CHAPTER ELEVEN: THEO

I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my waist, grabbing a second one to throw over my head so I could get the worst of the water out of my hair.

My phone came to life on the bedside table with my alarm, and I perched on the edge of the bed before reaching over and turning it off. Almost as soon as I’d done that, the damn thing buzzed to life with a text message, and I groaned as I tilted the screen towards me.

Chloe.

Why was she texting me at seven a.m.?

CHLOE: Are you awake, sir?

Right.

Seven a.m. was the start of acceptable working hours. Of course she’d switched back to calling me ‘sir.’

Not as though she’d ever really stopped. I couldn’t tell right now whether it truly was out of habit or a means to keep a distance between us, but she’d called me it more than once since we’d arrived here last Friday.

Now, it was Monday, and we were officially starting work on Adair Travel.

CHLOE: Sir. Please don’t make me come upstairs and wake you up.

I snorted.

What would she do if she marched in here and saw me sitting on the bed in a towel?

It was pretty tempting to see if she’d barge in here if I didn’t respond. I was sure she’d knock on the door before doing such a thing, but I wondered if me not getting out of bed was deemed an emergency.

I supposed it mattered how late I left it.

ME: I’m awake.

CHLOE: Are you up?

ME: A dangerous question to ask a man on a morning.

CHLOE: Please refrain from casual sexual harassment during working hours, Mr Black.

Ha.

What else did I expect?

ME: Does that mean it’s acceptable outside working hours?

CHLOE: Would you like me to complain to HR about your conduct?

ME: Please accept my apologies. I’m not quite fully awake yet.

CHLOE: I’ll let it slide this once. Please get to it. We have a forty-five-minute drive to the lake cottages this morning to meet with the construction crew, and I don’t want to be late.

ME: I’m never late.

CHLOE: We will be if we don’t leave in fifteen minutes.

Shit.

ME: We’re meeting them at eight????

CHLOE: Yes, sir. I did tell you that last night.

Fuck.

Clearly, I’d missed that.

Or perhaps I hadn’t wanted to listen, because unless the meeting was with someone in a future time zone, eight a.m. was bloody barbaric.

ME: Who approved that?

CHLOE: You did.

CHLOE: Please stop texting me and get ready to leave, sir.

Shit. She was right, of course. Sitting here texting her wasn’t getting me ready for work no matter how much I protested it.

Being late on the first day wouldn’t bode well, and I abhorred tardiness.

I quickly finished drying myself and opened the wardrobe to take out my suit, including the shirt Chloe had ironed on Saturday during what I had a feeling was merely the first of her domestication lessons.

I was already regretting trying to cook us breakfast and burning those fried eggs.

I should have kept my domestic incompetence hidden for a little longer. I was fairly sure she was determined to make a househusband out of me.

What that had to do with making my next secretary happier, I couldn’t begin to guess.

Next secretary.

I froze, clutching my tie in my hand. I didn’t want to think about that. It wasn’t as though Chloe was the first secretary I’d ever had, and I was relatively sure I could survive without her in the office, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to leave.

There was a reason I’d been an arse and not accepted her resignation all this time.

No—I hadn’t even acknowledged it, no matter how creative she’d gotten with her attempts to get it in front of me. Even when she’d written ‘Please look at my letter’ on a little Post-It note that she’d stuck on my computer screen.

I’d tossed the letter in the bin and tucked the Post-It in my drawer for my own amusement.

I stuffed my tie in my pocket and grabbed my phone on the way out of my room. If I lingered here any longer, she really would yell at me, and I didn’t want to get this Monday off to a bad start.

I already suspected she was going to corral me out of the door the moment she laid eyes on me.

I ran my fingers through my still-damp hair as I headed downstairs. “What are—”

Chloe stared at me from the very bottom of the staircase. “Oh, good. You’ve saved me a trip up there to fetch you, sir.”

“This feels like déjà vu. Haven’t you done this before?”

“Waited at the bottom of a staircase for you? Yes, I did it last December for the Christmas charity gala at the Harmann Hotel because you were running late.” She took a step back and held out a travel mug. “Coffee. There’s no time to drink it here.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking it from here.

“I see you aren’t wearing your tie again, sir.”

“It’s forty-five minutes away. I didn’t think I needed to until we got close.” I sipped the coffee and let out a happy sigh. “You’ve figured out the coffee machine, I see.”

