by Diana Palmer
“I just knocked over a bookcase or two,” the girl muttered.
“On purpose and with help.” He took a breath. “Well?” he shot at Gaby. “Can you do it?”
Her degree was in anthropology, but probably it wouldn’t take a scientist to rearrange books. “Of course I can,” she said confidently. “I minored in library science.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but she didn’t expect that he’d go that deep with a background check.
He gave her a brief scrutiny, obviously saw nothing that interested him and opened the door wider. “Do you have references?”
“Pages of them,” she replied and offered up a silent prayer of thanks that she actually did have them in her purse, because she’d just come from an interview for a job she didn’t get at a local museum.
“Don’t hire her, Uncle Nick,” the wild girl said angrily. “She’s got a mean mouth!”
“Look who’s talking,” Gaby returned. “And at least I’m not in danger of septic infection from dozens of piercings and that colorful tattoo down your arm. How do you blow your nose with that ring in it?” she added. “And how in the world do you eat soup?”
“If you say one more word...!” the girl threatened.
“Jackie, go back to your room,” the man said curtly. “Now.” He never raised his voice, but the raw power in it could have backed down a mob.
Gaby would have known that he was an attorney just by the way he used his voice. He headed a prestigious law firm in Chicago, Chandler, Morse and Souillard, and he had a national reputation as a trial lawyer, famous for celebrity cases.
“Mr. Chandler?” she asked politely.
He nodded. “And you are...?”
“Gaby Dupont,” she said with a polite smile. The name would mean nothing to him. There were dozens of people with her surname, no need to make up something that might come back to haunt her later.
He cocked his head. “And why do you want this job?”
“I’m starving?” she replied hopefully.
He didn’t smile, but his eyes had a faint twinkle. “Come in.”
He led the way back to his library. The apartment was huge, done in tasteful dark Mediterranean furniture and cream-and-brown curtains and carpets. The library had a burgundy Persian rug, an oak desk and a library that covered all three walls from floor to ceiling. The floor was full of stacked books, boxes and cartons of them.
“I’ve just moved in,” he said, indicating the disorder. “I don’t have the time or the patience to catalog and place all that, and the assistant I had decided to go back to school and study architecture,” he added gruffly.
“Hence the job opening,” she mused.
“Exactly. Put the books on the floor and sit down.” He’d indicated the seat in front of the desk. Impressive. Burgundy leather and hand-tooled wood. Expensive. She did as he asked and sat down.
“Your qualifications?” he asked.
She handed him a sheet of paper. It outlined her college degree and her hobbies.
He looked up at her curiously. “Are you married?”
“I am not.”
“Engaged? Involved? Living with someone?”
Her eyes almost popped. “Mr. Chandler, I hardly think any of that is your business. This is a job interview, not an interrogation.”
He gave her a long-suffering look. “I want to know if you have entanglements that will interfere with the work you do here,” he returned. “I also need references.”
“Oh. Sorry. I forgot.” She handed him another sheet of paper. “And no, I’m not involved with anyone. At the moment.” She smiled sweetly.
He ignored the smile and looked over the sheet. His eyebrows arched as he glanced at her. “A Roman Catholic cardinal, a police lieutenant, two nurses, the owner of a coffee shop and a Texas Ranger?” he asked incredulously.
“My grandmother is from Jacobsville, Texas,” she explained. “The Texas Ranger, Colter Banks, is married to my third cousin.”
“And these others?”
“People who know me locally.” She smiled demurely. “The police officer wants to date me. I know him from the coffee shop. The owner...”
“Wants to date you, too,” he guessed. He stared at her as if he had no idea on earth why any male would want to date her. The look was fairly insulting.
“I have hidden qualities,” she mused, trying not to laugh.
“Apparently,” he said. His eyes went back to the sheet. “A cardinal?” He glowered at her. “And please don’t tell me that he wants to date you.”
“Of course not. He’s a friend of my grandmother’s.”
He drew in a breath. Her comments about men who wanted to date her disturbed him. He studied her in silence. He was extremely wealthy, not only from the work he did but also from an inheritance left to him by a late uncle.
“You don’t want the job because I’m single?” he asked bluntly.
Now her eyebrows lifted almost to her hairline. “Mr....” She glanced at the paper in her hand. “Mr. Chandler,” she continued, “I hardly think my taste would run to a man in his forties!”
His dark eyes almost exploded with anger. “I am not in my forties!”
“Oh, dear, do excuse me,” she said at once. She had to contain a smile. “Honestly, you look very much younger than a man in his fifties!”
His lips made a thin line.
The smile escaped and her pale blue eyes twinkled.
He wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at her.
She just grinned.
He sat back in his chair. “Well, you can obviously deal with Jackie, which is a plus. She drives me crazy. Her mother’s in Europe with her latest boyfriend and unlikely to return until her daughter’s grown or married or in prison.”
She laughed.
He shook his head. “And you have qualifications.” His dark eyes narrowed. “You aren’t connected with any foreign spy service?”
