Page 10 of A Matter of Time

As usual, she didn’t get why that was, the differences between what they all did, but I was too tired to go over it again, so I just let it go.

“Jory, I want to stay here.”

“Yeah, I know.” She’d only told me that every single day since she started. From the day Dane had come into the office and she had looked up from her desk into his cool gray eyes…from that moment she had wanted to stay.

She sighed heavily. “I love everybody here.”

I knew exactly who it was she loved and wanted to be loved by in return.

“Jory, please.”

“The decision has nothing to do with me.” I shook as much water off my coat as I could before walking over to my desk, squishing the whole way.

“What’d you do, swim to work?” She chuckled, momentarily distracted from her campaign to stay in Dane’s office.

I grunted. “Yeah, it felt like that.”

“You know what I’d really like?”

“I have no idea.” I looked over at her.

“Your job.” She smiled big.

“And what would I do?”

“My job.”

“Yeah, right. Can you even imagine me being cute and perky all day long?”

She laughed at me as I cocked an eyebrow for her benefit. I gave her a lot of credit for the smile she kept plastered on her face for eight hours a day. No way was I capable of such forced charm. My job had more wiggle room to be bitchy.

I got to contact clients, sit in on initial meetings, go with my boss to clients’ homes, and make sure no one without an appointment ever got to see Dane Harcourt in the flesh. I also made a lot of trips to the dry cleaners and ordered flowers for whomever he was dating at the time. Picking out birthday and Christmas presents also seemed to be in my job description. I didn’t particularly mind that, though—it was fun. Besides, I liked it when people complimented Dane on his taste and he had no idea what the hell they were talking about, because he’d forgotten to ask me what I’d bought. Since I carried a platinum American Express card with my name on it, and I was the one who reconciled his statement, nine times out of ten he had no idea what he had spent or on whom. It was nice to be trusted implicitly, and I found that I was somewhat addicted to it. When Sonja’s intercom buzzed suddenly and an annoyed voice asked her if I had arrived yet, I was amazed at how quickly all my good feelings fled.

“Yes, I have,” I answered loudly, letting out a deep breath and raking my fingers through my damp mane before flopping down into my chair

“Come in here now,” Dane snapped brusquely, and the intercom went dead. I groaned loudly.

“Shhh,” Sonja warned me.

“Why?”

“He’ll hear you.”

“And if he does?”

“I just think you should be sweet to him.”

I was instantly suspicious. “Why?”

“Because he might have had a long morning.”

“Why?” I repeated, and I could feel my brows drawing together.

“Well,” she began hesitantly, “Therese Warner called, like, an hour ago and told me she was coming by.”

“That wouldn’t do it.” I stood up, fussing with my sweater and my dress pants, checking my shoes, making sure I looked good before I walked into his office. “Unless you let her talk to him.”

Silence, so I looked over at her. She looked guilty as hell.