Chapter 10 #2
“What do you get out of this?”
Good question, Bianca. Good fucking question .
“The knowledge that my former employee’s face is not showing up on a missing person flyer in the post office or that her defiled body isn’t in the river half eaten by fish. You can imagine how that would be bad for business.”
A shrill growl, she runs her hands over her face and through her hair. She lifts the heavy, dark strands up in a makeshift ponytail before dropping them to curtain around her body. “I seriously don’t like you.”
“Feeling’s mutual, sweetheart. You have ten seconds to decide before I decide for you.”
“God, you totally suck. Fine. But I get to pick the show or movie.”
“No rom-coms or chick flicks.”
She gives me a haughty, I’ve got you exactly where I want you—right by the balls—smirk.
“It’s not up for negotiation. I give you this, you give me that.
Tit for tat, only you’re not getting my tits and I won’t stare at your tats.
Oh, and I want dessert from one of the pastry shops on Hanover. And more wine.”
This is the moment that if I were a billionaire who gave a fuck about that or was lazy, I’d call my twenty-four-seven assistant and have them run their scrawny little ass over and do my bidding.
But I’m not one of those billionaires. I operate on babies’ hearts for a living.
I spend my time with my family, out on my sailboat, or our sailing yacht when the weather is agreeable, and on rare occasions go home with a woman without her getting anywhere close to my heart and only after signing an NDA first.
That’s it. That’s my life.
At least it was.
I’m also refusing to analyze what I’m doing with this move. It ain’t smart. That’s for sure.
“I pick the pastry place,” I counter just to be a dick.
Because sure as Jesus in church, I’m not letting her go to do her fucking art in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night by herself.
And again, I don’t trust her. She seems like the type who will go off and do it anyway if not properly supervised.
This has nothing to do with spending the evening with her and everything to do with not letting my new temporary assistant end up as a statistic.
“As long as they have good cannoli, I won’t argue. So far, your taste in food is proving to be your best feature.”
I laugh sardonically, standing and helping her do the same now that we’re finished with our meal. “You’ll never get to see my best feature. Now let’s go.”
Thirty minutes later, and after a thorough sweep of the cameras, we enter my condo. I flip on the lights in the foyer, locking the place up tight and setting the alarm.
“Holy shnikes, that view. It makes the one I have at the hotel look like a parking lot by comparison.”
I don’t have to follow her gaze to know what she sees out the floor-to-ceiling windows through the kitchen and great room.
The harbor, because my place is literally sitting right on top of it, and the Boston skyline beyond it.
I live in Boston and for at least five months of the year, I can’t be on the water in a boat and since I need the water the way most people need oxygen, I live here.
Water views on two sides and water along with the sunrise every day when I wake up. It’s my heaven. My oasis.
And I don’t bring women here other than my family.
“My crow’s nest has the best entertainment set up,” I state, still not looking at her as I go about grabbing two wineglasses and two plates.
“Am I really fired?”
Her tone has me rolling my head over my shoulder to catch her eye.
Something I’ve avoided doing since we left the restaurant and I started having palpitations at what I had just gotten myself into.
She’s holding her cards close to her chest, but this chick is a heart on her sleeve girl, so the attempt is futile.
She wants this job for reasons I don’t quite understand and despite my being a total ass, I do know she did a decent job for her first week at it. And much to my chagrin and relief, she hasn’t made any sexual advances or tried to marry me.
“I’ll give you the agreed-upon month and we’ll see how it goes.”
She swallows and bobs her head, spinning back around to look out the window.
She’s very alone here, I realize. Her family seems to suck, though I know nothing of her stepfathers.
But she hasn’t mentioned a real father and her mother is clearly a judgmental bitch.
Yet she stayed in Boston. Took on a position she knows very little about.
Ventures to sketchy neighborhoods in the middle of the night.
Goes after everything she does with her heart open and on the line.
She’s brave.
And whether I care to admit it or not, I respect that about her.
It also makes me feel oddly protective of her since it was my car she slammed into.
I watch her for a moment, my heart hammering in my chest. I could like her. Which is why it’s a hell of a lot easier to hate her.
Now I just have to figure out how to stop wanting her.