The damn cat actually answered her. “Mrow? Mrow-mrow?”
He stepped over into the open doorway in time to watch it bound up the hallway to meet her. She scooped it up and buried her face in its hairy belly. “Bad, bad boy,” she said in a tone that communicated zero displeasure. Jed felt a stab of actual jealousy. He wished she’d bury her nose in his belly like that. “Come on now,” she cooed at the fur ball. “Back to our room...” She slung it over her shoulder and carried it off. The cat, its big hairy paws hanging down her back, watched him smugly through sharp golden eyes, until she turned the corner at the great room and they both disappeared from sight.
The annoying cat aside, that day went even better than the first, Jed thought. He got twelve usable pages by the time they packed it in at 1815 hours. There was just something about Elise Bravo, something soothing and stimulating simultaneously.
The woman was smart. She strictly observed his initial instructions and never spoke while he was writing. With her, as with Anna, he could concentrate fully on the next sentence, on the way the story was coming together.
Plus, every time she got up to stretch, he got to watch. He could write poems to her backside. And those breasts. He would love to get his hands on them. There was something about her, the softness of her, that he wanted to sink into, the way she bit the inside left corner of her mouth when he picked up the pace and the words were flying, her fingers dancing so fast over the keys.
He liked to move in close and suck in that clean-sheet scent of hers. And he got a kick out of the way she talked to him, sharp and snippy, but somehow with patience, too.
Elise did it for him in a big way. She wasn’t beautiful. She was so much better than beautiful. She was...the exact definition of what a quality woman should be.
No, nothing was going to happen between them. They both understood that.
But that didn’t stop him from enjoying the view, whether she was sitting, stretching or walking away. And he saw no reason he shouldn’t take pleasure in imagining the lusty things he was never going to do to her.
The next day, the final day of her trial period, he introduced the knives.
Chapter Three
Jed found his knives both soothing and stimulating. In that sense, they reminded him of Elise. For him, there were few experiences as calming as a well-thrown knife. He often threw them while he worked. The knives were an integral part of his process. They increased his focus. He liked to send them sailing. And he liked the sound they made when they hit the padded wall that Bravo Construction had installed precisely to his specifications.
He’d put off introducing the knives to Elise. He dreaded the possibility that she might freak—or worse, walk out and not come back. And there he would be again, with no assistant, his deadline looming.
Not being all that nice of a guy, he’d often used the knives to get rid of typists who weren’t working out. No, not by stabbing them, but by simply hurling a sleek kunai or a combat bowie knife without warning. More than one unsatisfactory keyboarder had screamed good and loud when surprised in that way.
But he wanted to keep Elise, so he prepped her.
When she entered the office for work that day, he was waiting for her, an assortment of knives laid out on the credenza next to the door.
She said, “Deirdre is here. She says good morning.”
He grunted. Deirdre Keller was a perfectly acceptable cook and housekeeper. Beyond that, he had nothing to say to her. He certainly didn’t require her to tell him “good morning.”
And Elise had spotted the knives. She caught on immediately. “Okay, I get it now. The padded wall, right?”
Feeling strangely sheepish, he confessed, “I like to throw while I’m working. It clears my mind.”
She glanced at the array of knives, then at the wall in question. “What about all the targets? Do you throw darts, too?”
“Just knives.” She seemed puzzled. So he elaborated, “I throw the knives at the targets sometimes. And sometimes I just send them flying at the wall. It depends.”
“On...?”
He hadn’t expected all these questions. But he was willing to indulge her if answering her would keep her happy. “I honestly don’t know what it depends on, why sometimes I want to hit a target and sometimes I just want to throw—the scene I’m writing, I guess. Or the mood I’m in.”
“Have you ever missed the wall and hit your assistant?”
“Not once.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Though now and then, I’ve been tempted.”
A burst of laughter escaped her. He found the happy sound way too charming.
“Oh, you’re just so scary, Jed.”
“Yes, I am,” he replied darkly. “And you should remember that.” She had that look, as though she was purposely not rolling her eyes. He added, “And as you can see, your desk is over there.” He gestured in that direction. “And the wall is there.” He indicated the wall. “You won’t be in the path of a throw unless you get up and put yourself between me and the wall.”
“What about if you get tempted?”
“I won’t.” Not to throw a knife at you, anyway.
“Hmm,” she said, as though still suspecting she might end up a target one of these days. And then she asked, “Is this it, then?”
“Define it.”
“Will there be more potentially life-threatening activities you’re going to want to do while I’m in this room with you?”
He admitted, “Sometimes I clean my firearms. Handguns. Machine guns. Assault rifles. That kind of thing. I find cleaning weapons—”
“Let me guess. Soothing.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Those fine dark eyes gleamed. “You find the strangest things soothing.”
He almost allowed his gaze to stray downward to her breasts. “You have no idea.”
