“Yep,” she said. “But in three months. Plenty of time to find a replacement and help train them.”
“Really?” He cocked that eyebrow again, disbelief dripping from the word.
How come he’d never done that eyebrow thing before? Although it was probably for the best since it made her imagine naughty things. Even while in this weird situation where she was trying to resign and he was being stubborn about it.
“I would never leave you high and dry like that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” A dark purr. A darkly sexy purr.
She gripped the arms of her chair, the edges sinking into the soft bits of her palms, and ordered her blood to slow.
A purr? What was wrong with her? He wasn’t trying to be sexy—he was annoyed. A man as controlled as he was, he liked things to stay the same. Training a new admin, no matter how competent, was going to put his mood into a kink.
Kink. Kinky.
She was heading into sexual harassment territory here. Focus.
“No, I wouldn’t.” She sat straighter, put on a blank expression. At least one of them could be rational about this. “I’m giving you three months’ notice—more than enough time to find a suitable admin.”
He leaned back in his chair, but his stance was anything but easy. He hooked his thumbs in his belt, and she ordered her stupid libido to ignore that. “What if I think you’re irreplaceable?”
She busted out a laugh before she could catch herself, then faked a cough to try to cover it. “Uh, no. I’m not. After a while, you won’t even know I’m gone.”
“Won’t I?”
She had to believe he meant something else with all this, that he wasn’t really trying to… well, trying to seduce her. Because that would make leaving all the more painful.
“You won’t,” she insisted. “We’ll find someone great. They’ll shadow me for a while—the transition will be entirely seamless.” For the both of them.
“Mmm.” He took his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, tugged a bit.
Now see, why did he have to do something like that? Something that made her think about kissing him?
Make this easy. Just accept my resignation and thank me for my time here.
He released his lip. “You know what? I can’t discuss this with you right now.”
“Oh.” She half rose, then sat right back down. “Wait. No. Why can’t you just accept my resignation? What’s going on here?”
She needed him to be as he usually was—calm, cold, professional—and he simply refused. If some snappishness got him to sit down and behave, she’d be as nippy as a terrier.
“Nothing nefarious,” he drawled. He pulled his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugged into it.
Where was he going? He had nothing on his calendar. She should know—she scheduled it for him.
“You can’t be leaving.” Her voice climbed toward shrillness but didn’t quite reach it.
He did that stupid eyebrow thing again. “I can. I am. We’ll discuss this over dinner. Seven, in the bar.”
He was ordering her. He’d never ordered before. He’d always asked. And used please and thank you, no doubt like his mama taught him. She wanted to say something very, very foul in Spanish, but she didn’t dare. He spoke it almost as well as she did.
He went for the door, stiff legged and tight jawed.
Something else was going on. Because her resignation should not have caused this. Maybe something had happened to Josh? But Benedict had been in a fine mood before…
Javier.
“But what about Javier?” she called after him. Someone had to feed her little brother. “What will he do for dinner if I’m eating here?”
He paused in the doorway, his expression thunderous. “He’s eighteen and he can’t feed himself?”
“He…” She didn’t want to admit that some nights Javier didn’t come home, that she didn’t know where he went. That she sat up and waited in the kitchen, wondering if she was going to get a call from the police. Or the morgue. “I guess he’ll be okay.”
Lately she suspected that he wouldn’t be okay at all, but she wasn’t admitting that to Benedict.
“Seven,” he ordered again, hand on the doorknob.
He was really going to leave in the middle of a workday? They hadn’t even started on the afternoon to-do list.
“Wait,” she began, “didn’t you want to do the preliminary—”
He shut the door behind him.
“I guess not,” she called in farewell. “And you shut me in.”
She turned to gather her things, catching sight of her letter on the desk, gaping half open, the words hidden. He hadn’t technically accepted her resignation. Which left her where?
“Well, shit,” she muttered.
CHAPTER TWO
Pilar called up the home screen on her phone once more—6:58 p.m. She opened her text messages, the last one she sent popping up.
Eating at work. Want me to bring you something? Text me when you get home.
No response from Javier, although she’d sent it two hours ago.
But that was usual, this electronic silence of his. Along with his very real silences when they were face-to-face. She already knew what he’d say if she confronted him: that his phone was dead, that he’d turned it off to study, that he’d run out of text messages for the month.
She hoped that last wasn’t the case. The last time he’d run out of texts, the overage charges on the bill had almost made her pass out.
Better that than him being sick though. Or in jail. Or dead.
She tossed her phone back into her bag, hooking her leg more firmly around the barstool to keep from sliding off. The kitten heels she’d been so enamored with earlier were pinching her feet, and she couldn’t wait to get this skirt off and into some yoga pants. And slip out of her bra. That was going to be heaven.
But first, dinner with Benedict. They’d had dinner together before, but only when they’d been working late together on something.
Of course, she hadn’t tried to resign before.
“Pilar!”
Liliana came bounding past the immense walnut horseshoe bar, chestnut hair flying, her long legs eating up the distance as her boot heels drummed out a staccato beat.
“Liliana.” She smiled wide in greeting. It was impossible to be sad when Liliana smiled at her. “How are you?”
