Chapter Four
Sawyer’s eye flicked to the clock on the wall and back when Justine walked in at three minutes after eight. “You’re late.”
She dropped the folders on her miniscule desk and turned to face him, her hands fisted on her hips. “Okay, that’s it. You stick me reading through file after file for days while you go off to meetings and ignore me completely. And then I stayed up half the night going through these folders where there’s nothing. I think you grabbed a bunch at random to make me crazy, and now you have the gall to criticize me for being three minutes late coming in an hour early!”
She paced around the room. Every now and then, she paused in her rant to blow a stray curl out of her eyes. He wanted to shoot himself, because damn she was hot when she was pissed. A little scary. But hot.
He took a deep breath. He had to get her out of here soon.
“Are you listening to me?”
He stood up and grabbed his briefcase. “Yeah, princess, I’m listening. But I’ve got a meeting.” He walked over to her desk and picked up one of the slimmer files. “I need this one.”
She rolled her eyes with an agonized sigh.
“Put the rest away for me,” he told her, with a wink.
She screamed in frustration when he shut the door. Sweet. She should suffer for being so…her. If he didn’t want her gone before, he sure as hell did after the blow up with Stephanie last night. Justine Montgomery was nothing but a nuisance, and he didn’t want to think of her in any other way.
He pulled up short in the hall when he spotted Daniel making his way toward him. Interrogation, Montgomery style, was the last thing he needed.
“Sawyer, how are things?” Daniel clapped him on the shoulder.
“Couldn’t be better. Justine’s been in the office for four days. I think she’s either ready to quit or kill me.”
Daniel’s voice iced over. “What?”
“I mean I’m not taking her to any damn meetings. You’re the one who said she…” Sawyer paused to look around at the people in the hall and lowered his voice. “You said show her how much work it is, so I’ve got her working in the office.”
Daniel tugged open the door of an unused conference room and gestured for Sawyer to go in. “She’s never going to agree to this if she’s stuck in the office all week. She has to want to do this, a lot. No more busy work, she needs to be clear on what this job really entails.”
That made zero sense. Sawyer rubbed his forehead in frustration. “She’s never going to agree to what?”
“I’m not paying you to ask me questions when you’re already late. Take her to the damned meeting.”
Sawyer exited the conference room, even more annoyed. Now he couldn’t even leave his office, close the door, and try to pretend she didn’t exist. For the most part, he didn’t want to have to look at her. But he’d apparently misunderstood Daniel. His boss didn’t want her to quit. Even though he said she wouldn’t last a month and that he could not help her. Maybe he’d been going about this all wrong. Maybe he needed to drag her to every meeting, make her choose in every decision, until she couldn’t handle anymore.
He poked his head through the open door of their shared office. She still grumbled to herself and slammed file drawers. When she knelt in front of the cabinet to drop in a folder, skirt outlining her voluptuous behind, he exhaled in frustration. Filing was not supposed to be sexy.
She twisted to glare at him. “What? Do you need me to go shred something super important? Should I go copy something critical? Something you might, or might not, need sometime in the next year, maybe?”
“Pipe down. Get your things. We’re going to a meeting.”
She stood up and narrowed her eyes. “We, as in you and me? I get to leave the office? Did I miss something? Did the world tilt on its axis?”
“That’s hilarious. Hurry, we’re already late.”
“You changed your mind. Why?”
“Your father changed it for me. Now let’s go.”
She sat down at her desk with a sigh.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll stay here.” She picked up a pen and flipped through papers.
He stepped inside, closed the door behind him, annoyance riding him. “You wanted to get out of the office, what the hell is the problem?”
“I wanted to get out of the office because I earned it, not because my daddy said so.”
He wondered where a woman who grew up with that much money learned work ethic. She wanted to do something that mattered. Shit. “You have earned it,” he grumbled.
“Well, that’s sweet of you to say, but now I don’t know if you really mean it.”
She was trying to kill him. There was no other logical explanation for her being so impossible.
“Just go.” She shooed him with her hand.
“You have to be the most annoying woman I’ve ever met.”
