed were not acceptable. Two of them had children, and the third, while having no visible baggage, did not possess the kind of experience that he needed. He wasn't certain that she would be able to keep up with the pace of this work. The next two were both qualified applicants. Puma Luka had worked at some pretty fast-paced locations, and White Queens had over five years' experience in a very similar business to his. White Queens was looking like the top candidate at the moment. A man would not fall apart just because his girl broke up with him.

He kept sorting his way through the stack, separating them into two piles. White Queens was still ahead. Then he opened the last file and stared in surprise at the name on it.

Amara Denz.

His heart started racing in his chest. It couldn't be the same person. No way. That would be the weirdest coincidence on earth. He rocked back in his chair, and the past came rushing back, vivid and in Technicolor.

Amara stood in front of him, her white, pale face defiant.

"All that money and you bought those pants?" he joked.

The rest of his gang chuckled as he strode away, proud as a peacock. He was smiling on the outside-on the inside, he was devastated.

Amara Denz and he were in the same high school but existed in completely different worlds. Her family was old money, so rich her father was buddies with the President of the United States of America. His family was the complete opposite. They were poor as dirt. His father left them when he was two and never came back even to see him. His mother worked three jobs just to keep them housed, and the only reason he was able to attend Lyons College, a private school full of Amaras, was that he was given a scholarship under a program for gifted students.

His mother got his clothes washed and ironed but not those that fit very well or weren't hand-me-downs from charity shops or, later when the years went by, the well-meaning but humiliating mother of an older pupil, which deeply embarrassed him. He was the poor boy, the charity case, and he knew that he could never be one of them on their level. He invented the daredevil rebel, always performing for attention. It made him popular, and he soon forgot he had nothing to share with any of his friends.

He wore his second-hand clothes so rebelliously, embroidering skulls and skeletons on them and ripping them to shreds that he set a style all his own. Soon all the kids were ripping their jeans like he had done to his while embroidering skulls and crossbones on their clothes. He was king of his world until Amara's family moved into town, and she joined Lyons College.

The instant he saw her, he knew he needed to make her his. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his entire life, with green eyes and long blond hair flowing down her back like liquid gold. She was, however, also the daughter of a very rich banker and a supermodel. She was rich, spoiled, and not someone to be played with.

A girl as refined as Amara would never date a poor boy like him. Never.

Date? Hell, she did not even know he existed. His slick hair, skulls, ripped clothing, and his tattoos did nothing for her. He did not think she even knew his name. He attempted to disregard her, but the more he attempted to close down the feelings, the more violent they became. Knowing that he could never have her only made him want her all the more. It was an obsession. Who knows? If she didn't live in a giant mansion with high brick walls protecting her, guarded behind big, black gates, he might have found himself under her bedroom window every night. That's how crazy about her he became.

He was smitten and smitten bad.

To ease the ache of his unrequited obsession, his adolescent mind devised another way of getting her attention. He started teasing Amara. He just needed a reaction. And it worked, too. She certainly knew his name after some comments he made about her that set the whole class laughing. But then she began giving him angry looks that made his stomach churn. He had ruined it. It only got worse from there, and before he realized it, he was flat-out bullying her.

He was ashamed to admit it, but he became an insufferable asshole.

He had to stop; he hated himself while he was doing it, but he could not. He was a bundle of churning hormones and hurt pride. If he had not been so busy with feelings he did not comprehend, he would have made her notice him by making her laugh. What he had done was make her cry.

He remembered one time when he was walking along the hallway with some of his friends, and Amara was walking the other way with some of her friends. She hadn't seen him yet, and she was laughing with her friends.

He started to mimic her laugh, and his friends laughed and egged him on.

She looked at him in shock as he snorted, something she did when she laughed really hard. He screwed his nose up like a pig's and snorted again, oinking this time. His friends started oinking too. To this day, he could still remember how she looked at him. Her eyes were hurt, but her jaw was clenched. It still embarrassed him to this day.

"Why do you hate me so much?" she whispered in a shaky voice. "I've never done anything to you."