Page 3 of Working for the Heiress

"Thank you, Holt."

She walked past me, heels clacking. I listened as the sound was muted as she reached the linoleum where the hangar gave way to the office hall. Then I heard a door, and then her voice—muffled by distance—saying something that made the admin laugh.

I stood there with the rag in my hand.

Diaz, who was a smarter man than he let on, said nothing as he moved off toward bay three. After a minute I went back to the engine cover I'd already closed and opened it again, because I needed to be doing something, and I could not have told you in that moment whether I was checking the joint I'd already torqued or just looking for somewhere to put my hands.

Ms. Ashford came back through the hangar twenty minutes later with the office manager, getting the tour. I heard her again before I saw her — the sound of those damn boots, plus the office manager's voice doing the cadence she did when she was being deferential to corporate.

I was wiping down the engine and did not stop. Didn’t look up into those eyes for fear I might explode, and lord knows I had no idea what was going on inside me. Something primal and inappropriate, for sure.

A monster awakened inside me and decided to lust after a woman far above my station. No. Not lust. I felt drawn to this woman, who came from the man I hated with every drop of my marrow.

"And this one?" Lili said. "Whose is this?"

She was asking the office manager about her own assets, as if every bolt and washer in this building didn’t belong to her family. But Ms. Ashford meant something else, too. She was asking about responsibility. About chain of command. About accountability. The office manager looked at me, because she was not the person who answered that question about the machines in this room.

I straightened up and met Lili’s eyes across the engine covering. The hangar was loud around us — two compressors, somebody's radio, Diaz arguing with a hose down at the other end — and none of it touched the small distance of air between her face and my own.

"Mine," I snarled.

It came out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. The word for the bird. The word for the labor, the parts. The word for the work I had built around myself for two years like a wall I could live behind.

And, somewhere I wasn't ready to look at: the word for her.

Mine.

Lili

I made it across the parking lot before I let my face go.

It was a small mercy that the office building was a separate structure from the hangar — I had twenty feet of cracked asphalt to slip out of my performance and then back into it when I met with the office staff.

I heard my own heels on the cement as I crossed the space. I knew these were the wrong shoes for the environment, but I also knew I felt more confident in heels, with at least the whisper of hope I could meet my new staff eye to eye instead of looking up at them like statues on pedestals.

I leaned my hip into the office door, which stuck just like he told me it would. Holt.

I could smell the printer toner and old carpet almost drowning out my memories of the feel of his hand in mine. I looked down as if he’d burned my skin with the heat of his body. I could still feel the strength and power of his grip.

Holt, my mind said again, when I asked it to stop.

I closed my hand into a fist.

I had practiced this morning in the mirror at the bed-and-breakfast. I had practiced the smile, the handshake, the pleased to meet you, the I'm looking forward to learning the ropes. I had practiced standing in the doorway of a hangar full of men and being charming without being flirtatious, professional without being cold, warm without being weak.

I had not expected the gruff man whose eyes burned into my bones.

The hallway was empty. I gave myself one more breath. Then I straightened my coat and walked toward the office at the end of the hall like a woman who'd come here to run the place.

Sharon was at the front desk with a coffee mug already poured.

She was somewhere in her fifties, dark hair shot through with grey, glasses on a chain around her neck. She stood up when she saw me, came around the desk, and held out her arms for a hug.

"Ms. Ashford," she said. "I'm Sharon. We talked on the phone."

"Lili, please." And I leaned in to her embrace, which smelled of coffee and purse candy. When was the last time someone had hugged me?

She handed me the warm mug of coffee and I held it with both hands and tried to look like a person who was not trembling from overwhelm at human affection.