Can't Make This Up

by C. Morgan

  I got up and went to bed with Ryker on my mind once again. When I woke up in the morning, my mind was made up. I knew what I had to do. Naya would understand.

  After making myself a cup of coffee, I pulled out the business card he gave me. He wrote his personal cell number on the back. I checked the time. It was after nine. Was that too early to text a potential boss on a Saturday?

  If he was otherwise occupied, he could just ignore the text until he was up or his company was gone. Or he was home. I really had no idea about the life of a philanderer.

  I did it anyway. I texted and asked if we could talk. My phone rang almost the moment I sent the text. His number showed up on the screen. That was odd. “Hello?”

  “Yes, we can talk. Come over.”

  “What?”

  “Come over. I’ll text you my address. I’m working from home today.”

  “You’re working from home?” I repeated. I was shocked and confused. “As a chiropractor?”

  “I’ll have breakfast waiting, assuming you haven’t eaten.”

  “Um, no, I haven’t. You’re already up?”

  “I’ve been up for hours, Trinity. Are you telling me you just got up?”

  I lied. “No, I’ve been up.”

  “Great, then I’ll see you soon.”

  He hung up, and a moment later, I got a text with his address. It was all so fast I didn’t have a chance to think about it. “All right then,” I said and headed for the shower. I had a date with my boss. Assuming he hadn’t changed his mind.

  I dressed in a pair of slacks and a pretty blouse tucked in tight. It was a Saturday but this meeting with Ryker could be my future. At least my immediate future.

  I needed the job. It didn’t have to be a permanent thing. I just needed something to keep the bills paid until I could find something that didn’t include my boss being the guy I slept with at my best friend’s wedding.

  I headed out, following the GPS directions. I pulled up to a driveway with an open gate. I was almost afraid to drive up it. I double-checked the address he sent me and confirmed I was at the right place.

  Nerves boiled in my belly as I pushed the gas. “Here goes nothing,” I muttered.

  The tree-lined driveway wrapped around, leading me to a massive house. “Of course, he lives in a mansion.”

  I parked my car and nervously made my way to the front door. I rang the bell, expecting a butler with white gloves to answer. When he pulled open the door wearing a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, I stepped back. “Oh,” I said for lack of anything better to say.

  “Oh?” he said with a laugh. “Were you expecting me to be in a suit?”

  “No. Yes. But I didn’t expect you to answer the door.”

  “Who did you expect?” he asked with an amused look in his eyes.

  I shrugged. “A butler. A maid. A footman. I don’t know.”

  “None of the above. Not today. Come in. I’ll confess, I do have a cook and he made breakfast.”

  I followed him inside. We walked through a huge foyer with lots of bright lighting and numerous paintings along the walls. He led me into a kitchen that my mother would have gone crazy for. It was bright white with dark gray accents and, oddly enough, had a very farmhouse look to it. It was not what I expected from him.

  I smelled bacon and orange juice and something sweet. “This way,” he said and led me to a normal-looking table with fresh flowers sitting in the middle of it. The table was placed directly in front of a window with plenty of sunlight streaming through. “Have a seat and I’ll let him know we are ready to eat.”

  “You really didn’t need to go through all the trouble,” I told him.

  “I’m hungry and need to eat. I figured we may as well talk while we eat. I assume you are here to talk about the job.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you made a decision?”

  A man emerged from the kitchen carrying two plates that one would expect to get at a restaurant. My eyes bulged as I stared at the food that all looked amazing. I remembered the reason for my visit. “Yes, I have.”

  “And?”

  “I would like to accept your offer.”

  He smiled and popped a chunk of pancake into his mouth. “Great. We’ll eat and then I’ have you fill out the paperwork.”

  “You will?”

  “I do a lot of business from home. I want you to start on Monday and that means I need you to hit the ground running.”

  “Okay. That works for me.”

  I enjoyed the breakfast much more than I thought I would. I thought this conversation was going to be awkward. We finished our breakfast after a little small talk.

  “Should we go to my office?” he asked.

  “Yep, let’s do this.”

  I followed him down another hall lined with more artwork. He pushed open a heavy wooden door. His home office was about the size of my new apartment. It was big but I was surprised by how simple it was. There was a large wooden desk in front of a window and a small seating area. The paint was a light gray color, giving the room a bright feeling.

  “Have a seat,” he said and gestured to one of the cushioned chairs that faced a small sofa with a rug centered between the two.

  I sat down and waited while he sat at his desk. “I have some of the basic paperwork you’ll need to do for payroll. I’ll give you a quick tutorial on how to use my scheduling system.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you know how to use Office?”

  I nodded. “I do. And I worked with a few different scheduling programs.”

  “Great,” he said and walked over to me with a box in his hand. “This is yours.”

  I took the box and stared down at the iPad box. “What is this?”

  “It’s an iPad.”

  “I know that, but why are you giving it to me?”

