A Reclusive Heart

by R. L. Mathewson

  computer area. While the rest of the room was spotless and bare, her desk was not. It was piled high with papers, probably manuscripts, books, candy bar wrappers, a jar of hard candies and a very old mouse pad.

  Realization hit and he knew how he was going to get what he wanted. This little recluse was truly that, a recluse. She was a young woman with no life or experience outside of her books or computer.

  That’s why she’d sold her successful internet company and taken a job when she didn’t need one. This little recluse wanted to experience life, to make changes and take chances. All he had to do was offer her those opportunities and he’d own her ass.

  He placed the computer on her bare coffee table and opened up the document he’d been working on only an hour ago.

  “Miss. Harris,” he said, trying to sound casual, “I’d like to apologize for upsetting you. I realize that this is all a bit sudden and overwhelming for you. I believe Rick made a mistake in assigning me to you.” He ignored the snort of agreement that came from somewhere in the vicinity of the tan door, probably the bathroom, and continued.

  “I think this is all too much for you, too soon. I’m going to call Rick and have you switched to one of the junior editors. He’ll make sure to keep things simple. You probably won’t even have to leave the office.” He paused to let his words sink in. No doubt she was feeling relieved at the reprieve.

  “If you don’t mind, I need to make a lot of calls. I have to cancel flights, hotel rooms, conferences, book signings, and conventions.” He sighed heavily for effect. “I guess I can wait for most of these calls until I get to the office since they’ll take hours. I had you booked all over the country. The one in Hawaii will be kind of tough to get out of.” He paused for a few seconds to allow that to sink in.

  “It’s really a damn shame because I think you would have really enjoyed yourself. I know touring can be a lot of work, but it’s also a lot of fun,” he said as he opened his e-mail to make sure that all his travel confirmations were set. “But there’s also a lot of fun, new experiences, trying new things, meeting new people. I think this could have been really good for you, but I’m not going to push you into something that you’re clearly not ready for.”

  Nick waited, watching the bathroom door like a hawk. He bit back a groan of frustration, knowing he had to remain cool and calm if this was going to work. His eyes darted back to her desk and he couldn’t help but grin when he spotted the scratch ticket.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know the area code for Vegas, would you? I booked you there next month and I need to let them know-“

  “Vegas?”

  “Yeah, I…” his words trailed off as he turned his head and found the little recluse standing in the bathroom doorway, fidgeting nervously with her fingers. She stood straight, but avoided looking at him.

  There were few things in life that left him speechless and this was one of them. The drab, frumpy little recluse that he’d left with his friends was gone. In her place was a very pretty and adorable woman. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, she wasn’t Dana Pierce level pretty, but she was definitely hot.

  He ran his eyes from her newly cut silky hair over beautiful caramel eyes, cute little nose, the bottom lip that was fuller than the top, small oval chin, slender neck, surprisingly full breasts accentuated by a baby pink top, a slender waist, nicely shaped hips and short, yet nicely shaped legs.

  One very important question came to mind, why in the hell had she been covering all that up? That thought was immediately followed by the realization that this new look would definitely work in his favor. Before all he had was her work to push the name. Now he had a beautiful face to back the work. This would be easier than he thought.

  “Where else would I be going?” her quiet voice tore him from his thoughts. He gave himself a mental shake and focused on the problem at hand, convincing her to take a chance with him.

  He moved to the end of the couch, gesturing to the computer on the table.

  “The whole itinerary is right there if you’d like to take a look,” he said casually as if he wasn’t nervous as hell.

  She looked close to bolting again, but curiosity clearly won out. She sat down on the couch, careful to keep her distance from him and scrolled down the list. He knew she liked what she saw by the way she was trying to bite back a smile.

  “And there would be time for me to do other things?” she asked hesitantly.

  Oh, he had her. J.L. Lewis was his.

  “Absolutely.”

  Chapter 6

  “What are you doing?”

  Jamie quickly shifted the new laptop on her tray so that the monitor was now facing the airplane window.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly.

  Nick frowned down at her. Even sitting down he towered over her, intimidating her. She inwardly sighed, wondering when she was going to catch a break. Thankfully, and much to her delighted surprise, first class seats really were spacious. All throughout her photo shoot and meetings this morning she feared being squished between Nick and some unknown, probably smelly person, during the six hour flight, but luckily the airline bumped them up to first class at the last minute. It probably had something to do with Nick flirting with the ticket woman.

  She wondered if he would use that lovely little talent for the rest of their flights during their tour. It would save her nerves. Not that she couldn’t handle sitting in coach. She could. The few times she’d flown were in the coach section and she’d survived.

  No, her concern was being squished in by Nick. He intimidated her and made her feel uncomfortable. The man was far too bossy for his own good and with her being the world’s biggest pushover that wasn’t exactly going to help. Space was her friend. As long as she had that she could breathe and think clearly. Well, sort of….

