by J. S. Scott
He contemplated me carefully before answering. “I could send you anywhere in the world. I have resorts everywhere.”
“I know. I don’t care. I just need work, Mr. Walker. Please.” The pleading in my voice bothered me, but I was beyond pride and in survival mode. My future depended on how this meeting turned out.
“No family?” His eyes watched for any reaction.
“None.” I was being truthful. If I had any family, I wouldn’t be here.
The longer he stayed silent, the more nervous I became. My breathing started to get fast and shallow, and my chest ached from my heart racing so fast I was afraid it was going to stop from the exertion.
Trace leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. “I can get you a job. As long as you’re a good employee, you’ll have security at one of my resorts. If you help me, I’ll help you. Half the money up front, and then I place you wherever I have an opening after the assignment is over.”
I’d have security? It was something I’d never experienced. Every job—every single moment really—I was worried. Even when I had a position, I’d been desperately afraid I was going to lose it if anyone found out about my past. Security? I didn’t know the meaning of the word.
I was tempted, so very tempted. I could have money in the bank, not be afraid of overdrawing my checking account. I would be able to eat, to breathe. However, I knew I couldn’t take the deal. “I’m not Chloe’s friend,” I admitted quietly, sadly.
My hopes had risen and then plummeted. I couldn’t lie to him. I did want that elusive protection of having a stable job, but it wouldn’t be possible if he didn’t know the truth.
A small grin split his face. “I know. I’m glad you admitted that yourself. At least I know you’re honest.”
I gaped at him in surprise. “How did you know?”
Trace shrugged. “Chloe did tell me that her friend was an executive assistant who could possibly help me over the holidays. I don’t think she needs a permanent job. She just wanted the extra cash.” He paused before adding, “I have to admit that you have a lot of guts approaching me directly. Had I known you were looking for other employment, you would have been sent to human resources. I was under the impression that you were Chloe’s friend.”
Chloe, whoever she was, probably didn’t hang out with women like me. “I don’t look like somebody who would be her friend, I’m sure.”
“No, you don’t. She’d never see a friend in desperate need and not help her. Chloe is a former Colter.”
I looked at him in surprise. “The Colorado Colter family? Senator Colter’s family?” I wasn’t much into keeping up with current affairs, but there probably wasn’t a single person in Colorado who didn’t know about the wealthy Colter clan. “I definitely wouldn’t be friends with a billionaire,” I muttered quietly. I might live in the same state as the Colter family, but I was an entire world apart from people like them.
“Are you going to take my offer?” Trace’s voice was back to being businesslike.
I paused for a moment. Even though I desperately needed the money, I really should tell him everything, but the thought of that elusive security stopped me. Longing overtook my common sense. What did it matter now? I’d gotten what I’d come for. If the time came when I had to tell him everything, at least I’d done a job that I’d get paid for doing. And I made a silent promise not to let him down. “I’ll do what you want if I have your promise that you’ll send me to a fulltime job afterwards. I might need help with choosing a little better clothing if I’m going to be convincing as your love interest.” I had no idea what rich people were currently wearing.
I desperately wanted to laugh at the thought of meaning anything to this magnetic, impossibly attractive, and incredibly wealthy man.
A mixed race street rat with a history like mine?
Not happening!
“You’re going to need more than just clothes,” he observed critically. “And you’ll take all the money I offered and the job. You’ll need it to get started in a new position.”
His bossy tone sent shivers up my spine. Unfortunately, he was right. I was going to have to find a new place to live and bear the travel costs. “Half up front, and the job.” I’d compromise.
“All of it,” he demanded stubbornly, almost angrily.
Looking at him was dangerous, but I met his commanding glare with equal determination—for all the good it did me. He wasn’t going to bend. The stubborn tick of the muscle of his jaw told me he wasn’t budging.
I didn’t want to argue and risk the chance of losing my opportunity.
I sighed. “Okay.” If I agreed, I could always take what I really needed and return the rest later if the job panned out. “Is this really that important to you?”
He nodded abruptly, sending a stray lock of hair to fall onto his forehead. “Very.”
“Can you at least tell me why?”
“You hungry?” Trace ignored the question.
My stomach rumbled as if on cue. “I’m starving.” I decided that being honest about most things would make the situation smoother with this man. He might be incredibly hot, but he was all business. He also seemed to appreciate honesty.
“I’ll take you to get something to eat. We can talk.” He efficiently shut down his computer and stood.
Air left my lungs in a rush as I surveyed his height, his strength, and the broad, masculine form that filled out his custom suit so very well.
What was I thinking? I could never pull off being a fiancée to a man like him.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I stood up, but my feet felt rooted to the ground.
“We both need to eat. I want food,” he insisted. “How long has it been since you ate?”
“Four days, five hours and about ten minutes,” I answered automatically because I was currently feeling every moment of the food deprivation.
“Are you serious?” His question came out growly and displeased.
“Completely.”
“Let’s go,” he answered brusquely, walking around the desk to take my upper arm lightly. “Damn, you’re thin, and you look like you’re barely out of high school. How old are you?”
