Love and Brimstone

  She strangled the unexpected pang of disappointment that announcement dredged up in her. “Business?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately.” His face clouded for a moment, and then it passed. “What did you think of our offer?”

  “We haven’t discussed numbers yet.” The roast tasted delicious.

  “Ah, yes.” He took a bite. “What’s your salary requirement?”

  “I’m not used to doing business like this, Mr. Hawthorne.”

  “Call me Matthias, please.”

  “Mr. Hawthorne, if I take this job, and I’m not saying I will, I prefer to keep it professional. And I’m still not exactly sure what my duties would be. The paperwork Mr. Thompson left was just vague enough to be interesting without answering any of my questions.”

  She took a bite of mashed potatoes. Obviously homemade and delicious, the perfect texture and flavor.

  “In my business,” he explained, “it’s not uncommon to run into situations where I need someone with discretion to take care of issues that arise.”

  She could have made at least three dirty jokes off the top of her head, but she kept them to herself. “I don’t know how much you discussed with Bob Stanley, but I will not cover up illegal activities.”

  “And I would never ask that of you. Our corporation is involved in a wide variety of businesses all over the globe. All of them legal, I assure you. However, as you are well aware, sometimes embarrassing situations occur.”

  “Such as?”

  He shrugged, and she felt her heart take off again, out of control. What was it about him that got to her? This was totally not like her.

  Stop that, she thought. Idiot. Don’t blow this.

  But I’d like to blow—

  Argh!

  The trace of a smile crossed his face again. “For example, a vice president of one of my software firms got his secretary pregnant. She was of legal age, no worries, but he was married. And the mistress wanted support. We were able to help work out an amicable, as well as confidential, settlement that satisfied everyone and kept it out of court and the papers.”

  “What happened to that person?” she asked. “The fixer you used?”

  He looked at his plate. “Retired. But if you choose to take the job, you will have Albert at your full disposal.”

  “Why can’t he take the job?”

  “He’s a wonderful employee. Unfortunately I need an attorney, and he’s not.”

  She took a few more bites. The food tasted really good. Nearly as good as Robertson’s cooking. If Hawthorne could cook like this, he would make a great husband if he wasn’t married already. No ring on either hand—

  Focus, Taz!

  “Don’t you have corporate attorneys on your payroll already?”

  “I do. However, as you know, everyone specializes. I have tax attorneys and real estate attorneys and labor law attorneys, and on and on. But I need someone to work close by my side, whom I can fully confide in, who has contacts and certain specialized skill sets that can only be learned on the job, as it were. Someone flexible. I don’t have time to train. I also need someone who, at this time in their life, isn’t tied down by family commitments.”

  That was a polite way of saying someone single.

  It also set off her bullshit buzzer. “Why is that?”

  “It’s a rigorous schedule, for starters. At first, at least. I have a wide variety of projects scheduled over the next six months, so whoever takes the job will live out of a suitcase quite a bit of the time. Sometimes travelling with me, sometimes alone.”

  Travel with you? Let’s go…

  “And I need someone I can trust. I do extensive research, Ms. Proctor. Among all of the potential candidates we’ve screened, only you have all the qualities I’m looking for.”

  She tried to clear her head. It was hard to listen to him and not be distracted by his beautiful blue eyes. “You still haven’t told me exactly what I’d be doing.”

  He put his fork down. “Legal work. Beyond that, I can’t be sure. You of all people know how unpredictable life can be.”

  She knew that was a way of not answering a question he had the answer to. “You still haven’t mentioned money, Mr. Hawthorne.”

  And there was that half smile. Again.

  Be still, my friggin’ heart. Take me, I’m yours.

  “One million the first year, one-five the second, and two million the third. After that, we can negotiate.”

  She managed not to react. That was more than she was expecting.

  Way more. “Plus expenses?”

  He nodded. “Of course. You would also receive a discretionary operating budget. You would have a power of attorney for me, so you can see why I need someone very capable, trustworthy, and discreet in this position.”

  “That’s a very large responsibility, to just take over like that.”

  “As I said, Albert will be completely at your disposal, especially during the first few months. But as you saw he is getting along in years. The easier he can make your transition, the sooner he can retire.”

  “I’m not saying I’ll take the job.” She was already thinking she might.

  “I’ve talked with Bob Stanley. He has agreed to let you take it on a trial basis for six months to see if it’s a fit. If it doesn’t work, you’re free to resume your duties at his firm.”

  Sneaks. Both of them. It pissed her off. While she had seriously considered saying yes, she changed her mind.

  “I won’t give you an answer tonight.”

  “Fair enough. For now, let’s enjoy dinner.”

  * * * *

  They talked until nearly ten. On a personal level, Taz liked Hawthorne. She found him to be articulate, charming, and his dry sense of humor came through without being obnoxious. He was someone she thought she could easily work with.

  She knew from experience the mask a man put on while trying to woo someone, be it client or employee or lover, was often far different than their real self. And there was the fact that every time his eyes met hers she lost her train of thought. He wasn’t underwear-model gorgeous. He was real-world, come-to-momma, would-love-to-take-him-home-to-momma handsome.