“Hmph.” Chloe turned around and pulled my shoes from the shoe rack. “Please put your shoes on. Make it quick. I don’t want to have to break any speeding laws, especially not this early in the morning. I’ll meet you in the car.”

With those final words, she turned and stalked outside, leaving me standing in the hallway with my phone in one hand, my coffee in the other, and my shoes right in front of me.

Harvey was right.

She was scarily efficient.

I put my coffee and phone down and put on my shoes, tying the laces before grabbing my stuff and hurrying outside.

“Please lock the door, sir,” she called out of the window.

I spun back, locked the door, then finally got in the car. “Are we ready to go now?”

“I should be asking you that.” She put the car in gear and backed up. “I’d offer to be your wakeup call, but I’d have to charge overtime.”

I put my coffee in the cup holder and yawned. “It would be worth every penny. I truly forgot about how early we were getting started today.”

“If it makes you feel better, sir, we should be done early.”

“Should is the magic word there, Miss St. James.”

“Ninety percent of my overtime is because of you, so please refrain yourself today.”

I fought back a smile as I looked across the car at her. “What overtime could I possibly give you here?”

“I’m sure you’d be able to find something if you put your mind to it.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you think of me as a boss or a tyrant.”

Chloe didn’t say a word.

“Well, that settles that.”

She coughed, briefly covering her mouth with her hand as she pulled up at a red light. “Please don’t put words in my mouth, sir.”

“You weren’t answering.”

“My aunt taught me not to say anything if I couldn’t say anything nice.”

“That’s exactly why your silence settled it, Miss St. James.” I glanced at her, catching a tiny smile curving her lips before she quickly schooled her expression back into one of nonchalance.

She did that a lot, almost as if she were afraid to let me see her truly smile. Even the deliberate ones she put on in front of me were often forced, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a smile on her face that wasn’t a business one. Not up close, at least. I’d seen the barest of glimpses of them when she’d spoken to Harvey or my grandfather and father, but she’d never directed one at me. Even in the grocery store yesterday when she’d been buying half the sweets in the shop and had smiled at me, there’d been a level of reticence.

What would it be like to be on the end of a genuine smile from her?

I wanted to know. I wanted to feel the warmth that would inevitably be a part of it.

I thought I knew her well, but maybe I didn’t know her at all.

“What’s our schedule here today?” I asked, reaching for my coffee.

Chloe reached into her door and pulled out her tablet, then handed it to me. “The code is zero-six-zero-eight and it’ll be on the screen when you unlock it. It’s quite crude, but I pulled it together quickly this morning while trying to get you moving, sir.”

In other words, she realised I’d forgotten about the early start and prepared this to save herself a headache.

I tapped in the passcode and as she said, a document with our schedule appeared on screen.

“We’ll be meeting with the owner of Pete and Sons Construction when we arrive. He and his eldest son are personally heading up this big project, and they’ll walk us through the site and show us each cottage. I believe they’ve already started work on cottages one, two, and four, if I remember correctly.”

“Why four?”

“I believe they all have the same layout, sir,” she said. “They also have the most bedrooms.”

“All right. How long will we be there?”

“Mr Andrews’ receptionist said it could be anywhere from one to three hours, so I scheduled two, so they don’t dillydally and waste our time. They’re not being paid to talk, after all.”

She was cold.

“The electricians and plumbers are all a part of their construction company, so we’ll also have a chance to meet them all while we’re there. Cottage five needs extensive rewiring, so I believe they’re focusing there while the other, lighter renovations are underway.”

“All right.”

“At ten-fifteen a reporter from the local paper is paying a visit to the site for a short interview. I informed them you’ll be available for no more than thirty minutes.”

“A reporter?” I pulled down the sun visor and checked my hair in the mirror. “Why didn’t you say that before?”

“You’ll find a small box on the backseat with a spray bottle, hair wax, and a comb in, sir,” she said without batting an eyelid.

I looked to the back of the car.

Yep. There it was.

“How did you know I’d need it?”

“It’s part of my war chest,” she answered simply. “So please fix your hair before we arrive and, next time you want to have a lie in, shower the night before so there’s enough time to do your hair in the morning.”

Did she have fun scolding me?

It felt like she had fun scolding me.

“I’ll keep it in mind. Did the questions get approved beforehand?”

