“Not even close, lass. Taking care of my employees makes good economic sense. Also, contrary to what you believe about me, I’m not a fecking monster. At least not as a boss.”
“What are the goals and expectations for She’s the One?” she asks, suddenly businesslike and crisp; this is a Josie I’ve never met before.
“That’d take a few hours to explain properly. But the short version? You’ll be cocreating with us. Nothing gets locked in to the final model without your sign-off and consent.” I grin. “I promise it’ll be more fun than ghost peppers and wasabi.”
Something in my words must hit the mark, because I see her shoulders relax a bit and I feel like I’ve finally scored a point.
“Sounds reasonable.”
“The working contract is a fifty-two-page, single-spaced document,” I tell her. “I want you to go into this with your eyes wide open. Take all the time you need to read it line by line. If you want a lawyer, we can refer you to one.”
“Send it over.”
I get out my phone to do just that, and I email Rita from HR and tell her to add Josie to our plan immediately. All I want to do now is make it official and take her out—maybe something that starts with champagne and ends with her lips on mine, though Josie’s navy blazer is not invited. I don’t like anything that intentionally tones down or hides her natural sparkle.
But I know better than to push. I will have to wait to see what it’s like to fake date Josie Greene.
I deliberately check my watch like I’ve got places to be. My own eagerness is making me exceptionally uncomfortable. I don’t do eager.
“Any other questions?”
She hesitates, then says in a rush, “I drew the Devil card today.”
I smirk on instinct but quickly wipe it off my face. I’ve got to stop mocking what she cares about to make this work. If she’s this seriously into tarot, maybe I should pick upTarot for Dummiesand learn a thing or two. Even if it’s all obvious horseshit.
“The Devil,” I repeat.
“And I really hope I’m not making a deal with him.”
I nod gravely, though I want to laugh again. If she only knew. “I feel more like a guardian angel.”
“Don’t push it,” she scoffs, but her lips twitch.
“You haven’t seen our prescription drug coverage yet,” I say, and kiss my fingers.
Every meeting’s a game of timing, like poker in Vegas—a balance of knowing when you’ve won and it’s time to stand up and leave before you blow it.
And right now, it’s time to go.
I rise, still in my damp gear from the ride, and her eyes flutter like she’s staring right at Satan’s brother himself. And considering the filthy thoughts all chasing one another round in my head—involving this table, her open thighs, and my tongue—maybe she is.
Thirteen
Axe
The girls arrive looking so sleepy. This is always what Axe notices first when he stands waiting for them on the dock, his basket of flowers in his arms, as the boat of new arrivals comes in. He likes to greet them and present each with a bunch of wild Scottish heather and thistles, plus a sprig of Scotch bluebell, all picked himself and tied in a white ribbon, because it puts a smile on their dazed, baffled faces.
They perk right up to thank him, and they ask how old he is (seven) and they tell him in all different languages that his eyes are beautiful, as blue as the ocean they’ve recently crossed—the water that now separates them from home.
Wherever they’re from, they ruffle his hair like he’s a lucky charm.
They’re collected from all over, these girls, but they always have two things in common. They are very, very pretty, and they are very, very young. Even at seven, he can tell they’re bonny lasses. When they step off the boat onto the dock, they look up at the enormous castle looming in the distance, unsure what sort of fairy tale they’ve found themselves in. Their baffled eyes take in the manyoutbuildings, the barns and the orchards, the barracks and the keep.
Axe and his brother, Hamish, are responsible for bringing the girls inside.
They’ve all been lured here because they want to become models or actresses or hoteliers or massage therapists. These are the promises that have been made, what they’ll get if they work hard enough. Though Hollywood is so far away from Scotland, it might as well be Mars.
Sometimes the girls end up being babysitters. Or they work as Pa’s special friends. Sometimes they end up dead, but as Pa has told him many, many times, we are all going to die eventually. Death is unremarkable, as much a fact of life as eating blueberries off the low, spreading woodland shrubs in the summer and falling asleep under wool blankets to the sound of a crackling fire in the winter.