  Which was another problem. She found herself really attracted to him, and that wasn’t a problem she normally had. It was always the other way around, guys coming on to her at work, forcing her to maintain a cool aloofness that earned her the “Ice Queen” label. Yet Hawthorne was different.

  She wanted him.

  After dinner, he walked her to the front door where Albert Thompson waited. Hawthorne turned to her, and for a moment she hoped he’d reach out to her, take her into his arms and—

  “Albert will keep in touch.” Hawthorne extended his hand. “It’s been a pleasure, Ms. Proctor.”

  She met his eyes as they shook hands and felt the electricity course through her again. She was no stranger to love and lust, but as much as she felt drawn to him, she didn’t need complications in her life right now. Especially a rich guy who probably had women stashed all over the place. She didn’t get a gay vibe from him, one of her weird intuitions that had never been wrong in the past. That meant he had to have at least one woman. How could he not?

  Unless he’s a weird psycho.

  He was easy on the eyes, for sure.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hawthorne.”

  Albert walked her down the steps to where the valet had her car waiting. It had been washed and detailed, inside and out.

  Talk about being a good host. She felt spoiled.

  “Ms. Proctor, when is a good time to follow up with you?”

  She studied Albert. She couldn’t get over how something about him reminded her a lot of Robertson. “Friday morning.”

  He nodded. “Very good. I’ll call you then.”

  Chapter Four

  To her surprise, when Taz returned home, she found Robertson sitting at the kitchen counter and reading the L.A. Times. He’d spent many of her high school and college nights waiting up for her, but it was
n’t something he did anymore.

  “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” she joked.

  He put down the paper. “Well?”

  That explained it. “Oh, you’re not serious? You really waited up for me?”

  “I wanted to hear how it went.”

  She found her favorite mug and made a cup of hot tea. “Don’t worry, Dad, I didn’t let him kiss me.”

  He laughed. “Taz, you are a real ballbuster, my dear. So what was his offer?”

  She sipped her tea, making him wait. “One million.”

  His eyes didn’t bug out, but his jaw dropped. “Dollars?”

  “No, pesos. Of course dollars. For the first year. With a half mil raise the next two years, negotiable after that.”

  “When do you start?”

  She took another sip of tea. “I didn’t tell him I’d take it.”

  “You what?” She started, not used to him yelling.

  “I told him I’d think about it.”

  He looked like he wanted to say something. Then she got a really strong feeling, another of her intuitions, that she’d made a horrible mistake by not saying yes immediately.

  After a long moment he said, “When are you going to tell him yes?”

  She studied her mug, unable to meet his piercing gaze. “I told his guy, Albert, to give me a call on Friday,” she mumbled.

  “Friday?”

  She jumped again. That was two screams in less than a minute. His blood pressure had to be through the roof. “Yes, Friday.” His agitation put her on the defensive. “I was sort of pissed off.”

  “A man offers you one million dollars to work for him, and you tell him you’ll think about it? And you’re ‘sort of pissed off?’ About what? That he didn’t open a vein and offer to sign with his blood?” His voice climbed in octave and volume until she was afraid he’d hurt himself.

  Hat trick! Even when she was seven and used one of the Lenox serving dishes as a water bowl for a stray cat, he hadn’t reached anything approaching this level of agitation.

  She slammed her mug on the counter, slopping tea everywhere. “Hawthorne had the balls to go to Bob Stanley behind my back, before he ever talked to me, to clear it to go to work for him for six months on a trial basis.”

  Robertson stared at her, speechless. Yet another Guinness record-worthy event.

  He’s not having a stroke, is he?

  He swallowed hard and sounded like he was having difficulty finding the words. “Let me get this straight, Taz. You have been offered one million dollars to go to work for a man on a trial basis, with clearance from your current employer to do it, so you have a safety net if it doesn’t work out. You don’t tell the man yes, you just tell him you’ll get back to him. And you have the nerve to be upset with him?”

  She mopped up her spilled tea. “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds bad.”

  “Taz, it sounds childish. You’re mad because he’s gone out of his way to make this an easy decision for you? I don’t believe you.”

  That put her in full defensive mode. “Just because he’s throwing money at me doesn’t mean I’m going to take the job. I don’t need the money. You know that.”

  From the look he gave her, she suspected sprouting a third eyeball in the middle of her forehead wouldn’t shock him more. “You’re really considering saying no?” he asked incredulously.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  She took another sip of what was left of her tea to buy her some time. “I feel like I’m being handled. I don’t like someone telling me what to do. You know that.”

  “Who’s telling you what to do?”

  “I feel like I’m being pushed into this.”

  He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Giving you every reason to say yes isn’t pushing you, Taz.”

  She shook her head firmly. “I’m not sure I’ll say yes.”

  He studied her. “What is really going on here? This is over the top, even for a control freak like you.”