  “This is what you will use to stay up on my schedule and emails and basically run my life. I find it easier to work on one of those instead of a small phone. We’ll be on the move a lot and I need you to be able to access emails and schedules and so on. That tablet will be your bible. It will be what keeps me on track.”

  I nodded, suddenly taking it seriously. “Okay, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Go ahead and turn it on,” he said. “The HR paperwork is emailed to you. Your company email is on the inside of the box.”

  I opened the box and found it. The iPad was already set up. It only took me a few minutes to find the forms I needed to fill out. “You keep these in your office just in case all the time?”

  He smiled. “No, I got it yesterday, hoping you’d be here today.”

  “Oh really?” I said with a laugh. “You were that confident?”

  “I was, but I’m glad you’re here. You are seriously doing me a huge favor.”

  I started going through the paperwork, reading everything. “Who is Dr. Freeman? Nick Freeman?”

  “That’s my partner. I can’t always be in the office. Actually, I’m not in the office for about six months out of the year. He handles the bulk of the patients in both clinics. I have another doctor on staff that helps out when things are really tight.”

  I nodded and did the electronic signature. I finished the paperwork. “Okay, is the scheduling program loaded on here?”

  “It is,” he said. “Why don’t we go into the living room? We’ll sync up calendars and I’ll show you how to use it. We’ll also go over some of the other basics.”

  Once again, I followed him out of his office. I felt like he was giving me a tour of his house without actually saying it. “Do you really live here all alone?” I asked him.

  He smirked. “Do you think I have a gaggle of kids or a harem?”

  “I really have no idea.”

  “I do a lot of business here,” he explained. “I’ll expect you to be able to work out of here on occasion. I’ll have a room ready for those times that we might work late and you’ll need to stay the night.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Sta
y the night?”

  “Nothing sexual. My last assistant had a room here, and trust me, I was the last thing she wanted.”

  “I see. Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  We sat down in the comfortable living room. While he talked, I took notes on the tablet. The man was always on the move. I didn’t know how he had the time to develop such a bad reputation for being a womanizer with as much as he worked.

  He was always on the go. I was careful to listen to everything he said. Naya would kill me if I screwed this job up and caused a ripple in the relationship between her and Ryan. She was going to kick my ass for taking the job without consulting her in the first place.

  Chapter 8

  Ryker

  I watched as she furiously typed away on the tablet. She was attentive. It made me feel more confident in my decision to hire her. She was going to be better than my last assistant.

  Once we were all done with the paperwork, I didn’t want her to leave. “Can I give you a tour?” I offered.

  She shrugged. “Sure, I’d like that. Do you provide maps with your tours?”

  I smiled and had to resist the urge to take her hand. “It can be intimidating but it’s not so bad once you get used to the sheer size.”

  “Why did you buy a house so big?”

  “When I bought it, the place was rundown. Did you know this house is over a hundred years old?”

  She looked properly surprised. “I didn’t. It certainly doesn’t look like it.”

  “It was a project. I loved the idea of renovating it.”

  “How long have you owned it?”

  “About five years. It took a year to do the renovations. I had to redo all the plumbing and wiring. A new roof and a new pool. It’s basically new.”

  “Were you planning on extensive renovations?” she asked as we strolled back into the foyer and headed up the grand staircase.

  I liked that she seemed genuinely interested. My house had been a passion project. “I wasn’t planning on it, but my contractor got started on it and it was like he was calling me almost every single day and telling me about a new problem. It was one after another. There were many times I almost sold it for a loss just to get away from it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, I stuck it out. My parents kept telling me I was wasting my time and money. Ryan told me to stick it out. He and I actually helped with some of the construction.”

  “What? No way? You were swinging a hammer?”

  “I swung a hammer, did some of the drywall, and even painted a little. I didn’t have a lot of free time, but it was fun.” I pushed open the bedroom door of the room I was going to keep at the ready for her.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said as she walked in. “And big.”

  “This will be your room should you need to stay on occasion.”

  “Wow,” she said again as she walked around the room. She moved to the window and looked out. “Holy shit! That’s your backyard?”

  She spun around to look at me. I liked the wonderment I saw in her eyes. “It is. Do you want to see it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I was thrilled to show off my backyard. I rarely had women over to my house. It was too risky. I preferred to get a hotel room or go to their place. It made extraction much easier.

  She wasn’t just another woman. I led her out the French doors that overlooked the large patio that wrapped around the back of the house.

  “This is part of the original house,” I told her and pointed to a wall that was used to provide shade on a hot day.

  “That’s cool,” she said and reached out to touch it. “Whose idea was that?”

  “Mine. I wanted to preserve some of the house. I felt a little guilty for tearing it down to the foundation basically. It was a historical place and I wanted to have a piece of it.”

  “That is cool. I love it.”

  I led her toward the pool. I loved my pool. It was only a little disappointing that summers were so short in the area. “This is my favorite place to be when I’m home.”

  “I can see why,” she said. “This is amazing.”

