Page 59 of Hard Limits

“Yes.”

Then she was shoving open the door, stumbling out of it, and fleeing toward the lobby. And Brax could do nothing but watch. As soon as she’d disappeared inside, he picked up his phone and texted three words to his lawyer.

Brax

Get it done.

CHAPTER 23

THE ASSISTANT

“So let me get this straight…” Meera said. “You’re in love with your boss, and he feels the same way, but you can’t have wild monkey sex because his ex-wife will take all his money? Indi, that’s seriously messed up.”

“I don’t know if he loves me. He didn’t say anything about that.”

“He stuck his tongue down your throat in a limo, and he’s willing to give up everything to be with you. Trust me, that’s love.”

It was all so confusing. On Monday, Mr. Vale had spent the day in his apartment while I took his mother to the botanical garden, and the flight back to LA on Tuesday morning had been one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. And considering I’d suffered through an engagement party beside Karam Joshi, that was a pretty big statement to make. In the end, I’d put on a pair of headphones and pretended to watch an in-flight movie while Mr. Vale stared at his laptop screen. Mr. Fucking Vale. He’d had his hand between my legs, and I still didn’t have permission to use his first name.

And now we were back to emails. He’d cancelled our morning catch-ups—thank goodness—and the lunches I used to look forward to, and changed the settings on his inbox. I couldn’t even read half of the messages now. How was I meant to do my job? But at least he hadn’t fired me. Although it might not be a bad thing if he did, because catching glimpses of him as I delivered his coffee and his lunch was unbearable. This morning, I’d made the coffee cold just to see if he’d talk to me, but he didn’t. He simply drank it without a word.

And those glimpses, they were also a drug. A fix to get me through the day. I was a love junkie, and I’d gotten hooked on the wrong man.

“Even if it is love, I can’t let him lose everything he’s worked for. He doesn’t even know my freaking name, Meera. He thinks I’m you. And what if you decide to come home? I can’t keep your identity forever. I mean, what would you tell your parents?”

“Oh, relax. I can just fly home for Christmas and Thanksgiving, borrow some of your fancy clothes—I still can’t believe he bought you Louboutins; no, actually I can—and tell them all about my splendiferous job as an executive assistant in LA. And when you marry your boss and I marry a sexy eco-warrior who is definitely not Alfie, then we can come clean.”

And that was another problem. The only way I could possibly convince my father to back off would be to get a ring on my finger. His mindset was conservative, his views uber-traditional and horribly misogynistic. A woman was the property of her father until she got married, and then she became the property of her husband. Just shacking up with a guy wouldn’t cut it. And he’d do anything to get his way. Think I was exaggerating? He wasn’t the only man who thought like that, and when his friend’s daughter had refused the suitor chosen for her, she’d found herself on a private jet bound for India. I hadn’t seen her for another five years, and by then she was married, mother to three young girls (much to her family’s disappointment), and pregnant for a fourth time in the hope that she’d provide a boy. Another six months passed before I saw her again. Then she’d been in the morgue, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was the only time I’d thrown up during an autopsy.

So, I needed a husband, or I needed to run.

And if by some miracle, Mr. Vale managed to free himself from Carissa’s shackles, he’d have to be a sadomasochist if he wanted to get married again. I was fairly sure he wasn’t into that particular kink.

Hell, why did he have to go and kiss me? Things had been going so well until he lost his damn mind.

“That won’t work, twinny.”

“Well, don’t sweat it for now. One of Pedro’s boarders is going back to Albania in two weeks, and he said I could have the room.”

“Where are you staying at the moment? In the apartment?”

“I found a hostel in Fundão. It’s horribly basic, but it’s clean and super cheap, and I only have to sleep there.”

“How will you get to the project?”

“Polina and her boyfriend are staying nearby. They’ll give me a ride. Plus I found my engagement ring in a bush. Pedro knows a guy with a metal detector, and we looked for, like, three hours and you wouldn’t believe how much trash people throw away. But that asshole told me it was a diamond!”

“Which asshole? Pedro?”

“No, Alfie. Pedro isn’t an asshole. The stone was a cubic freaking zirconia. I got sixty euros for it, which is better than nothing, but if I ever see Alfie again, I’m gonna kick him in the nuts.”

“You’ll have to get in line. I can’t believe he did that to you.”

We’d been friends for two years in Boston, and he’d acted so caring. Started out by giving Meera free caramel syrup in her coffee, then been a true gentleman on dates. He hadn’t even kissed her for two months (she’d texted me right after it happened, swoon, swoon, swoon). And now he’d moved to Lisbon with some random girl he met in a bar?

“I swear I’ll never get serious with a man again,” she said.

“You just said you planned to marry an eco-warrior.”

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