Ms. Bravo and the Boss

by Christine Rimmer

  “Oh, yeah. I’m in.”

  After she hung up with Jody, Elise called the agent for Jody’s building. He agreed to meet with her on Thursday. Then she called her brother James. Addie’s husband was the family lawyer. James said he would go with her to meet the agent.

  That settled, Elise still had fifteen minutes left of her lunch break. Time enough to ask Jed for Thursday afternoon off.

  She found him just where she expected him to be—in the office looking over the pages he’d written that morning.

  He turned in the chair when she came in. “You’re early. Eager to get back to work?” It was a joke. She always took the full hour at lunch to rest and recharge for the second half of the workday, which sometimes went past seven at night.

  And why was her pulse suddenly racing and her stomach all queasy? All right, when he’d hired her she’d agreed to work all day, every day, six days a week. But surely he could spare her for a few hours on Thursday after more than three months of scrupulous adherence to his killer work schedule.

  “Elise?” he prompted when she failed to say a word.

  She had to make herself tell him and she hated how hard it was to do that. “I need Thursday afternoon off. The shop next door to Jody in the same building is becoming vacant on the first of the month and I’m going to take it. I need to deal with the owner’s agent and get the paperwork going to make it happen.”

  * * *

  Jed opened his mouth to remind her that she would be working for him on Thursday afternoon, that she knew very well what the job with him entailed when she took it.

  That she damn well was not signing a lease on a space for a shop she was never going to open.

  But he knew none of that would fly. She had a right to a day off now and then, no matter what unreasonable demands he’d forced her to agree to when he hired her. The book was a good two weeks ahead of schedule. And even if it hadn’t been, his acting like a domineering ass wasn’t going to help him convince her that she should stay on with him.

  Uh-uh. To get her to stay, he needed to treat her right.

  And also to stick with the plan—which was to do nothing until the book was done. So what if she rented a shop? He could pay the lease for her until another tenant came along and took it off her hands. It wasn’t a big deal.

  “We’re ahead,” she offered hopefully. “And I’ll work Thursday evening if you need me.” He rose from his desk and went to her, taking her by the shoulders, running his hands down her arms, linking his fingers with hers. She gazed up at him, apprehension in her eyes.

  He squeezed her fingers. “Thursday afternoon is all yours.”

  Her sweet smile bloomed and she let out a sigh of obvious relief. “Wonderful. Thank you.”

  “I love it when you’re properly grateful.” He lowered his mouth to hers and banished all thoughts of her leaving from his mind.

  * * *

  Elise signed the lease for the shop next to Jody’s that Thursday afternoon. She floated on air all the way back to Jed’s house.

  At dinner, she told him that Jody had already called Nell. Bravo Construction would open up the wall between their two shops and design an attractive iron gate they could close when one shop was open but not the other.

  Jed seemed happy for her. He listened to her ramble on about where she might get her kitchen equipment at bargain prices and her vision for the bakery and how much she loved her family.

  “The Bravos are really pulling together now,” she told him proudly. “For years Nell and I couldn’t stand each other and I thought Jody was a snake in the grass. We had all these jealousies, so many simmering resentments, you know? Because my father never could choose between their mother and my mother and essentially he had two families at the same time. We all felt cheated and we took it out on each other. But we’ve worked through it, united our family. Now, we’re always finding reasons to get together. We like being together. Nell’s got my back and I’d do just about anything for her—and Jody and I are business partners.”

  He brushed a touch across her hand. “I’m glad it’s worked out so well with your family.” He really did seem to mean it.

  So why did she feel that something was off with him?

  Let it go, she reminded herself. He’ll tell you when he’s ready. “So then—shall we work after dinner?”

  He gave a low, sexy rumble of laughter. “I can think of better things than work to do after dinner.”

  They went upstairs early. He drew a bath and they shared it. She surrendered joyfully to the wonder of his big hands on her yearning body.

  Had she ever been this happy?

  No. Never.

  After long months of worry and disappointment, she had everything: enough money, a new business she couldn’t wait to make a big success—and most important of all, Jed.

  She had love. Real love, deep and true. At last.

  Now, if she could just get him to accept that she was moving on professionally...

  * * *

  A week and a day later, Jed got to the end of McCannon’s Fall. They went out to dinner to celebrate.

  The next day, she asked him if her work on the book was through. He evaded, said he had a few scenes that required serious reworking. He might need her for those.

  Monday, he asked her to wait while he “organized the material.” He went into his office and he didn’t come out all day. That night, when she asked him again if he would need her, he said she should “keep herself available.”

  And in the morning, he did it again, went into his office to “pull things together” and didn’t emerge for hours. When he did come out, he only said he was managing all right on his own “at the moment.” He made himself two sandwiches, grabbed a bottle of water and disappeared into his office again.

