Together in the Wild: Clean Romance Novella (Alaska Adventure Romance Book 4)

by Hart, Renee

  “It’s a secretary from work.”

  He frowned at the papers in his hand and waved at me. I stepped back, hesitant. She still stared at me, her eyes taking in my worn clothes and the glasses tangled in my hair.

  “How rude, sweetie. Introduce us,” she patted him on the arm while reaching a slender hand out towards me. I placed my hand in hers, which was completely limp. I shook it lightly and let it go to drop back at her side. She smirked.

  “Gwen, this is Stefanie Gilles. Stefanie, this is my secretary,” he said, his eyes still on the paper.

  “Gwen...well, it’s nice to meet you,” she said, “Dominic’s never mentioned you.”

  I winced.

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  She laughed. Taking the papers from Mr. Steel’s hands, she smiled at me, her eyes gleaming.

  “We can work on this later. It was so nice of you, Gwen, to come all the way down here on your way home. Right, Dominic?” She asked.

  He nodded and pointed towards the door, his eyes trained on her hands as they shifted through the paperwork. She had lovely hands and nails, freshly polished and soft. I hid my ragged ones in my skirt’s folds. Nodding back, I inched through the doorway, drawing the door behind me.

  I could hear Stefanie’s laughter as I raced down the stairs. Fumbling through the front door, I slammed it behind me as I rushed through the snow to the street. I turned left blindly, following the streetlights into the city.

  Chapter 3

  My phone rumbled in my pocket and I pulled it out. Olivia’s name flashed on the screen.

  I answered, my voice shaky.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Did you drop it off? What took you so long?”

  The noise wherever she was drowned out my sighing. I wasn’t sure I should even tell her what happened.

  “I had to give it to Mr. Steel in person. No one else was there.”

  “Oh,” Olivia’s silence made me cringe inside. I definitely hadn’t avoided Mr. Steel.

  “Well,” she continued, “he has the paperwork now so you’re fine. Grab a cab and meet me downtown. I'm at the Magnolias Bar. We can grab some food and relax, plan your makeover.”

  “Makeover,” I chuckled, “I’m not making enough for a complete overhaul.”

  “Don’t worry. I have my ways. Now hurry up. I’ve got some guys eyeing the table and if you aren’t here soon I’ll be charmed out of it.”

  I rang off and flagged a cab.

  As I slipped into the back, I felt my shoulder muscles finally relax. I didn’t need to worry about Stefanie Gilles or Mr. Steel. It was like I didn’t exist for the most part. I’d just keep my head down for a few weeks.

  ***

  I found Olivia at a table in the front, people watching. She beamed as I walked in and sat beside her. Two glasses of water sat on the table, along with some cheese fries. The smell made me swoon but I carefully avoided them. Any more weight and I might not fit into my clothes. I had enough curves as it was.

  I sipped the water as Olivia chattered on about work and the guys across the room watching her as she gracefully inhaled half of the fries. She offered them to me but I refused. I ordered a salad from the waiter. Olivia’s eyebrows rose.

  “You’re not on a diet, are you?”

  “N-no. I just need something healthy, I guess.”

  She scooted the fries closer to me.

  “You don’t need to worry about your weight, Gwen,” her voice was soft and gentle.

  I looked up from my salad. She nodded, her eyes gleaming.

  “Take it from someone who knows how hard it is to worry about your weight. It’s better to be comfortable with who you are and not what everyone else wants you to be. Have a damn fry.”

  I laughed, the mood lightening. I grabbed a fry and, dipping it into my ranch dressing, popped it into my mouth. I moaned playfully. Olivia burst into laughter.

  “That’s right. No point in not enjoying your food. I used to measure everything down to the ounce. It made me thin, for sure, but I felt hungry all the time. I had bouts of depression and anxiety. I spent all my time thinking about food and how fat I was. I really wasn’t, I was maybe a twelve. You’re a fourteen, sixteen, right? That’s not large at all, and once I get my hands on you I'll make you see how fabulous you are.”