“Well, then it’s perfect that we’ve been paired together, because you’re the biggest horse’s ass I’ve ever met.” Someone had taught her how to turn on the charm, because she could insult him, give him her brilliant smile, and he actually wanted to return it. And then the words hit the part of his brain not scrambled by the smile and left him speechless.
He didn’t have time for this. She wanted to stay, wasn’t much more he could do about it. On his own, he ran for the elevator and squeezed inside before the doors closed.
“Sawyer, always a pleasure.” This day kept getting better. Sawyer had been so lost in thought, ranting at Justine, he hadn’t noticed Travis in the elevator. Why didn’t he take the stairs? How hard could it be to go seven flights? It was all down. Determined not to engage the idiot, Sawyer stared straight ahead. Maybe Travis would shut up and go away when they got to his floor.
“You’re going out of town this weekend to meet with that writer. Some sort of party.”
No such luck. “Yeah.”
“I’ll be accompanying you. Call my secretary and give her the flight details.”
Sawyer turned with a frown. “You have no reason to be there.”
“I own a good portion of this company. I’ll be anywhere I think I need to be.” Willing the floor numbers to go faster, Travis ignored Sawyer’s glare. “Oh, also, Justine will be coming with us.”
“No, she won’t. She’ll be here in the office, working. Or at home because it’s a weekend, but she won’t be with us.”
Travis smiled at him, toothy and smarmy. Travis didn’t even have anything to do with production. He took ad guys out for five hour martini lunches, that was about it. He kept the ad guys buying air time, but in Sawyer’s opinion, that wasn’t as hard as production.
“Look, Sawyer, I’ll be there, and she’ll be there, whether or not you’ll be there is the only part that’s optional.”
The thing was, after the talk Daniel had given him, if Travis pressed it, Daniel would want to know why Sawyer wasn’t taking her. “I’m going because I’ve worked on this meet and greet for six weeks. I’ll handle this. If you want to bring the little princess along so you two can go find supply closets to ‘talk’ in, that’s your business.”
The doors dinged open, and Travis stepped out. “Yes, it is.”
Sawyer jabbed the door shut button and tried to figure out how he’d gotten in this mess.
Keeping an eye on Justine was hard enough and would be even less fun with that guy creeping after her. And sticky. Everyone knew Daniel had a big soft spot for Travis Chase. Everyone. Maybe because Daniel and Travis’s dad had been partners before the old guy had a massive coronary at some party with a girl half his age.
****
Justine waited in the office on Saturday morning, wearing her favorite suit, paisley and jade green, with a skirt just long enough to be considered professional. Just. On Tuesday, Sawyer’s complete lack of a reaction to her had already become annoying. But, she reasoned, she hadn’t been trying then. And really, all she’d wanted was for him to talk to her. Maybe take her out for a walk, give her a pat on the head. It had become ridiculous the lengths he would go to ignore her, dismiss her, without saying out loud, “Go sit in your corner and don’t speak.”
By Friday, it wasn’t funny anymore. When he’d strolled back in at two, she’d organized his whole office. His files were reordered, his phone, out tray, and pencil drawer; all different. She smiled remembering his rant.
Justine tapped a pencil on her desk. Seven-fifty-eight. Veronica told her Sawyer worked every Saturday. And she intended to force him to let her do some real work today. Maybe even, and she hoped she wasn’t overreaching, learn something.
Outside the window, the sun had barely peeked over the buildings and started its race across the sky. This was her last day before her decision, and if she didn’t break out of this office today, she’d scream.
Justine smoothed her skirt when the door opened. He stopped to study her.
“You’re late, Sawyer. Four minutes.”
“What are you wearing?”
She looked down. “A dress. Too much?”
“Not enough.” He gave her a once over, taking his time, and an unexpected thrill shot through her. “I need coffee.”
“Not the coffee wench.”
“Yeah.” He laid his things down and sat down in his chair. His gaze settled on her. “I think there’s a dress code. That dress is too distracting.”
Justine smiled, satisfied she’d sidetracked him from his usual plan of torturing her with mindless work. “You think so? What? Too colorful?”
“I didn’t mean I was personally distracted. I wouldn’t even know what to call that color. Not that it matters, because you’ve got about a mile of leg showing there.”
