Page 18 of Gentle Fox

Hot damn, I actually sounded normal. Score one for me.

"I'm taking you to the office to meet Maverick. He wants to show you what you will be doing as a receptionist."

The piece of bacon I’d just bit off got lodged in my throat.

This was how it all ended. Coughing and sputtering over crispy pig fat.

My favorite food was about to be the reason my life was over. My mother always warned me bacon would kill me one day. She was referring to my arteries but obviously the universe had other ideas.

A glass of orange juice appeared in my watery vision and I chugged that shit like it was the first drink I had in days.

"Thank you," I finally managed to wheeze.

The coughs were now few and far between. My face was red but that might have more to do with embarrassment than actual choking.

When I felt as if I could speak again without sounding like a frog, I asked, "Didn't we miss a step or two? What happened to interviewing for the job?"

I was pleased they were willing to hire me just based on my résumé but how did they know I would be a good fit?

"We made the decision after I spoke to you on the phone. The interview was just a formality but we’d already decided you were family and we protect our family. That's why when you didn't show, I came out to check on things."

I didn't know what to say to that. There was nothing to say actually. Never had I been so easily accepted and now I was afraid to be anything less than what they wanted in an employee.

"I need to go change," I said, jumping off the stool. "I can't wear this to work!"

"Annalee?" I skidded to a stop and turned around at Owen's firm use of my name. "You look perfect just as you are. No one cares what you wear. Give me five minutes to shower and we can get going. Unlike you, I don’t need to hide away in someone else’s bathroom all morning." Owen winked as embarrassment flooded my cheeks.

I stood there in the hallway frozen. I wasn't sure if it was what Owen said or how he said it but my feet refused to move. They wouldn't listen to my commands, and when he came back out a few minutes later, I was still stuck in the same spot.

"Come on, let's get going."

My traitorous body listened to him and it was in that moment I knew I was in way over my head.

CHAPTER NINE

Owen

This wasn't going to work. Having Annalee sit at the desk on the other side of the one-way glass was going to be torture. I could see her, but she couldn't see that my eyes were having a hard time leaving her body. Especially now that I knew what she looked like naked.

Walking into the bathroom to find her sprawled on the floor, wet, was a new dimension of hell. I couldn't get the picture out of my head. The gentlemanly thing to do would've been to look away at the time but was that what I had done?

Hell no, because my eyes did what they wanted despite my brain screaming that it was inappropriate.

Plain and simple? I was fucked. I needed a certain new receptionist out of my house fast before I did something stupid.

Like fuck my co-worker.

"I heard our new receptionist stayed at your place last night." Easton dropped the corner of his hip onto the desk I was currently using.

I leaned back in my chair and turned to him. I wanted to make sure he understood how serious I was when I answered. "She didn't have a choice. It was late and driving back out of town to find a hotel would've been pointless especially considering her current situation."

That got my friend’s attention. "What situation is that?"

I explained the condition I found her apartment in and what she told me about her stepbrother. By the time I was done telling him everything that happened, both before and after her father's death, Easton's wheels were turning.

"Did she give you the two places she originally planned to look at?"

I motioned to where the addresses were written down on a piece of paper. They were the first thing I planned to look into today. You know, after I stopped staring at her through the glass.

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