“The key to business is to get ahead of things. If something is wrong here, I want to know about it first.”
“And keep it quiet?” she asked.
“I was supposed to have a meeting with an OSHA representative on Monday. You’ll need to cancel it. No way I’m sitting down with them until I have a handle on it.”
“Where are you going to start?”
“With what I remember,” he said in a heavy breath. “I know there was a rig accident eight years ago. A few guys got burned badly. It’s not on here.”
“Maybe you’re remembering wrong,” she challenged, looking like she was ready to bolt from the room.
“Are you all right?” he asked, watching her swallow hard again.
“I . . . I just need a second. I think I’m going to be sick.” She stood quickly and charged out of the room. But he could hear she hadn’t made it to the bathroom, just to a wastebasket in the next office over.
“You good?” he called out, standing up and moving slowly toward where she’d run off. He didn’t do hair-holding puke sessions. Especially not for a woman he wasn’t even sleeping with.
“Fine,” she lied. “Maybe I have a touch of the thing Mathew has. You said stomach bug, right?”
“Shit,” James grunted, hustling back to his desk for his hand sanitizer. “Do you know how inconvenient it is to be sick? I don’t have time to be sick.”
“At least it’s the weekend,” she sighed, holding her stomach as she moved back into his doorway.
“Every day is a work day for me,” he argued, backing up some as though the germs might launch themselves at him from across the room.
“We kissed last night,” she reminded him as though she could read his mind. “If it is the stomach bug you’re already infected.”
“It’s like the damn zombie apocalypse,” he said, looking down at his body as though it had betrayed him. “You should go home.”
“I . . . um,” she clutched her stomach and ran from the room again, retching into the trash can. “I’ll go home. Once I stop doing this.”
“Can you drive? I should drive you,” he said with a grimace. He didn’t need vomit in his car. He didn’t need germs filling the lines of his leather seats.
“I can drive,” she said. “I just need a minute.” She punctuated it with one more burst of sickness, and he felt himself getting queasy.
“Just grab a new trash can and let’s go,” he uttered as though he’d just been ordered to the electric chair. “It’s an hour back to your place.” He thought again about his car. “My place is around the corner. You can clean up there. Rest or whatever.”
“Okay,” she resigned, rounding back toward him with a fresh trash can in her arms. “Sorry.”
“There’s your classic catch phrase,” he teased as he moved in close to her, trying to offer support without touching her.
“What about all the reports?” she asked, gesturing back toward his desk and losing her balance. He extended his arm and braced her by the hip, his hand slipping up under her shirt slightly.
“I’ll come back. As long as we cancel that meeting with OSHA on Monday I can deal with it later.”
CHAPTER 13
“ Mathew says it’s a twenty-four-hour bug,” James explained as he stood over her. She’d curled herself up on his couch like a sleepy cat. He’d brought her a blanket for the chills and a cool towel for her burning head. She hadn’t been sick in so long she’d forgotten how much every inch of her body hurt. Every muscle and joint. “I just ordered some soup from the deli around the corner. They’ll bring it up.”
She nodded but couldn’t speak for fear of getting sick again, like opening her mouth was granting her stomach some permission to revolt. Glancing around his apartment she wondered how anyone lived in a place with so much metal and so many sharp edges. It was cold, not in temperature but in style. The space was wide open. A studio like Jessica’s but completely different. She could see his bed, even his shower, but it clearly wasn’t because he couldn’t afford walls. It was a style choice, an odd one, but not something designed out of necessity.
“What else do you need?” he asked, looking thoroughly uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry,” she said without thinking. “I should have gone to my house. You didn’t need to bring me here.”
“Always sorry for something.” He smiled, jamming his hands into his pockets looking unsure what else to do with them.
“I hope you don’t get sick,” she sighed, as she rolled to try to get more comfortable. The blanket slipped off of her and a chill ran up her side.
“Here,” he said, pulling the blanket back up and tucking it in tighter. “What am I doing? This can’t be comfortable. Get in the bed.”
“I don’t want to get it all sick,” she said, trying with her tired arm to wave him off.
“The maid will come by in the morning and change it. I’ll have her burn the sheets. Really, you should be in the bed. This couch is a Holly Oranthal design. It’s intentionally uncomfortable and costs more than most people’s houses. Business brings me to Texas often; that’s why I keep this place. But I never want it to feel too much like home.”
“Did she do your entire apartment?” Libby asked with her best attempt at a breathy laugh.
“Most of it. You don’t like it?”
She wondered if he really cared or if he was just making conversation. “I guess I just don’t get it. Why no walls? How do you shower when other people are here?”
“Ha,” he laughed in a husky growl. “Well, there is a small stall toilet. Does that count for privacy? I figure if anyone is here in this apartment they’ve already seen everything they’d see when I’m in the shower. Hell, they’d probably be in there with me. It keeps everyone else from stopping by.”
“Clever,” she said, rolling the other way but not getting any more comfortable.
“Come on,” he said, leaning down and pulling her to her feet. “Take my bed.”