“Great, now that I’m off the clock.” She turned to the bartender. “Just a root beer please.”
Pilar didn’t think she’d ever seen any of the Merrill siblings drink alcohol. She was sure they did—Liliana’d had too much fun at the NFRs just last month not to have been drinking—but they never did it on the resort grounds. Of course, with the whole Josh incident—which had happened right before Pilar had taken the job—their attitude made sense.
“Are you off the clock too?”
“I guess?” Pilar spread her palms in an approximation of the size of her confusion. “Benedict wanted to meet for dinner.”
“Ooooh.” Liliana made it sound like Benedict had asked to meet for sex.
“It’s not like that. We’re meeting to discuss my resignation.”
“What?” Liliana’s screech punched at Pilar’s eardrums. And probably the eardrums of everyone in a five-mile radius.
“Javier’s going to be graduating soon, and I just…” She shrugged, the stiffness in her shoulders making the motion jerky. “It’s time for a change.”
“You’re going to tell Benedict that tonight?” Liliana was tentative, as if stepping out on a tightrope.
“I already told him earlier today.”
Liliana slammed her glass onto the bar, condensation flying from it. “What did he say?”
“He was upset. Naturally.” And totally weird about the whole thing, but they’d work all that out tonight over dinner.
“Naturally,” the other woman echoed rather sarcastically.
“You know how he is.” Defensiveness crept into her vo
ice. Benedict had a right to be upset that his admin was leaving. “He likes things to stay the same.”
“Yeah.” Pronounced as if Liliana knew something she didn’t. “What are you going to do instead?”
“Move somewhere new. Maybe LA, maybe San Luis Obispo—it’s so pretty there—”
“And cold.” Liliana gave an exaggerated shudder.
Pilar laughed. “It’s only a four-hour drive from here, not the Great White North.”
Liliana shared her laughter for a moment, then her expression faded into uncertainty. “How, uh, how is Javier doing? On track to graduate?”
No. “Yes. I was hoping he’d apply to a CSU, but he wants to go to the junior college here first. Get his feet wet, you know?”
Wow, she’d actually said all that with a straight face. She’d saved enough for him to go to a CSU if he wanted, but as far as she could tell the only place Javier wanted to go was to his friend Ernesto’s house and the pool hall. And to sleep. When he did bother to come home, he promptly went to his room and shut the door.
She was failing him, but she had no idea how to un-fail him. And she wasn’t admitting any of that to Liliana. Or Liliana’s older brother.
“That’s good,” Liliana was saying. “It’s been what, five years since your parents…” She went pink and cleared her throat.
Funny how reluctant people were to admit that Pilar’s parents had died. As if she herself hadn’t realized it and they were afraid to tell her.
“Since, uh, you had to take over,” Liliana finished. “You deserve some fun.”
Yeah, it was going to be great fun, worrying about whatever stupid, dangerous thing Javier might be doing but having no legal way to stop him. It sure was a hell of a lot of fun now.
“Pilar.”
She almost slid off the seat at Benedict’s voice in her ear. Did he have to make her name sound so sexy? Her school nickname of “Pilaf” had proved that her name wasn’t the least bit sexy. So why were her nipples tightening, dragging torturously along the lace of the bra she couldn’t wait to take off?
“Yes?” Her kitten heels hit the floor with an ungraceful clunk, and she winced as the pain in her feet came roaring back.
“Are you all right?” He slid his hand around to cup her elbow, and her pulse shot up to eleven.
Stop it stop it stop it…
“Great,” she squeaked.
“Hey, big bro.” Liliana’s smirk was smug enough to choke on. “Having dinner with Pilar, huh?”
“I love you too,” he answered. “Now get lost.”
That was rather impolite. “Would you like to join us?” Pilar asked to apologize for Benedict’s rudeness.
“No, she wouldn’t,” Benedict growled. The hand on her elbow tightened and pulled her closer to him. “Follow me.”
Liliana gave them a little waggle of her fingers—and a shit-eating grin—in farewell.
Benedict guided her—really, it was that graceful, no dragging—into one of the private dining rooms in the steakhouse. There was white linen and china and candles and a bottle of champagne chilling by the side of the table.
Holy shit. First he said he couldn’t accept her resignation, and then he pulled this.
“The bar would have been fine.”
He held out her chair. “No, it wouldn’t have. Not for this.”
Oooh. That sounded foreboding, and ominous… and kind of sexy.
He kept his hand on her elbow as she sat down and handed her a napkin once she was settled. He’d always been nice—at least, as nice as a demanding perfectionist running a billion-dollar operation could be. But this was more than nice. It was gallant. Courtly.
“About your resignation,” he began.
“Let me guess: you can’t accept it.”
He stared for a moment and then started laughing, shaking his head as he did. “Okay, I can accept your resignation. I just don’t want to.”
Her temper began to rise. There was plenty of stuff she didn’t want to do, but she did it anyway. Mr. Benedict Merrill could have a little rain fall into his life for once. “Look, I’ve been responsible for Javier for five years now. This job has allowed me to support him and save for his education. I don’t regret it—any of it. But I’ve been planning this next step for a long time.” She aimed her forefinger at him. “I’m entitled to it.”
