by Emelia Blair
The woman has the same brown eyes as Jace but her hair is the most beautiful ashen shade, one you could never get from a hair dye.
She’s very pretty and she grins at me. “You must be Halley, the new intern.” Then she turns to Jace. “What’s this about you hiring an intern? I thought Caleb approved the budget you needed for a proper full-time employee.”
I try not to feel too insulted.
Jace sighs and for the first time his expression clears. “Apparently, Hashem needed an assistant instead.”
The woman puts her hands on her hips. “Oh, I’m going to—”
“—Nothing. You’re going to do nothing.” Jace leans back in his chair. “I already cleared the internship with Lana. Plus, Halley is better than any full-time office drone I would have hired.”
The unexpected praise makes me blush suddenly.
Then he gestures towards the woman. “Halley, this is Kendall. She’s the CEO’s PA.”
Kendall smiles, a sharp gleam in her eyes. “I’m also this knucklehead’s sister.”
“Half-sister,” Jace corrects, his tone bored.
“Nice to meet you.” I grin. “I love your hair!”
My words and the enthusiasm in them clearly throw Kendall off and her right hand goes to touch her long braid, which is resting over her shoulder, and this time when she smiles, there is genuine pleasure in it. “Why, thank you.” She ignores the way Jace snorts and asks, “A few of us are having lunch together. Want to join us? It’s your first day here; it would be a good opportunity for you to meet some people from the office.”
From the way Jace’s eyes widen, it makes me think I shouldn’t be taking this invitation too lightly. But I already have plans. “I have to meet up with a friend. But I would love a rain check.” The last part is said sheepishly.
Instead of getting offended, Kendall just chuckles. “Tomorrow then.”
Hearing my phone ring, I jump to my feet. “That’s my ride. I gotta go! It was lovely meeting you!”
And as I run out of the room, I hear Jace’s indignant voice, “How come you didn’t invite me? I’m your brother!”
“I thought you were my half-brother.”
I chuckle at the snark in Kendall’s voice.
I could learn to like her.
If I could be called a carefree soul, Mia is the exact opposite. It’s ironic, considering our professions.
She’s inherited her mother’s genes, who was from Hong Kong, and she has a short, thin frame, her face serious. It breaks out into a smile when she glimpses me approaching the deli. “Halley!” She throws her arms around me. “You look so beautiful!”
I laugh and disentangle myself from her tight grip. “Does Cameron know you’re hitting on me?”
Cameron has been Mia’s boyfriend for three years. He’s also in the force and it was through him that Mia applied for this job.
“Where is he?” I ask, looking around as if the tall Amazon would jump out from behind a pedestrian.
Mia tucks her arm in mine. “He’s working on a cold case with the detective he’s been assigned to, Felix. Cam wants to give the detective’s exam in two years, so he’s working towards getting his supervising officer to nominate him. He wanted to come though.”
We walk into the deli and order the food before taking our seats.
Mia sighs. “I’m so glad that you decided to move to DC.”
I stretch my arms over my head. “I’ve always been three hours away by car. Chesapeake City isn’t that far from here.”
“It seemed awfully far,” my friend says, desolately.
I know ever since she and Cameron moved here, both of them had tried their utmost to get me to relocate. All three of us had grown up together and had been inseparable since childhood.
“So, what made you decide to move?”
The smile on my face freezes.
Mia’s face scrunches up in sympathy. “Still?”
I rub my hands over my face with a sigh. “They got really bad over the past few months and I had the money, so I thought that maybe a change of scenery would help. Besides, Uncle Raymond was here and he kept pestering me to move up here.”
We both know my over protective Uncle had no influence over the decision.
I’ve had terrible nightmares ever since I was young. Sometimes they fade and I can sleep calmly for a few months and then they come back, triggered by God knows what. It’s always the same dream: a cold musty room, a woman’s screams, and then a cold hand grasping at me, shrieking, begging me to run.
Shivers climb up my back as I recall the desperate tinge to the woman’s voice.
I blame the horror movies Mia, Cameron, and I used to watch.
“Well, I’m glad you did.” Mia grasps my hand, her tone warm. “Now tell me about your new job.”
Obliging, I tell her about my new boss and the whole situation starting from when I ran into him in my new apartment complex.
“He sounds cute.” Mia grinned.
I scoff. “He’s a damn tyrant and he scowls so much that I’m starting to think he crawled out of his mother’s womb like that.”
Mia bites her lower lips, trying not to burst out laughing. “That’s horrible, Halley!”
I sip on my green tea, grinning. “But he’s not all bad. He said he’d pay me out of his own pocket and he praised my work. That was pretty nice of him.”
“I wish you’d managed to sneak a picture. From how you’ve described him, he sounds kind of hot.”
“Hah. A few hours with him, and I can tell you… Jace Hunter is married to his work. He’s good eye candy though.”
Mia sips at her own tea, and then says, “Why don’t you start dating, though? You’ve been single for so long. You’re in DC. It’s so large and there are so many guys here.”
I fidget with my cup. “That’s true. I could give it a shot.”
