she thought in disgust, a suspicion she’d formed before their trip to California, but now knew for a fact.
They’d arrived in California a little after ten the night before and were at their hotel by eleven, where she’d discovered to her dismay that he intended that they share a suite. She hadn’t had time to recover from the shock of that nerve-warping discovery before Erik had hustled her onto a glass elevator and to a penthouse on the hotel’s uppermost floor.
Once there she lost her ability to speak when confronted with the elaborately appointed and spacious suite—which, thankfully, she’d discovered consisted of a living area and two large bedrooms, each with its own private and luxurious bath. Erik hadn’t shared her starry-eyed fascination with the suite’s opulence and its ceiling-to-floor view of San Diego’s skyline, or her desire to explore. Instead he had immediately mumbled a curt good-night and gone straight to his room and to bed.
Disappointed, Penny had gone to her room, as well. But when she’d awakened that morning, she’d found herself alone in the suite—though, not for long. She’d barely had time to shower and don a fresh suit before Erik had returned, carrying a briefcase filled with a thick stack of reports. Without a word of greeting or explanation as to his whereabouts, he’d given her clipped orders to enter the data from the reports into a computer he’d set up for her on the suite’s only desk.
They’d worked silently and without a break ever since.
Sighing again, she chose a can of juice for her employer, poured it into a glass, then selected some fresh fruit, cheese and crackers from the basket on the bar and arranged them on a plate.
“Here,” she said, placing the snack on the coffee table beside his propped boots. “Eat.”
When he didn’t respond, she drew in a frustrated breath. “Mr. Thompson!”
He jumped, swore, then glared up at her. “What?”
“Food,” she said and pointed to the plate. “Now eat before you collapse from lack of nourishment.”
He scowled and turned his face back to the screen. “Not hungry.”
Wondering why life seemed to always link her with grumpy, sour-faced men who didn’t have the good sense to take care of themselves, Penny snatched the laptop computer from his thighs.
“Hey!” he cried, dropping his feet to the floor and sitting up. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking care of you,” she replied, “just as Mrs. Hilloughby instructed me to do. Though I can see it will be a thankless job,” she added with more than a little resentment. She set the computer out of his reach, then pointed a finger at the plate. “Now eat,” she ordered.
Scowling, he snatched up the plate and fell back against the sofa. He stuffed a strawberry into his mouth and smashed it between his teeth. “Satisfied?” he asked, dashing a hand over his chin to catch a stream of juice that leaked from the corner of his mouth.
With a sniff, she turned for the bar to make a snack for herself. “Only when the plate is clean.”
Erik narrowed an eye at his secretary as she sank down onto a chair opposite the sofa, primly balancing her plate over pressed-together knees.
“What did you do before you came to work for me? No,” he said, holding up a hand before she could respond. “Let me guess. An army nurse? A nun in an all-girl school? A prison guard for a chain gang? A marine drill sergeant?”
She offered him a tight smile. “Funny. But, no, I was none of those things. After graduating from college, I was employed at a local bank, serving as the bank president’s secretary. I resigned about three years ago to work for my brother.”
“Doing what? Breaking kneecaps for him? Kicking puppies? Stealing old ladies’ canes?”
Though his suggestions were outrageous enough to be humorous, Penny refused to dignify his sarcasm with a smile. “My duties included housekeeping, cooking for a family of five and caring for my nieces and nephew.”
He bit a chunk off a wedge of cheese. “Why’d you leave?”
Uncomfortable with his close scrutiny, as well as his question, she lifted a shoulder. “My brother is a widower and depended on me too much, leaving the care of his children entirely up to me. If I’d stayed, he would have continued to ignore them.” She lifted a shoulder again. “So I left.”
“Bet your brother was plenty ticked at you for leaving him in a bind.”
She stiffened, reminded of Jase’s angry phone call when he’d returned to the ranch and found her gone and a new nanny in her place. “I didn’t leave him in a bind,” she stated defensively. “I hired a woman as my replacement. A very capable woman, I might add, who immediately won the children over with her cheerful disposition and youthful exuberance.”
“Cheerful disposition and youthful exuberance?” He snorted a laugh and popped a grape into his mouth. “Who’d you hire? Mary Poppins?”
Irritated by his contemptuous remark, she ignored him and nibbled on a slim wedge of Gouda she’d selected from the variety of gourmet cheeses she’d placed on her plate.
He shook his head and popped the last strawberry into his mouth. “Should’ve stayed with your brother,” he said as he set the plate aside and reclaimed his laptop. “No kid deserves to have a stranger dumped on ’em…even if the alternative is being saddled with a frumpy old aunt who wouldn’t know fun if it bit her square on the butt.”
Frumpy old aunt?
Numb, Penny could only stare, his description of her smacking at an already bruised self-esteem.
She rose quickly, tears stinging her eyes, and crossed to the bar, furiously blinking them back, not wanting to give him the opportunity to call her a crybaby again. She dumped the remains of her snack into the waste basket, rinsed off her plate, then grabbed her purse from the bar and headed for the door.
At the sound of her leaving, he glanced up. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
“For a walk,” she replied, trying her best to keep the tears from her voice.
“But we’ve got that black-tie thingamajig at seven.”
“I’ll be back before then,” she promised, then quickly closed the door behind her before he saw her tears and knew how much his tactless—if accurate—description of her had hurt.
Penny walked down the street, her chin bumping dejectedly against her chest, her gaze on the blurred tips of her black pumps. She wanted to despise Erik for the cruel things he’d said about her but found she couldn’t. Not when he was right. She was frumpy. And she feared she wasn’t much fun, either.
But how could she be fun, she cried in silent frustration, or even know what it was, when she’d never been allowed to have any while growing up? After their parents’ death, Jase had assumed guardianship of her, and if Erik thought Penny didn’t know what fun was, then he should meet her brother, Jase, the epitome of the glowering wielder of the proverbial whip.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, feeling a stab of guilt for her less-than-charitable thoughts toward a brother who had sacrificed so much
