by Taryn Quinn
“What about the list of doom?”
He waved his hand. “You can shred it. Well, at least the last few pages. The first is made up of perfectly valid tasks.”
“If you say so.” I narrowed my eyes. “Did you say bonus?”
He stood and came toward me. “Yes. A sizable bonus.”
“Does it come with orgasms?”
He halted in his tracks. “April returns next Monday.”
“That wasn’t a yes.”
“April returns next Monday,” he repeated as if that weighty sentence was the answer to all the world’s problems.
Or at least ours. And maybe he was right.
We could handle dealing with each other for four more days. Slightly less than that because we were already into Tuesday. Surely we could manage that much.
Possibly.
I gave his tie a lengthy stroke before I walked to the door and delivered one last parting shot on my way out. “The best way to get rid of temptation is to give into it, Preston.”
Nine
“The best way to get rid of temptation is to give into it, Preston.”
One sentence should not have held my dick in a vise, but that was the power of Ryan G. Moon.
The vixen April had set upon me for reasons unknown.
To rub salt in the wound, I received a postcard from my assistant—the real one. The one who didn’t make me sit like a fourteen-year-old boy trying to hide my half-mast.
Anyway, it was digital taunting, of course, because no mail moved that fast. But the email contained several beachy shots of palm fronds waving in the breeze and rolling turquoise waves and April in a bikini frolicking in the surf.
I envied her frolic.
Having the best time. Hope all is well. See you soon (not too soon!)
I sent a pithy reply and clicked the email closed. Couldn’t be soon enough, since it was already too late.
Or it would have been if I wasn’t exceptional at blocking my own impulses. My skill at ignoring my own desires was the only reason I was still a divorce lawyer.
Otherwise, I’d be doing some other specialty. Like…family law, maybe, or something that did some good. Making sure kids were protected seemed so much more worthwhile than ensuring Betty Studebaker got all the good china and the cabin in Tahoe.
But that wasn’t the road in front of me right now. All I wanted to do was survive this week without fucking Ryan on my desk—or her desk, that actually belonged to April—so that I could still look at myself in the mirror.
It wasn’t as if she was my permanent assistant. She was just a temp. But with my father’s exploits still fresh, I couldn’t let that breach happen. If I didn’t follow my own standards, how could I criticize his?
Short answer: I couldn’t.
Since I had no better options at the moment, I locked myself in my office. I didn’t inquire about the digital indexing Ryan had mentioned or concern myself with my missing coffee. It would come when it came.
In the meantime, I finished my last cup of my beloved caramel-coconut. Then I resorted to drinking soda by the gallon while wondering when I’d turned to compulsive behaviors to avoid my assistant.
Not just her. I was also avoiding my father. There were hard conversations that were needed to be had, and I wasn’t ready. Once I pulled that trigger, the next step would need to be taken.
Telling my mother what I’d seen.
The front blinds were pulled as tight as possible. Not even a shaft of light could escape, just in case Ryan wanted to peek in. Or in case my brother wanted to taunt me by flirting with her as if I was a lion behind the glass. Consigned to always look but not touch.
Except I had touched her, and she’d touched me.
It hadn’t been nearly enough.
I worked for as long as I could, forcing myself again and again to refocus on the paperwork in front of me. I left my computer on standby. That way I couldn’t hear the email dinging. As for the phone, it couldn’t interrupt you when it was disconnected.
Who knew?
After awhile, I needed a break, so I pulled out the hunter green folder I’d received last night from Kitten Around. I’d left after promising to review the materials and to offer my support if it was a good fit. Since my part usually just required money, I was fairly certain it would be.
I had to admit the idea was intriguing. They’d come up with the idea to do a kind of speed dating event—except matching kittens and critical care cats with pet parents. They’d included the forms participants would fill out to be part of the program, and damn if it didn’t look like one from a dating app.
Not that I knew what those looked like. Because of course I’d never considered turning to one of those sites after the long, lonely nights got to be too much.
All right, so maybe I had once a few years ago. I hadn’t gone through with it, because—
I didn’t know why.
Liar.
Deep down, I’d harbored a belief much like Ryan’s. If it was meant to happen, it would, and I wouldn’t need to pay for the privilege.
Guess I was more of a sap than I realized.
A knock sounded at my door when I was pouring my third glass of Coke. I hadn’t had this much soda since college. Maybe high school. At least it wasn’t bourbon.
I debated not answering. I knew it was cowardly. At this point, I didn’t care.
My only hope for this week was to get through it intact.
Harm none.
I frowned and rubbed my blurry eyes. Now I was thinking in Wiccan tenets, which was my own fault for doing some research past midnight when I couldn’t sleep. I’d started with tarot cards and stumbled into witchy stuff, an interesting coincidence considering what Ryan had told my father this morning.
Whether or not she was truly a witch, Ryan’s world was surprisingly fascinating. I had a feeling I’d only scratched the surface.
Of her too.
Another knock sounded and I pushed to my feet. I’d face her standing and send her back where she’d come from the same way. “Yes?”