  I smiled down at my food, hungry for the first time in a while.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, for the first time in a long, long time, I woke up smiling. I rolled over and checked the clock. Nine-thirty on a Saturday morning. Olivia would be here in another hour or so. I had about an hour to leisurely get dressed and eat.

  It was nice to be able to rest and not worry, even for just an hour. Usually, I’m grabbing shoes and purse before running out the door, down three flights of stairs, hobbling into my shoes, and catching the 8:30 metro before it leaves.

  Tossing the covers back, I tiptoed to the bathroom, the floor cold beneath my bare feet. After a quick shower, I threw on some jeans and a baggy sweater. Knowing Olivia and her addiction for coffee any hour before noon, I had the coffee pot going just as she knocked at the door. I reached over to the door and unlatched the lock. She swirled in, her hands full of packages and shopping bags.

  “What in the world?” I asked, confused.

  “I brought everything to you this time. I have some of my sample clothes I’ve been working on, my make-up kit, some sewing supplies, nail polish, and some of my hair products. I assumed you didn’t have much since-well, since you don’t use it,” she said, breathless as she tipped all of her things onto my bed. Glancing around, her eyes widen.

  “This place is so cute. I wish mine was so clean and decorated.”

  I flushed and turned away, grabbing two mugs from the open cupboards.

  I put a lot of time and effort into transforming my studio apartment. When I first rented the place from Aleo downstairs, the walls were peeling, the windows clouded with dust and ashes. The bathroom looked like no one had ever scrubbed the toilet, much less replaced the missing tiles on the floor. The kitchen had a small fridge and stove, dirty but still working, and there were no shelves for anything.

  Looking around as Olivia gushed, it really was amazing how much work I had put in to make the place comfortable and tidy.

  The bedroom/living room took up most of the space. I had a small couch I covered with a tucked sheet beneath the large window, a small television on a bookcase across from it, a table with a chair holding my laptop and a few office supplies.

  I placed my bed against the wall next to the couch so that it provided more lounging space. Most of my clothes were stored on a metal rack next to the bathroom curtain I hung to divide the room from everything else; the rest were underneath my bed in plastic tubs. The edge of the bed left just enough room to open the stove and fridge. I had installed some cheap shelves out of lumber leftover in the laundry room downstairs and my dishes put a splash of color against the exposed brick walls.

  I spent the first day in my apartment cleaning and stripping the walls. Thankfully, I found brick walls beneath the cheap paint layers. The whole apartment, dressed up in warm earth tones and my favorite prints, felt inviting and private; Olivia was the first person I had over since I moved in, other than Aleo.

  I handed her a mug and poked through some of her things, amused. I picked up a box of hair dye and raised my eyebrows.

  “I don’t think I need to dye my hair, Olivia,” I said.

  “I know,” she laughed, “but I was thinking I could talk you through dying mine. This red is boring. I’ve had it for so long I can’t remember what I had before now.”

  “You can’t dye your hair!”

  She smiled.

  “I mean it,” I said, pushing the box of dye back down into the bag, “red hair like that is hard to come by. You-you look good.” I flushed afterwards. I blush entirely too much for comfort.

  “Thank you,” Olivia said.

  She gestured for me to sit do
wn on the edge of the bed. I complied. She looked me up and down in way that reminded me eerily of Stefanie Gilles. After a few moments, I shifted, fidgeting with the covers.

  “What?” I finally asked.

  She grimaced and dug through a bag, pulling out several pieces of clothing.

  “You do have tights, right? I think this dress I made will be perfect but you’ll need to wear boots and tights with it.”

  “A dress? I don’t know. Most dresses don’t look right on me-”

  “Because you don’t know how to fit your clothes to your shape. You have great curves and you hide them in baggy clothes, which makes you look bigger,” she interrupted. She handed me the deep green dress and gently shuffled me towards the bathroom.

  After a quick change, I came back out in the tights and dress. It draped and fell around my curves, falling to handkerchief edges that moved as I walked. Olivia nodded and grabbed her makeup kit.

