Page 45 of Boss Me

I ignored her sky-high eyebrows. “I just meant I could have used a little warning. Advanced planning.”

“Whatever for? You know you don’t have to clean the place for me.” Beneath her flirtation, beneath the softness of the Texas accent that clung to her like honey, gumming up the California accent she’d adopted, she watched me with those dark eyes. Scanning. Cataloging. Assessing, like she’d do with a rogue bit of code.

“Let me go clean up. I stink.” I’d catch Ben at the front door, send him away. He’d be hurt, but it’d be better than sitting under Jamila’s scrutiny for an hour.

“Cooper?” Too late.

Jamila peered around me at the back gate. “Well, what have we here?” she murmured.

“Behave,” I warned her before I turned and strode to the gate to let Ben in. He held a pitcher in one hand and a stack of plastic cups in the other.

I opened the gate. “Jamila Jallow dropped by for a surprise visit. If you don’t want to stay—”

“Of course he wants to stay.” Jamila was right behind me. “Ben. We’ve met before at Cooper’s office.”

Did she land a little harder than she needed to on Cooper’s office? And did she flick those big, dark eyes at me? Or was I seeing things?

“Right,” Ben said. “You don’t make appointments there, either.”

Jamila’s eyes flared for a moment, then she threw back her head and laughed. “Not so punctilious outside the office, are you?” She stuck out her hand. “Good to see you again.”

Ben, still hovering at the open gate, tucked the cups under his arm and shook her hand. “Good flight?”

Fuck, was this what we were doing? Pretending it was perfectly normal for me to be at a Caribbean resort with my assistant? I tugged my compression shirt away from my sticky skin. That was a mistake. The odor of sweat and lime wafted into my nose.

Jamila scanned Ben from the pink sunburn on his nose down to his dusty Converse. Then she arrowed her gaze at my stucco-smeared workout clothes. God only knew what she thought the crusty white stains were. A smile curled her purple lips. “Hungry, Ben?”

“N—I—Am I? Hungry?” He blinked at me.

I closed my eyes and sighed through my nose. “Come in, Ben. Let’s have a drink, at least.” I eyed the fruity concoction in the pitcher. I’d bet my mother’s favorite rosary—the one Pope John Paul II had touched himself—that it didn’t contain a single drop of alcohol.

But Ben wasn’t the first to come through the gate. That dog, the one that followed him everywhere, slunk through, low to the ground, straight toward Jamila.

“And who do we have here?” She squatted gracefully, like a feather descending, and held out her hand. The dog sniffed it and then butted his head into it, seeking her caress. Jamila scratched his chin and behind his ears before he flopped to his back so she could scratch his belly.

“I call him Coco,” Ben said.

“Coco,” Jamila crooned. The dog wagged his tail.

While Jamila lavished attention on the dog, I took the pitcher from Ben and tugged him a few feet away. “Sorry, I—she doesn’t usually stay long.” Why was I apologizing to Ben? Jamila was my friend and had more right to be here than he did. Still, I said, “You can leave whenever you’d like.”

He ducked his head. “Do you want me to go?”

Did I? Jamila had already seen and deduced more than I liked. More than there was, probably. It couldn’t get any worse if he stayed. And as soon as he left, Jamila would launch a line of questioning I wasn’t ready to answer. “It’s up to you.” I crossed one arm, the one that wasn’t holding the pitcher, over my chest.

“She has a room here in your house, doesn’t she?”

He’d seen the frilly guest room. “Sometimes my mother stays there, but it’s mostly Jamila’s.”

“Does—” He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I’ll stay. For a drink. I’m thirsty.” And he jutted out his chin. For some reason, I wanted to tweak it between my fingers and pull his lips to mine. But I couldn’t. Not in front of Jamila. Fuck! I couldn’t kiss Ben regardless of who else was there. He was my assistant. Off limits.

He brushed past me, and that casual slide of his bare forearm against mine set me on fire. I rubbed it, and when I looked up, Jamila was watching me, a knowing smile playing over her face. Did I say it couldn’t get any worse? I was wrong.

“Cooper,” Ben said, “could you hand me the pitcher, please?”

“Right. Sorry.” I trotted to the table and set it down.

Ben removed the plastic from the top and poured it into the cups he’d filled from the ice bucket. He handed one to Jamila, another to me, and lifted his own. “To surprise visits.”

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