That should’ve been my clue it wasn’t Ryan. She didn’t wait to be invited in. She just blazed through my world like a tornado.
“Sweetheart.” My mom strolled in. “Are you busy? Of course you are, you never stop.”
I’d heard the phrase my heart sunk before, but I had never lived it. Shit, this was the last thing I needed today.
Then again, when was the right time to tell the mother you adored that her husband was cheating on her?
That the man in question was my father didn’t lessen my anger.
I shook my head. “I always have time for you. Shut the door. Please,” I tacked on when she shot me a look.
She did as I asked, but as she turned, I caught a glimpse of Ryan at her desk. Sitting ramrod straight, her hair long and loose. Typing away like the assistant of my fucking dreams.
The last part was true too. I was definitely having fucking dreams about her. And today’s tongue swordplay would not help on that score.
I pressed a finger to my temple and sank into my chair.
My mother came around the desk and leaned down to hug me as she always did, smelling of Chanel and freshly overturned dirt. An odd combination, but that was my mother in a nutshell. She wore a pristine pink pants suit with a plaid shirt more fitting for a gardener. She’d styled her hair in a flawless brown wave with tucked under ends, and pearls shone at her ears. Her perfect makeup was marred only by a muddy streak she’d overlooked on her cheek.
I swiped it away for her and eased back. “Been pruning again?”
“Oh, did I miss a spot?” She held her hand against her face and laughed. “I didn’t pay much mind to my makeup after I finished getting the garden ready for fall planting. Fifi was running around in circles. She tried to get a squirrel today. Can you imagine? Blasted thing was almost as big as she is.”
Fifi was her purse-sized chihuahua who thought she was the size of a wolf and possessed the same huntin
g prowess. She was wrong.
“She figures she can do anything, and you’ll be happy about it.”
“She’s not entirely wrong, minus squirrel killing. What’s wrong with you?”
“What? Nothing. Why?”
“A mother knows.”
I gulped my drink. I used to handle things directly. No beating around the bush. No hiding. If something was unpleasant, I dealt with it with a modicum of fuss and got the job done.
Now avoiding women I didn’t want to have difficult conversations with seemed to be my MO.
Not only women. I didn’t want to talk to my father either. Or my brother for that matter, who was probably just waiting for me to give him a sign to descend on Ryan. He wasn’t good enough for her.
For that matter, neither was I. She deserved someone who was all in. Totally committed to riding that magic carpet wherever it would go.
My only commitment was to my job. It was a pledge I’d made years ago to my father. My family’s legacy was this firm, and for the last few years, I’d been the one doing the bulk of the work. As my dad neared retirement, I was poised to take over. And I couldn’t do that at this level and have a relationship.
Or a life.
“Preston?” My mom snapped her fingers to get my attention. “I won’t disappear if you don’t answer me.”
“I’m swamped.” It was an easy lie, and reaching for one was yet another thing I didn’t do before this week.
“You always are. But you don’t usually have that look in your eyes.” She didn’t move away as she usually did to take one of the chairs opposite my desk. “What is it?”
When I didn’t respond, she brushed my hair back from my forehead as she had when I was a child. And for the first time in more years than I could remember, I wanted nothing more than to lay my head on her chest and pretend everything was all right. That the world was predictable and safe and my parents would never let anything hurt me.
That they wouldn’t be the ones doing the hurting.
“I bet I know.” She angled her head to examine my face. “Your new assistant is one of a kind.”
I laughed. I wasn’t even sure why. She’d nailed Ryan succinctly. “Temporary.”
“Oh, she was quick to tell me that too. She’s a friend of April’s, she said.”
“Yes.”
“Is she the reason you’re barricaded in here?”
“Who says I am?”
“Your door is shut, your blinds closed all the way. You’re not answering phone calls, personal or business.” She walked around my desk to pick up the pulled out phone cord. “This explains it.”
I rose to go to the wall of windows at my back. When I first moved into this office seven years ago, I’d been drawn to them many times throughout the day. Instead of looking down at the cars chugging along the city streets below, I’d always looked upward. The sun and sky were my touchstones.
It wouldn’t stay dark forever. It never did.
Now I rarely remembered to look out. To look up and watch the shifting sunlight as it emerged from behind the clouds.
Work was more important. I was always racing for an invisible finish line I would never quite reach.
I glanced at my watch. Almost noon. “Mom, I have an appointment at one with a client. I appreciate the visit, but—”
“You don’t have time.” She was already making herself tea, so she had no intention of leaving me in peace anytime soon.
Nudging her along had been a knee-jerk reaction. Her weekly visits for lunch were a bright spot in a hell of a lot of hectic mornings and long afternoons. My mother was quirky and a little kooky and frequently made me crazy. She also made me laugh.
Much like someone else I knew. I didn’t know her at all really, but I wanted to.
I wanted far too much.
“I really wish I did.”
“You know, you have choices.”
“What?”
