“Suit yourself,” I said blandly and walked away. “If you have any questions, I’ll be in my office, racking up some word count.”
“Good luck,” she said in a tone that implied I’d need it more than she would.
She was a stubborn one. That suited me just fine. It would make it all the sweeter when she realized that I was right and she was wrong.
I got dressed (even I couldn’t wear a towel all day) and tried to get back to writing, but I felt almost antsy with delight. I couldn’t say why, but I was really looking forward to the moment when she caved in to the overwhelming impossibility of tackling that office on her own and came to ask me for help.
I blamed my penchant for instant gratification, but three hours later I was nearly out of patience.
Red and Blondie had long since left, gamely feeding me an abundant breakfast first. Red had prepared me eggs, coffee, and sausage. Blondie had attempted bacon, fresh squeezed orange juice, and toast.
They’d done it almost competitively, as though I’d pick a favorite between the two based on what they prepared. It was nearly charming, even after realizing after a few bites that they were both beyond dismal cooks.
Still, I’d eaten every bite of the undercooked bacon, overcooked, unseasoned eggs, lukewarm sausage, burnt toast, weak coffee, and pulpy orange juice as they both looked on with varying degrees of satisfaction, making a lot of noises about how delicious it all was.
It was the least I could do.
I politely walked them both out after I was done, but only because I wasn’t sure they’d leave unless I saw to it firsthand.
After that I felt very in control as I passed by the stepchild office without so much as glancing inside. All in good time.
But it wasn’t long before smug anticipation had turned to impatient irritation.
What the hell was she doing? Was she still working on that damned office? Did she really think she could move all of those boxes on her own? Some of them were heavy, and sassy as hell Ro had to be more than a foot shorter than me and small-framed to boot.
The thought made me unreasonably irritable, enough so that I’d risen from my chair more than once to confront her before I’d realized what I was doing and made myself move to the pull up bar mounted into the wall in the corner to do a grueling round of reps before sitting back down.
No. She’d already decided to engage me in our first battle of wills, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to cave.
A few more hours ticked slowly by, my word count sluggish but determined, my mind more than halfway directed at the new girl and what she was doing with the room next door.
I went through three cups of coffee from the Keurig machine in my office. It wasn’t my favorite way to caffeinate, but the espresso machine in the kitchen went too temptingly past the room I was so resolute to ignore.
CHAPTER TWO
I WAS MID round of pull-ups when my new assistant finally appeared in my office doorway.
It was after five p.m.
She looked exactly as she had before, completely composed, not a hair out of place, so I deduced right away that she couldn’t have gotten much accomplished in her new disaster of an office.
I lowered myself back down to the ground and smiled blandly at her. “Give up yet?”
One of her eyebrows shot up. “Of course not. It’s just one room, and it’s coming along nicely. Though I realized I should get a tour of this house… and figure out where to put my suitcases. I still haven’t unpacked my car.”
I’d forgotten about all that, nearly forgotten that she’d be staying at the house.
The assistants had always been live-in since I worked all hours of the day and night, and my place was huge. They stayed out of my wing when I wanted a break from company or needed privacy for whatever reason.
It had been so long since I’d filled the position that I’d forgotten to bother showing her where she’d be sleeping.
“Of course,” I told her and began to lead her to what was now her side of the house.
I couldn’t help but steal a peek into the stepchild office as we passed it.
I stopped in my tracks, swiveled on a heel, and leaned into the room, eyeing every corner.
“How the fuck did you do this?” I asked her, tilting my head around and down to get a proper look at her smug face.
“It’s just a room. And you were right. Most of the boxes were full of books, and every wall is lined with bookshelves. It wasn’t hard to do the math.”
I looked back at the nearly cleared space. The walls were a nice pale blue color, the built-in bookshelves a soft gray. It had been so long since I’d seen them that I’d forgotten. Nearly every shelf was lined with books now, most of them mine. The room was brighter, windows uncovered now, blinds opened wide to let in the sun.
I glanced down at the floor. It was a dark gray wood, like the majority of the house, but I hadn’t seen it in so long that it was startling.
“I guess I was wrong about the TV and the sofa,” I mused, still taking it all in. “Just a chair and desk. Hmm. Don’t worry, I’ll have that fixed by tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother. I don’t want a sofa or a TV. I don’t plan to do anything but work in here. I will, however, need some kind of computer.”
“Of course,” I murmured, back to studying her. She was a determined little thing. I decided that I found that endearing. “What did you do with all of the empty boxes?” I asked her.
She curled her pouty upper lip, and I could tell I’d offended her. “I broke them down and put them in your garage. It wasn’t hard to find, and I’m fairly confident I’ll be able to successfully navigate any future recycling. How about that tour?”
I thought about reminding her who the boss was here, but decided against it.
For the moment.
“Right this way,” I told her blandly, leading her to her side of the house.
I took her to her room first. Or rather, rooms.
It was set far away from the center of the house, on the second floor, for optimum privacy, and it was designed as a master, almost as large as mine. She had her own sitting room, mini-kitchen, a king-sized, four-poster bed, and a closet that belonged on Cribs. Her en suite bath was obscenely huge, with a Jacuzzi tub, all the amenities, and marble everywhere you looked.
Frankly, I expected some reaction. It was a hell of an assistant’s pad.
Her response was less than gratifying. “Hmm,” she hummed after I’d shown her everything. “It’s a bit large. I have no idea what anyone could ever do with all this space.”
I’d had no intention of giving her a detailed tour, I knew she could explore her way around, but the way she was so obviously unimpressed had me showing her every detail of my house.
Every room, every piece of art, every expensive toy.
Perversity had always been a good fit for me.
I was nearly finished not impressing her with her wing of the house when I noticed the expression on her face.
She wasn’t just unimpressed. She was bored.
Now that, I could fix.
I showed her my wing of the house, starting with my favorite part.
It was near the front door, for obvious reasons.
“This is the sex room,” I explained, waving my hand around at the twelve hundred square feet of hedonistic delight. “Conveniently close to the kitchen and the front door, so no one goes hungry and no one gets lost on their way out.”