  That night at dinner, she’d had enough of waiting around all day for him to summon her when they both knew he wouldn’t need a typist until he started the next book. “Can you just tell me the truth here? You really don’t need me on this book anymore.”

  He took way too long to reply. And when he did, it was only to remind her of what they both already knew. “You’re mine until November first. That was the deal.”

  “Yours. That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

  He shot her a dark glance. “Figure of speech. You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I do,” she answered gently. “And I am yours as a matter of fact. I’m your girlfriend. Your lover. Your woman. All of the above. But as for being your assistant, you really don’t need me for that anymore.”

  “We have an agreement. Until the first of November, I’ll decide what I need you for.”

  She looked down at her full plate and realized she had no appetite. “Really?” she asked very softly. “You’re going to play the big, bad hard-ass now?”

  “November first,” he repeated. “That was our deal.”

  “Jed—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  For a moment, she just stared at him as the truth finally sank in: he refused to accept that she needed to move on.

  Yep. Dinner for her was definitely over.

  She rose, grabbed her plate, carried it to the kitchen and scraped the contents into the garbage bin under the sink. After giving her dish a quick rinse, she put it in the dishwasher and carefully shut the door.

  Then she marched back to the table and stood behind her chair. Gripping the back of it, she tried to keep her voice even and calm. “I want to be with you. I think we have something good together. I love brainstorming your work with you. I’m happy to be your sounding board whenever you need one. But I don’t want to type for a living. I don’t know how to make myself any clearer on that point. I want you to admit that my part of this book is over. I want you to let me go.”

  He
gave her a long, slow once-over. “Let you go,” he repeated flatly.

  She gripped the chair harder and tossed his own words back at him. “Figure of speech. You know what I mean.”

  He turned his gaze to his plate again and ate several bites of pork chop stuffing without saying a word. Just when she was considering grabbing her water glass and emptying it over his big, obstinate head, he looked up from his plate and into her eyes. “We need to talk.” It was exactly what they needed. So why did she hate the sound of those words? “Sit down, Elise. Please?”

  She yanked out the chair and dropped into it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice marginally gentler. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

  “But you’re not losing me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, you are. You’re going to work with Jody. If you do that, I’m on the hunt for another assistant. And we both know how that’s going to go.”

  She wanted to reach out, put her hand over his, to tell him she loved him and it would all work out. But would it? At the moment, she had her doubts. So she settled for repeating what she’d said way too many times already. “My leaving the job was always going to happen. That was our deal from the beginning. But I will still be here, still be with you, still be yours in the ways that really matter.”

  He shook his head. “You refuse to see it. You won’t admit it. If you go to work with Jody, it won’t be the way it is now. Until I find someone else I can work with, I’m going to be on edge. It’s going to mess up what we have.”

  “You don’t know that. You’re in charge of your attitude and your behavior. If you can predict that you’re going to act like an ass, then you can figure out a way to behave differently.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “I never used the word easy, Jed. I only said that you don’t have to ruin what we have because you’re frustrated about work.”

  “Don’t you get it?” He pushed the question out through clenched teeth. “I don’t want another assistant. You’re perfect for me in every way. I thought Anna was good, but you are a genius.”

  “Jed. It’s just typing.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s everything. The way you listen. The stillness in you when there’s a pause. The way you know. It’s as though you’re typing the words before I even say them.”

  “Thank you. I mean that. But it’s just that I’m not intimidated by you, that’s all. You’ll find someone else who—”

  “No, I won’t. And I just don’t understand why you’d rather be a shopkeeper than my writing partner.”

  A shopkeeper. She didn’t like the way he’d said that, with a sneering curl to his lip and a grunt of disdain. She loved her work. What gave him the right to look down on it? She was seriously tempted to rise from her chair and walk out, just leave him alone with his half-eaten stuffed pork chop and his superior attitude.

  But she loved him. So much. Enough to keep trying to get through to him. “Jed. Are you listening to yourself? First off, when it comes to your writing, I’m your assistant, not your partner and—”

  “Wait.” He put up a hand. “Stop right there.”

  She blinked and sucked in another calming breath. “Yes?”

  “I do have an offer for you. I think it’s a pretty good one.”

  “An offer?” Now he’d totally lost her. “An offer of what?”

  “I’m up for contract. It’s going to be a big one. If you stay, I’ll bring you in as a co-author. You’ll get thirty percent of the advance and royalties and your name on the next book right under mine.”

  Elise could only gape. She knew very well how huge it was for him to make her an offer like that. Was she tempted? It would be a lot of money. And prestige. She would be famous. Her throat clutched. “Oh, Jed...”

  “You’re worth it,” he muttered gruffly. “Just say yes.”

  Say yes...

  Except that she really wasn’t tempted. Not at all. She wasn’t tempted and it wouldn’t be right. “It’s not what I want, Jed.”

  Now he was the one gaping. “Do you have a clue how much money we’re talking about?”