I snorted. “I’m twenty-three, hardly high-school age.”
“You look like jailbait,” Trace answered gruffly.
“I can show you my identification.” I knew I looked young with my hair pulled back and no makeup on my face. Haircuts and makeup were a luxury I couldn’t afford.
“Not necessary. I believe you. But we’re changing your look.” He propelled me gently toward the door.
I shrugged. I didn’t care what I had to do to play the part. I just wanted the promised job. “Fine.”
I let him lead me out the door, noting with relief that Ms. Perfect was gone, probably done for the day.
“You’re going to eat,” he answered bossily.
My first reaction was to rebel because he was ordering me around, but I squelched it. He was my boss now, so I needed to do what he wanted for a while. As my stomach growled, I knew I’d really have no problem with that particular command.
Chapter Two
Eva
“This place is a dive,” Trace grumbled as he dug into a massive pile of Mexican food that was overflowing a decorative paper plate.
I stopped shoveling food into my face long enough to look at him. I’d practically attacked my burrito the moment it had been placed in front of me, and hadn’t come up for air since. Looking around at the flamboyant walls of the small restaurant, I had to admit that Trace Walker stood out like a sore thumb. He’d asked me where I wanted to eat, and I’d directed him back to my neighborhood, an area that didn’t have the finest of restaurants and was located in one of the most crime-ridden areas in the city. I couldn’t help smiling as I looked at the gorgeous man across from me in a custom suit, seated at a rickety table covered in a well-used plastic table cloth.
He didn’t belong here.
But I did.
“It’s the best Mexican food in the city.” The restaurant was family owned, and the food was fantastic. What did it matter that there was no fine china or fancy furnishings?
I watched as he practically inhaled the daily special, a look of appreciation on his face.
He nodded. “It’s good. How did you ever find this place?”
I shrugged. “I live right around the corner.”
Trace frowned, putting his fork down on his nearly-empty plate. “In this neighborhood? It’s dangerous, especially at night.”
I wouldn’t know the difference between a good neighborhood and a bad one. This was home to me. “It’s not so bad.” I knew I sounded defensive, but it irked me that he was being uppity about a neighborhood I’d lived in for years.
“You’re coming home with me. Your job starts now.” He gave me a look that said he wouldn’t change his mind.
I sighed. “Might as well. I’m being evicted anyway.” My situation was dire, and I didn’t like telling a man like Trace Walker what a loser I was, but it was the truth.
His expression was stormy as he picked up his fork and started eating again. “I’ll call a mover to get your stuff.”
“No need. I can just swing by and pick up my things. I don’t own much.” It was an understatement, but I tried to be nonchalant. Everything I had could fit in a backpack. I lived in a studio apartment, and it was sparsely furnished with things I’d been able to get for free. What clothing I had fit into my tattered backpack.
“Jesus! Who cares for you, Eva? Where are your parents? How long have you been on your own?”
“Nobody cares for me. I’m an adult, and I’ve been on my own since I was seventeen. My father was a Mexican born farm worker who died when I was fourteen years old, and my mother remarried and moved away when I was seventeen. She’s dead now.”
I didn’t want to think about my parents, my family. I still missed my father, even though he’d been gone for nearly a decade. My mother was a different story. I’d hated her and the feelings were mutual before she’d died. I had plenty of reasons to harbor resentment and anger toward my mother. Making me and my father feel like dirt on her shoes was just one of them.
Trace placed his fork on his now-empty plate. “So you’re Mexican?”
“Half,” I corrected. “My mother was Caucasian American. I was born here.”
To be honest, we’d traveled a lot within the U.S. up until my father had died. He went where there was work on the farms, and my mother and I had gone with him. Mom had constantly complained about the dirty, squalid life my dad provided, but he’d always worked long, hard hours out in the fields to keep us fed.
Sometimes I wondered why my mother had married my father. My childhood had been nothing but listening to her criticizing him for their poverty. Nevertheless, my father had never stopped trying to please her.
Unfortunately, he’d never made her happy, even when he’d died trying to keep our family intact. She’d been bitter about my existence keeping her trapped in the same place until the day she’d left to seek out a different kind of life, leaving me—and apparently all of those bad memories—behind.
My father had loved me; my mother had hated me.
Maybe I’d made peace with the fact that I wasn’t responsible for my mother’s unhappiness. But occasionally her bitter words still haunted me.
“Why were you left on your own when your mother remarried?”
Trace’s question made me uncomfortable. “I was an adult, graduating from high school. She was done with her obligations to me.”
Trace’s eyes turned glacial. “A seventeen-year-old living here isn’t equipped to live her own life yet.”
Apparently, my mother had thought differently. She’d left me with more than just overdue bills and an eviction notice.
I looked at the man defending me, and all of the misplaced anger I’d carried for all of the Walkers faded. What had happened had nothing to do with the Walker family and everything to do with only one person: my mother.
