by Zara Chase
“Told you she was smart,” Cody said smugly. “The only reason he’s started on the inside is because he hates being cold.”
“Well, I suppose if you come from warmer climes you can be excused for being such a wuss.”
“Hey,” Zac protested. “Employees don’t get to call the boss a wuss.”
“I think the rules just changed,” Cody said, laughing.
“This country’s damned cold and damp,” Zac complained.
“Only most of the time.”
“Anyway, that’s the heating and decorating being done up there. Then they start down here next week, same time as the roofing repairs get under way. Cody and I will probably need to go back to the States beginning of next week, so I need someone here to start sorting the stuff from the loft and to make sure the builders don’t screw around in my absence.”
“A project manager,” she suggested.
“Right, I guess.”
“Why me and not the lovely Miss Vogue?”
“She might break a nail.”
Justine glanced down at her own less-than-pristine manicure. “Yes, okay, point taken.” She stood, taking a moment to think about it. Not that there was much to think about, but she didn’t want to seem like too much of a pushover. “It’s a bit of a long commute from London.”
“Which is why you’d live here.”
“Oh, living in. I hadn’t considered that. Still, it’s a longish commute, so that makes sense, I guess.” It would also keep her well away from Jason. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Fair enough.”
“I can start just about right away, if you like.” She glanced about her and quirked a brow. “But is there anywhere to sleep?”
“Come with us.”
“Can I use a bathroom first?”
“Sure, right across the hall.” He pointed to a door. “But be warned, it’s still in its original state. You might want to wait until we get upstairs.”
“I’ll manage.”
* * * *
“Whew,” Zac said to Cody as soon as she left them. “What was that?”
Cody grinned. “Told you.”
“Yeah, you did, and, as always, you were right. There’s something about her.” Zac cupped his chin in his hand and rubbed it thoughtfully. “You reckon we’ll be able to work with her and keep our hands to ourselves?”
“I have my doubts,” Cody said pensively. “Question is, do you think she’ll play with us both?”
“What I think is that she’s vulnerable right now. Something about giving her old job up so suddenly doesn’t ring true. If we take her on, we need to let her set the pace without any pressure from us.”
Cody sighed. “Yeah, I guess we need to try.”
Justine rejoined them, curtailing their conversation.
“See what you mean about the plumbing,” she said, grimacing.
Zac and Cody led her from the study and up a beautiful old winding staircase with a wrought iron bannister.
“This will look sensational when restored to its former glory. I hope you’re not going to throw it out and replace it with some modern monstrosity,” she remarked, running her hand along the old oak rail, smooth as silk after generations of hands had done just as Justine was now doing.
Zac shot her a look. “What do you take me for? Some sort of heathen?”
“Sorry.” She grinned, not looking sorry at all. “Just checking.”
When they reached the upper landing, Justine must have seen that a great deal more than just the heating was being replaced. Bathrooms were being renewed, carpenters seemed to be everywhere, wiring hung from walls, and damp plaster adorned the walls.
“How do you get them all to turn up at the same time?” she asked incredulously.
“Believe it or not, this is organized chaos,” Cody said.
“Actually, I do believe it. Money talks, and you guys obviously have enough of it to drown out any other conversation.”
Zac shot her a look. “Whatever happened to respecting one’s employers?”
She slanted him a surprise glance. “You want respect?”
Cody grinned. “He lives in hope.”
What Zac wanted from her could hardly be put into words. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t make a habit of lusting over potential employees.
“Come this way,” he said gruffly.
Zac led her in the opposite direction to all the activity. This part of the floor was quieter and already complete. It smelt of fresh paint and new wood, and the old wooden floor had been lovingly restored.
“These are Cody’s and mine,” he said, pointing to two closed doors. “This would be yours.”
He threw open the door to a large room with a nice view over the extensive grounds. The gardens were neglected, but a few rambling roses struggled above the chaos, along with honeysuckle and a few hardier climbing shrubs Zac couldn’t put a name to.
“Presumably the master fixer will soon have order restored outside as well,” Zac heard her mutter in an aside to Cody.
“Count on it.” Cody chuckled.
Zac watched Justine as she turned her attention to the room itself. It was painted in soft pastel colours that he found soothing. Hopefully, she agreed. There was a new, comfortable double bed, a walk-in closet, and an en-suite shower room. To one side there was a sofa and a modern flat-screen television.
“The room’s almost as large as my entire apartment in London,” she said.
“Like it?” Cody asked.
“Sure. What’s not to like?”
“Don’t get over-enthusiastic,” Zac said caustically.
Justine merely shrugged, but Zac could see that she was impressed.
“If you want gushing, you should have employed Miss Vogue.” She grinned at both men. “She looked like a gusher.”
“Come on,” Zac said, biting his lip to prevent himself from smiling at her irreverence. “There’s more.”
At the end of that wing was a huge room furnished as a sitting room, and a smaller one with a desk, computer, and telephone.
