by Noelle Adams
As he tried to catch his breath, he waited for the lecture about how he should have been more careful, how he should have called her to help, how he needed to take care of himself.
“It’s too bad the top broke off,” she murmured, picking up the bottle. “This is really good stuff.”
He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d just up and slapped him.
“There’s another bottle up there,” he muttered, his leg still throbbing. He needed the drink more than ever.
She pulled a glass forward and reached up for the unopened bottle of whiskey, poured out a finger, and handed it to him.
He took a swallow, sighing as the liquid burned down his throat.
She was still wiping up the mess, and he watched her as she moved, suddenly realizing she was just wearing a little silk robe. It was a vivid red, with a pattern of birds and flowers on it. She’d barely gotten it closed before she’d come running out.
She seemed to be in decent shape, but her body wasn’t small and slender. She had full breasts and full hips, and the silk clung to them in a way that left little to the imagination. Her skin was fair, and the bright color made it look surprisingly lush. Her hair was loose, falling over her shoulders.
He was suddenly hit with a wave of attraction so intense his body reacted. Damn, she was gorgeous. Why hadn’t he seen it before?
“Do you sleep in that?” he asked, genuinely curious about why she was wearing something so sexy.
She glanced down. “No. I was about to get into the shower when I heard the crash. Did you cut yourself?”
“No.” He inspected himself, verifying that the liquid on his skin was just whiskey.
She wet the cloth, wrung out the water, and then reached over to wipe off his chest and abdomen. Her hair hung down in a messy tousle, looking more golden than it did during the day. His body tightened even more, and he was hard-pressed not to pull her down into his lap.
He watched her until she finished cleaning up.
He admired the crease and shadow of her cleavage he could see where the robe parted, until she finally straightened up and pulled the robe closed more. Maybe she’d noticed his distraction.
“Do you need anything else?” she asked, just as calmly as ever.
It was like she had no idea that he was having visions of pulling her down into a bed with him, moving over her, taking her hard. “No,” he managed to say, since he figured it would be inappropriate to say he needed a good fuck.
“Be sure to wait a couple of hours before you take your pain pill,” she said, nodding toward his drink. “After drinking that.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“I know you’re not an idiot. But sometimes, if we’re in pain, we’re less than careful.”
“Are you ever less than careful?” He wasn’t sure why he asked the personal question. Only that she looked so gorgeous, so much softer than usual, and he wanted to know what was going on in her mind.
“Everyone is occasionally.” Her shoulders had stiffened. She was obviously surprised by the question and, for some reason, a little offended.
“I’d guess that your version of not careful isn’t exactly my version of not careful.” Given her reaction before, he was pretty sure she’d be even more annoyed by that comment.
That was why he’d said it.
“Right,” she said, lowering her eyes so he couldn’t see her expression. “I’m far more boring and unadventurous than you.”
She should have sounded mild and compliant, but there was the slightest edge to her voice that made him wonder if it was real.
To test the theory, he said, “That’s not surprising.”
Because he was looking closely, he saw her suck in a quick breath. She was definitely annoyed with him now but doing her best not to show it.
“On the other hand,” she murmured, “at least I’m not trapped in a wheelchair for months.”
Torn between indignation and amusement, he felt another deep wave of attraction. He couldn’t look away from her downcast face, her lush body beneath the robe, her bare legs.
She glanced up quickly, as if suddenly afraid she’d gone too far, but he just gave her a wry half smile. “I guarantee I can still get around pretty well, even in this chair.”
“I’m sure you can. I’ll be happy to make myself scarce whenever you have a date.”
He hadn’t actually had a date in a few weeks, partly because of the broken leg and partly because he hadn’t found anyone to interest him. Curious about her reaction to the more personal subject, he said, “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’ll be dating that much for the next month or so.”
“Somehow, I doubt that’s true.”
“Why do you doubt it?”
She met his eyes and didn’t look away, proving she wasn’t as shy as she acted. “You just don’t seem like the kind of guy to let a broken leg keep you from doing what you want to do.”
He was irrationally pleased by her assessment, although she might not have intended it as a compliment. “Yeah, but I’m not dating anyone at the moment, and I’m not likely to be looking for someone until I’m back on my feet. No matter what you might have read on the Internet, I’m not some kind of player who sleeps his way through the female population.”
He hadn’t intended to sound defensive. He had no idea why the words had come out that way. He did date a lot. Some people called him a serial dater. He would get interested in a woman and pursue her intensely. Then he’d get bored or frustrated and move on. He tried to treat women well, even after he broke up with them. And he only occasionally had one-night stands.
There were rumors and stories out there about his extensive sexual conquests, but they were ridiculously exaggerated. He wasn’t sure why it mattered, but he didn’t want Julie to assume they were true.
“I didn’t think you were.” Her eyes had widened. “I didn’t mean to imply anything except you have a more active social life than I do.”
