He makes a show of checking his fancy watch. As he does, I catch a wink of light across his cuff links. I think they’re the same ones I saw yesterday when I was cleaning his penthouse. There are owls etched in the metal. Or at least that’s what I thought on first glance. Maybe surrounded by laurel leaves. But the reflection of the emerald eyes is unmistakable.
“Time to go.”
“Already?” I glance at the time on my computer. 5:03 p.m. How had that happened?
“We have reservations; otherwise, I’d have waited for you to finish what you were doing.”
“There’s a lot to cover. I could have been here all night.”
“Which is why it’s important to separate work from pleasure.”
Images of him with different women on his arm every night flash through my mind. “Which you seem to do well.”
He grins. “Been looking me up?”
Scandalized heat rushes up my neck and chases across my face. “Certainly not.”
Deliberately he places both palms flat on my desk and leans in.
More than a bit of a coward, I scoot my chair back.
“You, Ms. Hollis, are a terrible liar.”
I always have been.
Refusing to respond, I save my work and shut down my computer. Then I grab my bag. “Ready.”
“Good. Car’s waiting.”
He holds the door for me, and when I start toward the elevator, he shakes his head. “This way.”
Blackwell leads me to an elevator that I didn’t know existed and presses the call button. “Private?”
“I’ll have security get your fingerprint for access.”
“That’s not necessary. I can use the main elevator.” Like everyone else.
“When we’re working late, this is safer.”
“You weren’t worried about that when I was your intern.”
I expect his comeback. Instead, he angles his head. “I’m smarter now. Perhaps I should have protected you more back then.”
My breath is strangled in my throat. Maybe he should have. And what if he had? How would I have reacted when the internship ended?
Fatalistically I give a mental shrug. At least my reputation would have been intact, which is a whole lot better than what actually happened.
We’re whisked to the level marked as PG. Parking garage, I’m guessing.
We exit, and there’s a car right in front of us with its back door open. The driver is the same woman who took me to River Oaks earlier today.
She’s warm and lovely, impeccably dressed in a tuxedo with a cap. “Mr. Blackwell. Ms. Hollis.”
“Vionna!” Already she feels familiar in a world that is anything but.
The woman grins. We’d had a fun conversation on the drives, mostly about her nieces and nephews and the ridiculous antics of her teacup Pomeranian, which Blackwell lets her bring to work when she doesn’t have a sitter.
The revelation shocked me. He doesn’t seem like the kind to put up with a dog in his limo.