“Not unless I joined in my sleep,” she assured him. “Honestly, I’m just a plain working girl.”
“Working at what?” he returned with a cold smile. “You don’t cite any previous job experience. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.” She thought fast. “I worked for my grandmother as a social secretary after I got out of college.”
“You don’t list her on your sheet of references.”
“Why would I list a relative?” she asked.
“You did list a relative. The Texas Ranger.”
“Oh. Him.” She sighed. “Well, a distant relation is less likely to lie for you than a close one, right?”
He laughed. “I give up. All right. We’ll try it for a couple of weeks and see how you work out. You can start by cataloging the library. Can you take dictation, answer the phone, make appointments...?”
“Well, yes,” she began, hesitantly.
“We’ll add all that into the job description, then. You can be my private administrative assistant. It’s getting harder to avoid bringing work home as the business expands, and I do need someone in that capacity. Can you handle it?”
“Of course,” she said without hesitation. She’d done all that for Grandmère, after all, without pay.
He mentioned a figure that was a little surprising. It was a great deal more than most women could expect for the services he’d outlined, and her face betrayed her.
“You’ll be living in. Did I forget to mention that?”
Oh, dear. Complications. However, it would be convenient. Her grandfather wouldn’t know where to find her. Neither would the cousin who kept trying to force her to give up a fortune in property that he thought rightfully belonged to him—despite the concrete will that left it to Gaby. The cousin, Robert, was disturbed. Very disturbed, to her mind, but he intimidated his mother to the point that she avoided even speaking to him.
�
��That will be fine,” she said after a minute. “Do I have to room with the Goth Girl?” she added with raised eyebrows.
He chuckled. “No. You’ll have your own room. And please don’t call her that to her face,” he added. “I have too many breakables in here that I’m fond of.”
“I’ll restrain myself,” she promised.
He got up. “Well, it will be interesting, if nothing more,” he said. “You’ll start Monday. How’s that?”
Today was Friday. That gave her the weekend to organize things. Since she owned her apartment, she had no worries about the rent going unpaid. “I’ll be here first thing Monday morning,” she promised.
“I leave the apartment at eight in the morning to get to the office on time. You’d better be here before then. Or you might not be able to get in,” he added with pursed lips.
She took his meaning. The Goth Girl would probably lock her out once she knew Gaby was going to work here. She chuckled. “Okay. I’ll be here before eight.”
“Do you have other relatives besides your grandmother?” he asked curiously.
Her face closed up. “No,” she said without elaborating.
That expression made him curious. But there would be plenty of time later to dig deeper, if he wanted to. He needed an employee. Her private life was no concern of his. “Monday, then. Good day.”
He let her out of the apartment and closed the door.
She was fumbling in her purse to put away the sheets of paper he’d returned to her when she heard an absolute feminine wail come through the door of the apartment she’d just left.
“She’s going to work here? No!”
Gaby smiled to herself all the way to the elevator.
* * *
HER BODYGUARD WAS waiting downstairs beside a black limousine. It was a sedan, not the stretch limo he usually drove for her grandmother. Gaby had wanted to be discreet, although the last thing she’d come here for was a job. She lived with her grandmother, who was one of the wealthiest women in the country, and Gaby was her only heir. The job was an opportunity, though, and she was going to take it.
“How’d it go?” Tanner Everett asked with a smile.
She looked up, trying not to stare at the black eye patch over the blue eye that had been damaged beyond repair in some foreign country while he was plying his former trade as a mercenary.
“I got hired.”
His black eyebrows arched. “Hired?”
“Well, I got cold feet about asking him questions when the Goth Girl answered the door.”
He put her inside the sedan and got in under the wheel. “The Goth Girl?”
“You had to be there.” She laughed and shook her head as he cranked the car and pulled cautiously out into traffic. “It seems that Mr. Chandler has a niece with enough tattoos and piercings to put her in line for a job making license plates in some big federal facility.”
It took a minute for that to penetrate, and he roared. “She sounds like a handful.”
“She is. I’m going to be Public Enemy Number One.” She grinned. “I love the sound of that. I’ve led such a quiet, uneventful life with Grandmère,” she added.
“You didn’t get to talk to him about your grandfather, I gather.”
“No. He isn’t the sort of man you approach directly with such questions. I almost made a fatal faux pas,” she told him. She leaned back against the seat. “I hope my grandmother isn’t going to be mad because of what I did. It was an opportunity I didn’t feel I could overlook. If I get to know him, I can find out all sorts of things without having to beg for information.”
“That way lies disaster,” he said quietly, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “Lies catch up with you.”
“This is just a little white lie,” she argued with a smile. “And nobody’s going to get hurt. Honest.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
* * *
HER GRANDMOTHER, SMALL and wizening and fierce for all her size, gave Gaby a severe stare when she was told about the position. She gave Everett one, too, but it just bounced off him.
“I did not tell you to get a job,” she told Gaby firmly, her faint French accent coming out as she grew more angry.