He let out a breath and gave her another half smile. “Well, you’ve been living with your parents, haven’t you? That’s got to put a damper on a social life.”
She returned his smile, and for a moment he couldn’t look away. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Anyway, do you need anything else?”
He shook his head, disappointed in the abrupt shift in mood. “I’m fine.”
She disappeared into the hallway and then into her room, and he was left imagining what she would look like as she dropped the robe and got into the shower.
He enjoyed the visual for a few minutes, until it became too insistent, too compelling, too torturous. Then he did his best to push the thought of her from his mind.
He was only partly successful.
Chapter 4
The next day, Julie had her first taste of Eric’s regular schedule.
Since she wasn’t sure what time he woke up and hadn’t thought to ask him the night before, she was up and dressed by six thirty. There was no one else around, though, when she went into the main room of the penthouse to get some coffee.
Evidently, Kristin and Tim, the other member of Eric’s regular staff, were still in their own condos on a lower floor of the building. Eric had probably bought the units for them. He might be a jerk, but that was definitely a generous thing for him to do for his employees.
It was seven before she saw anyone else. She was drinking coffee and killing time on her tablet when a very large man with a squared-off beard pushed in through the front door and, as soon as he became aware of her, pulled to a stop directly in front of her.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Julie raised her eyebrows, pushing down the ridiculous flicker of automatic guilt. She was supposed to be here. And here was another of Eric’s circle being rude to her. “I’m Julie. Who are you?”
“Tim.”
Of course he was Tim. Who else could this bull of a man be? Yesterday had been his day off, so she hadn’t met him yet. She realized he must already kn
ow who she was, despite the fact that he’d asked her. If he handled security, then he would have checked her out before she ever arrived. Surely he wouldn’t have forgotten that she’d be here this morning.
“Eric doesn’t get up until after seven thirty,” Tim added gruffly.
“Is it a problem if I get up earlier than him?”
“As long as you’re not snooping around in any of his stuff.”
For God’s sake. Who did these people think she was? Eric was the one who had come after her to work for him. She’d done nothing to manipulate her way onto his staff. “Does it look like I’m snooping around in his stuff?”
Tim peered down at her tablet and then around at the perfectly neat kitchen and living area. “No. What are you doing?”
“I’m checking my email. Is that allowed?”
“You don’t have to be huffy about it.”
“Huffy?” she asked, making sure not to raise her voice, despite her growing annoyance. “You’ve just met me and you’ve already accused me of spying on Mr. Vincent. He was the one who came to me with the job offer, and it took some convincing on his part to get me to accept it. Why on earth do you think I have ulterior motives?”
“Because I don’t know you. And a lot of people have ulterior motives when it comes to Eric.”
She sighed. “I’m sure they do. But you can check me out to your heart’s content, and you won’t find anything suspicious. I have the most boring life imaginable.”
To her surprise, she thought she caught a flicker of amusement under his dour expression. He muttered, “I did check you out. You do have the most boring life imaginable.”
She gave a soft little laugh. “Well, there you go, then.”
“I’ll be keeping my eye on you, though,” Tim added.
“I’m sure you will.”
Before Tim could reply, a muffled bellow rang through the penthouse. “Julie!”
Julie stood up quickly. Evidently, Eric’s preferred method of summoning her was to shout through walls at the top of his lungs.
When she opened his bedroom door, she saw him—bare-chested and with low-riding pajama pants—balanced precariously between the bed and the wheelchair.
“Be careful,” she said, trying not to get shrill, although she was immediately worried he would fall, bust his cast, and rebreak his leg—and then she would be blamed for it. “The wheelchair isn’t secure.”
“I couldn’t get to the damned lock,” he said. “You need to lock the wheels when you leave it next to the bed at night.”
She bit off her immediate response, which was that she would have locked the wheels but he hadn’t accepted her help in getting into bed the night before. She was also pretty sure he could have reached it, if he’d taken a minute to do so before he’d started getting up.
He seemed to be unaware of any of these facts. He looked grumpier than usual, probably from drinking before bed the night before. She held the chair steady as he moved his body into it, and soon he was in position, panting and scowling darkly.
“There’s got to be an easier way of getting out of bed,” he muttered.
She shook her head. “Not unless you want to be carried, which I assume you don’t want.”
A glare was his only response.
Trying to sound calm and reasonable, she said. “When you’re injured the way you are, doing everyday things is exhausting. It’s always exhausting, and there’s nothing to do about it.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
“Do you want encouragement or do you want the truth? I’m happy to give you either. Unfortunately, they’re not always the same.”
He just glared at her some more.
Oh, these three months were going to be so much fun. What a grumpy baby he was. He just had a broken leg. It wasn’t fun, but so many people were so much worse off.
Her father had always been a baby when he was sick too. He’d normally been a strong, resilient man, but whenever he was sick, he’d turned into a whining mess. Maybe it was something about men. They didn’t know how to suffer in silence.
