as tough as they come.”
“Thanks. But no thanks.” Elise reached for her purse.
Nell got to it first. She shoved it away to the center of the desk.
“Enough now, I mean it.” Elise rose. “Cut it out.”
“Please stop.” Nell looked straight in her eyes and spoke with heartfelt intensity. “Come on, Leesie. Give up the act. You need the money and you need it bad. Stop pretending you don’t.”
Elise realized her mouth was hanging open and snapped it shut. She’d been so sure that nobody knew the extent of her problem. She sank back into the chair and hung her head. “Just tell me. Please. Does everybody in the family know?” Silence from Nell. Elise made herself lift her head and pull her shoulders up straight. “Do they?”
Slowly, Nell nodded. “We love you and we are not blind. You’re working yourself into the ground. And if you had the money, you would have reopened Bravo Catering when the insurance paid out.” She would have, it was true. But half of that money had been Tracy’s and Tracy had finally admitted that the catering business wasn’t for her. Plus, Elise had had all those debts to pay. In the end, they’d split the insurance money and sold the lot to a merchant next door who wanted to expand. Once Elise had paid off what she owed, there wasn’t much left. Nell went on, “That’s why you need to go see Jed Walsh. Leesie, we are talking thousands a week if you can last.”
“Oh, come on. Thousands? For a secretary?”
“The woman he just fired said so. I asked her as she was stomping out the door.”
“She must have been exaggerating. If he pays thousands, someone would have stayed.”
“No. I think he’s actually that bad. And he’s evidently damn picky. Most of them he fires, so they can’t stick no matter how much they want the money he’s paying. But the good news is, he’s really desperate now. I heard he’s blown off his book deadline over and over. At some point he’s got to keep an assistant and get the damn book done.”
Elise sighed in defeat. “Be realistic. If none of the others can put up with him, what makes you think I can?”
“Because you’re a Bravo and a Bravo gets out there and gets it done.” Nell stood. “Jed Walsh is going to get the assistant he needs, which is you. And that means Jed Walsh is going to put you back in the black.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
Nell braced her hands on her shapely hips. “You know, Leesie... On second thought, you’re right. You should just give up now. We all love you and we’re all doing great financially. We can help and we will. No one’s going to hold it against you if you let your family rescue you from the consequences of your own stupid pride and bad decision-making.”
Elise rose again, slowly. She said in a low voice that sounded like a threatening growl, “No. Freaking. Way. I’ll rescue myself, just you watch me.”
A slow grin tipped the corners of Nell’s impossibly sexy lips. “That’s the spirit.” She grabbed a square of paper from the pad on the desk and bent to scribble on it. Then she took Elise’s hand and slapped the paper in it. “Here’s the address. Now get over there and show Mr. Number One New York Times Bestselling Author that you’re the assistant he’s been looking for.”
* * *
Walsh’s new house was really something, Elise thought. Bravo Construction must be proud. Surrounded by giant pines and Douglas firs, the gorgeous, rustic, wood-and-stone home sprawled impressively on the crest of a hill.
I really, truly do not want to do this, Elise repeated to herself for the hundredth time as she parked her SUV in front of the slate walk that meandered upward toward the massive front door. Excuses scrolled through her mind: She really should at least have called first. Her typing was rusty. She hated to be shouted at and everyone said that Walsh was a yeller.
But then again, her family knew. She could no longer lie to herself that her abject failure to take care of herself and her future was her own little secret. They knew and they worried for her and if she didn’t pull herself out of this hole she was in, they would do it for her.
Uh-uh. No way. Not going to happen. She’d dug this hole and then fallen into it. One way or another, she would get herself out of it. If there was any possibility that Jed Walsh might provide the solution she’d so desperately been seeking, she needed to convince the madman to hire her.
Elise smoothed her hair, straightened her white button-down shirt and put one foot in front of the other all the way up the winding stone walk. The front porch was really something, made of rough-hewn rock and thick unfinished planks cut from various exotic-looking woods. The studded door had copper sculptures of leaves and vines attached to the windows on either side. No doorbell, just a giant cast-iron boar’s-head knocker.
Elise lifted the knocker and banged it three times against the door. The thing was loud. She could hear the sound echoing on the other side. She waited for a full count of twenty for someone to answer. When no one did, she lifted the ring through the boar’s snout to knock again.
Before she could lower it, the big door swung inward.
And there stood Jed Walsh, a giant of a man in jeans and a black T-shirt with muscles on his muscles, a scruff of beard on his rocklike jaw and a phone at his ear.
He shouted into the phone, “I don’t care about any of that, Holly. She didn’t work out and I need someone else now.” The person on the other end started talking. Walsh pulled the phone from his ear and looked Elise up and down with a way-too-observant pair of icy green eyes. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“I’m Elise Bravo and—”
“With the construction company?” he barked. “The hardware’s great and I’m happy with the copper sink. No problems.” He started to swing the door shut in her face.
Elise talked fast. “You need an assistant and I’m here for the job.”
He grunted, swung the door wide once more and spoke into the phone again. “Never mind for now.” Whoever Holly was, she was still talking as he disconnected the call. And Walsh was giving Elise another leisurely once-over, from the top of her head to the toes of her practical black shoes.
The look was way too assessing. Please. The last thing she needed right now was to have some man—any man, crazy or otherwise—looking her over. She was not at her best, all frazzled and tired, with the buttons down the front of her shirt on the verge of popping and her black pants clinging tighter than they ought to. She was an excellent cook, after all. Plus, there was the donut shop right downstairs from her cramped apartment. Food could offer great comfort when your world went up in flames.
And then again, so what if he ogled her? She hitched up her chin and ogled right back. Let him stare. She didn’t have to be skinny to type.
Eventually, he stepped back and gestured her into his cavernous foyer. Against her better judgment, she went.
“Elise, you said?”
Ms. Bravo to you, she fervently wished she had the nerve to reply. “Elise. That’s right.”
“I’m Jed.”
“I