  “If you’re not working then I need the computer,” Nick said, sounding grumpy. He hadn’t been happy when he discovered that she didn’t own a laptop.

  When she quietly suggested they bring her desktop with them he glared at her. Just glared. For about a minute she held back her apology for not owning a laptop. She knew it was stupid, but she couldn’t help it. Finally she couldn’t hold it back any longer and apologized and promised to buy one.

  He didn’t speak, but his eyes narrowed on her and she would swear to her dying day that they looked calculating. It made her take a nervous step back. After another moment of making her squirm, which she really didn’t appreciate, he told her they would share his new laptop until he could find one that met his specifications for her.

  She really didn’t understand why they couldn’t just pop into a Best Buy and pick one up and told him that. He just shook his head and told her he’d handle it.

  That was fine with her. She really didn’t care and was more than happy to play around with this one. It was pretty cool. For the first ten minutes she played around with it. Then she felt kind of felt guilty about that so she started editing John Bishop’s latest novel only to stop doing that ten minutes in because she wanted to see if it was her turn in an online Scrabble game. It was. Since then she’d been kicking some cyber butt if she did say so herself.

  “Well, if you’re done do you mind if I got some work done?” he asked calmly enough so she passed the computer over, but not before she quickly closed the Scrabble window and erased the web browser’s history. No need to poke the tiger, she thought.

  Deciding this was probably the best time to use the bathroom, she stood up.

  “Excuse me,” she said as she flattened herself against the back of the seat in front of her, there was more room in first class, but she liked to get as much space between herself and the man watching her with an amused expression as she could.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, looking back at the screen.

  “Bathroom.”

  He nodded as if she’d asked for permission. She almost snorted. She might be a pushover, but she wasn’t that pathetic. She quickly made her wa
y to the first class lavatory and sighed as she spotted the “Occupied” sign. Deciding that it was better to wait here instead of in her seat, she leaned back against the wall and prepared for the long haul.

  “Excuse me, is this the line for the bathroom?” a deeply masculine voice said, drawing Jamie’s attention.

  She looked over to answer the man and found herself speechless and probably blushing. He simply smiled at what was probably her impression of a dying goldfish while she tried not to drool. This man was GQ level handsome, not as handsome as Nick or Edward Pierce, but close enough to fray her weary nerves.

  He held out his hand, expectantly. “Since it looks like we’re going to be line neighbors I thought I should introduce myself. I’m Sean.”

  Was this man flirting? Oh, he definitely was, judging by the glint in his eyes.

  Jamie barely stopped herself from looking behind her for the beautiful woman that obviously had his attention. It took her a few seconds to realize that he was flirting with her.

  She forced herself to take a calming breath as she shook his hand. This was so new and unexpected. Men did not flirt with her. They simply didn’t.

  “Jamie,” she said quickly when she realized she was only holding his hand and staring. Oh, she so sucked at this! He probably thought she was the biggest freak on earth. Any second now he’d give her a polite smile and step back.

  Obviously he couldn’t walk away completely. There were no other bathrooms available. The poor man was stuck in line with her. Even she felt bad for him. Why couldn’t”Is that your husband?” he asked, still holding her hand she’d like to point out, as he nodded towards Nick who was now scowling at his computer.

  She laughed. She really couldn’t help it. The very idea of Nick Quinn being interested in her never mind married to her was truly laughable.

  “You have a very pretty laugh,” Sean said, giving her a boyish grin.

  Jamie took her hand back and pushed an errant strand of hair back behind her ear. “Thank you.”

  “So, I take it he’s not your husband,” he concluded, sounding pleased.

  She was about to tell him that Nick was her editor, but didn’t mostly because she still wasn’t comfortable letting people know who she was. So instead she said, “We work together.”

  “Ah, I see,” Sean said, leaning in closely, but not too close to make her feel uncomfortable. “Is this your first time going to Boston?” he murmured in a rather sexy tone.

  Jamie couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, I’ve been meaning to go for years, but never had a chance,” she said, thinking she also never had anyone to go with or any reason to go. She had friends, but no one she really wanted to take an adventure with. Her eyes darted to Nick. She didn’t really want to do this with him, but he was giving her a good reason to try new things. Also, having him around made her feel a little safer and a little more confident to take a chance.

  “There are a lot of new experiences to be had,” Sean said as if he could read her mind. “In fact,” he said leaning closer, “those experiences can start right now, if you want. There’s nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want.”

  She was just about to open her mouth and ask what sort of new experiences could be had on an airplane when the bathroom door opened. Jamie was barely aware of the middle age man smiling sheepishly as he stepped past them. Her mind was suddenly racing with ideas.