“Harvey and I personally vetted them, and he jotted down some answers for you to work from. You’ll find them on the next page.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and pulled onto the dual carriageway. “Many residents seem concerned about lake access, and that looks to be a big focus for the reporter. Lake Buckley was once a stocked fishing lake that required a permit, but after the previous owner stopped enforcing trespassing notices, some people took it upon themselves to fish without the proper documentation and the stock has been completely destroyed.”

I scrolled down, scanning the questions. “So, the people who fished there previously want to know what the plans are. It says here that we plan to restock the lake and bring back the permits. What are they concerned about?”

“It appears the lake was open to the local residents. They want to know if that will be the case.”

“This says we don’t know.”

“We don’t know. I emailed Jordan Baldwin last night to confirm and he said we can’t guarantee access outside of those who are renting the lodges. Perhaps in the off-season, but we’re building this to be a true peaceful escape.”

“And if you’re paying a premium for that escape, you don’t want to be dealing with locals fishing next to your lodge at the height of the season,” I said, nodding slowly. “Perhaps we can consider it for the offseason when prices will be considerably lower. Is there an area of the lake where there aren’t cottages we could use during that time?”

“Yes, but we may have to request that they pay a small membership fee during those months to gain access.”

“All right. I’ll read this over and let you focus on the road.”

“Thank you, sir.” She reached for her tumbler in the cup holder and picked it up for a quick sip, and I took it to put it back in when she struggled. “Oh, thank you.”

With that, I let it be the last words and focused on the documents on the tablet in front of me. I’d already known it would take some time to adapt to this new way of working, but I hadn’t expected it to be like this right off the bat.

I was used to arriving at the office and having Chloe ready to brief me on the day. That was impossible now. I didn’t want her to brief me at the cottage, either, because then it’d really feel like there was no work-life separation for either of us.

It was one thing if we were working in the extension in the office, somewhere we’d only go for work hours, but if we were leaving like we were today…

The tablet was a good idea, but I didn’t want to think about how long it’d taken her to put this together. She certainly hadn’t done it in the fifteen minutes between her texting me and us rushing out to the car.

So much for her refusing to work last night.

I was going to have to talk to her about being worse at her job wherever she ended up. Otherwise, her next boss was going to take advantage of her, and I was the only bastard who was allowed to do that.

“You should do your hair, sir. We’re only five minutes away.”

I checked the GPS screen in the dashboard and locked the tablet, flipping the front cover back over. “Good spot.” I tucked the tablet in my door and reached back for the little box, then set about fixing my hair so I resembled a human and not a lazy teenage boy.

Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about doing my hair before I’d left.

“You do have a tie with you, don’t you?”

“What if I said I didn’t? Would you let me go without?”

“No. I’d make you wear the one Harvey bought you for Christmas last year.”

The very thought of that lime-green tie adorned with a pattern of ducks in Santa hats made me shiver.

I put the wax back in the box and set it on the backseat. “Don’t tell me that monstrosity is in the car.”

“In my bag, actually.”

“What are you doing with that in your bag? It should be burnt.”

“I thought making you wear it would be the quickest way to ensure you don’t forget your tie in the future, sir.”

“I can’t believe you can say that with a straight face.”

“You’d be surprised what I can say with a straight face,” she said. “We’re here. Please put on your tie if you have it.”

I pulled it out of my pocket and stretched it out, smoothing the fabric. “You’ll have to do it for me.”

“I’m beginning to feel taken advantage of.” She pulled up at the rundown sign that welcomed us to Buckley Lake Cottages and turned to me. “Pass me the tie and turn here.”

I handed it over and shifted in my seat until I was facing her. She’d done this very thing for me hundreds of times, but there was something unnerving about her doing it in the car.

Chloe’s face was extremely close, and I could see every little thing from the tiny mole at the corner of her right eye to the barest hint of smudged mascara on her eyelid. Her eyes seemed to change colour depending on the light—sometimes they were the cool colour of honey, but other times, like now with the morning rays washing over her beautiful face, they were the colour of sunlight hitting whiskey.

A deep, rich amber you could drown in.

God only knew Chloe St. James was the kind of woman you could get drunk on.

“There,” she said, securing the knot at the base of my throat. “At least you look like a Vice-President of a conglomerate now.”

I cleared my throat, quickly righting myself in my seat as if she could hear the heavy thumping of my heart inside my chest. “Thank you.”

“Let’s go.” She put the car back into gear and pulled away from the dilapidated sign, and I turned my head to look out of the window.

Was I really the only one of us bothered about being so close?