“This will be your office. We’re camping out up here until the ground floor’s done,” Zac explained. He picked up a thick sheaf of papers from the desk. “This is the schedule of works to be carried out, when they’re supposed to be done, list of contractors’ names, suppliers, et cetera. Who’s been paid, what’s owing, the works. They will all report to you. The decisions about what’s being done have all been made. You just need to supervise and answer any questions they might have.”
“Is that all?” she said sweetly.
* * * *
Justine took the papers from him and looked through them. She wasn’t surprised to discover that everything had been organized efficiently, and she had little trouble following the schedule. Some of the amounts spent on materials made her blink, but it wasn’t her money, so what did she care?
“What if they fall behind?” she asked.
“Unlikely. There are penalty clauses. If they don’t deliver, I don’t pay. It’s as simple as that.”
“Ever dealt with British workmen before?” she asked, amused that he thought it could be so easy.
“Nope, but I’ve dealt with their American counterparts. Same animal.”
She chortled. “You think?”
“What matters is what you think, Justine. Do you want the job?”
“How much will you pay me?”
Cody grinned at her. “Attagirl!”
“What?” She scowled. “What did I do?”
“Gave my buddy here a lesson in humility,” Cody said, still laughing. “Can’t remember the last time he offered a female a job and she didn’t just jump right on in and say, ‘Yes please.’”
“I have bills to pay.” Although she wouldn’t have so many if she lived in here. Suddenly, she was a lot more enthusiastic about the countryside.
Zac named a salary that appeared to surprise Cody almost as much as it did her. If she were going to live in, she’d be able to save a fortun
e. The job wouldn’t last forever, but it would give her some breathing space. She could hide away here, salve her wounded pride by working alongside these two hunks, and take time to decide what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
“Okay.” She stuck out her hand to shake Zac’s on the deal. “I can start right away. Just need to nip back to town and get my stuff.”
“Sounds good.”
“Don’t nip back in Malcolm,” Cody warned. “It wouldn’t be kind to him.”
“Ah no, I’d forgotten about that.”
“I’ll drive you, if you like.”
“Thanks, Cody. I can get more gear in the Beemer, too.”
“You might want to think casual rather than business clothes,” Zac said, glancing down at her business suit, which was already covered in plaster dust, and then at his own jeans.
She shared her first smile with her new employer. “Yeah, I already got that part.”
Zac nodded. “I’ll get some of the guys to bring the stuff down from the loft. Just the boxes of papers to start with. The accumulated junk will have to wait until I have time to take a look at it.”
“It’s just the personal family history you’re after, right?”
“Right. I need you to build up as big a picture of my ancestry as you can manage and see what you can do to track my mother down.”
“One of those ancestry sites that advertise on the television might be a good place to start. Have you tried that?”
“No, he hasn’t,” Cody answered for him. “I’ve suggested it, but he keeps ducking the issue.”
“Do whatever you think is right,” Zac said shortly.
Okay, so, Mr. Big Shot, you’re scared of what you might find. A premonition of skeletons, perhaps?
“What makes you think your mother’s still alive?” Justine asked.
“Argh,” Cody said. “Crunch time.”
“This calls for a drink. Come on.”
Zac led them back into the sitting room, reached into a small fridge, and extracted two beers. He threw one can to Cody and asked Justine what she’d like.
“White wine if you have it, please.”
Zac opened a bottle, poured a glass, and handed it to her. Their fingers touched and sent shock waves through her body. Now it was Zac making her nipples tighten and her pussy leak. What was wrong with her? First, Cody had her all steamed up—and it was definitely Cody, not the vapour emanating from Malcolm’s engine—now Zac. She was broken-hearted and should have had no sexual interest in her new employers. She was through mixing business with pleasure, especially since she was going to be living in the same house as these two hunks.
Fortunately, they were out of her league. They could have any woman they wanted, and she very much doubted if they would want an overweight, not particularly attractive dumpee. Her body appeared to have a different view, but it was just plain wrong.
Zac pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of his jeans and handed it to her.
“This is what the solicitor gave me when he read the will.”
She could tell from the tension in his body that he hadn’t shared this with anyone else, other than Cody, and felt incredibly privileged. She raised a metaphorical finger to snooty Miss Vogue and slowly unfolded a crumpled letter.
My dear Zac, she read.
This will come as a terrible shock to you, I know. I dare say it will also make you angry. Angry because I know who you are but have never tried to contact you. Please don’t think that’s because I, your maternal grandmother, don’t love you and feel proud of all you’ve achieved during your life.
Yes, I’ve kept a close eye on your activities for a long time now and know that, against all the odds, and with no help from anyone, you’ve lived the American dream and made a success of everything you’ve touched. I’ve often wondered if that’s because you had nothing going for you except the ambition which I like to think you inherited from your mother’s side of the family. Hunger, intelligence, and ambitions are great motivators. Your mother had every material comfort life could offer her but turned her back on it all. Perhaps if we hadn’t indulged her quite so blatantly, things might have turned out differently for her. For you, with your drive and anger, there was only one way you could go.
Justine paused in her reading and glanced at Zac. What must he have felt when he read this for the first time? It was affecting her profoundly, and it wasn’t even about her. He had his face averted and stared out the window as though something there had attracted his complete attention. Justine doubted if he’d even registered what he was looking at.
