Allison is sick, very sick with a virus, yet she has kept on working far to long since she caught it. Her boss, Freddie Mayfield has insisted that she come in to work anyway, making today out to be more important than any other one because of the amalgamation of the two firms. This put her in a foul mood, and on her way to work the weather outside is making her feel more miserable. When she walks into her private office she is temporarily blinded with the light flowing through the blinds. She heard the voice of a gentleman. She is startled because it sounds like her deceased fiancé Paul. She faints but luckily, Stuart Ferguson, the gentleman she mistook for Paul caught her before her head could hit her desk any harder than it did.
When she comes to she is in a hospital with a doctor looming over her and explaining to her where she is and what happened, but questioning her on her name and how she got where she was. She is told she hit her head slightly when she passed out but that if Stuart had not been in her office and caught her when he did it would have been much worse. As it turns out Stuart looks nothing like Paul and only slightly sounds like him. She is embarrassed that she fainted mistaking him for Paul.
Stuart was there to talk to her about the amalgamation of the two companies. That is why Fredrick her boss was so insistent about her coming into the office that day. Georgia, her best friend and co-worker, was at the hospital as well as Stuart and had filled him in on Paul and what could have possibly happened. Stuart takes charge of Allison’s health and well-being at the hospital, which she slightly resents. Until she sits up and a wave of nausea and dizziness washed over her, making her realize that she is in no condition to argue at this time she will have to do that later.
When they realized bed rest at home was not going to be the best thing for her they had her transferred to a hospital closer to her home. Once she was transferred to the other hospital Stuart tells her briefly what his business with the company and her is. He is there to set up the merger of the administrations of the two firms and to introduce online trading to the brokering systems. He needed to match Allusion’s firms, critical requirements to Canberra’s. Allison gave him over to Georgia to cover the basics with and he said that would be fine and left her to her rest.
After Georgia and Stuart leave Allison remembers the eve of her wedding were Paul died in her arms. Georgia came to visit her the next day saying that Stuart was a workaholic and that he was able to make Freddie jump and no one knew why. Stuart was staying a day extra, which upset Freddie as well. Fredrick came to the hospital to see her and warned her to watch Stuart and told her of his suspicions of him. He seemed to think that he was up to something and he didn’t like it one bit.
Georgia took her home once she was discharged and the doctor told her to take it easy for at least over the weekend. When she arrived at the office on Monday she was given an old style briefcase that has all Stuart’s notes and flowcharts for the amalgamation in it, including his contact information if she had any questions. Freddie once again made his voice known about Stuart this time making comments about his flowcharts and his exclamation marks in his notes. After Allison is able to go through all of it, she calls and sets up a meeting for the next day. Freddie is still acting terrible about Ken.
Allison understands all Stuart’s notes and even sees the holes in it. She even sees something he missed putting in regarding the upcoming legislation. She also notices he couldn’t have learned everything he knew on the ski-slopes. He was too brilliant and smart, he tells her he works part time every year as a consultant. They work more on the plans for the amalgamation and when they go to break for lunch she notices the date on her calendar and sways and chides herself on how she could have forgotten the anniversary of Paul’s death. Not realizing what is going on, Stuart tries to catch her again but she steadies herself and pulls away going into tears and leaving the room to go to the ladies room. Georgia meets her there and consoles her and helps her recover her makeup. When she returns to her office the gentlemen have decided that she needs a vacation and rest, Stuart’s family has a lodge and it would be a good spot for her to rest in and he made all the arrangements.
They arrived from the plane and were met by Big John a friend of the family, and the gentleman that helped Stuarts father build the lodge. Stuart had Big John find her some ski attire that was suitable for her, and he took her to his personal lodgings. They had dinner and just as she went to stand up she faltered again and he caught her stating she seemed to be tired and cold. He took her into the lounge and heated it up with a wood burning stove. He woke her up the next morning with breakfast and told her she could rest all day if she wanted and she did.
Their reasons for her being there were completely different. He felt bad about not catching her quick enough when she fainted so that she didn’t hit her head. That coupled with the look on her face of being startled and then the realization that it wasn’t Paul among other things just compounded his feelings. With her she wanted to use Stuart to get rid of her feelings about Paul once and for all.
Paul helped her brush up on her skiing and she could see why everyone loved to have him as a ski instructor. When he took her up to the summit of Mount Kosciusko that is when it happened they kissed and their passions gave into each other like nothing they had ever felt before. It was hard for the two of them to keep their hands off of each other until they got back to the lodge where they made love and then he fed her strawberries and champagne in the sauna and gave her a massage as well. He was a man of many talents, many, many talents.
Her days were filled with him before going back to work, after they looked over the amalgamation software, Stuart set up the next few days with Big John and Allison offered to do some of the Administrative duties. When she was doing some of them she found Stuarts ski bags for aspen all packed and ready to go in a storage closet when she was looking for an envelope. He hadn’t even told her he had decided to go, this upset her. She acted cold to him that evening and the next day when he dropped her off at the airport for her trip back home to Balmain. He was called back to her office, by her boss, to go over the amalgamation. When he arrived she apologized over how she had acted, both bosses sprung on Stuart that they wanted him to run the amalgamation instead of Stuarts original plan of Allison to do it. He was upset and told him that he would give them his answer by 3 that afternoon. He walked out of the office and back to Allison’s apartment. He was furious with both of the gentleman and didn’t know what to do about Allison.
What will Stuart’s answer be about the amalgamation? Will he leave Allison behind to go off to Aspen or will he stay and work with her side by side?
Amy Gallow is a bright and talented author always gluing you in your seat until you finish the story. The characters pop right off the page into whatever room you are reading in. I will definitely read any other book that Amy Gallow writes. She is a wonderful author who can sweep you off your feet and into a while new realm.