Her mother had talked her into this dress. If I had long legs, I’d wear short skirts every day, she had said. Well, she probably would. This was a woman who could astound thousands in a one-piece bathing suit. It didn’t mean Justine should try to—
“You want to get out of the office?”
Justine jerked her head up from her hemline to look at him, wondering if she’d heard him right. “Do I want out of this office? I feel like I’ve been held hostage all week, are you kidding?”
“There’s some out of town business, tonight. I thought you might like to go.”
Yesterday’s meeting still vivid in her memory, she couldn’t not ask, “Did my father put you up to this?”
“No, your father had nothing to do with it.”
“So, you want me to come?” She spoke slow, to be sure she was clear.
“Oh, hell no. I don’t want you there.”
Her jaw dropped. “Then, why…”
“Because you’ve earned it. You’ve done a lot of tedious research this week, and it’s not all research. Sometimes, it’s a dinner party with champagne and hot women. Probably guys at the parties, too.”
She could live with that. “When do we leave?”
“This afternoon. Go home, pack, and get out of that damn dress. Wear something sensible for once in your life. No one cares what you look like thirty thousand feet in the air.”
“Well, the mile high club might argue that, but I don’t wear these clothes because I care what people think.” Which was a big fat lie, at least today. In the ordinary course of things, they weren’t to stroke her ego. But today? Today, she’d wanted Sawyer to let his eyes linger on her legs, or maybe stop, all awkward and speechless because he realized he did, in fact, like looking at her.
“I’ve never known a woman who got dressed up because they didn’t want to be noticed.”
And because, this time, he was right, Justine scoffed at his remark, “Sawyer, my mother won Miss Beauty America, and my father is one of the richest men in the country. I don’t have to dress up to get people to notice me.” She comforted herself that she needed to get his attention because he was the only person in ten years who didn’t take one look and write her off. Well, he had written her off, but he was right when he said she didn’t belong. Not yet, anyway. But he’d also admitted to underestimating her and no one ever said that.
“Fair enough. But why all the distracting clothes and the curls?” He gestured at her hair. “What is that?”
She tilted her head to look at him, debating. “Honestly?” She scooted onto the tiny desk and checked to make sure the door was shut. “My dad doesn’t give me money. I won’t take it. I got a job once, when I quit college. Then they fired me because ‘the photographers creeped people out.’”
She could count on one hand the number of people who knew this, and she wasn’t sure why she told him now. Maybe because he didn’t treat her like the-sex-tape-girl. She may be a tornado in his ordered world, but never that. “I sell them.”
“Sell what?”
“The clothes. I wear them. Photographers take my picture, and then I sell them online. Believe it or not people pay exorbitant prices because they saw them on the cover of some tabloid.” She shrugged. “People are weird.”
“You buy clothes, wear them, and then you sell them?”
“No, that’s the best part. I don’t buy them. The companies send them to me for free. They have for years.”
“Holy shit. How much do you make off those clothes?”
“Enough to keep the ones I like.”
Sawyer looked at her hard for a moment. “Go pack.” Then he picked up his phone, ignoring her once again.
Justine practically trotted home and packed her clothes with precision. She had to pack for any possibility, even in a twenty-four hour period. She judged her two suitcases, a carry-on, and a garment bag. “Not bad.”
By the time she’d checked her luggage and boarded the plane, it was five minutes past takeoff.
“Finally! We’ve already got clearance. You’re holding up other planes.” Sawyer looked more annoyed than ever. And for such a short acquaintance, he’d been annoyed quite often.
She rolled her eyes and looked around, working her way back. In the middle of her plane, Travis was taking a siesta, snoring like a motor. Justine froze in the aisle and stared.
The pilot cut through her shock, advising them to buckle up. She sat down in a cushy, leather seat beside Sawyer and clicked her belt.
“He can take his chances. I’m not belting him in,” he said.
She jerked her head to face him. “Why is he here?”
“Hell if I know. He informed me he was coming, and since the plane’s half his, there wasn’t much I could do.”
Justine rubbed the spot between her eyebrows where the headaches started. “Not half. Forty percent, maybe.”
“Still more than I own. What’s wrong with him?” he asked.
