“Harris, Miss.”
“Harris, Mr. Pearson would like a latte.”
“Very good, Miss.”
“And where’s the bathroom?”
“There’s one in your bedroom, Miss.”
“My what?” She couldn’t fathom that she’d have a bathroom on Pearson’s jet, let alone a bedroom.
“Yes, Miss. The next door on the right. Mr. Pearson’s is the one after that.”
“Thank you, Harris.”
Chrissy entered, and found herself in a different world. A tiny hallway had a bathroom on the left. The floor and counters were rose marble, and the walls dark wood. A small shower stretched against the back wall, while a small commode sat between the shower and the sink. She could barely turn around in the room, but it was a bathroom, and she could imagine how useful this would be as they traveled.
She did her business and continued further into the cabin. Again, on her left was a long closet, and she opened it to find her suitcases lined up on folding luggage racks and secured with bungee cords. She continued to the end of that wall, and found the closet ended at the full-sized bed which lay lengthwise against the bulkhead. The closet wall formed a recessed space for the head of the bed, and the dark wood of the headboard wrapped from ceiling to floor. At the foot of the bed hung a wide-screen television.
The television was an unaccustomed luxury. It almost made her feel lucky to have landed the job with Pearson. Almost.
Turning around, her breath snapped back into her lungs in shock. James and his usually studious blue eyes stared her down from the doorway of the cabin.
“I see,” he said with no apology, “that you found your bedroom.”
“Yes, thank you,” Chrissy said.
“It’s not a huge room,” he said. “But the ones in my apartments are larger.”
Chrissy blinked several times over. “Pardon?”
“You didn’t think for the salary of a million a year you’d be living separately from me, did you?”
“I didn’t know what to expect.”
“My business runs twenty-four seven, Ms. Serafini. I can’t afford to have critical staff too far away from me. I realize that this is your first day, but you must get up to speed quicker than this.”
Chrissy’s hands clenched into fists at her side. What the hell did this man expect?
And what the hell had she just gotten herself in to?
CHAPTER TWO
“It’s for the best,” Luke said as he took a swig of his beer.
Saks and Luke were sitting in Luke’s living room of the house he shared with his wife, Emily, and their toddler son, Robbie. Normally, Saks enjoyed spending time in Luke’s home, but this wasn’t the same as other days. For one thing, Rob had dumped him here instead of taking Saks back to his parent’s house. Rob had left Luke no choice but to take Saks in, despite his well-vocalized opinion of the entire Chrissy debacle.
The woman Saks loved had left him, despite his efforts to stop her. The mere idea of his loss left his lips downturned.
The Hades’ Spawn probie, Hawk, lay in the hospital after being shot while at the pharmacy to pick up Saks’ pain medicine. Saks wanted to be there with the other Spawn, waiting for updates and offering his support, but what he wanted hadn’t been in the cards as of late. Okie, Hades’ president, had been concerned about Saks after everything that had happened, and had told him not to come.
Lost his girl, nearly his stripes, and his life all in a few days.
This week fuckin’ sucked.
Saks drank his glass right down to the dregs. Though it soured his stomach, there was no blaming the beer. It was his own twisted gut, reminding him of just how messed up things were. “I don’t see how you can say that,” Saks finally replied. “One of Pearson’s personal assistants disappeared, and the other turned up dead.”
“You don’t know if he had anything to do with it.”