Ms. Bravo And The Boss

About twenty minutes after he started dictating, Jed said her name yet again—and after that, he was silent.

She cast him a quick, questioning glance.

With one big arm across his chest and the other elbow braced on it, he stroked the scruff of beard on his square jaw, a calculating gleam in his eyes. Finally, he spoke. “The typing test is over. Swivel that chair around.” She turned her chair to face him. “Can you go on like that for hours?”

She took a minute to consider the question.

It was a minute too long, apparently, because he muttered impatiently, “You may speak now.”

“Thank you,” she replied with a sarcasm he either didn’t notice or chose to ignore. “I would need a five-minute break every two hours, long enough to stand up and walk around a little.”

“I can accept that.”

“An hour for lunch.”

He scowled as he continued to stroke his rocklike jaw. Apparently, in his world, typists shouldn’t be allowed to waste precious time on food. But then he conceded, “All right. An hour. But you’ll need to be flexible as to which hour. If the story’s flowing, you might have to wait a while to eat.”

“Even with regular five-minute breaks, there have to be limits. No more than five hours at a stretch without an hour-long break.”

A grunt of disapproval escaped him. But then he agreed, “Five hours. All right. The work will be intense and you’ll need to roll with that. I have to get a book out fast and I’ll need you when I need you—which will be ten to twelve hours a day. You will have to live here and you will work six days a week, with Sundays off.”

Live here in his house? God, it sounded awful. But in the end, it was all about the money. If the money was good enough, she could bear a whole boatload of awful.

And wait. What about Mr. Wiggles? He would have to come with her. “I have a cat. My cat will be moving in with me.”

Dead silence from Walsh. He stopped stroking his jaw and moved to the windows. For several seconds, he stared out at the mountains.

It appeared that Mr. Wiggles was going to be a deal-killer. Well, so be it. She’d barely gotten the big sweetie out alive during the fire. If she had to live with this strange, grumpy man, Wigs was coming with her. Or she wouldn’t come at all.

Jed turned those intense eyes on her again. “Fine. Bring the damn cat.” She felt equal parts triumphant that she’d won her demand and let down that she was one step closer to being Jed Walsh’s typing slave for she still didn’t know how long. She was about to ask him how long the job would last when he said flatly, “Unfortunately, I find you sexually attractive. That could be a problem.” Did he actually just say that? Another of those odd shivers swept through her as he added thoughtfully, “But then there’s the cat. I hate cats. That should help.” Frowning, he kept those cold eyes steadily on her. “You’re thinking I shouldn’t have told you that I’m attracted to you. But I think it’s better if we’re on the same page.”

She probably shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t resist. “What page is that, Jed?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “The one where you know that I’m aware of you as a woman, but we both know that work is the focus here and we will be keeping it strictly professional.”

Elise said nothing. Really, what was there to say? The less the better, clearly. She shouldn’t be flattered. But she was, a little. Apparently the extra pounds she’d put on since the fire didn’t look so bad on her, after all.

“My deadline is November first and it will not be extended.”

“Four and a half months.” She mentally calculated the money that might be hers.

“It’s likely you’ll be finished by mid-October, but I need you to commit till November first, just in case I run into trouble. I do most of my rewriting while composing the first draft of the manuscript. So essentially, the book is finished when I get to the last page. Then I clean it up, but that I usually can do on my own in a couple of weeks, max."

"All right. Four to four and a half months, then."

"Yes. If you last, the position will become permanent. It’s a grind when I’m on a project. But as I said, I type my own rewrites, so as soon as I’ve made it to the end of the first draft, I probably won’t need you until I start the next book. You’ll have weeks and sometimes months off at a time between books.”

Elise thought of all those thousands he supposedly would pay. She could almost let him think she might be willing to type his novels long-term to get a chance at that money.

But she wasn’t willing, no way. And it was only right to let him know up front. “I’m sorry, Jed. If we can come to terms, I’ll do this one project. But as of November first, I’ll be moving on.”

His scowl deepened. “I pay well.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“If you work out, I’ll need you to stay on.”