She continued to read.
My daughter gave birth to you at the Women’s Greenham Common Peace Camp. I wasn’t even aware that she was pregnant. Your father was an officer in the USAF. Your mother, Mary Elizabeth, was very young at the time, only seventeen. She’d run away from home and the promise of a good place at university to live in that terrible camp. Some extremist type had recruited impressionable girls like her. She was underage, but all efforts to bring her home failed. She simply ran away again, and I later discovered that she was addicted to hard drugs.
“Oh no!” Justine covered her mouth with her hand. “Your mother was a junkie.”
“Seems that way,” Zac said tightly.
Your father somehow managed to take you back to the States when the US Military left England. Why you finished up in care, I’ve never known. Nor did I know your father’s name, at least not at the time. Wendell was simply a name the authorities dreamed up for you. I imagined that your father must be a married man whose wife refused to bring you up as her own. Anyway, Mary Elizabeth only ever referred to him as Al.
Mary Elizabeth went into rehab, and for a while we thought we had our beloved daughter back. But she couldn’t stay away from drugs. The lure was simply too strong for her to fight it. The chemicals had fried her brain, and, in the end, we had her committed. They finally cleaned her up, and she was released back into the community. We saw her occasionally but could never pin her down. When we did see her, she kept going on about her son Zac and how badly she needed to see him again.
I put an investigator onto it. He found a young man called Zac Wendell who had been brought into the States by Captain Alan Beaumont when the USAF left Greenham. He was by then a freshman at Brown University. Alan Beaumont died in a motor accident five years after you reached the States. That wasn’t why you were put into care. He left you there a couple of years before that. He wasn’t married but obviously thought he was doing the right thing by not leaving you with a drug-addicted mother. That, as far as I can ascertain, was all he did for you. Sorry to be so brutal, but by now you will know all too well how harsh life can be.
I wanted to contact you, but my husband, suffering from cancer, advised against it. We had given up the right to be part of your life when we didn’t try to bring you back from the States. Besides, what could we give you that you weren’t creating through your own determination?
“Humph.” Fury radiated through Justine. “How about a little love and affection?”
No one answered her, so she continued to read.
My husband lingered for another two years. By the time he died and I thought about contacting you, you’d graduated, and it took me a while to find you again. By the time I did, you had established yourself in your own right and I knew I’d left it too late.
I’m now dying, and all I can do for you is leave you what ought to be your mother’s inheritance. This old house has been in my family for generations. As you will see from the state of it, the money ran out a while ago, but I never could bring myself to sell it. What you do with it is up to you. I know you will act wisely.
Always know this, Zac. You were loved from afar, and I go to my grave feeling guilty for not having done more to make you aware that you have family who care about you. I suffered agonies when Mary Elizabeth turned to drugs, blaming myself, since it surely must be my fault. But at least I had her for a while, and during the impressionable
years of her childhood she knew what it was to be loved. You never experienced that, and I cry every time I think about the lonely little boy you must have been.
Your mother still lives. I’m telling you this purely for your information. She is beyond anyone’s help.
Your loving grandmother, Julia Everton.
Justine folded the letter and silently handed it to Zac, brushing away tears with the back of her hand. No one spoke for several moments, and the atmosphere was loaded with unspoken condemnation.
“Frankly, I’m surprised you want to find her,” Justine eventually said.
Zac shrugged and appeared to pull himself out of his reverie. “Yeah, sometimes I surprise myself.”
“Well, at least now I have something to go on.”
“That’s why I showed you the letter.”
“Er, there’s just one thing I ought to mention,” Justine said tentatively, “if I’m going to be on the payroll right away.”
Zac and Cody both looked at her. “What is it?” Zac asked.
“Well, my previous job, I’m still technically employed there.”
“But I thought you said—”
“That I resigned?” Justine nodded. “Wouldn’t you have done the same in my place?”
“Okay,” Zac said, slouching in his squishy armchair and stretching long legs out in front of him. “Let’s hear it.”
Justine looked at him and, just for a moment, was unable to find her voice. He was one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen. His profile was rugged, showing clear signs of the tough resourcefulness he must have developed as a parentless child in the not-always-easy environment of foster homes. His aura of not-entirely-civilized male was now understandable and very attractive. She could still hardly believe that she’d actually be working for him. Perhaps she’d been chosen because he wouldn’t be tempted by her physical attributes, such as they were.
Hell if she knew what his reason was. All she did know was that she could bury herself in the work here, be her own boss, and reward Zac’s faith in her by finding his lost mother for him. Knowing what she now did about the woman, she had a feeling that he might well not like what she found. Perhaps she’d use Cody as an intermediary to shield Zac from anything that his buddy thought he shouldn’t know about. It seemed strange, feeling the need to protect such an obvious alpha male. He looked like he could slay dragons single-handedly. He certainly seemed to have tamed the local workforce into submission—no mean feat in itself—but had all sorts of emotional hang-ups about his heritage.