“Well, no, I didn’t think of that.”
“Are the inspectors still on the site?”
“Yes, they are. They’re drawing up their report now.”
“Show them the records. I don’t suppose you have a record of this morning’s incident, but you could probably find a witness among the other employees. You could get them to tell the inspectors if it was Tino who played the music and if he was misbehaving when he fell.”
A long silence answered her. Then she heard a slap. “You know what, little lady? You’re right. I’m going over there to talk to them right now.” He hung up before she could say anything.
Her heart pounded, but at least she handled that problem without losing her cool. She jotted down his message to pass on to Matt and hadn’t put her pen down when the phone rang again. “Mr. Rockford’s office. You’re speaking with Eva.”
“Where’s Rockford?”
“I’m sorry. Mr. Rockford is not available at the moment. Can I give him a message?”
“I have to talk to Rockford right away. I don’t care if he’s on his way to his mother’s cremation. Get him on the phone right now or I’ll have your job.”
Eva took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, sir. Mr. Rockford is not available at the moment. Is there any message I can give him?”
“Yeah. Tell him to call me right away.”
“And what is your name, please, sir?”
“It’s Wilson. I’m the liaison between Rockford Communications and the Design Associates.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Wilson. I understand they’ve been going over the designs for the building.”
“Going over them isn’t the word for it. We thought the City Council sent back the application for a small measuring irregularity. The designers went over the drawings, and it turns out the whole flamin’ package is wrong. They have to redo the whole design, including the measurements. It’s gonna cost a fortune to get the whole design and architecture reworked.”
“We shouldn’t have to pay for it if they made the mistake.”
“I already explained that to them, but they won’t budge. They already put in a couple hundred man-hours on this project, and they say they won’t do anything more for free.”
“Well, that’s just too bad. If they don’t fix it at their own expense, we could sue them for professional negligence and breach of contract.”
“They won’t listen, and the problem is we already paid them over fifty thousand dollars for this design package. They’ve already spent the money we paid for it. It would cost us ten times as much to take them to court.”
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Wilson. I’ll pass on your message to Mr. Rockford when he comes in, but as soon as I get off the phone with you, I’ll call our legal department and get them on the case.”
“So what am I going to do about the application? We have thirty days to return the designs to the City Council for approval of our application. If we don’t get the new designs returned in that time, we have to start over from scratch and pay another hefty application fee. That’s a pretty short timeline, and we’ve got nothing to submit. There’s no way we can get the new designs completed in time.”
“Call the designers and tell them to get onto the new designs pronto. Tell them we’ll pay extra to get the new designs resubmitted in time.”
“Now, just hold on a second—”
“Don’t argue,” she cut him off. “Tell them whatever you have to tell them to get the designs finished in time. We’ll sort out the payment options later. With any luck, we’ll have the whole new package submitted in time and won’t have to pay a red cent.”
Mr. Wilson hung silently on the other end of the phone for a long moment. Then he let out a whoop. “Well, damn! I like the way you think. All right. I don’t know who you are or how you did it, but I’ll follow your lead. I’ll get in touch with Rockford in a few hours and let him know how I’m getting on.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Wilson. I’m certain Mr. Rockford will get in touch with you just as soon as he gets back into the office.”
Wilson hung up, and Eva’s head dropped into her hands. She could only hope against hope she was doing the right thing, but at least things were moving forward instead of collapsing around her ears.
She checked her watch. When was Matt coming back? She didn’t like all this responsibility weighing on her shoulders, and to think he dealt with situations like this all the time. Running his own multi-billion dollar company must be stressful. No wonder he wanted time away, and he couldn’t do that without the secure knowledge someone was holding down the fort in his absence.
She called the legal department and told them the whole story of the design mix-up, and they promised to follow it up. She also warned them of the impending legal action from Tino’s wife.
The minutes ticked away to forty-five minutes. Fifty minutes. An hour. An hour and ten minutes. Eva cast a sidelong glance at the phone when it vibrated across the table with an annoyed twinkle. She jumped three feet into the air and seized the phone with a pattering heart. “Mr. Rockford’s office. You’re speaking with Eva.”
“Jeff Rorschach again, Eva.”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Rorschach. How are you managing? How did it go with the OSHA inspectors?”
“I just called you to let you know you’re absolutely brilliant, and I’d like you to do me the honor of bestowing on me your hand in marriage.”
Eva gasped. “Mr. Rorschach!”
“You saved me, Eva. You saved me and the whole company with your idea. I showed the reports to the inspectors, and they agreed to stick around the site while we interviewed the workers nearest Tino when he fell from the scaffold. You were absolutely right. It was him playing music, and he was dancing around on the scaffold without his safety leash attached. He was showing off and moonwalking like Michael Jackson. He moonwalked right off the cotton-pickin’ scaffold!” He burst out laughing and let out a wild yell.