“Sorry, not happening. I’m done the first of November. If you can’t accept that, then—”

He cut her off with a grunting sound. “All right. Have it your way. Even if you make it through the trial period, you’re done when I finish this book. If it turns out we work well together, I’m not gonna like it, but I need someone ASAP. Let’s move on to the money. You’ll be an independent contractor. You pay your own insurance and deal with your own taxes.”

“Not a problem if the money’s right.”

“Three thousand a week.”

Amazing! When this ordeal was over, she could have enough to get Bravo Catering up and running again. Her heart raced in excitement and her palms started sweating at the prospect. But really, why stop there?

She wiped all signs of greedy glee from her face and manufactured a serene smile. “Four thousand a week.”

His cold stare went subzero. She was dead certain they were done here and she knew a moment of stark regret. No, she didn’t want to sit in a chair all day typing her fingers to the bone, but she did want that money.

And then at last, wonder of wonders, he nodded. “All right. Four.” She was just breaking into her mental happy dance when he added, “If you last. We’ll start with a three-day trial at five hundred a day.”

She opened her mouth to shout out a yes. But some contrary creature within her spoke up first. “I’ll have my own room, correct?”

He looked down his blade of a nose at her. “Of course.”

“Just to be clear, I will need my own bathroom, en suite.”

“There are six bedrooms in this house.” He was wearing his bored face again. “Each has its own bath.”

“I want to see the one where I’ll be staying, please.”

He asked wearily, “Would you prefer the ground floor or upstairs?”

Choices. She loved those. Lately, there had been so few. “Where is your room?”

Green eyes narrowed. “And that matters, why?”

“I need my space.”

He made a humphing sound. “I have half of the upper floor.”

“Ground floor, then.” She really did need a place to go where he wasn’t. “Show me, please.”

Jed’s expression asked why she insisted on wasting his precious time. But all he said was, “Follow me.”

She rose and went after him, back through the great room and down another hallway. He stopped at a door and pushed it inward.

The room on the other side was larger than her apartment over the donut shop. It had a king-size bed and its own sitting area, with a big-screen TV above the modern gas fireplace. The wide windows revealed another beautiful mountain view. There was even a set of French doors leading out to a small private patio. She could hardly wait to settle in.

“Walk-in closet there.” He pointed at one of the two interior doors. “I hope this will do,” he said, heavy on the irony.

She had one more question. The most important one. “May I see the bathroom?”

“Be my guest.” He gestured at that other door.

Elise marched over and pushed it open.

Pure luxury waited on the other side. She’d never been much for the rustic look. But in this case, she could definitely make an exception.

The woodwork was dark and oversize, breathtaking. Travertine tiles in cream and bronze covered the floor and climbed halfway up the walls. The long vanity had two sinks and copper fixtures. There were separate stalls for the toilet and the open shower, which had side jets and a rain showerhead.

Very faintly, she smelled cinnamon. Jed had come to stand behind her in the doorway. “The towel racks have warmers, of course,” he said. “And the floor is heated.”

“Of course,” she said softly, transfixed by the glorious sight of the giant jetted tub tucked into its own windowed alcove. The tub windows had center-mounted cellular shades that could be raised to the top to block glare, or lowered to the bottom for privacy. She could stretch out in bubbly splendor and stare at the sky.

“Well?” Jed demanded.

She turned and met his eyes. “When do you want me to start?”

Chapter Two

Elise Bravo was a find.

Jed knew she was going to last.

He’d known it the minute he’d let her in his house. She wasn’t like the never-ending string of hopeless cases he’d hired and fired in the past year. She could type like nobody’s business while keeping her mouth shut and not getting frazzled or riled. There was something downright soothing about her, something receptive. She was exactly what he’d been afraid he would never find again. At last.

And he liked looking at her. He could go for her, definitely. She was so soft and pretty, round-faced and bright-eyed, with just enough junk in the trunk. She smelled good, as well. Fresh. Like clean sheets.

She also had attitude. Jed liked a woman with attitude. He liked a woman who could hold her own.

Not that he’d ever make a move on her. Any woman could provide sex. But a skilled assistant was a pearl beyond price. He’d learned that the hard way during the past god-awful year after Anna deserted him.

