My Boss’s Secret by Taryn Quinn

Nineteen

Having a big,broad, ridiculously sexy lawyer sitting cross-legged on the floor in my craft room hot gluing a wooden sign onto an enormous holiday pitcher should’ve been odd.

Forget that part. That we’d had intense shower sex not an hour before and he was wearing my grandfather’s plaid robe because he’d made a mess of his suit—ahem—was even stranger. He’d sent it out to be dry cleaned yesterday and he had no clothes to wear so he could leave.

Not that he seemed to have any inclination to leave. Nor did I want him to. When the dry cleaner had asked if he needed rush service, he’d said no.

The extremely in demand hotshot lawyer had said no so he could stay with me to eat the contents of my refrigerator and binge Netflix and help me make crafts.

Oh, and fuck like we were still in Fiji.

Without condoms. Because we’d officially decided we weren’t going to make sense anymore.

We’d even discussed our bad choices. Even when we were being entirely impractical, we still had to talk about it.

I’m not on birth control.

Okay.

So we won’t? Though it’s not the right time in my cycle.

Are you clean? Late to ask now, but…

Yes. Are you?

Yes.

And that led to more sex sans condoms. He didn’t even seem particularly concerned at the implications. But God, the sex was good. Somehow it was even better than in Fiji. My lady airstrip had rolled out a welcome mat for him, and he’d done his best to keep me filled at all times.

That wasn’t even much of an exaggeration.

It was now Tuesday evening, and we’d spent the last two days together. My brain had put up a vacancy sign right about when Bishop—God, it was strange to think of him as other than my mystery man—had plucked me out of that gutter. Inviting him into my little place had pushed the fantasy into the reality. I hadn’t known if he would take one look at the pillows and tarot bags I was making on my sewing machine and decide I was some homespun hippie wannabe witch and flee into the hills.

Or for him, flee into the concrete jungle he prowled around in so naturally.

But he hadn’t. He seemed fascinated by everything I did. By who I was. I’d asked him if he was missing something vital at work and he’d mentioned clearing his schedule with Vienna, his admin.

My schedule definitely wasn’t that wide open.

I’d intended to go back to work Monday afternoon, albeit a bit later than I’d planned. But after what had happened with Bishop, my job had taken a backseat.

Everything had.

For the first time in my life, I’d called in sick for the next two days, without even knowing if Bishop would hang around with me or split as soon as his dry cleaning was delivered. But Preston had shocked the hell out of me by closing the office for the rest of the week.

The entire week.

Bishop had barely seemed surprised when I told him, just remarking about love being in the air. And then he’d gazed at me as if he wasn’t only talking about Preston and Ryan.

The nuttiest thing was that I hadn’t even questioned what he meant. I had other concerns right now.

I hadn’t felt fear like I had in those terrifying moments on my craft room floor in…well, ever. I’d heard stories of men dropping dead during or after sex, but they typically weren’t insanely fit and in the prime of their lives. Still, I didn’t know his medical history, and he’d mentioned being under a doctor’s care in Fiji. For a couple minutes, I’d been scared out of my mind that I’d lose him just after finding him again.

Amazing how jaw-dropping panic had helped me get real clear about my feelings for him.

Crazy or not, improbable or not, I’d fallen in love with him in Fiji. And the job that had meant the world to me before I’d met him couldn’t compete with making sure he was safe.

He’d told me he was okay. That he was handling it. I understood anxiety all too well, even if I couldn’t fathom someone like him who was normally so calm and in control being stricken with it so unpredictably.

That didn’t mean I intended to let him out of my sight anytime soon. Especially since he seemed just fine with that idea.

To be safe, we probably should have killed the sex stuff. I’d even tried to dissuade him at first. Weakly.

Very weakly.

Even now when my body was still limber and loose from him and warm water, add in a very thorough pat-down from him with my plushest bath towel, I couldn’t keep from sneaking glances his way. He was a stupidly attractive man, somehow made even more so by wielding a small hot glue gun in his bear paw. His inventive curses as he tried to lay down a stream of glue around the edge of the sign, without dripping it onto the mat I’d wisely placed beneath, was just this side of adorable.

Until he started slamming his thumb repeatedly on the glue stick release.

“It’s stuck, for fuck’s sake.”

I walked over to him and pried the gun out of his hand. A few flicks of my fingers and the glue squirted out just fine. “You have to maintain even pressure while you’re aiming the stream. If you push too hard, you’ll just make a big ol’ mess.”

“Hmm, seems like I know about messes.”