“But it’s the best way to find out,” Gaby argued. “I won’t have to stay long. Meanwhile, I can learn about him and his law practice. I can find out which attorney in his firm represented Grandfather and how he felt about what...what happened to me.”
Everett made a face. “Your grandfather should have had ten years for that.”
“His best friend is a judge,” she said on a sigh. “Justice is largely a matter of money these days,” she added cynically.
“Not always.”
Madame Dupont made a gruff sound in her throat and turned away, resplendent in a taupe silk pantsuit that took ten years off her age. “My granddaughter, working at a menial job. What is the world coming to?”
“I’ll learn to catalog books as I go,” Gaby replied with a wicked smile. “And I’ll turn Goth Girl inside out as a personal favor to Mr. Chandler.”
Madame turned, her perfect eyebrows arching. “Excuse me?”
“Mr. Chandler’s niece lives with him,” Gaby explained. “She has more piercings than a soldier during the Napoleonic Wars, and tattoos that would grace a prison cell.”
Madame looked toward the ceiling. “What perils are you placing yourself into?” She turned. “You should go back right now and tell that attorney the truth of why you went to see him.”
“I will not,” Gaby said softly. “It’s a terrific opportunity.”
“Lies come back to bite you, my sweet.”
“These won’t. It will be all right. Really.”
Madame came forward and drew Gaby into a warm embrace while the delicate fragrance of Nina Ricci’s L’Air du Temps wafted into her nostrils. It was the only scent Madame ever wore. “If you say so, my darling.” She drew back and touched Gaby’s soft hair. “You must not put yourself in any more danger than you already face.”
“I’m not in danger.” She pointed to Tanner Everett. “Ask him.”
He chuckled. “She isn’t in any danger,” he parroted in his faint Texas accent. “I give you my word.”
“Well, that is something, at least. But you have to live in? I shall die of boredom here alone,” Madame wailed.
“You could invite Clarisse to stay,” she suggested. “She loves you, too.”
“Clarisse.” She made another gruff noise under her breath. “She and her fiancé drive me almost mad. I have found them making out in every room of this apartment. Even the bathroom!”
“They’ll be married in two weeks and she’ll settle down.”
“Not in time. No Clarisse.” She sighed. “Well, perhaps I can tolerate Sylvie for a few days.”
Sylvie was her cousin, a sweet and gentle older woman who loved soap operas and swashbuckling movies.
“She’ll drive you mad with old Errol Flynn movies,” Gaby commented.
“Oh, I like pirate movies,” Madame said absently. “I’ll nap while she watches those vulgar soap operas, so that I don’t offend her with commentary.”
“Good idea,” Gaby said.
Madame sighed. “When do you move in with him?”
“With them,” she corrected and smiled. “Monday morning, so I must go back to my own apartment and decide what to take with me.” She moved forward, embraced her grandmother and brushed a kiss against the beautiful skin on her cheek. She drew back with a sigh. “You know, you have the most perfect complexion I’ve ever seen, even at your age.”
Madame beamed. She touched Gaby’s face. “Which you have inherited, ma chèrie,” she replied, her voice as soft as the fingers that brushed over Gaby’s face.
“I have only your skin, not your beauty,” Gaby said, and witho
ut rancor. She glanced at the youthful portrait of Madame Melissandra Lafitte Dupont over the mantel. She had been debutante of the year in her class, wooed by princes and comtes, but she chose instead a fast-talking salesman of a business executive with grand ideas and no money. As people said, there was no accounting for taste.
“You were so beautiful,” Gaby remarked, staring at the portrait.
“The artist was blind,” the elderly woman chuckled.
“He was not. He captured the very essence of you,” Gaby argued as she moved closer to the portrait, so that the pale gray eyes were large enough to divine that they were alive with humor and love of life. “Grandfather never deserved you,” she added in a cold, angry tone.
There was a sigh behind her. “We live and learn, do we not?” was the sad reply. “He could have been anything he liked. But he was greedy, and you paid for his greed, my baby.” She hugged Gaby close. “I would give anything if you could have been spared that.”
Gaby hugged her back. “I had you,” she said softly. “So many people have less. I was lucky.”
“Lucky.” Madame made a curse of the word. She drew back. “I cannot convince you to give up this mad scheme?”
Gaby shook her head, smiling.
“Ah, well. At least I can make sure that he is your shadow.” She nodded toward Everett.
“I already am her shadow,” he chuckled.
“True enough,” Gaby returned. “Heavens, he can squeeze into the most incredible places. You never even notice him.”
“Which is why I’m still alive,” came the sardonic reply.
“So you are. Make certain that no harm comes to my granddaughter,” Madame told him. “Or I will find the deepest dungeon in my estate outside Paris, and you will rot there.” She even smiled when she said it.
“Did I ever mention that I always carry a nail file?” he replied, used to her threats, which he found more amusing than threatening. She knew he was good at his job.
Madame chuckled. She loved their repartee. “Very well. Good luck to both of you.”