“This doesn’t break the rules in your head about employees?”
“Not at all,” he said, and his laughter was lost on her. “If anything it helps the cause. I can say without a single doubt in my mind you and I will not be sleeping together tonight.”
“I’m a mess. So gross.” She brought a hand up to her face in embarrassment and he pulled it down gently.
“I’m just kidding. You’re not gross. I just don’t like sick people. I don’t do well with them.”
“Am I supposed to believe that?” she asked as he sat her gently down on the bed. “Ugh,” she groaned. “My whole body hurts.”
“You should get out of your clothes.” He reached around to his dresser and pulled out a T-shirt. “You can wear this.”
“You’ll burn it tomorrow?” she asked, clutching the shirt tightly to her chest, the idea of being in it already giving her comfort.
“Exactly.” He flashed the smile at her that she’d only seen a handful of times over the last week. Sometimes it felt like his only authentic thing.
“Can you turn around?” she asked, tipping her eyes down to the floor.
“Oh yeah, no walls. I almost forgot.” He turned his back to her and with great effort she pulled her clothes off her body and slid the shirt over her head. This cotton shirt was like nothing she’d ever felt before. It was hard to believe rich people got to walk around wearing this kind of stuff all the time. “All set?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” she uttered through a yawn.
“Sleep for a while. I’ll be hanging around, so if you need anything I won’t be far.”
She had the urge again to ask him why. He’d been one of the first people in a long time who didn’t require an abnormal amount of stuff from her. At work, of course, he demanded her performance, but that wasn’t what she meant. Besides Jessica, everyone in her personal life normally tuned in to her inability to say no and exploited it, using her in ways that either fed their ego or made their lives easier. But he kept c
oming through when she needed it. That was a quality she valued more than anything in the world but had pretty much determined finding it in a man was as likely as finding a unicorn. A pink unicorn. A pink unicorn with wings and a rainbow tail.
Closing her eyes, she pictured the mythical beast and smiled. It wasn’t until his words caught her ear and brought her back to reality that she remembered how screwed she was. “I’ll pick up the reports later and do some more work on them.”
James was going to find out that his father and West Oil were making back-door deals in order to cover up excessive injuries and deaths in the company. She had always assumed, or forced herself to believe, she was the only one who’d made a deal with the devil. That made it easier to sleep. Now, however, she knew James’s determination would ultimately be her undoing. She should tell him the truth now. It would save him the hard work of digging into every instance. It might even save her from pushing him away when he seemed to care about her in his own strange way.
But James West, Jr. was not an open book. She didn’t understand the inner workings of his mind. She hadn’t even glimpsed a small piece of his heart. Telling him now would be too much of a risk. There was still a slim chance this wouldn’t lead back to her. Maybe it would blow over, get pushed to the bottom of the priority list by something else. There was still hope that she could keep this going. She could keep her mother in the best facility. She could keep her brother’s college tuition paid. She could keep the mortgage paid.
“James,” she croaked out.
“What?” he asked, sitting by her feet on the end of the bed.
“Why did you fire that person?” she asked, needing to know if her opinion of James was formed by her history with West Oil or with who he really was.
“While we were on the plane?” he asked, narrowing his eyes, looking confused.
“Yes. You said to fire him. Make sure everyone saw it and with no severance package. Why did you do that?”
He dropped his head down slightly and rubbed at the growing stubble on his cheek. “This guy kept making people uncomfortable. There had been a bunch of formal complaints against him. Then he cornered a fellow employee in the break room and threatened him. He wasn’t stable. I wanted him gone.”
“Oh,” she said, with a tiny nod of her head. “I didn’t know that.”
“I wouldn’t expect the benefit of the doubt from you, but for God’s sake don’t say you’re sorry.”
“I wasn’t always like this,” she whispered. “I know you see me as weak. I know you think I give too much of myself and I hide. I didn’t start there.”
“I don’t think you’re weak,” he countered, but she knew he was lying.
“I am weak,” she sniffled. “I am nothing like you. But I used to be better than this. I think people get hurt, and they either end up like you, becoming stronger, or like me. You don’t let anything hold you down. You get what you want. You’ve evolved into a person who never wants for anything. I-I,” she stuttered, “I did the opposite. The books and the movies want you to believe everyone who gets destroyed by something builds themselves back up, but it’s not true. There are plenty of us who fall down and stay down. Who let the people trying to break us succeed.”
“Who hurt you?” he asked, his hand clutching her ankle and squeezing it gently.
“It doesn’t matter. The point is, I let it change me.”
“It matters,” he countered with a growl. “Who hurt you?”
She closed her eyes and rolled to her side, wiping away a few stray tears. The edge in his voice made her think if she started naming names, made a list of those who hurt her, he’d go out looking for them. “I need to sleep,” she whispered as the world faded away.
CHAPTER 14
Before Libby opened her eyes she knew something was different. She wasn’t in her bed, and fear crept over her until she heard James speaking on the phone.
“No, I’m going to lay low today too. I canceled a few things for Monday.” He was off the phone a second later and sitting on the edge of the bed again. “You should try to eat something.”