So yeah, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to be seeing Elise naked. It was going to be all about the work. He’d taken his last extension on this book. With Elise at the keyboard, he would knock the damn thing out.

“I need to get to work immediately,” he said.

“I understand. But first I have to get my cat, move my things and settle in a little.”

The cat. For a moment, he’d almost succeeded in forgetting the cat. “We’ll start tomorrow morning, then,” he said grudgingly.

“Yes. All right, tomorrow.” She cast a glance over her shoulder at the bathroom behind her, as if to reassure herself that it was actually there. She really seemed to like the bathroom. Whatever floats your boat, Elise. She could spend every free moment in there for all he cared. Just as long as she performed during the long working hours. “What about meals?” she asked. “I’ll need to have the use of the kitchen while I’m staying here.”

“No problem. I have a cook-housekeeper, Deirdre, who comes in five days a week. She’ll make plenty for both of us. But if you want to cook, knock yourself out. You can consider the kitchen and any food and drinks you find in it yours.”

“Works for me.” She looked up at him expectantly. Probably because he was blocking her path. “I should get going...”

He felt a definite reluctance to let her out of his sight. Anything could happen. What if she changed her mind about working for him? Got hit by lightning? Got in an accident bringing over her stuff and her damn cat? He warned, “We start work at zero-eight-three-zero hours sharp.”

“That’s eight thirty, right?”

“Correct.”

“No problem. I’ll be here and I’ll be ready.”

He reconciled himself to letting her go. Turning for the outer door, he doled out necessary info as he led her along the hall to the front of the house. “It’s a four-car garage. You can have the bay on the far left. Before you go, I’ll get you a garage-door remote, a house key and the code for the alarm system...”

* * *

At her apartment, Elise parked in her space by the Dumpster and entered the building through the back door. The hallway and the stairwell smelled of donuts from the donut shop in front. She’d grown to hate that smell, mostly because it tempted her constantly. There was something so perfect about a donut, after all. Flour and fat and sugar, deep-fried and glazed or frosted. The purest sort of comfort to a desperate woman’s soul.

Well, bye bye, temptation and hello, jetted tub. So what if she had to type Jed Marsh’s book for a living? She’d have a bath every night and make buckets of money. Life was looking up.

Mr. Wiggles was waiting when she opened the door. “Mrow?” he asked.

“Wigs!” She scooped him up, all twenty-plus superfluffy pounds of him. He was orange, with a huge, thick tail and a deep, loud purr. She buried her face against his lionlike ruff. “We are moving today,” she told him. “We’ll keep this dump for now, I think. And reevaluate our crappy living situation once the job is over.”

“Mrow, mrow,” Wigs replied, as though he understood every word she said. He butted his big head against her cheek to let her know how much he loved her. She gave him one more kiss for good measure and then set him down to start packing.

Her cell rang as she was piling clothes into three suitcases spread open on the lumpy bed.

It was Nellie. “Well?”

“Nailed it.”

“You got the job! I knew you would.”

“I have to live there, in his house.”

“I built that house and Chloe designed the interiors.” Chloe was their brother Quinn’s wife. “You’re gonna love it.”

She thought of the bathtub, of the king-size bed. “Oh, yes, I will. And the money is good. Really good.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. What about Jed? Seriously, you think you can put up with him?”

“He’s not so bad. A little weird. A lot intense.”

“Sexy, though, right? In a club-you-senseless-and-drag-you-to-his-cave sort of way.”

For some unknown reason, Elise felt a hot flush rush upward over her cheeks. “Don’t even go there. He’s my boss now and we’re keeping it strictly professional.”

Nell’s naughty laugh echoed in her ear. “You have way more scruples than can possibly be necessary—and we have to celebrate. I’m buying the drinks.”

“Rain check. I need to get moved in over there tonight. The job starts early tomorrow morning.”

“He gives you crap you can’t handle, you call me.”

Elise’s cheeks were still burning. She could almost smell cinnamon. And what about that crazy thing he’d said? Unfortunately, I find you sexually attractive. “Oh, I think I can handle him.”

Nell laughed. “There. That’s what I’ve been missing. You’ve got your attitude back.”