  “All you need is a little carefully placed makeup, a change in nail polish, and a warm coat and we’ll be ready for your first test.”

  “Test?”

  “Calm down. We’re just going to go out for a bit, wherever you want to go, and test run your new look, see how much attention we can get.”

  I groaned. She swatted at me with a makeup brush.

  “You need to get comfortable with who you are so that when you’re at work you won’t be antsy. Now sit still. I don’t want to have to start over.”

  ***

  After a few more swats from Olivia and a coat of polish labeled “Licentious Lilac”, she deemed me ready to go out. We grabbed our coats and purses--Olivia stopping to make me add some of earrings to, as she says, “complete the look.” As we walked into the main part of the city, I filled her in on where I wanted to go.

  “A bookstore? You don’t want to do some window shopping or grab lunch? We could even go to a museum if you’re looking for the more intelligent crowd,” she whined a bit before seeing the bookstore up ahead.

  “Oh,” she grinned, “it looks really trendy. It even has a coffee shop in it.”

  “And floor to ceiling book shelves. I haven’t had a chance to go in yet but I’ve always wanted to. I haven’t had the time.”

  We walked in, a swirl of snow drifting in behind us. Olivia zeroed in on the coffee counter. I sighed, cheerfully this time, and let her go off. She raised her eyebrows at me as she left, pointing her fingers at her eyes and then me. I laughed. A young, hipster guy heard me and smiled, his eyes warm. I ducked my head and went into the book section.

  I loved the choices here. They had every conceivable genre and many of the prices were cheap. Most of my books came from the library. I still hadn’t received the rest of my things from home. I dreaded the trip but my boxes of books were important.

  I loved the smell of books. If a bad mood settled in, I found something to read and, slowly but surely, the mood faded away. I traveled through books into worlds and cultures I would most likely never get the chance to see.

  I taught myself what I needed to know to get into college; the school near my group home was absolute crap. The teachers pushed us through the grades so that they didn’t have to deal with us. Anyone that wanted to know more had to find it on their own.

  I’d noticed the bookstore the first time I came to Boston for the interview. Now that I had some extra funds, I could buy something, a new book for my first place. Delicately dragging my hands across the bindings, I drifted into the classics section. What I remember most of my childhood is discovering writers like Charles Dickens, the Bronte Sisters, and Louisa May Alcott. I devoured books like Black Beauty and Anne of Green Gables.

  Now that I think about it, a new copy of Jane Eyre would be great. I hadn’t read it since Kir- well, since the older copy had to be thrown away. I glanced through the titles until I reached the B section. Locating Charlotte Bronte, I reached over and pulled one of the books from the shelves, my hand accidentally brushing the cuff of someone’s pants. I felt strong calf muscles for a second and snatched my hand away.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes drifting up to the person’s face.

  Suddenly my heart stopped. I clenched the book in my hands.

  Mr. Steel, a strange look of incredulous amusement on his face, shook his head.

  “It’s alright, Gwen, although, I do have to say it seems like I can’t get rid of you these days.”

  He’s joking, right? He has to be, he’s smiling.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, my stomach flipping and turning.

  Concerned, he stepped closer.

  “I’ve always wondered, why do you apologize for everything? It’s not your fault we chose to go to the same bookstore. It’s certainly not your fault you felt me up, although I’ll assume you enjoyed it.”

  Oh Lord, my face must be flushed darker than Olivia’s hair.

  He reached out and pulled a random curl of hair. I winced.

  “Your hair. Are you as uncontrollable as your curls?” He asked, letting the hair go to look me over.

  “Purple makes your eyes look violet. Nice.” He put his hand behind me, leaning on the shelves until we were close, almost nose to nose.

  “You’re not here alone. I don’t like thinking of you walking the streets alone. It’s too dangerous.”

  I could smell him, a hint of wood smoke and citrus. Before I could stop myself, I inhaled. He chuckled and pulled a book off the shelf.