“I can’t imagine how to begin answering that, but right now? He looks hungover.” She glanced out the corner of her eye at Sawyer. He wore old jeans that hugged his body and a black t-shirt stretched across his broad chest and shoulders. She could smell him, his cologne or his will-sucking pheromones…something.
“Think so?”
“It’s the snore. Dead giveaway.” She picked up a magazine and turned a page. She noticed nothing except Sawyer’s knee, three inches from her own. So, who was the freak here? The hungover, creepy ex apparently stalking her now? Or her, sitting in the plane with said creepy-ex, eying the fine thighs of a man who’d told her, on more than one occasion, that her mere existence caused him pain and suffering. Yeah, she was pretty certain she won that contest.
He leaned closer. “I guess you two grew up together, your fathers being partners.”
She glanced back at Travis, more than a little rattled by his presence. “Not really. He’s about ten years older than I am. When he was learning to drive, I was learning to read.”
“Huh. So how did he know you hated pink? And what the hell did you need to talk to him about in a supply closet?”
Great. She did not want to tell this story now. But, with Travis and his big fat mouth here, it was bound to come out anyway. “We dated. It was a long time ago when I was right out of high school.”
His eyes grew wide, and he glanced between the two of them and then gave her another long look.
“Don’t give me that face.”
“That made him, what? Close to thirty?”
“Something like that. But emotionally? He was a solid fourteen.”
“So what happened? Did he throw you over for a younger woman?”
“I wish. He wanted to get married, I didn’t.” She shrugged, because that sounded easy though it wasn’t at all easy or uncomplicated. “I don’t know. I think he thinks he still has feelings for me, which is crazy because I’m not the same person.”
He nudged her with his knee, and her lungs dialed down her ability to breathe. “What makes you so unforgettable?”
She snapped the magazine shut and tapped it on her leg. “Look, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. I mean, I don’t know how it could. Like you said, what makes me unforgettable, right?”
Sawyer turned his head, a sudden interest in his scuffed boots. “Yeah.”
She glanced over at Travis, the magazine doing a rapid dance up and down against her thigh. “Would you do something for me?”
“Depends.”
“And they say chivalry is dead.”
He stopped her tapping by pressing the magazine flat against her thigh. “Say it.”
Her leg tingled from the light pressure of his hand. Surprise rolled her stomach at the heat in his eyes. Where did that come from?
He took the magazine in his hand, rolling it up.
“Don’t leave me alone with him,” she whispered.
“You’re the one who took him to the supply closet, princess.”
“I know. That was before the creepiness that was the supply closet. Please?”
He looked away with a nod. “Yeah, sure, I’ll do what I can.”
Silence stretched out so Justine asked the first question that popped into her head, anything that wasn’t about her and Travis. “What’s your family like?”
“I don’t have a family.”
“You must have parents. It’s sort of a prerequisite to life.”
“I don’t.” He rolled and unrolled the magazine until it looked like a tight tube.
“Oh, is this one of those ‘Just Sawyer because that’s all you need to know’ things?”
Sawyer looked around the cabin, as if he was now deeply interested in the decor. “I don’t have any family.”
“Okay, fine. No being personal.” She plucked her magazine from his hand. “Please move over a few seats. You’re invading my personal space.”
He sat, quiet for a few minutes while they took off. Then he gingerly took the magazine back.
She glanced at him, curious. True, she’d stared at his hands while she pretended to read, but he couldn’t know that.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” he said. “About the trip.”
“Oh, God. My father did force you to let me come, didn’t he?”
“No. He did.” Sawyer tilted his head toward Travis, took a deep breath, and looked her in the eyes. “You do deserve this trip. And now that I know how much he creeps you out… I didn’t know, not after you went to the supply closet with him.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Now. That’s what she wanted to ask. Why now? He’d misled her before, but why come clean when he’d already gotten away with it?
“I have no idea.”
“Okay, listen, if he did this, he’ll skewer you if he doesn’t spend at least a few minutes with me. He’ll get drunk and accuse you of things that aren’t based in fact. Promise me…don’t leave me alone with him for more than five minutes at a time. He makes me very uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, okay. Five minutes, tops.”
Justine slipped her magazine out of his fingers and opened it back up to some random page. She’d supposedly packed for anything that might come up. And yet, she was unprepared. She still had no way of knowing what to expect.