His devilish grin made me kiss him, which had probably been his intention. Then I sat back on my haunches and motioned for him to try again.

“Taskmaster,” he muttered, doing as I’d suggested. “What are you doing with all of these?”

“Some are for me. I don’t have a big house or the whole family thing, but I love to decorate. Kit-Kat enjoys my creations too.”

“I just bet. You let her chew on the plastic plants to keep her out of the real ones?”

“Something like that.”

“What about the rest?”

I was too fixated on his large capable hands smoothing over the wood. Who’d known this could be a kind of porn? Not me. But I’d subscribe to this channel immediately. “Huh?”

“Now you know how I feel.”

I blinked at him.

“When I can’t focus on anything but you.”

“Did you hate me?” I whispered. “When I left.”

Immediately, the softness in his expression vanished, replaced by the worry lines in his forehead I didn’t love seeing now that I’d witnessed even a fraction of the turmoil inside of him. “I couldn’t.”

“I shouldn’t have done it. I know you don’t want to talk about it, that you’d rather just pretend it never happened, but it did. I did the exact same thing my parents did to me,” I realized hollowly, falling back on my ass on the rug.

He started to speak, but I shook my head, shushing him with my fingers against his lips. Saying nothing, he kissed them, bolstering me anyway.

He always did that with me. Always.

“You’re going to defend me. To say it’s obviously not the same. We barely knew each other. But we did. Didn’t we?”

His nod made me close my eyes.

“I was nine,” I whispered. “They kept taking me to my grandmother’s for play dates. At first, it was just a few hours here and there. Then they started buying me toys that were special, ones I could only play with at my grandmother’s. There was this doll. Holly Sparkles. She had this red dress covered with crystals.” I laughed self-deprecatingly, hoping like hell he didn’t look too closely. So he didn’t see the tears.

After all this time, there were still tears.

“I loved that doll. I’d begged for it for months and months, every time we went to the store. And my mom got it for me just before the last time we went to Grams. I cried the whole way home, because why couldn’t I play with it now? ‘It’s for at Grams. You have to wait, April.’ So I waited and I got my doll. And they never fucking came back for me.”

He reached for me and I started to push him back. It was what I did. The only thing I knew how to do so I didn’t lean too hard or need too much or chase someone away because they mattered too much.

But he wouldn’t let me, no matter how I shoved at him. Using all my strength to make some space around me. But he just wouldn’t let go.

“I’m here,” he said over and over until the words lulled me, soothing me into stopping the fight.

I sagged into his arms and spoke into his throat, needing him to understand. I wouldn’t take the easy way out again. “I didn’t want you to find out I wasn’t like you. Not rich and important and valuable. I was damaged goods. When even your own parents won’t stick around for you, how can anyone else? Why would anyone else?”

His laughter was soft and ragged as he drew me back to cradle my face in his hands. “I haven’t spoken to my father in almost four years. My mother, I talk to at Christmas and her birthday. That’s it. That’s all.”

“Why?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, barely visible through the two days’ of dark golden scruff shadowing his skin. “They chose my brother over me.”

“You don’t have to tell me—”

“Yes, I do. I have so much to tell you. But I didn’t because I didn’t want you to run again.” He released a laugh that broke at the end. “You’re afraid you’re not good enough for me, and I’m—”

I couldn’t let him say it. My being vulnerable was one thing, but I knew, understood on a bone deep level, what he’d risked by letting me into his world yesterday. He hadn’t walked away or tried to pretend it was something else. He’d just told me what he was going through without a shield. Even if I didn’t get exactly why he was suffering, I didn’t have to. Not right now.

If he could be brave, so could I. And I could trust him.

At least, I could try.

“You’re everything.” I pressed my mouth to his, drawing on his air, feeding him mine. For that moment, letting it be enough.

But instead of sinking into the kiss, he jerked back and cast a glance at the ceiling. “If this turns out to be the wrong thing to do, so be it. I’ve tried to plot and plan and orchestrate everything for the last few years, and all it made me was a miserable millionaire.”

“You’re a—” I fumbled for my locket. Dammit, I should have asked for courage with the confidence. Georgia Rose, can I have a two-for-one? “Okay. Moving on.”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I can guarantee neither is not having money.”

“I’ve had my lean times too.”

“Define lean. Because mine included making a single carton of ramen last for two days.”

He winced. “Not that lean. My parents were comfortable, so we were too. Not millionaire comfortable,” he added quickly. “That’s just me.”

“So you’re self-made.”