She shook her head and returned with her hot cup of water and teabag to sit across from my desk. “You’re thirty-four years old, Preston. Thirty-five soon enough.”
I clamped a hand on the back of my neck. Tight, throbbing muscles were a mainstay for me, and today was no exception. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“You have no social life. You don’t date. Don’t have pets. For God’s sake, you don’t even have a plant.”
“It died,” I said shortly.
“I know, since I was the one to give you that tomato plant. I gave you a card with instructions, and still, it was brown and withered within weeks.”
“I’m too busy to—”
“Live,” she said quietly. “You’re not living, baby, and I don’t want that for you. Anything but that.”
I turned back to the window. There was a crow—raven?—perched on a high branch of a tree across the street, staring at me. Judging me with its beady little eyes.
Everyone was judging. Worse, they had every right to.
Okay, probably not the bird. He didn’t know my struggle.
“Did you think I need a lecture today?”
“Yes. I’ve thought you needed one for a while. And it’s not a lecture. It’s advice from someone who loves you and doesn’t want you to waste the beauty inside you.”
I couldn’t even laugh. I tried to, but the sound got stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat.
Her cup rattled in the saucer as she set them down on my desk. A moment later, she stepped up beside me and laid her hand on my lower back, rubbing gently. “She was reading your tarot cards when I arrived.”
“Mine?”
“Yes. She said you were full of tower energy.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re on the edge, Preston. A step forward can take you into the abyss. Or you can fly.”
Leave it to me to have a mother who liked to attend psychic fairs. She probably saw Ryan as a kindred spirit.
Hell, maybe she was.
“That sounds like a bunch of crap.”
“Definitely tower energy,” she affirmed. “Change is all around you. You were never meant to live in stasis. If you won’t make the choice, the universe will make it for you.”
“I’m supposed to believe she told you all this within a moment of meeting you?”
“Oh, no,” my mother said cheerfully, returning to the desk to retrieve her tea. “We chatted for a good hour.”
If I’d been drinking something, I would have sputtered it out. “During work hours?”
“Spiritual work is far more important than piddly tasks.” She waved her ringed fingers before lifting her tea for a sip. “This rose hibiscus is very good.”
“I didn’t put that there.”
“No, Ryan did. She said she replenished the tea because it was running low. She’s quite a find, isn’t she?”
I grunted. I could sense where this was going, and I did not like it one bit.
“She’s also single,” my mother continued. “And quite lovely.”
“And?”
“You’re not arguing.”
“I have eyes, don’t I?”
“The lovers card came up while she was doing your reading. Are you avoiding her before or after?”
“Before or after what, exactly?”
She lifted her eyebrows and sipped again.
“She is my assistant,” I said through gritted teeth. “I know what is right and proper doesn’t matter to anyone else around here, but it does to me.”
My mother rolled over that point as if it was insignificant. “So you are interested.”
“I’m interested in her doing some work during the time she is in my employ. I can be a very generous boss,” I swore I heard my mother snort, “and I’m willing to compensate more than fairly, but I need to know she cares enough to try.”
For God’s sake, was that the source of my irritation with her? Not counting misplaced lust, of course. I didn’t want to do this job, but I tried my hardest. Ryan sometimes behaved as if it was
n’t worth her time. As if I wasn’t.
I massaged my forehead. Psychobabble was taking over my brain.
My mother sighed. “She cares. She’s organizing your Rolodex into active and inactive clients, cross-referencing the log of their respective cases. Why April never thought to do that, I don’t know.”
I did not respond.
“And she was considerate enough to replenish the tea with her favored blends. There’s a new assortment in the waiting room for clients as well.”
“Along with a fresh stack of copies of Cosmo?”
“She’s so personable. I don’t doubt she will make your clients feel more comfortable at a very difficult time in their lives. Not that April isn’t more than capable, but she isn’t as warm and friendly.”
My mom singing Ryan’s praises didn’t exactly kill my annoyance. I’d just begged her to stay this morning. Obviously, I grasped her potential. But having potential didn’t mean she would use it, other than when it suited her.
I’d promised her a bonus either way, because she’d made inroads into the chaos of the records room. If she didn’t do much else this week, that would be worth it.
Not that I intended to tell her that.
My mother was still talking, although I’d clearly missed some of what she was saying. “I don’t worry about your brother, because he enjoys everything.”
“Too much.”
“How can you enjoy life too much?” My mom shook her head. “I married young, and sometimes I wonder what I missed. But then I look at you boys and take stock of my life, and I realized I have everything I could ever want.” She smiled and the frown lines creasing her forehead vanished. “Besides, I have plenty of time. As do you. When you look back at your life, always make sure there’s something to see.”
I swallowed hard. I should tell her. Soon.
But how? The last thing I wanted to do was to cause her pain. It wasn’t even my secret to tell.
But my father wouldn’t. That meant I’d have to.
“Why did you and Dad get married?”
She didn’t seem surprised by the question. “We were going in the same direction.” One corner of her mouth lifted then she drank more tea. “Then.”