“I am hungry,” she agreed as she shimmed up to a sitting position and yanked the blanket up to cover her.
“Toast?” he asked, not averting his eyes at her embarrassment.
“That would be great but you don’t have to do that.” She wiped the sleep out of her eyes and looked over at the shower. It was less than ten feet from the bed and the stone tiles and five shower heads looks so appealing right now.
“Shower,” he said, gesturing over to it with his chin. “There’s about a hundred settings in there. You’ll feel so much better.” He stood and pulled the glass door open. “Just watch this vibrating shower head,” he said with a smile. “You’ll never come out. I’ve lost some good women to that thing.”
She blushed, her eyes darting away. “It’s not very private.”
He flipped a button and the entire glass door tinted instantly. “Instant privacy,” he said, waving his hand like he was presenting a magic trick. “I like to give the illusion of everything being open, but really it’s pretty easy to find some privacy. Even without walls.”
“I feel a lot better. I can go home.” Libby was nodding her head, trying not to look over at the spa-like shower calling her name.
“You could,” he said with a shrug. “But does your shower do this?” he asked as the streams of water shot to life, steam instantly pouring out of the door.
“My water heater is fifty years old. If you flush the toilet when the shower is on the sun explodes.”
“Exactly,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. “I’ll go to the kitchen and start the toast.”
When he walked away she felt helpless against the urge to watch him go. As stressful as her life had been in the past, she’d never had this type of conflict raging in her before. In her head she always knew she had to give up things she cared about for the greater good. Usually someone else’s greater good. Libby rationalized herself out of any kind of personal indulgence. But this morning was different. Waking up in his bed. Smelling his scent while only his thin cotton shirt separated their bodies. She wanted to quit her job. To tell him to take her now. Well, after her shower and a thorough brushing of her teeth he should take her.
Slipping out of his shirt, she moved quickly into the shower, covering her body as she did. Just in case. It felt ridiculous to want him so badly yet still blush at the idea of him catching a glimpse of her naked body.
He hadn’t exaggerated. The shower felt like a baptism. Maybe it was all the jets, the scorching heat, or the dim lights, but she felt like every ache and worry went down the drain.
“It’s good, right?” his voice called from just outside the shower, and she covered herself with her hands even though she knew he couldn’t see her.
“I feel so much better,” she called over the glass door. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“I’ll leave your toast out here. There’s a robe on the hook; go ahead and use it.”
“Okay,” she said, finally dropping her hands back down. “Are you leaving or something?”
“I might run out. Give you some actual privacy if you want it.”
“I don’t,” she said quietly, half hoping he didn’t hear her.
“What do you want?” he asked, and she could hear his hopeful smile.
“The opposite of privacy,” she said, trying to sound confident, but the words came out more like a question.
“Really?” he challenged.
“Yes,” she said with a giggle. “I know you said . . .” she trailed off. “And I know I said . . .” She could see his hand on the door, ready to open it. “Your rule and I need the job. Nothing has changed really. I get that but—”
“But,” he said as he pulled the door open. He’d already pulled off all his clothes. “Nothing is different, nothing is figured out or changed, but I have to have you.”
Her hands instinctively flew up to her face,
covering her mouth. It was as though he’d just crawled inside her head and read her mind.
As they stood there in silence for a moment she couldn’t look at him full on. He was like no man she’d ever been with before. His body was sculpted into the sharpest edges of muscle. She hadn’t glanced below his waist even though something substantial was trying to draw her eye.
“You look less convinced now that I’m in here,” he challenged, stepping under the stream of hot water.
“I’m convinced.” She reached a hand up to his chest and touched him, worried he was some kind of dream or hologram. Could anyone really look like this? “I want to feel good,” she admitted as he pushed his hardness against her. “For like a minute I don’t want to be worried or responsible. Something just for me.”
He had this devilish grin on his face that made her worry she’d said something stupid. Out of practice would be a label she could accurately wear. Maybe she was making a fool of herself.
“It’ll be longer than a minute; a hell of a lot longer.”
“James,” she said in a husky voice she hardly recognized, “make me feel good. Make me feel.”
As he dropped to his knees and kissed his way down her body, the hot water continued to pour on both of them. His tongue teased the peaks of her breasts, then his teeth nibbled lightly, sending her back into a sharp arch.
His hands clutched her ass as he slid to his knees, the water pounding hard against his solid back. She felt like a fool, like a bumbling idiot who wasn’t sure where to put her hands. Shouldn’t she be doing something right now? Something besides panting and shaking and cursing hot sexy words into the steam?
“Relax,” he said, looking up at her with his mouth hovering over her ready folds. She wanted to answer, to say something, anything, but as his tongue finally swirled against her, she lost all ability to speak. A small squeak of pleasure burst from her mouth as instinct took over. Her hands disappeared into his hair, and she tugged at it more forcibly than she meant to. As his tongue flicked and his mouth sucked, she wondered how her body was supposed to stay in one piece. How was anyone meant to stand this?
Fierce Love Page 10