Mia grins. “Cameron was just telling me about this officer who joined with him. Dave something-something. He’s got a middle name and a last name. And he’s Cuban. And he loves having a good time. He’s single and he’s very attractive. If I wasn’t very happily taken, I would be climbing all over him like a damn pole.” She waggles her brows. “Want me to ask him to set you two up?”
I just laugh. “Damn Mia, you forgot to take his blood type and family history.”
She grins at me.
Lunch is pleasant and the rest of the day goes by in converting documents into a more standard and concise form.
I leave before Jace does and I’m kind of glad because it would be so weird to run into him at the elevator or in the building.
I don’t see Uncle Raymond because he was in a meeting and as soon as I go home, I climb into bed and I’m out like a light.
Three hours later, I shoot up straight, my body covered in sweat as I stare blindly at the wall.
Huddling in a ball under the covers, I cover my ears with my hands, trying to drown out the screaming in my head.
3
Jace
“I like her.”
I roll my eyes at Kendall, who’s stuffing her face with pizza. “You just like her because she complimented your hair.”
“Who complimented your hair?” Caleb looks up from where he’s going through a document.
Kendall waves off his question. “Jace’s new intern. Pretty little thing.”
“She’s twenty-two,” I tell her.
“Huh.” Kendall slowly chews her food, looking surprised. “She looks eighteen. Maybe it’s because of her getup.”
“Hashem didn’t let you hire someone, huh?” Caleb studies me.
I scowl in response.
We’re sitting in Caleb’s office because Kendall and I were supposed to have dinner together but Caleb had some work to wrap up, so I ended up getting dragged here instead.
“She dresses like a five-year-old picked her clothes,” I mutter in response to Kendall’s comment.
She eyes me, her gaze sharp, a small smirk on her lips. “Look at yo
u, noticing a woman.”
“W-What?” I splutter, sitting up so suddenly that my drink splashes on my hand. “I’m not —that’s not—She’s my intern, for God’s sake!”
Kendall laughs, maliciously, her eyes trained on me. “You’ve only known her for one day but you’re already correcting other people on her age and you’re commenting on her clothes.”
“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.” I glower at her, even as I grab another slice of pizza, not making any attempt to move.
When my sister just laughs, I toss the cushion behind my back at her, making her drink spill over the white couch.
Caleb doesn’t even look up from where he’s working. “That’s coming out of your salary.”
“How come you didn’t say anything to her?” I grumble.
He raises a brow as he looks up. “Because she’s my wife. And stop hitting on your intern.”
“I didn’t even say anything to her!” I complain.
He ignores me.
Kendall just grins. “All right, all right. I’ll stop teasing you. But I do like her. She’s very perky, the complete opposite of you.”
I open my mouth to mention that she lives in my building but I wisely choose not to divulge that bit of information. God knows what Kendall would do with that information.
“How did your blind date go, by the way?” She peers at me curiously.
I avoid her gaze. “Oh, that. Yeah, I forgot about that.”
“You did what?” Kendall asks dangerously.
I scratch at my chin, wondering if I should grow a beard. “I never made it. It slipped my mind.”
“Kendall, if you throw the glass at him and he sues the company, that’s coming from your salary,” Caleb says, calmly.
I see Kendall lower her hand and I feel grateful to my brother-in-law for coming to my rescue.
However, those feelings evaporate the minute he turns to me and narrows his eyes. “Stop ditching those blind dates. I’m the one who gets nagged afterwards.”
“Then tell her to stop setting me up on them.” I sulk into my drink. “I’ve enough on my plate with that fucking Hashem on my ass all the time. I don’t want to add a woman to this mess. It’ll just make things worse than they already are.”
Caleb sets down his papers and eyes me, seriously. “I can promote you to the Head of the Department. You just need to say it.”
I can appreciate his sincerity and I know that I’m lucky Caleb Starr is making this offer to me, but as every other time before this, I have to refuse again. “I didn’t work my ass off all these years just to be promoted to a position because my brother-in-law owns the company. Mom would never forgive me.”
She wouldn’t have.
Mom had worked hard all her life and had always told me to earn every morsel that passes my lips.
“We could always kill Hashem,” Kendall suggests, the blind date matter forgotten.
“I’d rather not have to visit you in prison,” I say, dryly. “Don’t go around piling more work on me.”
“If you want Hashem dead, you let me handle it,” Caleb tells his wife, and
I stare at him for a few seconds, trying to determine whether he’s serious or not. “You two are terrifying,” I say, loudly.
Kendall reaches over and hooks her arm around my neck. Pulling me forward, she plants a noisy smacking kiss on my cheek and beams. “I know.”
The next two weeks are relatively calm with Halley coming every day.
She is a quick worker and efficient, so I can appreciate that about her. However, the woman talks so damn much.
She jumps from topic to topic so quickly that I have to struggle to keep up. One minute she’s telling me about the position of the sofa and then she’s discussing this Chinese baby she saw on the train with the roundest cheeks she’s ever seen.
I have to tell her to shut up at least ten times a day, on a good day. But she doesn’t get offended, simply falling into silence for a few minutes, and then the room is once again filled with her chatter.