  “A lot. I get that. But I’m not a writer, Jed. You are. And I don’t want to be a writer any more than I want to be a typist. I want you.” I love you. She almost said it, but she couldn’t. Not now. Not when the world they’d created together in the past few glorious months seemed to be crumbling. “In the end, it wouldn’t work for me, even if you paid me way more than you should, even if you put my name on your books. I’m exactly what you said. A shopkeeper, a party planner, a darn good cook. I don’t want to sit in an office day after day typing up stories. You’re the storyteller. I want to help you and support you. But I have to have my own work and it’s better that we face that now.”

  “I don’t believe this.” His eyes were green ice. “I offer you the moon and you say you don’t want it.”

  She was losing him. She felt the loss as an ache in the pit of her stomach, an awful, increasing tightness in her chest. Still, she fought on. She tried to make him see. “It’s not right, what you’ve offered me. It’s a bribe, pure and simple, and I don’t take bribes. You’re shooting yourself in the foot over and over and wondering why you have trouble walking. I don’t get why you’re so blind, why you won’t let yourself see it. You either need to stop being so rough on your assistants that you scare them off, or you need to find a different way. Like maybe figure out why you have this weird typing phobia, or try using speech recognition software.”

  “I do not have a typing phobia.” He spoke so slowly, each word clearly enunciated, sharp as one of his knives. “I know how to type. I don’t want to type. And I have zero interest in special software. That is not my process.”

  Oh, she could get good and snippy about now. He didn’t want to type? Well, neither did she, and hadn’t she made that excruciatingly clear?

  Keep it together, her wiser self advised, though the hothead within had a whole bunch of not-so-nice things she could say.

  No. She would not lose her temper. But damned if she would sit here and listen to him go on about his process, as if it was something sacred, something cast in stone.

  “I have to say it, Jed. Your process isn’t working for you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” It came out in a warning growl.

  She refused to let him cow her. “I know a lot more than you’re willing to give me credit for at the moment, that’s for sure. I know that you’re standing in your own way on so many levels. You’re so much better than this process you keep going on about. We both know that you are. You’re the man who held me so tenderly all those weeks ago, who listened without judging, who comforted me while I poured out my long, sad story of all the stupid mistakes I’ve made. You’re the man who treats me like I’m beautiful and does it so well that I feel like a queen. The man who showed me how incredible sex could be, the man who flew me first class to New York City and gave me the time of my life there, the one who backed me up when Biff Townley tried to run a number on me again. You’re the man who built Wigs his own catio—even though you claim you hate cats. Why do you think you have to scare everyone away? And why do you make writing your books more difficult than it has to be? Do you somehow think you don’t deserve the amazing life you’ve built for yourself?”

  “Enough.” He said it way too quietly. She looked in his eyes and saw emptiness. He had shut her out, shut her down. And then he said the worst thing of all. “You should go.”

  Elise flinched as if he’d struck her.

  And then the indignation flooded in. She longed to start shouting, to let him know exactly how destructive and stupid and wrong he was being. She needed to tell him off more than she wanted to draw her next breath.

  It just felt so unreal. Impossible, that he would do this, that he
would so curtly and coldly throw away all that they had.

  On the heels of her fury came tears. They pushed at the back of her throat, begging her to let them fall. I can’t go. Don’t make me go. I love you...

  Once again, she hovered on the verge of the big declaration.

  But no. Tossing in words of love now wouldn’t fix what he’d shattered here.

  She gulped the tears back before a single one had a chance to dribble down her cheek. Yes, her heart was breaking. But she was angry, too—worse than angry. Furious. It was not a good time to proclaim undying love.

  He was right. She had to go.

  Chapter Twelve

  An hour later, Elise tossed the last of her stuff in her car.

  She went back in to get Wigs, knowing she would find him on the catio. As she went down the stairs, she could hear the driving beat of rock music coming from the workout room.

  He isn’t even going to come out and say goodbye. Traitorous tears tightened her throat again.

  With a low hiss of fury, she gulped them back. She hoped he dropped a dumbbell on his foot, the big lunk.

  Wigs sat on his catio, nose to the wire fence, watching several small brown birds, which flew off when she opened the French doors.

  “Come on, sweetheart. Time to go.”

  Wigs remained at the fence, staring off toward the slowly darkening sky.

  So she went over there, scooped him up and pressed her face to the warm ruff at his neck. “We are out of here. Now.”

  He purred for her. She found the low sound somewhat comforting as she carried him back through the house and out the door, pausing only to leave her house key and garage-door remote on the counter in the utility room.

  * * *

  The back stairway to her apartment still smelled of donuts. With Wigs in her arms, she paused on the first step.

  And remembered...

  Their first time. He’d set her on the kitchen counter and taken away all of her clothes. She’d been shy about the weight she’d put on from eating too many donuts.