Jennie Adams - The Boss's Unconventional Assistant

The woman sounded disappointed in herself and her mouth looked vulnerable, as it had when she’d watched and waited to see if he liked her bizarrely flavoured soup. It might have grown on him, he supposed, but how could he know for certain? His taste buds had imploded after the first two sips.

Another urge overcame Grey now. For a scant moment in time, he thought of kissing her uncertainties away. Maybe he revealed something of that thought as he looked at her because her gaze flared from curiosity to interest.

Of its own volition, Grey’s body leaned towards hers. She copied his action before she stopped abruptly.

‘I’ll turn the coffee on to brew before I check the messages. I prepared it earlier so it’s only a matter of flicking a switch.’ She removed herself from beside him, didn’t stop until she stood half a room away.

With her hands clasped in front of her she cleared her throat. ‘I assume you’d like coffee?’

‘One cup.’ Damn the doctor’s orders. ‘Not too strong, plenty of milk.’ Grey forced aside other wants—unacceptable wants that had nothing to do with coffee. It must be the country air addling his brain. Not that he’d breathed any of it except for this morning when he’d waited those few minutes on the veranda for Sophia to arrive.

Well, country air or simply the closeness of a woman—he had reacted on instinct, no thought involved. Now he had to engage his brain to override those instincts. Sophia Gable was not someone he should mess with.

‘You could take a nap instead of going straight back to work.’ She fidgeted from one foot to the other, burned into action, perhaps, by his glare.

‘I’m keeping off the foot as much as I can.’ Yes, he’d felt better, but, considering his injuries, that was to be expected. ‘And I’ll turn in at a decent hour tonight.’ Those were the only concessions he would give, and ‘decent hour’ was a relative term.

She sighed. ‘Coffee it is, then.’

Soph did indeed sigh, and repeated the sigh as she hesitated before she left the room. She didn’t want to irritate her employer, truly she didn’t. Rather, she wanted to help him, to be of assistance, to contribute appropriately to the working relationship. He didn’t make that easy. Nor did the way she reacted when in close proximity to him.

‘Are you resting well at night?’ She tried not to picture him in that big bed in the master suite and, yes, she had peeped into the room when she’d first arrived. So sue her.

Grey shook his head, whether as a statement of his lack of rest or resistance to her questions, she couldn’t have said. ‘Perhaps we should concentrate on you, Sophia, and your tendency to make arbitrary decisions about my care without consulting me.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m not accustomed to that kind of behaviour in my employees.’

‘I won’t do the phone thing again.’ Why did she get all shivery when he put on his growly voice? She pushed the question aside. Maybe it was simply chilly today or something.

And he was annoyed with her. She should think about that . ‘You see, I thought you wanted me to take care of all those things, but that you didn’t want either of us to acknowledge my efforts openly.’

When he didn’t appear to understand, she went on. ‘I thought your pride was stung and, although that would actually be silly, I would still be willing to work with it but you would have to reciprocate. I must be able to take proper care of you.’

Her voice tightened at the end of that statement, because it mattered, blast him. She wanted to succeed at the job. And yes, fine, maybe she also needed to feel useful and know she was giving back, not just receiving. It was called a community consciousness, and lots of people had it.

Certainly it was nothing to do with him personally, or with the fact that he attracted her just a little.

She turned her focus back to what mattered, and cut him a glare to make it clear she meant business right now. ‘The alternative is that I do nothing at all for you. That’s not acceptable to me.’

‘I’m not embarrassed by my injuries.’ Even as he said it, a faint tinge of colour came into his cheeks.

Soph raised her gaze farther and got caught in deep-green eyes that seemed to hold surprise, a hint of unease, and something else.

‘I’ll play back the phone messages while you make the coffee. If anything’s gone amok, I’ll just have to fix it.’ Most of his anger was gone now.

She was glad that he was prepared to let the matter go.

The deep mellow tone of his voice raised goose flesh on her skin despite the distance between them, despite her lofty resolutions. That wasn’t so great.

As though he, too, felt it, he shook his head. ‘Take a few minutes to pre-plan what we’ll eat for dinner tonight.’ Oh, prosaic words, but his gaze held a different story. ‘Perhaps a casserole, so it can cook while we work.’ He made his suggestion without meeting her gaze. ‘There’s a pre-set function on the oven.’

Broad shoulders and slender hips receded from her view while Soph stood there, silent. She told herself to wake up, stop watching, to resist the lure of an interest that couldn’t be allowed to grow.

Already she liked him, was intrigued by him, felt more towards him than she should. That had to stop.

Grey buried himself in work for the rest of the afternoon. He seemed intent on maintaining distance. Those two things were good, Soph decided as she clacked away on the computer keyboard and assured herself that that earlier aberration of feeling was now firmly in the past.

While Grey scattered his emails about the universe, Soph worked her tail off on his tapes.

‘I need to check on the casserole now.’ She took a deep breath and suggested he sit on the veranda in the sunshine. ‘It won’t last much longer, and Vitamin D is good for you. Or is it Vitamin E? Whichever is right, just give it ten minutes. That’s all I’ll need, and I’ll bet it makes you feel good.’

He muttered under his breath as he hobbled out there, taking his dictation recorder with him, but he went. Soph managed the food issues in seven minutes and spent the other three with a lonely and disgruntled Alfie.

‘Taking a “smoko” break?’ Grey asked from the kitchen when she rushed back inside. She almost jumped out of her skin.

‘I’m certainly not. I don’t do that. That is, my sisters would have flayed me if I’d ever decided to try it, and once I grew up I didn’t want to anyway.’ She snapped her jaws shut before any more babble could escape.

‘I just took a breath of fresh air.’ Soph sidled inside. He couldn’t have seen Alfie’s cage, even if he had looked all the way through and out the laundry room door. She moved to step past him and return to the office. ‘You don’t smell cigarette smoke on me, do you?’

What a dumb question. Did she want him to grab her and sniff her hair, her clothing? Not to mention that would be far too close for comfort—witness the problems she’d had after lunch when she’d helped him do ankle stretches.

‘You smell like flowers,’ he pronounced and turned his back and started towards the office once more. ‘I don’t need to get close again to know that.’

Well, certainly not, and no doubt he didn’t want to get close, either. She was simply the hired help, and short-term help at that.

So not in his league, Sophia .

He wasn’t in hers, either.

Nope. Grey Barlow was not ordinary, not a safe bet.

Yet he had noticed the subtle scent she wore. Soph had only dabbed the tiniest bit behind each ear and on her wrists before she’d left home this morning.

So what? She had simply leaned too close to him on the sofa. He couldn’t help but smell her perfume, and probably didn’t even like it.