“Damn straight.”

Pride surged through my chest on his behalf. “I’m a self-made thousandaire. My grandmother had money from my grandfather, but once I moved out, I took care of my expenses myself.”

He glanced around, smiling faintly. “You did just fine for yourself. Um, does that box have eyes?” He nodded to an upper shelf on the bookcase next to the window.

I didn’t even have to look. “Yeah, she likes to peer over that rattan one as if she’s an alligator.”

“Boxes and baskets are for her.”

“Standard cat fare,” I agreed, waiting him out. I knew he wasn’t done yet and that he’d get there in his own time.

“She watched me pee this morning.”

“Also typical.”

“She was hanging over the bathroom door at the time. I nearly screamed like a little girl.”

I giggled and tipped my head on his shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, her tendency to fall from that height is zero.”

“How about jumping?”

“Hey, she already took a nap on your um, dick.” Dick! I said in my head, channeling my office conversation with Ryan. “Anything’s possible now.”

He released a long breath. “I was a royal asshole to make that money. I enjoyed it. And now I’m enjoying telling everyone to go fuck themselves when I have meetings and depositions and client reviews out the wazoo. But I told them I couldn’t work this week on doctor’s orders. Sorry if that doesn’t work for you, find another attorney to help you screw over your ex and the pet llama in Peru.”

“That’s oddly specific. And intriguing.” I set the hot glue gun in its stand since he’d dropped it around when I started to tell him my life story and it had burned a glue-filled hole at the edge of my sign. I’d fix it with a glittery brad and call it a day.

I was discovering that “good enough” was good enough indeed.

“I never intended to take this week off.”

I set my hand on his knee. “But you told them you needed to.”

“Yeah.”

“Your doctor didn’t really want you to, did he? Just to be clear. I know you took a vacation on his advice.”

“My doctor thinks it’s a miracle I took a week off. He didn’t try for more.” Bishop reached down to tighten the belt of the threadbare robe until I wondered how it didn’t cut off his circulation. It had already been a snug fit to begin with, since my grandfather definitely had not been built to his scale.

I shivered. Definitely not.

“Cold? Oh, and is it time for more Advil?” He glanced down at his heavy gold watch. “Nope, you have another forty-five—what?” he demanded.

I so love you.

It was a miracle I didn’t say it out loud. Knowing it didn’t make any sense didn’t stop my feelings.

“I probably have daddy issues.”

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“And mommy issues and a hell of a lot of other ones. But I’m going to admit something extremely dark and personal to you right now.”

His brow wiggle was nothing short of lascivious. “Lay it on me.”

I placed my hands on his chest and kissed his strong chin. “I think I’m developing a fetish for being taken care of. Usually, I’m the one to take care of others.”

He stroked his hand down my hair. “That so?”

“So much.”

“Is there a place I can sign up for that job?” His green gaze stayed steady on mine. “On a permanent basis. I don’t do temporary.”

My heart did a slow roll in my chest. “No?”

“No. Not anymore. I used to be the king of temporary. Now I want to build something real. Something meant to last with someone I can trust.”

I’d told him about my taking care fetish. But I’d just learned I had a fidelity kink to go with it.

Probably too much to admit right away. What was the timetable for personal disclosures?

Uh, went out the window when you slept with the dude without knowing a damn thing about him.

“You can trust me. I’m boringly traditional.” I bit my lip. “I know being a flight risk doesn’t exactly inspire faith in that claim, but—”

“Tell me you won’t run again no matter what, and I’ll believe you.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“It can be when I want to be with you more than anything else, including worrying about things that won’t happen.”

“I won’t run again.” I pressed my face into his neck, absorbing how he smelled. My vanilla soap on his skin smelled incredibly erotic, although I couldn’t wait to breathe in more of his ocean-inspired cologne. “What was in the frame?” I asked suddenly.

“I’ll show you.”

“You will?”

“Yes. It’s in my place and cost a fuckton to ship back. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Is it pornographic?”

His laugh was like a balm to my soul. I’d never tire of hearing it. “No, but now I kind of wish it was. I’d like a giant picture of you naked on my wall.”

“Keep dreaming, pal.”

“Hey, since we’re sharing kinks…” He pointed toward the bookcase. “Page 191.”

“You looked?” I smacked his arm.

“I did more than look. I ordered some stuff.” His eyes smoldered into mine. “It’s not here yet.”

My pulse stampeded in my throat. And in other…excitable places. “Stuff like what?”

“You’ll see. Preston asked me to take his job.”