  “Excuse me,” she said absently as she stepped around Sean. “It was nice to meet you. Um, it’s all yours,” she said, gesturing awkwardly to the bathroom.

  He simply shrugged. “I didn’t really have to use it. I just wanted an excuse to meet you.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured shyly as she practically raced back to her seat, eager to start working on a list while crazy ideas raced through her head. Could she really do this? she wondered.

  There was only one way to find out, she thought as she quickly, but carefully, moved past Nick to get back to her seat. She sat down, looked at Nick, fidgeted and fidgeted some more as he typed. Finally he let out an annoyed sigh.

  “What is it?” he asked irritably.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a piece of paper and a pen handy, would you?”

  she asked quietly. She really did not like the idea of putting this down on paper, mostly because it was private, but there was also her little tendency to lose things.

  He sighed long and loud. “Do you need to work?”

  She opened her mouth to tell him no, but then reconsidered it. “Yes, yes I have to work,” she lied.

  “Fine,” he said, saving his work before passing over the laptop. “There’s a folder on the desktop with your name on it. I’d appreciate it if you kept everything you worked on in there.”

  That would definitely make this easier, she thought as she shifted in her seat so he couldn’t see the screen. She opened a new word document and quickly titled it, “Things to Try List.”

  ******

  Nick barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes as the little recluse shifted in her seat so he couldn’t see what she was working on. As long as she worked he really didn’t care and judging by her focused expression and fingers tapping away at a rather impressive pace she was no doubt working on her next book.

  A new book would be the perfect finishing touch to this little tour. Granted it would probably start a whole new tour, preferably a European tour, but he would deal with it. He thought about asking her what her new book was about, but decided that he’d ask in a couple of weeks. Right now he didn’t need to add plans to market a new book into his already hectic schedule.

  In a few weeks when everything settled down and his little recluse was firmly under his thumb he’d start working on her new book with her. He knew getting her to do things his way was going to take some time, not much considering how easily she folded under a simple glare, but it was still something that needed to be done and quickly.

  There was too much to do and not very much time to do it in to let the little recluse have much of a say if any. He needed to be able to make last minute decisions that would benefit them both and he didn’t have time to hold her hand through every issue. It would just make it a lot easier, for him, if she left everything to him. All she needed to do was work, edit if it made her feel important, and show up and smile when and where he told her to, which he thought with a content sigh, wasn’t going to be an issue.

  Four hours later he knew he had her exactly where he wanted her. From here on out there weren’t going to be any problems. She accepted his word as law, which she should. In fact, if all women listened to him as well as his little recluse did his world would be perfect.

  He watched as she looked around the hotel foyer nervously. When her eyes landed on the Gold Ballroom’s bulletin board announcing the romance writer’s convention the following day with a special appearance by J.L. Lewis he had to bite back a smile. The blush and look of surprise on her face was actually kind of cute, but it also let him know one very important thing.

  Jamie was easily intimidated.

  This was going to be so fucking easy. All he had to do was give her a little nudge every now and then, sprout bullshit in her ear and he’d have her doing everything he wanted.

  ******

  “Where the hell are you?” Nick bit out harshly.

  “Out,” Jamie said, nibbling her bottom lip as she looked around.

  “Where?”

  Good question.

  She looked down at the complimentary map she’d picked up in the hotel lobby before she started this little adventure and frowned. Why did they have to make everything so tiny? Because the map was the size of a brochure, she thought with a sigh.

  “Well?”

  “I’m out.”

  “You’re out?” he asked tightly.

  “You said you wouldn’t need me until tomorrow morning so I decided to walk around and grab a bite to eat,” she said, turning the map slightly to the side and frowned. Was that little brown spot the symbol
for a restroom or an ATM? Not that it mattered since all she wanted to do was go to the Museum of Science.

  Visiting a museum probably didn’t seem like a big deal and it wasn’t. But she decided to break into the whole “Try new things” agenda slowly. Besides she was only killing time until tonight. Tonight she was going to go to her very first nightclub and she was pretty excited about it.

  She’d never been to one. Not even when she was in college. The closest she’d ever come was a sixth grade dance that Tommy Perkins invited her to as a dare.

  She’d learned that fact after he grudgingly danced one slow dance with her and his friends started laughing their butts off at him. It had been a memorable moment indeed.

  But that was in the past and had no bearing on her life now. Although she was really nervous, she was also pretty excited. She’d always wanted to try something like this, but could never find the courage. Now that she was on this trip she was going to force herself to try new things. By the time this was over she hoped that the old Jamie was good and buried and that she liked the new Jamie.

  A loud sigh broke into her thoughts. “Fine. Just head back to the hotel now so that we can go over some things and I hope you ate because it’s probably going to be a long night.”