Eva gave a nervous laugh, too. “I’m glad it all worked out.”
“It did better than work out. They gave us a clean bill of operation to keep working on the site, and they’re going to lay charges against Tino. When I told them about Tino’s wife trying to sue us, they took her phone number and agreed to head her off at the pass. We’re all clear, and it’s all thanks to you.”
“Great, Mr. Rorschach. I’ll tell Mr. Rockford everything is under control.”
“I want Mr. Rockford to call me himself when he’s finished. I want to tell him what a gem he found when he hired you. I doubt even he could have come up with a solution as good as this.”
“That’s very nice of you to say, but I—”
“You tell him to call me. I gotta get back to work now. I just wanted to let you know what happened and to thank you. You don’t know how relieved I am.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll tell Mr. Rockford.”
“Bye.”
She hung up when Matt walked through the door. He smiled.
Even at the door, she could see the relaxed serenity on his face. He carried his shoulders lower, and his eyes didn’t dart around the way they did before. “How did it go?”
“Pretty good.”
“All quiet?”
“Sorry, no, but I think I’ve got everything under control.” She then took a few minutes to tell him everything.
He blinked at her. “Wow.”
“It’s all good. The building site emergency is okay. You can call Wilson, but I think you should check with the legal department first.”
He stared straight at her, but he didn’t see anything. A thousand details ran through his mind. Then he snapped alert. “No, I won’t call the legal department. We’ll go ahead with your strategy. Now that I think about it, it’s a great idea. We’ll let the designers think we’re willing to pay for the new designs. We’ll show them a carrot of additional funds just to get the new package finished in time. Then, once we have our application filed, we’ll contest their addition cost. We’ll take them to co
urt if we have to.”
“Are you sure? It’s not too harsh, is it?”
“Harsh? They don’t know how harsh it is. That’s what makes the plan so brilliant.”
Eva groaned. “Please don’t use that word.”
“What? Why not?”
She told him all about Rorschach’s proposal.
Matt laughed out loud. He swooped an arm around Eva’s waist and yanked her in against his chest. He planted a passionate kiss on her lips and let her reel away. “I’ll punch him in the nose if he comes near you.”
She blushed, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “Stop that.”
He tossed his burly body into his desk chair. “So no other messages?”
“That’s all of it.”
He picked up his phone and checked it. He frowned at the blank notification screen. Then he grunted.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. You’ve done a great job.”
“You don’t look very happy about it.”
He gazed down at his phone sitting forlorn and silent on the desk. “Twenty years, putting out fires. Twenty years, looking over my shoulder and wondering what was going on while I was out of the office.”
“You won’t have to do that anymore.”
He pursed his lips. “I’m not as relieved as I thought I would be. I’ve been the lynchpin of this company for twenty years, and now the company doesn’t need me anymore.”
“The company still needs you just as much. Now you can concentrate on using your company to do good for people, instead of wasting your energy putting out fires.”
He cast a glance up at her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He slapped his thighs. “You’re right.” He jumped to his feet, grabbed her, and kissed her again.
“What’s going on with you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve never seen you like this. You’re—you’re goofy.”
“I can be goofy sometimes, too. You don’t know all the sides of me.”
“Apparently not.”
“I want you to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to go out to dinner with me tonight. Somewhere fancy.”
Eva felt stunned as she her eyes would pop out of her head. “Are you serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“What do you want to take me out to dinner for?”
“To show my appreciation for what you’ve done today.”
“Do you take all your employees out to dinner to show your appreciation for what they do?”
“No. Just you.” He gave her a wide smile.
Chapter 9
Eva put the finishing touches on her make-up and piled her hair on top of her head to accentuate the plunging neckline of her full-length gown. Matt said he would take her somewhere fancy. She could only hope she wasn’t overdressed. She hoped her ensemble wouldn’t be massively over the top and make a fool of herself.
He better not pick her up on his Harley, either, or she would never speak to him again. Eva paused. Though that Harley would make her wet just seeing it. She laughed. She collected her handbag and put it with her keys on the hall table. She checked the clock for the thousandth time and paced around the living room waiting for him to show up.
Eight o’clock rolled around, but she didn’t hear the thump of a chopper outside. All at once, a firm knock rattled her door. She didn’t hear any car pull up to the curb, but when she opened it, her breath caught in her throat. There was Matt in a tuxedo and diamond cuff links. A black stretch limo sat at the curb behind her. She never even heard it pull up.
He raised his eyebrows at her dress, and his eyes sparkled. “Good evening. You look stunning.”
“So do you.”
He crooked his elbow and turned his side to her. “Shall we go?”
She placed her hand inside his elbow. “Where are we going?”
“That’s a surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises, remember?” She raised a brow at him.