“Bathroom?” she asked, nodding toward the adjoining door.
Eric nodded and wheeled himself toward the bathroom. He grumbled as she helped him prop himself up on the crutches to get in. Then she heard him cursing and grumbling through the door. Then he grumbled even more as she helped him back into the chair.
She kept biting her tongue, holding back the snarky responses that came to her. She was normally very kind and patient with people who were sick or injured, but Eric was a special case. Nevertheless, she had to hold back if she was going to make it three months without being fired.
“Where now?” she asked softly when he was in his chair again.
“Coffee.”
He drank coffee in the living room while he caught up on the news and sports updates. Kristin came in after a few minutes and reviewed his schedule, which wasn’t particularly busy today. He had several phone calls to make and they needed to finish catching up on the paperwork, but he didn’t have any meetings, meals, or appointments with anyone else—except his normal visits from his physical therapist and his trainer. Eventually, Eric ate an energy bar, and then he turned to Julie. “All right.”
All right, what? “Do you need to wash up and get dressed? Do you need help with that?”
“No. I’ve got a nurse’s aide who comes by twice a day to help me with that kind of thing. She usually comes around nine. I’ll work in my office until then.”
Julie was relieved she wouldn’t have to help him bathe, although a tiny sliver of her brain kept wondering what giving him a bath or shower would be like.
With the exception of a short break when the nurse’s aide came to help him get dressed, they worked in the office until midafternoon, eating lunch while they did.
They were long hours, and very boring. Kristin was there a lot of the time, since she handled Eric’s administrative duties. But Julie sat for ages, doing absolutely nothing, just waiting for Eric to need something from her. When he did, he usually demanded it rudely and then wasn’t necessarily happy with the result.
She wondered if she would be allowed to read. If she tried, he might be annoyed with her and think she wasn’t doing her job, but she had to do something. She couldn’t sit doing nothing like this for hours every day for the next three months. She would go crazy.
In the afternoon, his physical therapist came by and then his personal trainer, who worked with him on his upper body, since he couldn’t do his normal workouts. With someone else there helping him during those hours, she sat with her e-reader in a chair in the corner of his gym room. She got through almost half a book before he needed her help again.
Eric didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t make a grumpy comment about it. He didn’t even seem to notice.
So that was good, at least. She would get a lot of reading done in the next few months.
He wouldn’t admit to it, but Eric was exhausted by dinnertime. The broken leg made everything he did take more effort, and he didn’t appear willing to slow down. She wasn’t surprised when he stayed in that evening.
He’d looked almost offended last night when she’d implied he dated a lot, even though it was obviously true. She didn’t know quite what to make of that strange conversation, but it made him feel more human to her than he would have otherwise.
She wondered what he was like when he dated a woman, whether he’d be gentler and more romantic. But then she decided it would be awkward for her to watch him date, so she hoped he’d keep a less active social life while she was working for him.
He ordered food from an Italian restaurant on one of the lower floors of the building, and it was one of the best meals that Julie ever had. She was hard-pressed not to ooh and aah over her pasta and scallops in a delicious sauce with crusty bread on the side.
Eric ate his food absently while he watched a hockey game, as if it was just another meal.
Julie was dying to take a walk. To go
to the grocery store. To do anything other than sit around in this penthouse, doing nothing. When she’d taken care of her parents, she’d done all the errands, and she’d been able to leave them alone for a while to get out of the house if she needed to. Here, however, she was evidently expected to sit around and wait for Eric to summon her. At least yesterday they’d gone out for dinner, so she’d been able to get out of the building. Today she hadn’t stepped through the front door of the penthouse even once.
Three months.
She only had to make it three months.
She could do it. It would be worth it in the end. Although tonight, before bed, she was going to buy a bunch of books to read, since at this rate she could probably get through a book a day.
—
A week later, Julie was grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator when she ran into Kristin.
“Mr. Vincent needs orange juice,” Kristin said crisply. “Run downstairs and get some.”
There was a fancy shop on the third floor of the building. Julie had been down to get sundry items for Eric any number of times over the last several days. She didn’t even mind doing so, since it allowed to her to get out of the penthouse and away from Eric and Kristin for a few minutes.
But this morning she just raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry. It’s my day off.”
“It will take just two minutes. He needs it, and I’m busy.”
Julie was tempted to agree. It wasn’t a difficult task, and she had plenty of time before she left to go visit her sister. But Kristin’s cool, demanding tone triggered a sliver of rebellion inside her. In the same voice she always used, she said, “I do understand, but it’s still my day off. I’m sure you can manage to run down and get it for him yourself.”
Kristin’s lips tightened. “For the amount of money he’s paying you, I would think you could bring yourself to do a few minutes’ work on Sundays.”
This was true. Julie would certainly have been willing to work on Sundays. She’d actually been surprised that Eric had been serious about her taking a day off. But none of that was Kristin’s business.