She felt all misty-eyed suddenly. “Thank you, Nellie.”

“Hey. What’s a sister for?”

“We, um...we’re all right now, you and me. Aren’t we? I mean, I know I was a total bitch to you back in the day...”

“Back in the day? You and Tracy treated me like crap right up until Clara’s almost-wedding to Ryan.” That was nearly two years ago now. Clara hadn’t married her best friend, Ryan McKellan, but she had somehow succeeded in healing the lifelong breach between Elise and Nell—and Nell and Tracy.

Elise defended her absent bestie. “Don’t be too hard on Tracy. She always just followed my lead.” But not anymore. Tracy was forging her own way now.

Nell laughed again. “You’re right. It was all your fault. But I did get my licks in, too. Remember that time I put bubblegum on your breakfast-nook chair?”

Elise started laughing, too. “I loved those yellow shorts. They were never the same.”

“It’s what you get for messing with me.”

“I know. You’re so scary.”

“Oh, yes, I am. And don’t you forget it.”

“Never. And I guess what I’m asking is, do you forgive me for all the mean things I did?”

Nell gave a soft sigh. “You know I do.”

“I’m so glad.”

“Leesie? You’re not getting sappy on me, are you?”

Elise swiped at her damp eyes. “No way. Gotta go.”

They said goodbye and Elise made quick calls to Clara and Jody, to tell them she had a job typing Jed Walsh’s newest book and wouldn’t be in at the café or Bloom the next day.

Then she finished packing and dragged her suitcases down to her car, followed by all the cat gear and, last but not least, Mr. Wiggles. He rode in the front seat, sitting up tall beside her, watching the world go by and making those cute little chirping sounds, his own personal brand of kitty conversation. He loved the car and he never got in the way of her driving, so she’d given up on making him ride in his carrier.

She took the space in the garage that Jed had assigned to her and carried Mr. Wiggles in first, pausing in the utility room to check the alarm. As it turned out, Jed hadn’t armed it when she left, so she didn’t have to mess with it right then. She went on down a hallway and then through the kitchen and great room and down that other hall to her bedroom suite, finding no sign of her employer along the way.

Which was just fine. She had a lot to do and she didn’t need the distraction of dealing with her big, crabby boss.

In her room, she put Wigs down in front of the window, promised him she would be right back and went out to start hauling everything in, taking care to shut the door as she left so he wouldn’t get out. Jed had said he hated cats. No reason to test his patience right off the bat.

By seven, she had everything put away and her stomach was growling. Wigs, meanwhile, alternately circled his empty food bowl, chased the cleaning robot she’d started up a few minutes before and made a big show of scratching at his three-level activity center.

“Okay, okay. I’m on it.” She’d stored his food in the utility room, which had seemed the most logical place for it. She scooped up his food bowls—for wet and for dry—and went out the door again.

The hallways and great room and kitchen were empty. Very odd. Her first night in his house and Jed had vanished into thin air.

She considered peeking into his office, or even looking for him upstairs.

But the thought of wandering through the unfamiliar house trying to track him down made her even more uncomfortable than not having a clue as to where he’d gone. So she went ahead to the utility room to dish up Wigs’s dinner. She was pulling the top off a can when she heard music.

She shouldn’t snoop.

But really. Where was he? And, no, wait... A better question was why did she care?

Well, she cared because...

Okay, fine. She had no idea why she cared.

She set the opened can on the counter and stuck her head out into the hall. Yep. Music.

She followed the faint sound back out into the great room, to the wide central staircase that switched up and back from the lower level to the top floor. It was coming from downstairs, the basement level. She leaned over the railing, listening. It was something with a hard beat, but the sound remained muffled, indistinct. Maybe there was a TV room down there. Her curiosity increased. She left the railing and started down the stairs, catching herself on the second step.

No, she told herself sternly. Bad idea. Mind your own business.

So she turned and retraced her steps back to the utility room, where she dished up the food and took it to her hungry cat.

“Mrow?” Wigs left off stalking the cleaning robot to get to work on his dinner.

Now what?

Her stomach growled again. Jed had said that she should make herself at home in the kitchen. She’d grab something to eat and then get up close and intimate with that glorious tub.

