Page 18 of Even if It Hurts

“I wouldn’t be here if?—”

“I meant your life goal,” I clarified as my gaze snapped back to hers.

“Oh.” Her blush burned deeper as she risked a quick look at Ada. “No, I want?—”

“Do you have any other commitments?” When her lips stayed parted a second too long, I prompted, “Classes, kids, weekly meetings.”

“No, I?—”

“And you’re not currently working?”

Lainey faltered before a soft, irritated laugh left her. “Well, that depends on?—”

“Yes or no,” I said and watched as her blue eyes narrowed in exasperation.

“But it isn’t a yes or no answer.”

I lifted my shoulders before folding my arms across my chest. “If you wanna work for me, it is.”

She took a slow, deep breath before answering, “No. Do you ever let people answer fully?”

“I just did,” I said pointedly, ignoring the hushed laughs from my team, then released a quick sigh. “You’re here, so I’m guessing you can start today. My office hours are eight to five, so I need you here half an hour before and after unless it’s a day we have a security detail. Those can happen at all hours, including weekends. I’ll pay you fifteen hundred a week, starting. If you have an issue with anything I’ve said or can’t be flexible with your hours, tell me now.”

A baffled sort of breath left her. “Don’t you wanna know about the certifications and qualifications I have?”

“I’m gonna find out everything I need to know with the background checks we’re about to run on you. Besides”—I jerked my chin in Ada’s direction—“she knows better than to forcefully hire anyone who’s less than qualified for something like this.”

Lainey’s eyes widened before narrowing accusingly at Ada, but I just turned to leave before I could stand there long enough to forget who she was, why she was there, and why I couldn’t study her the way I’d wanted to for nearly a year now.

“I’ll be back tonight,” I called over my shoulder. “Ada, if she doesn’t run screaming after I’m gone, have her fill out the employment paperwork, then get to the office.” I met the amused stares of my team and said, “Let’s get back to work.”

“Heasked if I’d consider being a nanny?” I hissed the accusation and turned on my great-aunt once I was sure all the overly intimidating people were out of hearing distance. At the subtle lift of Aunt Ada’s lips, I demanded, “What did he mean youforcefully hiredme?”

She shrugged. “Would you have come if I’d said there was a screaming baby and a man locked away in his office?” she challenged, then hurriedly added, “You needed to be saved from your guilt, and he was too lost in his grief to realize he needed help. You’re both welcome.”

A response about my guilt had been on the tip of my tongue, ready to fall, but only a soft breath left me by the end as I thought over her words that gave me little pieces to this puzzle I’d just walked into.

A puzzle so much more unbelievable than I could’ve ever imagined because my great-aunt’s boss—the man I’d heard her complain about for years—was the same man I’d been thinking of for the past nine months.

With a glance at the doorway where he’d been just a minute before, I turned to where the baby was sleeping in the criband hesitantly asked, “What happened for your boss to have custody?”

A saddened sound left Aunt Ada as she shuffled through the room to join me. “Asher’s brother...he struggled for a long time. Fought an addiction to hard drugs the same as their momma had, and Asher did everything to pull him out of it and keep him clean. But sometimes...” Ada wavered, her chin trembling slightly. “Well, there’s only so much you can do sometimes.”

“He died?” The confirmation posed as a question left me on a whisper on the chance her boss was still in the apartment and decided to come down the hall again.

“Him, his wife, and one of their friends, all on the same night—a lot of drugs and a bad mix of them.” Aunt Ada nodded at my horrified stare. “Asher’s destroying himself over it, sure he could’ve prevented it.”

“That’s awful,” I murmured as I looked back at the sleeping baby, wondering if there was a way to shield her from the depth of the tragedy as she got older. “Now I feel bad.” A sigh pushed from my lungs as I turned to face my aunt. “I can’t remember all of what I said to your boss, but I don’t think I was nice to him.”

Aunt Ada scoffed in that way she liked to and waved off my worries. “You were perfectly fine—much nicer than any of us are with him. And don’t forget, he’s your boss now too.”

“Right,” I whispered as heat swept up my neck and into my cheeks at the thought of seeing that man on a near-daily basis. A heat I desperately tried to ignore, even as flashes tore through my mind of dark, piercing eyes and an angrily clenched jaw covered by what looked like a few days of stubble.

Every time I’d talked with Aunt Ada about the job she loved and her grouchy boss, I’d always pictured someone so opposite of the man who had just filled the room with all his imposing intensity. It’d never even occurred to me that when he’d left mesitting in the coffee shop, he would’ve then been the reason my great-aunt got held up, talking to her boss.

“That is...unless you’re reconsidering,” Aunt Ada began, drawing my attention to where one of her eyebrows was raised in expectation and worry. “If you were intimidated by Asher’s brusque tone and way of talking just then, I should warn you, he’s usually much worse.”

“No,” I hurried to assure her, head shaking. “No, of course I wasn’t. It’s just...” I quickly looked at the doorway one more time before admitting, “Aunt Ada,he’sthe guy I told you about last summer when I was heading back to school. The one who kissed me to ‘save me.’”

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