He hooked an elbow over his chairback, his gaze going heavy. “I’ve been waiting too. I had some stuff planned for you myself.”
Her filthy imagination instantly went to one of the fantasies she’d had about him—but those probably weren’t the kind of plans he was talking about.
But maybe a raise… or a promotion?
“Really? Like a promotion?” Damn. Too eager. She was supposed to be leaving, not showing any interest in staying.
“Something like that,” he said cagily.
Well, that didn’t clarify things.
“For the past five years,” he went on, “Javier has come first for you—as he should have. But in a few months, I figured you’d be ready for something more challenging.”
It did sound tempting. She liked working for him and there was plenty of room for advancement in the company. But…
But she’d still be attracted to him. And she’d still want to get free of his charity. No matter how great the promotion was, she’d be no further ahead than she was now.
“Thanks,” she said. “I do appreciate the offer. But I need to go… somewhere not here.”
He did his little head-tilt motion that he only seemed to use with her. At least, she’d never seen him do it with anyone else. Probably because it was too cute to be used when negotiating a business deal. “Why? Why do you need to leave?” He straightened up, his brows meeting. “Has someone hurt you? Been threatening you?”
Hello, alpha male. “What? No,” she spluttered. “Threaten me? Who would threaten me?”
His frown eased into something more solemn. “Is it me? Is it something I did?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not to get too clichéd, but it’s not you, it’s me. This job has been great and I really appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me… but all the opportunities I’ve ever had have come from your family. I went to college on the Merrill Family Memorial Scholarship. Most of the jobs here—at least the good ones—are at this ranch.” She pressed her lips together. “My mother was your housekeeper even.”
Pilar had been taking Merrill money since before she could even remember. And she was ready to stop.
“She was my family’s housekeeper,” he corrected. “And we mourned her too.”
But not as much as Pilar had. And still did.
“Even so.” She stared at the empty wineglass in front of her, watching the light trapped in it.
“I should have guessed it was something like this,” he muttered. “Look,” he said more loudly, “what can I do to convince you to stay?”
“Nothing.”
He caught her hand, rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. Whoa. Grabbing her hand, clasping her elbow… He’d never before been so physical with her. Too bad she liked it so much, the heat of his hand, the largeness of it. A hand that big could easily cup her breasts…
Whoa. Whoa. Way too far.
“How about persuading? Could I do that?” he purred. Unlike before, there was no mistaking that for anything but a purr. Who knew the man could do such a thing?
“Um…” She licked her lips. Focus, Pilar. “I was going to finish my CPA certification.”
Great. Way to kill the mood. Because what was sexier than an accountant?
“And I won’t stop you.”
God, his gaze was hot. What had they been talking about? It was so hard to remember, with his thumb rubbing across her knuckles like that. Almost as if he wanted to distract her.
The door opened. She squealed and tossed his hand away as if it were a black widow that had crawled across hers.
Hank, one of the steakhouse waiters, watched them warily from the doorway
. “Should I come back?”
Benedict hooked his elbow over his chair once more, looking as if he’d never tried to distract her with that hand-caressing business. Or as if he didn’t care Hank had caught him at it.
“No, we’re ready,” he said, easy like Sunday morning. “Pilar’s hungry, aren’t you?”
She was, but she wasn’t supposed to admit that. She took half a second to frown at Benedict, then turned to smile at Hank. “Thank you. What did you bring us?”
He slid a plate in front of her, and the familiar smell nearly made her moan with pleasure.
“Carnitas,” Hank said. “And here are your tortillas. Freshly made.” He slid the same thing in front of Benedict, then disappeared again.
Pilar pondered her plate, the spicy scent of chilies tickling her nose. These carnitas would be hot enough to bring tears to her eyes, just like she liked them.
“What’s wrong?” Benedict asked. “Why aren’t you eating?”
“Oh, carnitas are a little messy.” Any greasy, red spatters that landed on the cream silk of her blouse would never come out.
He rose, a small frown pulling at his lips. Damn, but that was cute. He snatched up a napkin from the sideboard and stalked to her. His gaze was tight on hers as his hands slipped beneath the neckline of her blouse, tucking the napkin deeply into her cleavage, the backs of his hands hot against her bare skin. Did he even realize what he was doing?
She couldn’t do anything but realize, her skin pebbling, her breasts going heavy and tight.
“There.” He stepped back, studied his handiwork. Or her tits, which were in the same general direction. “Now you’re all safe.”
Safe? She felt like she was about to combust.
He settled back into his chair. “Eat your dinner,” he ordered cheerfully. And then he winked at her.
He did know what he was doing.
Wait—what was he doing? Trying to convince her to stay? Or trying to seduce her?
This wasn’t sexual harassment territory—this was the blank edge of the map labeled “Here be monsters.”
She scooped some carnitas into a tortilla and took a big bite—partly because she was hungry and it smelled amazing and partly to have some time to think of something to say.
Her Billionaire Rancher Boss Page 2