It was weird, raiding the refrigerator of the stranger she now worked for—and lived with, essentially. But the food looked good. She heated up a plate of roast chicken, mashed potatoes and mixed veggies and set herself a place at the table that would have looked just right in the castle of a medieval king. She even poured a glass of the pinot grigio she found in the door of the fridge—hey, the bottle was open. Why not? Pulling back one of the big, studded leather chairs, she sat down and smoothed her napkin in her lap.

Definitely weird. Just her, all alone at the massive slab of a table in the giant great room.

She’d just lifted her glass and taken a nice, big gulp of wine when Jed asked from behind her, “You all set up, then?”

Startled, she choked. Wine sprayed out her nose. Coughing and gagging, she shoved back her chair and pressed her napkin to her face. It wasn’t pretty. Ragged, hacking sounds alternated with desperate wheezing as she tried to catch her breath.

“Breathe,” he commanded. He was at her back by then, pounding on it with his enormous hand, instructing, “Slow, easy. That’s the way.”

After a terrifying minute or two wherein she wondered if she would ever breathe again, her throat loosened up. She sucked in a decent breath of air at last.

“Okay?” he asked warily.

After wiping the last of the wine from her cheeks, she turned to faced him—and almost choked all over again at the sight of him. Shirtless, he had on a pair of low-riding training shorts that displayed the sculpted tops of sharply cut V lines. His big, chiseled chest was dusted with manly hair and dripping sweat. He had a towel slung around his neck, one end of which he was using to wipe more sweat from his forehead.

Mystery solved: there was a gym in the basement. She’d heard his workout music.

Somehow, she managed to croak out accusingly, “Don’t you ever sneak up on me like that again.”

For that she got a lifted eyebrow and a disdainful “I never sneak.” And then he asked again, “You okay?”

“Splendid. Thank you.”

And just like that, he turned and walked away. She stared at his broad, sweaty back as he strode to the staircase. He went up, pausing to look down at her just before he reached the first landing. “Zero-eight-three-zero hours tomorrow. Be ready to work.”

Like she was some scatterbrained child incapable of remembering the simplest instructions.

Four thousand a week, she reminded herself. Four thousand and a jetted tub. She nodded, sat back down, picked up her fork and did not glance toward the stairs again.

* * *

The next day was just as Elise had expected it to be. Endless.

She typed and she typed some more while Jed alternately paced and loomed over her, sometimes shouting loud enough that she winced at the sound, now and then murmuring so softly she could barely make out the words. Luckily, she had excellent hearing and managed to get down every whispered word he said. Already, it was something of a point of pride for her that she could keep up with him and never have to speak while at the keyboard, not even to ask him what he’d just said.

He finished the scene he’d tested her with the day before. Jack McCannon, Jed’s ongoing main character—and, Elise suspected, his alter ego—ended up killing the man at the station, whose name was Gray. Elise felt a moment’s pity for Gray, whom Jack eliminated through the clever use of a ballpoint pen to the throat. Jack, apparently, was quite creative vis-à-vis weaponry. He killed Gray with a Bic and kept fishing line in his pocket. Because who knew when he might need to tie someone up or strangle them with a makeshift garrote?

After Gray met his end, Jack evaded a pursuer and then met a contact at a café. They drank espresso and Jack received critical information stored in a minichip invisible to the naked eye. The contact, Lilias, caressed his face and transferred the minichip to his cheek. Lilias was gorgeous. Jack had history with her. Intimate history. Jack considered having sex with her again, but decided against it due to time constraints and the fact that he really didn’t trust her. The men Lilias slept with often turned up dead.

There was a scene at a shooting range. Jack was a crack shot. Who knew, right?

And, yes, already Elise found herself keeping up a snarky mental commentary on Jed’s work-in-progress as she typed away. The typing really was like breathing. She didn’t have to think about it. Even with the yelling alternating with growls and rumbles, she found Jed’s voice easy to sink into, as if she’d been listening to him all her life, as though some part of her mind knew what he would say before he formed the words. It left her the mental space to have a little fun at Jack McCannon’s expense.