He chuckled. “You’ll like this one.” He handed her into the limo and sat in the seat opposite her.
She kept her knees together and folded her hands in her lap.
He appraised her up and down with his eyes. “You don’t look very comfortable.”
“Maybe because I feel like I’m about to be the main course.”
He flashed his perfect white teeth. “I like that. You look delicious from here.”
“Is this going to be another one of your kinky sex games?”
His smile evaporated. “Nothing like that.”
“You haven’t texted me since you dropped me off last night.”
“I thought you might want a break from that after….what we did.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“You haven’t texted me, either.”
“I never have. It’s always you texting me.”
“I know. Why is that?”
“I don’t know. It just worked out that way when you first got in touch with me on that dating site.” Eva remembered every hot minute since then. They had been doing that for a while before she ever got the interview at Rockford. She still felt curious as to when he knew and why he kept the phone sex and videos gong.
The limo glided to a stop. Matt peered through the window. “Here we are.” He got out first and offered her his hand. He led her up to the sidewalk to the front of what looked like a locked office building.
“What is this place?”
“Only the most exclusive restaurant on the Eastern Seaboard.” He passed her hand through his elbow. “You’ll love it. I promise.” He led her to another plain concrete wall and touched the corner seam between two concrete blocks. A panel opened, and he pushed a button. The slab slid back, and he stepped into an elevator cab with Eva at his side.
She stared at him. “What’s all this cloak and dagger stuff?”
“I told you this place is exclusive.”
“I didn’t know it this date was that exclusive.”
He shrugged still looking delicious in his tux. “No one knows about this place but me. It has a clientele of one— actually two now.”
The elevator closed and whizzed into the air. The G-force dragged on Eva’s legs, but the ride only lasted an instant. The doors hissed open again, and Matt stepped out onto a pebbled concrete patio set all around with trees. The starry night sky sailed high above them, and the summer wind rustled the leaves.
Thousands and thousands of fairy lights illuminated the building’s roof, but no one could tell it was the roof of a plain office building.
Flower beds, rose bushes, and stately trees grew all around that roof and turned it into a Garden of Eden.
Eva was stunned speechless as he towed her along.
Matt conducted her along a beautiful walk to an opening in the garden. A small table set for two waiting for them between the trees, and candles lit its crisp white tablecloth and bone china.
He steered her into her chair before he took the chair opposite. He rang a small bell by his plate, and a tuxedoed waiter came forward with a white napkin draped over his arm. “Wine, sir?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The waiter disappeared and came back with a bottle and two glasses. He poured, and Matt raised his glass to Eva. “To you, and to a job superlatively done today.”
The heady mixture of alcohol and sugar rushed to her brain. She couldn’t comprehend all this extravagance for her sake. She’d only been doing her job today, the job he hired her to do.
She ran through a few possible excuses in her mind to explain away the work he thought was so exceptional. Anyone could have done it, but before she could decide what to say, he slid his hand across the table and picked up hers from the tablecloth.
“I’ve waited a long time for this moment.”
“You have? How long have you been planning this?”
“Since I first
emailed you on that dating site.”
Eva stared at him. “As long ago as that?”
“You didn’t know, did you? You thought it was all about sex for me, but it wasn’t. I knew from your first messages you were something special. Even then, I planned to bring you here. I dreamed of this moment more times than I dreamed about laying you across my bike.”
Eva felt her cheeks flaming. Talking about their illicit sex life didn’t make sense at this table.
“You never thought about this with RipRoarer, did you?”
“You said RipRoarer was the leader of a criminal biker gang. I never thought RipRoarer was capable of this.”
“Well, he is. I am. I wanted you to see this part of my life, and I wanted you to share it.”
“What do you mean by share it?”
“I want us to be more than just a boss who bonks his assistant. I want us to be more than chat buddies and fuck buddies.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“You’re the first person I’ve trusted to share my business with. I want to know I can count on you when the chips are down.”
“You can count on me. I proved that today, didn’t I?”
“You proved it as my assistant. I want you to be more than that. I want you to be an equal force for leadership and change in my company.”
“If I was an equal force along with you, it wouldn’t be your company.
It would be our company.”
“Exactly.”
Eva gasped what was he saying here? “I still don’t understand what you mean. You’re not going to share your company with me. That would be unheard of.”
“You just heard of it.”
“You’re daft.” She rolled her eyes, not even taking him seriously.
He chuckled. “I can see this subject makes you uncomfortable.”
“Only because you’re not making any sense. You don’t intend to make me a business partner, do you?”
“No, not a business partner.”
“There. You see? I knew it. So what are you talking about?”
He rolled her hand between his fingers as if to emphasize her being here with him. “Just this.”
Beauty and the Billionaire_A Bad Boy Romance Collection Page 18