I have never met a woman who talks this much.
She doesn’t care that I’m her boss nor is she even the slightest bit afraid that I could very well fire her.
There have been no run-ins at the complex, so it’s like we don’t live in the same building. This makes things less awkward for me.
Hashem also hasn’t dropped by. Part of me is waiting for him to show up any day and make things hard for me. The waiting has me on edge.
So, when he does show up, things take an odd turn.
I’m working on something, once again ignoring Halley as she prattles on about this new shawarma place she found near our apartment complex. Part of me is still listening, however, the mention of food enough to hold some of my attention. Two days ago, she had been telling me about this sushi place.
I can’t even tell her to focus on her work because the woman excels at multitasking.
I absentmindedly say, “Shut up, Halley.”
She doesn’t listen to me and continues, “Anyways, so I asked the shawarma guy to give me a discount since I go there every other day—Uncle Raymond!”
The delight in her voice makes me look up to see Raymond standing in the doorway, smiling in that gentle way of his. “Halley, I hope you’re not giving Jace a hard time.”
Not bothered that she’s in a workplace, Halley goes to him and hugs him.
When Raymond wraps his arms around her in greeting, I can see the love shining in his eyes. He truly did raise her, I muse.
I also see the innocence that stems from this girl.
It’s something that I’ve noticed over these past few days; Halley doesn’t have a filter and she doesn’t seem to be the type to hold onto things. She enjoys silly things, her laughter carefree. She talks about everything she’s seen in the past four days; I know each and every detail about her day. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was a teenager.
But at the same time, I often glimpse a maturity to her that belies her real age.
I also know how much she misses her uncle.
Raymond releases her and looks towards me. “I hope Sophie hasn’t been too much trouble.”
Why is he making it sound like I’m babysitting her? “She’s a hard worker,” I say, keeping my tone light.
Halley wanders back to her area and sits.
Raymond comes over to sit in the visitor’s seat. “I never did ask you how long this internship will be.”
“It’s a three-month thing for now,” I tell him, part of me wondering why he isn’t commenting on his niece’s attire.
Ever since she started here, Halley’s clothes have been nothing short of innovative.
She wears short skirts and fitted blouses, which sometimes have plunging necklines or look like an artist painted them on her.
It’s the reason I’m wearing the rubber band around my wrist, to snap it every time I find my eyes wandering.
I don’t want to say anything because it’s not my place but I am a man and Halley is a very well-developed woman, and on top of this, I have a thing for redheads. It’s very hard not to notice her when she’s flaunting herself so openly around my office.
Her sense of color and fashion is also a little unsettling. Like today, she’s wearing a feather in her ear, which is dangling from her lobe, and her shirt is blue while her skirt is a bright orange.
“Halley, you should come by for dinner,” Raymond scolds her, like one would a wayward child. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Halley blinks her eyes, innocently. “It’s hardly my fault. I’m being worked like a slave here.”
I gape at her, remembering how she had taken a half hour power nap in my office after the lunch hour and how I couldn’t say anything because she had finished the assigned work.
“I get home and then I’m out like a light,” she’s saying as I tune back into the conversation.
Raymond shakes his head. “Listen to you. You always were good at making e
xcuses.”
There’s not an ounce of repentance in her gaze, as she grins. “I know. But I honestly haven’t had the time. I have some freelance projects to work on as well.”
“Are you getting enough sleep?”
My sharp eyes catch the slightest flickering of the expression on her face before she lies in a cheerful tone, “Of course. I sleep like a log.”
Raymond, however, seems to buy it.
When he leaves, I stare at her.
She looks up and asks, “What?”
I usually have a strict policy of not interfering in anyone’s personal business but for some reason, I’m curious about why she lied over something so trivial. Or maybe it’s the fact that she seems to tell me everything even if I’m a stranger, but this one small fact she hasn’t mentioned and it is bothering me. It’s silly and foolish, but my mouth opens, regardless, “Why did you lie to your uncle?”
Halley stills for a few seconds and she knows what I’m talking about. Her usually expressive face shutters. She looks completely cold and unapproachable. “No reason. It’s private.”
The shut-up call is so harsh in a way that it has me mentally scrambling back. “Sorry.”
She doesn’t bat an eyelash, simply returning to her work.
Her expression is set in a way that tells me I’ve crossed a line, a line that I had started forgetting existed between us.
A little troubled, I look down at my laptop, not seeing the numbers, trying to figure out why her response stings so much.
Lost in my thoughts, I don’t hear the footsteps until it’s too late.
“What do we have here?”
Hashem’s voice reaches my ears and I stiffen, my head shooting up.
His eyes are on Halley and I see the way he drags them over her bare legs and her exposed arms. Today, her blouse is almost modest and even if it wasn’t—I feel a stirring of anger inside of me—it still doesn’t give him the right to look at her like she’s a piece of meat.
“Hashem, what do you want?” My tone is rude.
He turns to me and his eyes narrow in anger.
At least he’s no longer leering at Halley now.