  We walked around the pool toward the garden area. “My mom influenced this,” I told her. “I will admit I don’t know a daisy from a daffodil. I love it in the spring when things are in full bloom.”

  “I bet it’s gorgeous. It’s pretty now. I love this bench. I could imagine sitting out here and reading on a warm summer day. It would be peaceful.”

  I looked at the bench. “I have never really sat out here.”

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “Why not? You have this beautiful space literally in your backyard. Why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t do a lot of reading and I guess I never really took the time to see it for what it is.”

  She sighed and bent forward to smell a rose. “Now you see it for what it is,” she said. I saw her wince and her hand went to her back as she stood.

  “Your back is still bothering you. Did you use a heating pad last night?”

  “I did and it is a lot better, but when I bend or twist, it gets me.”

  “I’m not an excellent massager, but I am pretty good with my hands. Let’s go back inside. I have a table in my office.”

  “No, no, I’m fine.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. This time, I was far more insistent. “I need you to be at your best on Monday. It’s going to be busy and I don’t want you waylaid by a bum back on day one. If you go to work and are on your feet all day, there is a good chance you’re going to make it worse. Let me try something.”

  “You are persistent.”

  “I only seem that way because you’re so damn stubborn.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Fair enough.”

  I led her into the living room. I knew she wasn’t going to be comfortable on my table. I grabbed a chair and ordered her to sit down.

  “You really don’t have to do this. I don’t expect free chiropractic services just because I work for you.”

  “This is not a big deal. Consider it a favor.”

  “I don’t know how I can return the favor,” she said and sat down. She straddled the chair, her arms resting on the back of it. “And don’t ask for sexual favors.”

  I laughed and began to rub her shoulders. “I’ve already had your sexual favors, remember?”

  “And they weren’t good enough for you to ask for them again?”

  Was she flirting? “I wouldn’t say that, but you are my employee now,” I reminded her.

  “Right. Of course. I wasn’t actually offering.”

  I decided to change the subject before she got up and ran from my house. “Do you think Ryan and Naya will return?”

  She laughed. “Not willingly.”

  “I don’t know if I would either. Sitting on a beach and soaking up the sun with a Mai Tai in my hand sounds like a pretty nice way to spend my life.”

  “I don’t mean to point out the obvious, but you could do that, right? I mean, do you really have to work as much as you do?”

  She made a good point. “It’s not that I have to work, but I like to work. I like what I do. I’ll probably eventually step away from my practice and leave it to Nick, but I don’t want to do that anytime soon.”

  “Because it makes you money?” she asked. I didn’t miss the slightly accusatory tone.

  “Yes and no. It’s something I started. Something I worked hard to get off the ground. I don’t feel like I’m quite ready to retire and run off into the sunset just yet. I’m not that old.”

  I continued to gently massage and knead her back. I could feel her relaxing a little and knew it was helping. I also knew I couldn’t give her back rubs in the office. That would be inappropriate, but for now, we were at my place, and I was truly doing it to help her. Although I was getting just a little turned on with all the touching.

  This was probably not a good idea. I could admit there was a
n attraction. She could say she wasn’t attracted to me, but she’d be lying. I felt it. I saw it. This was me playing with fire and hoping I didn’t get burned. I wasn’t really much of a risk taker, but I was taking this one.

  “I should probably go,” she said after a while.

  “Thank you for coming by on a Saturday.”

  “Thank you for the job. I guess I’ll see you Monday.”

  “I will be there. Feel free to text or call if you have any questions before then.”

  She smiled up at me. “Thank you. Really, I don’t know if this job offer was a charitable act, but I appreciate it. Thank you for giving me a chance. I will do my best.”

  “I have no doubt that you will. It isn’t all that difficult. The hardest part is keeping me on task.”

  She winked. “I have no problem cracking the whip when necessary.”

  I knew that was true. I had seen her take charge of that wedding. She even bossed my dad around. No one, except my mother, told my dad what to do.

  I walked her to the door and there was a moment when I almost kissed her. Then I remembered this wasn’t that. This was an employee leaving after work. Once she was gone, I went back to my office. I needed to let Nick know we had someone new starting.

  I quickly sent him an email before I had to do the one thing I dreaded. Ryan was going to kick my ass for hiring Trinity. He wasn’t thrilled that I slept with her and I knew he damn well didn’t trust me not to do it again. He loved Naya and would not want anything to cause problems in his relationship. Me working with her best friend could get dicey if I let things get out of control.

  I kept my email to him short and sweet. I simply told him Trinity was working for me and I was glad to have run into her at the wedding. I hoped he didn’t read into it. I sent it, knowing he wouldn’t read the email until he got home. I didn’t want to ruin his honeymoon, but I wanted him to know before we saw each other face to face.

  I hoped he wouldn’t be too mad. I didn’t plan on touching Trinity again. It would be a strictly business relationship. She seemed like a competent assistant and that was exactly what I needed. I could keep my hands off. I would keep my hands off. I didn’t want to lose another assistant. My life could not function without one.