“I made it. It doesn’t matter.” Nobody had ever cared about me enough to actually be angry that my life had been difficult. But for some reason, I didn’t want Trace’s pity.
“Barely,” Trace grumbled as he stood up. “Let’s get out of here.”
I shoveled the last of my burrito into my mouth as I watched him pay the bill, giving the waitress a generous tip and a charismatic smile.
God, he was charming when he wasn’t growling. I watched as he complimented the Hispanic waitress in fluent Spanish, letting her know how much he’d enjoyed the food. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me that he could speak a foreign language so perfectly. He looked like the type of guy who did everything well.
Looking at his empty plate across from me, he was probably telling the truth about liking the food, even though he obviously wasn’t impressed with the atmosphere.
His eyes shot back to me, still chewing the last of my burrito. I was full, but I’d be damned if I was going to leave one bite of food on my plate. When a person doesn’t know when they’ll eat again, leaving food when they have it seems almost criminal. I swallowed hard as his molten green eyes seemed to be urging me to move. Trace held out his hand, and I hesitated for a moment before I reached out and clasped it. I was on my feet with a single tug of his strong arm, which was attached to a very hard body.
My breath caught, the feel of his palm caressing mine sending shivers of longing through my body. How long had it been since I’d had the intimacy of a simple touch? How long had it been since someone had looked at me with such focused attention?
I was both relieved and disappointed when he looked away and started pulling me gently toward the door.
When we were back in his fancy black sports car, I gave him directions to my place, cringing as I led him up the creaky stairs to my second floor apartment.
He didn’t comment as I gathered up my clothing and left my key on the small kitchen counter.
“I’ll settle up with the landlord later,” he remarked, his arm propped against the doorway, waiting.
“You’re paying me. I’ll take care of it.” I sounded defensive, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want him dealing with my landlord or any of my other responsibilities.
“You’re on the job, now. Didn’t I say you follow my orders?” His voice was husky and firm.
“Not when it comes to my personal life.” I was starting to get irritated.
“This job is personal.”
I slung my backpack over my shoulder and glared at him. “Look, I want this job. I need it. But you said yourself that this was strictly business. Other than a job and payment, you have no right to interfere in my life. Teach me what you want me to know, how you want me to act, how you want me to look, and I’ll do it. But managing the rest of my life isn’t part of the deal.”
“And if I think you need someone to manage your life?” His question was surly. “It doesn’t look like you’ve done all that well doing it yourself so far.”
Anger surged to the surface as I thought about every dirty, difficult job I’d had in my short working life. I’d survived any way I could. “What the hell would you know about survival?” I spat out at him. “Like you really understand what it’s like to be a woman like me? I’ve worked my ass off since I was old enough to have a job. Do you think I want to be this way? Do you think I want to have to beg for employment, for food?” I took a deep tremulous breath, trying to control my rage. “No doubt you were handed everything you needed, went to an Ivy League college. I’m sure you started with at least a couple of billionaire dollars, a hard beginning for you.” My voice grew louder and was dripping with sarcasm. “I’m sure you’ve never wondered whether you’d be better off dead than to keep trying to survive.”
I’d been down that road so many times that I couldn’t remember how many times I had contemplated the fact that not a single living soul would miss me if I no longer existed.
Trace moved so quickly tha
t I didn’t see him coming. He grasped me by the shoulders and shoved my backpack to the floor, then quickly pinned me against the wall next to the door. “Have you wondered that, Eva?”
I didn’t speak. I was still reeling from the shock of his lightning fast movements.
“Tell me, dammit. Have you thought about that?”
His eyes were like heated liquid jade as they bored into mine. Hyperventilating, I glared at him defiantly, and I suddenly choked back an exhausted sob. I was tired, so tired of killing myself just to stay alive, but the survivor in me would never stop fighting.
He grasped a handful of my inky curls; my hair had come loose in our struggle. “You have considered it,” he concluded from my lack of response. “Don’t ever think like that again. Never. I don’t like hearing you talk that way.”
A single tear escaped my eye as I answered. “I’m sorry, Mr. Walker, but not everything revolves around what you like or want. Life’s hard, and it stays that way.”
I’d learned that even if it was possible to survive, happiness could be elusive and fleeting. When my father was alive, I’d been happy during the rare times we’d had together, just the two of us. I’d had a small taste of happiness during those outings. Other than that, I had little experience with joy.
“It should never have been this hard for you, Eva. You’re right, I was born to privilege, but contentment can be just as difficult for everybody. Life is hard, no matter how much money you have.” Trace’s tone was even as he continued to stare, but the anger was still there. “The problems are just different.”
I contemplated his words for a moment as I lowered my head and panted against his chest anxiously, wondering if there wasn’t a little bit of truth to them. True, he didn’t have to struggle for money, but Trace Walker was far from happy. Beneath his anger, I could sense his pain. Maybe he was right. Maybe life wasn’t perfect just because he had food to eat, amazing vehicles to drive, and custom clothing to wear. Still, he’d never walked in my beat-up shoes, and I’d never walked in his custom loafers.
