changed lanes as they neared her South Shore apartment. In an effort not to stare at his hands or the taut thighs centimetres from hers, or even breathe in the aftershave-mingled maleness of him, she cleared her throat.
‘So...are you going to go after your brother?’
His jaw clenched as he pulled to a stop at a traffic light. One hand rested on the top of the steering wheel, the other scrubbing restively over his stubble. ‘No. For now, I’m choosing to resist that impulse.’
A breath freed itself from her chest. ‘I’m glad.’
He glanced at her before he eased away at the green light. ‘Do you advocate the “make love, not war” route with all your clients?’
‘My commissions so far have involved damage limitation or using the best PR approach that makes the client look good. I won’t be helping you if I advocate an approach that makes you look bad to investors in the long run.’
He slid another glance at her. ‘What do you care? This is your last commission. What happens after this shouldn’t concern you.’
Elise bit her lip as a mildly hollow sensation washed over her. ‘No, I guess it shouldn’t. Maybe I don’t want my swan song to leave a bad taste in my mouth,’ she replied. She looked out of her window and saw her apartment block slide into view. She indicated the quieter side street. ‘If you pull over here, I’ll jump out.’
He ignored her and the no-parking zone in front of her building and stopped before the double glass doors. Stepping out, he came round and opened her door.
Elise took a gulp of restorative fresh air. ‘Thanks for the ride.’
He took her arm and started towards the double doors. ‘You can thank me by letting me see you to your door. You can also tell me why your building doesn’t have a doorman. Or adequate security.’ He eyed the hippy-looking couple who breezed out, then transferred his scathing gaze to the doors that didn’t quite shut behind them.
To counteract what the thought of being enclosed with him in another lift was doing to her insides, she waved his terse demand away. ‘I have a super. Does that satisfy you?’
‘No, it does not.’
Her mouth twisted. ‘Not everyone can afford a Barrington Hills mansion, Alejandro.’
He pressed the lift button. When it didn’t arrive quickly enough, he pressed it again, several times. ‘I don’t live in Barrington Hills.’
‘My parents do.’
He stared at her. ‘And you choose to live here?’
‘Yes,’ she answered simply.
He didn’t probe further, leaving Elise with the feeling that the subject of family was as unwelcome to him as it was to her. What he did probe was the lift button, uttering a skin-flaying Latin curse when the lift made no move to arrive.
Relief and disappointment spun through her. ‘I’ll take the stairs. I’m only on the third floor.’
He whirled with fluid grace and indicated for her to precede him. Battling to suppress her self-consciousness, she hurried up the stairs, and arrived at her door two minutes later, struggling not to pant. Alejandro, on the other hand, had barely broken a sweat.
She unlocked her door. Almost reluctantly her eyes drifted up only to find his waiting for her. ‘Since conventional working hours are out the window, what time do you need me tomorrow?’
‘To avoid another argument, you can arrive at seven.’
Her eyes widened. ‘As opposed to what? Five a.m.?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s when my work day starts.’
‘Dare I ask when it ends?’
‘When the coffee machine threatens to quit. Which it does on a daily basis.’
She laughed. His lips twitched. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth.
The laughter died. She scrambled backwards, bumping her backside into the door. ‘I’ll see you in the morning?’
Penetrating eyes collided with hers. ‘Sí. You will. Buenas noches.’
He departed with the quiet strength and power of a jungle predator. And even though his footsteps barely echoed down the stairs, she found herself listening for them.
Catching herself, she stepped back and shut her door.
Twenty minutes later she was showered and dressed in her favourite sleeping shirt. Sitting in bed, she tugged her laptop close and powered it on. Her buzz disappeared beneath the volume of emails from her mother earlier in the day, then her father demanding responses to her mother’s emails.
She’d muted her phone for her interview with Alejandro and then neglected to turn it back on. She activated the sound and wasn’t at all surprised when the handset rang almost instantly.
The buzz now replaced with cold trepidation, she braced herself and answered the call.
‘Finally! Your father and I were beginning to wonder whether you’d been abducted by aliens,’ her mother snapped, her voice containing a bite that always raised Elise’s hackles.
‘I turned the sound on my phone off when I met with Mr Aguilar. Things got out of hand after that.’ She immediately cringed at the poor choice of words.
She didn’t bother retracting them, because her mother was already enquiring sharply, ‘Out of hand? Are you saying we didn’t get it? Damn, I should’ve handled it myself. But we’re the number one PR firm in Chicago. People beg to come to us, not the other way round. All the same, this commission could’ve been huge for us. You should’ve called us when things started going bad. Ralph! Come here. We have a problem.’
Elise’s grip tightened on the phone, all too familiar anger and hurt welling inside her. ‘Mom—’
‘Your father and I will have to see if there’s any way to salvage it—’
‘Mom!’
‘What?’
‘I signed the agreement with SNV this afternoon.’
Stunned silence followed. Elise tried to breathe through the hurt clogging in her chest.
‘Well, that’s...commendable?’
The question mark hooked like a rusty claw into her. It was the same question mark with which they’d greeted her devastation after being nearly assaulted by a client they’d pushed her into dealing with.
‘Are you sure it wasn’t a harmless pass, Elise?’
‘You’re mistaken. Brian Grey doesn’t normally go for girls like you...’
She breathed through the anguish. ‘Thanks for your rousing belief in me,’ she replied, but the murmur of voices in the background told her they were engaged in a side conversation about her.
Her
