My fingers hover over the phone. The sensible part of my brain agrees with Fee. Play it cool, don’t seem desperate.
The larger, more pathetic part of my brain is already typing:
Just doing yoga. Why?
His response comes back almost instantly.
I need you to assist with work today.
Work. I grit my teeth. What an asshole. It’s my day off.
One night he makes me feel like a woman worth worshipping. The next, I’m back to being the help. It’s emotional whiplash, and my poor neck is about ready for a brace.
His next message makes me frown:
I’ll pick you up.
I stare at the phone. Why does he need to pick me up for work? The hotel is literally one road away. Unless he thinks I’m so incompetent I can’t navigate the single road that connects the cottage to civilization.
I shoot back a message:
When?
Twenty minutes.
My brain flips into panic mode.
“I have to get ready,” I say, already backing toward the cottage.
Fee finally sits up. “Georgie, just… be careful, yeah? Don’t let him mess you about.”
I’m already through the door, because twenty minutes isn’t nearly enough time to transform myself from yoga disaster into competent professional woman, and if Patrick McLaren thinks he can just summon me like staff, well…
Actually, that’s exactly what he’s doing because that’s exactly what I am. That’s the problem.
The Land Rover pulls up fifteen minutes later. I honestly don’t know how this is going to go. I hate not knowing. Is this some emergency software crisis that cropped up while he was in London? Some overly ambitious feature Craig promised we could deliver by Monday?
Through the windscreen, I see Patrick sitting in the driver’s seat, baseball cap pulled low.
When he spots me hovering by the cottage door, he climbs out to open the passenger door for me.
That’s when I clock what he’s wearing.
The sweatshirt is normal enough. Light gray, hood down, the sort of thing you’d wear for a casual weekend.
But below that…
Patrick McLaren, billionaire CEO, destroyer of men, breaker of me, is wearing chest-high rubber waders. Olive green. With suspenders. The suspenders stretch taut across his chest, the kind you’d see on a fly-fishing magazine cover, except those models don’t usually have forearms like Patrick.
The waders go all the way down into massive rubber boots.
I blink. Several times. “Not that I’m qualified to judge anyone’s fashion choices, but... what’s happening with your outfit?”
He glances down casually. “What, these?” He flicks a suspender strap. “My fisherman’s waders?”
“Yes? That would be my question, yes. Those would be what I’m referring to.”
“We’re going fishing.”