  What was she supposed to say? That she felt like she could drown in Hawthorne’s eyes? That watching the way his butt looked as he walked away from her stirred feelings she hadn’t felt in a while? That she was going to have to take a long, cold shower before she could get any sleep?

  “I’m just not sure he’d be a good—”

  lover

  “—fit for me, that’s all.”

  Robertson’s eyes bored into her. She felt like he was trying to decide if she’d lost her mind or if he had.

  “I’m not crazy,” she said.

  “No, you’re very stubborn and extremely contrary.”

  “What about you? If I go to work for him, he said I’d be travelling a lot for at least the first six months. What will you do?”

  “You’re seriously worried about that? You’re worried about me? I’ll be fine. Don’t you dare use me as an excuse to hold yourself back.”

  Part of her wanted to call Thompson right then and tell him yes. She had a feeling he’d be awake. Part of her wanted to wait until Friday and tell him no.

  She mulled it over for a few moments before shaking her head. “There’s something going on here. I don’t like how neat and tidy this is. It’s just my intuition. You know that’s never wrong.”

  And I don’t want to make a decision based upon how cute the guy is.

  “Sometimes life is neat and tidy, Taz.”

  “When has anything in my life ever been neat and tidy?”

  He ran his hand through his hair, as if trying to not pull it out by the roots over her contrariness. “Sweetheart, I’m going to bed. I hope when you wake up tomorrow you’ll see this is a fantastic opportunity and take it. Seriously.” He patted her on the hand and met her eyes. “Do it. You deserve this chance.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek before disappearing to his side of the condo.

  She studied her mug. Was she being stupid? She just didn’t like feeling pushed. She also didn’t like the suspicion that there was more to this whole situation than met the eye. That there was more to Thompson and Hawthorne than met the eye. When had her intuition ever been wrong?

  That would be…never.

  The last thing she wanted was to get involved in a nasty personal situation. How could she possibly be expected to remain professional around Matthias Hawthorne? By the end of dinner she was ready to jump his bones. If he’d tried to kiss her, she would have tackled him and ripped his clothes off. She didn’t like feeling out of control. Hawthorne was gorgeous. Well, she thought so, and around him she felt—

  Helpless. Out of control. Defenseless.

  She took a deep breath. She was better than this. She’d worked with handsome, charismatic men before. Never bedded them, even the ones who’d chased her. She didn’t mix work and pleasure. It was unprofessional. Very unprofessional.

  But she was always the one being chased, not the other way around. She’d never met a man like Matthias Hawthorne before, a man who made her weak in the knees.

  The lack of control she felt around him frightened her.

  She rinsed her mug, walked down the hall to Robertson’s room, and knocked.

  “Come in.”

  He stood in the middle of the room, book in hand, on his way to bed. He motioned to the overstuffed chair. “Go ahead.”

  She plopped down, remembering childhood, high school, college nights spent pouring her heart out to him. With her mom in one movie after another and her dad on the race circuit, Robertson had been the only ever-present, stabilizing force in her life. And she loved him like a father.

  He sat on his bed across the room from her. “Tell me.”

  She did. Not the most embarrassing of it, how out of control she felt around Hawthorne, but he got the gist.

  “You’re scared,” he said, and she nodded. “And that’s why you can’t bring yourself to accept the job yet.”

  “Exactly. I’ve never felt like this before. I felt trapped, in a good way. And I didn’t wa
nt to get loose.”

  “That’s normal. It’s called attraction. It’s sexual tension.”

  “I can’t work for someone like that.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  She shook her head, hating herself, realizing she had to say no to this job that was, admittedly, a great chance. “I can’t. The first time he tried to get me into bed, that would be it.”

  “Who says he’d try? Isn’t that just assuming a little too much?”

  “I—” She shut her mouth. He was right. It was.

  Narcissistic much?

  But they always did. Robertson knew that. No matter what, whenever she worked in close proximity with a man for any length of time, except for Robertson and, of course, her own father, it always happened. It wasn’t a problem socially, because she could choose whom to date. At work, however, she had a lot of practice maintaining a cool, aloof professionalism, discouraging any personal interactions. The Ice Queen in action. Watch my frost.

  “You know what happens to me,” she said. “Guys usually hit on me after a while.”

  He nodded. “I do know. Believe it or not, that’s normal. You’re an attractive woman, Taz. Just because a man finds you attractive doesn’t mean you’ll fall for him.”

  “Oh, you have no idea what this guy is like.”

  “He’s different?”

  She nodded. “That’s what scares me. There’s something different about him. What if I can’t say no?”

  “You’re a lawyer. You know how to say no. Besides, what if he’s already attached?”

  “No wedding ring.”

  “You know that means nothing.”

  “Okay, you’ve got me there.” She chewed her lip. “I don’t like going into a situation where I don’t have the advantage.” Or the control.

  “And there lies the crux of your anxiety and fear, my dear.” He walked over to her, put his hand on hers, and stared into her eyes.

  Twenty minutes later, she found herself in her bedroom with no memory of how she got there.