“I’m going to assume that when you clean your guns, you make sure they aren’t loaded first.”
“You assume correctly.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Anything else you find soothing while you work? Archery, maybe?”
“I haven’t used a bow and arrow in years, but it’s a thought.”
“So I should be prepared for that?”
“No. Knife throwing is my impalement art of choice.”
She hummed again, low in her throat. “That’s a real thing? Impalement art?”
“It’s usually referred to in the plural. Impalement arts. Strictly defined, impalement arts entail throwing dangerously sharp objects at a human target.”
She considered. He loved to watch her think. “Like at the circus.”
“That’s right. A circus knife-thrower is in the impalement arts. A circus archer, too. Hatchet-and spear-throwers, as well.” She reached out and brushed her fingers over the stacked leather washer handle of a full-size USMC KA-BAR straight edge. “That’s the most famous fixed blade knife in the world,” he said. “It was first used by our troops in World War Two.”
She slanted him a glance. He couldn’t tell if he’d amused her or she found the knives fascinating, or what. For a moment, neither of them spoke. He wasn’t big on extended eye contact as a rule. But he didn’t mind it so much with her.
She broke the connection first, her gaze sliding away.
He shook himself. “You ready, then?”
By way of an answer, she went to her desk and fired up the computer.
* * *
Jed threw a lot of knives that day. And he wrote a lot of pages. It was good. Really good. Elise took his knives in stride. She never turned a hair when he sent one flying. She just kept right on filling those blank screen pages with his words.
They worked until 1900, at which point he handed her a check for 2,832 dollars and told her she was officially hired.
She frowned at the check. “I thought we said fifteen hundred for the first three days.”
“I included payment for tomorrow and Saturday at your full rate. And after this week, I’ll pay you every Saturday at the end of the day.”
She rose. “Works for me.” She headed for the door to the hallway.
He caught himself with his mouth open, on the verge of calling her back and asking her to have dinner with him.
Not a good idea. She had her life. He had his. They met each morning for work and went their separate ways when the workday was through. He found her far too attractive to start sharing meals with her.
Fantasies involving her were fine—or rather, given that he was having them, he might as well roll with it. Fighting it too hard would only make him want her more.
But hanging around with her after hours?
Bad idea.
She lived in his house. It would be so easy to get more than professional. That would be stupid. Because when the heat between them burned out, the work would get strained. She would end up leaving.
And that couldn’t happen.
He was keeping her. She just didn’t know it yet. She thought she was quitting when this book was through. But she was wrong.
Before she had knocked on his door Monday, he’d been increasingly sure that his big-deal writing career was headed straight for the crapper. He’d spent way too many sleepless nights sweating bullets over his dawning realization that Anna had been a lucky fluke and he would never find the right assistant again. Now that he had found her, he would simply have to convince her to stay. So what if she seemed determined to go?
One way or another, whatever he had to offer her to keep her happy, he was keeping her.
And the best way to lose her was if they had a thing and then it ended—which it would. He’d never been any good at relationships. Sooner or later, most women wanted more than he knew how to give. Maybe Elise was different. Maybe she could have a good time and then have it be over and still sit down at the computer and type his words for him every day.
But he couldn’t afford to take a chance on finding out.
So he kept his damn mouth shut as she disappeared down the hall.
* * *
As they’d agreed when he hired her, Elise had Sunday off.
That Sunday, she left the house at 0905 hours. Jed knew the time exactly because he was standing on the balcony outside the master suite when she backed her car out of the garage.
Unlike the previous Monday, when she took off to get her cat and her clothes, he was okay with watching her go. Today, he felt zero anxiety as she drove away. They were getting on well together, after all, and he was paying her an arm and a leg. No reason she wouldn’t return.
Plus, he hadn’t seen the cat in the car. And if the cat was still here, she would have to come back.
An hour later, he headed for the shooting range, where he remained until lunchtime. He had a burger at a truck stop out on the state highway and got back to the house at 1400 hours.
Elise was still gone.
He put on workout gear and went down to the basement to use the StairMaster and then pump iron for a couple of hours. After his workout, he had a shower and found something to eat in the fridge. Then he went to his office and researched poisons until past 1900 hours. He had a lot of book left to write and that meant a lot of characters to kill.
Elise still hadn’t returned.
He wasn’t concerned. No reason to be. As long as she showed up at her desk on time in the morning, he couldn’t care less where she went or how long she stayed there.
But for some completely crazy reason, he was kind of worried about the damn cat. Had she taken the animal with her, after all? Or had she just left the poor thing alone in her room?
Yeah, he hated cats. But she shouldn’t just leave it locked up like that all day. Wasn’t that cat abuse?
Sure seemed like it to him.
An hour after he left his office, he wandered down the hallway that led to her room. He stood there in front of her door for several minutes and debated the acceptability of trying the handle, maybe letting the fur ball out—if it was in there and if she’d left the door unlocked.