  “Byron. Have you ever read any of his poetry?” He asked as he stepped back.

  “No,” I said, my heart beating through my chest.

  He nodded and flipped through the pages.

  “You should.”

  “Gwen? Gwen, what are you doing?”

  I could hear Olivia calling me from the other end of the stacks. Mr. Steel seemed to blend into the shelves as he spun away. He was gone before Olivia reached me.

  “Did you find what you wanted? I’m ready to go grab something greasy and bad for me. A burger with lots of bacon and cheese., some fries, maybe a beer if I want to feel extra special,” she bubbled along as we walked to the register. I paid mechanically and followed her out the door.

  “So, did anyone talk to you? Did anyone notice you and your dazzling new looks?”

  I shook my head and tucked the book inside my purse.

  “Let’s just grab some food. I need to get back.”

  Olivia frowned and stopped, the people behind us flying around us.

  “What happened?” she asked, concerned.

  “I’m just feeling really uncomfortable. Did you see anyone?”

  She shook her head.

  “Too hipster for my taste. The coffee’s amazing though so I may come back with you. We can make a girl’s day out every weekend.”

  She put her arm through mine and pulled me along towards the restaurant.

  As she chattered on about the food, I half listened, confused and tense.

  What in the world did he mean by reading Byron? Why was he so nice and--and flirty? He was a completely different man than at work or his home. He seemed relaxed. He was handsome, much more so because he was so approachable.

  Why wasn’t he that way at work?

  Why was he so friendly to me?

  Why did he run away when Olivia looked for me?

  Olivia stopped suddenly, yanking me back.

  “You are really out of it. We’re here,” she said.

  I smelled grilled meat and french fries in the air. She pulled the door open and gestured me through it. Food sounded good at the moment.

  We’d have a good meal and I’d wait til I got home before I tried to figure out the Steel enigma.

  Chapter 5

  I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing at home, rereading Jane Eyre. I noticed that Mr. Steel had a lot in common with Mr. Rochester: grumpy, introverted, dark and handsome. I felt just as under-appreciated and plain as Jane.

  Most of my childhood I shuffled from foster home to foster home. I left my last grou
p home to go to college without looking back. For the past few years I took care of myself without anyone to depend on or help.

  I paid for college by working through the entire four years. I found a job, moved out on my own. I’ve done everything on my own. It’s better that way. The last time I let someone help it didn’t end well.

  Olivia left me some more clothes and makeup, along with instructions for dressing for work.

  “And don’t forget,” she admonished me before leaving, “I want to see you dress up everyday for work. If I catch you without any makeup, I’m dragging you into the bathroom during lunch break and redoing everything.”

  Woe is me if I didn’t at least make an effort before work Monday morning. I spent most of the night waking up and grabbing my alarm, afraid I'd overslept like almost every morning.

  Finally, I gave up on going back to sleep and dressed, carefully making up my face and braiding my hair back. Most of the shorter fringe burst out of the pins and spread in a halo around my face. I sighed and left it. Olivia couldn’t fault me for trying.

  I arrived at work early. Olivia sat at her spot in the lobby. She gave me a quick grin and thumbs up as I passed by her towards the elevator.

  “Your hair looks adorable,” she hollered as the elevator doors shut.

  I laughed to myself and played with a free strand, twirling it around my finger.

  The doors swung open. I glanced at the light board above the door. It stopped on a few floors below my own.

  Suddenly Mr. Steel ducked in, his briefcase banging into the doors as they closed. I could hear someone calling for us to hold the doors but he ignored them, jamming the closed doors button until the elevator moved on.

  He looked at me and jabbed the elevator stop button. I flinched. He’s going to fire me right now, before I even make it to my desk…

  “I’ve been waiting to catch you. I don’t want anyone to overhear us,” he said, setting his case on the floor.

  “Oh,”

  He stared at me for a long time. Reaching towards me, he pulled the hairband out of my braid and shook my hair free, pins falling down as he pulled his hands through it.