But opening her door without her permission seemed like a really bad idea. She might get mad if he did that. And getting her mad was no way to keep her working for him.
In the end, he settled on putting his ear to her door, just to listen for the possibility of plaintive meowing.
“What are you doing, Jed?”
Luckily he had nerves of steel. He didn’t so much as flinch at the sound of her voice—even though he felt like a bad child caught with his grubby hand in the candy box.
Slowly, he pulled his ear away from her door and stood to his full height, turning to face her as he did it.
She watched him from the far end of the hallway, a stack of boxes in her arms. “Well?”
The best defense is always an offense. “Your damn cat. I was getting worried about it.” He strode toward her. “Here. Let me help you with those.”
She allowed him to take the boxes. “But you hate cats.”
“Open the door.”
She eased around him and did just that. It wasn’t locked.
The cat was there waiting. It didn’t look any the worse for wear. “Mrow? Mrow-mrow?”
“Wigs!” She scooped it up, scratched its big head and kissed it on its whiskered cheek. “How’s my big sweetie?”
“Mrow-mrow.” It started purring, the sound very deep. Rumbly. Like an outboard motor heard from across a misty lake.
Elise said...to Jed this time, “Just set those down inside the door. Thanks.”
He set the boxes where she wanted them and then turned to leave, figuring he’d escape before she asked him any more questions about why she’d come home to find him with his ear pressed to her door.
No such luck. “Why where you worried about Wigs?”
Resigned, he stopped and faced her again. “You left the cat locked in there all day. That can’t be good.”
“Well, that’s kind of sweet of you.” She seemed bemused.
He hastened to disabuse her. “I am never sweet.”
She actually giggled. He despised gigglers—or at least, he always had until this moment. She held up the cat. It hung from her hands, totally relaxed, and big enough that its rear paws dangled at the height of her knees. “See? He’s fine. I left him plenty of food and water. He doesn’t mind a little alone time.”
“A little? You’ve been gone for eleven hours.”
Her soft mouth pursed up. “It’s my day off. How is it any of your business how long I’ve been gone?”
It wasn’t and they both knew it, which meant there was absolutely no point in answering her. So he didn’t.
Eventually, she got tired of waiting for him to defend himself and informed him icily, “I have one day off a week and I had a lot to do.”
Yeah, he felt like a jackass. But somehow, he couldn’t just apologize for invading her private space and move on. “That’s a big cat.”
Her mouth got tighter. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
He narrowed his eyes and flattened his lips. “That cat needs space.”
“He’s fine in my room. My apartment is a studio, smaller than my room here. He was perfectly happy there.”
Smaller than her room here? That was way too small. And she was a Bravo. He’d grown up in the area and he knew of her family. The Bravos had always had enough money to be comfortable, at least. The Bravos didn’t live in cramped one-room apartments. He wanted to ask her how she’d ended up in one.
But that would be a personal question and they were not getting personal. “Next time leave your door open, that’s all I’m saying.”
She blinked as that statement sank in. “You mean, let Wigs have the run of the house?”
Suddenly, his throat had a tickle in it. What was that about? He never got a ticklish throat. He coughed impatiently into his hand. “Yeah. And come to think of it, don’t lock that cat up in there at all. Let it have the house to roam in.”
A tiny gasp escaped her. “You mean, all the time?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“But what about how you hate cats?”
“I’m making an exception in this case,” he growled at her. She looked at him with distinctly dewy eyes, so he commanded, “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“I...well, okay. I won’t.”
“Good,” he said, scowling as hard as he could. And then he turned on his heel again and started walking away fast.
“Jed?”
He stopped. But he didn’t turn. “What?” he grumbled at the great room in front of him.
“Thanks.”
He almost said You’re welcome, but caught himself just in time.
* * *
In the next week, the work continued to go well. Very well. Elise just kept typing, never dropping a word or making a sound, no matter how loud and aggressive he became while acting out the voices of his characters.
On Thursday, he cleaned three of his rifles and a couple of Glocks as they worked. She seemed to take that in stride—didn’t even bother to comment when she saw the weapons, gun oil, cleaning rags and brushes laid out that morning on a folding worktable.
Jed had never been a happy man. He found the concept of happiness more than a little silly. A man did what he had to do in life and what he had to do was rarely that much fun.
But with Elise working out so well, the pressure was off in terms of his deadline and hopefully his career. He was getting more work done, faster, than when he had Anna. It was a hell of a relief. Maybe this was happiness.
If it was, it wasn’t half bad.
The damn cat had free rein of the house. The animal talked too much and had a tendency to climb up on tall cabinets and drape its giant body on the wide-beam staircase railings and along the backs of couches. But so what?
Ms. Bravo and the Boss Page 4
