silence, and continued to read the headline story. After a moment he looked up at her.
“You know him?”
She nodded, keeping her mouth shut, afraid of what else might come pouring out.
“Boyfriend?”
“No,” she said, startled. “Actually I haven’t seen him in a few years.”
Josh looked thoughtful, and Liana had the sudden feeling that this, of all she’d seen from him this morning, was the expression to be wary of if you were on the other side of a bargaining table from this man.
“But you don’t believe he did what they’re saying? That he’s a crooked cop?”
“I know he isn’t,” she said fervently. “He would no more take money from drug dealers than he would…” Her words trailed off as she was unable to think of an analogy bizarre enough.
“Sometimes,” Josh said slowly, “people hide facets of themselves.”
“Yes,” she said, conscious of the fact that she was debating with her new boss before she’d even sat down once in her new office chair. “But when you’re in a…life-threatening, life-changing situation, facades tend to fall away.”
She held her breath, waiting, wondering if it was going to turn out to be a good thing that she hadn’t completely unpacked yet, because that would make it easier to repack and get out of here after he fired her for insubordination.
“He’s the one?”
She blinked in puzzlement at the quiet question. Then she realized she was the one being stupid; did she really think Joshua Redstone hired just anybody off the street without researching them even more thoroughly than she had researched his company? He’d probably turned his much-vaunted security team loose on her history; she’d read how their checks were on par with any government agency’s. She just hadn’t realized that applied to everybody, even lowly assistants to department heads. But you didn’t build the kind of family Redstone, Incorporated was without thoroughly vetting the people you let in.
She felt a bit foolish. Of course they had checked her out completely, which meant Josh knew exactly who the man in the photograph was.
“Yes,” she said.
Josh smiled slightly, as if he was pleased that she left it at that, hadn’t launched into some long explanation. As if, she realized suddenly, he was glad she’d understood he already knew all about It.
It.
That’s what that day was in her life, a big, capitalized It. And her life was divided into two parts, before It and after. And the two segments bore little resemblance to each other. Not surprising, she supposed, given the enormity of what had happened.
She snapped back to the present to find her new boss watching her, and felt herself flush.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I don’t usually let it get to me.”
“You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t,” Josh said. “Nobody goes through something like that and comes out without at least some baggage.”
Her mouth twisted wryly. “And some of us come out with a cargo load.”
Josh chuckled, but the sound was rueful. “Yes. Some do.”
She saw the echo of an old, familiar pain in his eyes, remembered belatedly that this was a man with painful baggage of his own that he’d been carrying since the death of his beloved wife and, much earlier, the death of his brother, his last surviving blood relative.
She responded, aware of the irony, in the same way many had responded to her after It; she changed the subject abruptly.
“Everything’s fine here,” she said formally. “I have everything I could possibly need, and I’m looking forward to getting right to work. And thank you again for giving me this chance. It’s the best early Christmas present I could ever get.”
“Very politely said,” Josh answered, his mouth quirking in turn as he accepted her verbal swerve. “But you’ll find we don’t stand on ceremony much around here. We all work on the assumption that everyone here—even a new hire—is the best at what they do. Eliminates infighting.”
“I can’t wait,” she said eagerly, meaning it wholeheartedly.
“That’s more like it,” Josh said with a grin that she thought could light up a room much larger than this one. “Lilith will be along shortly, I’m sure. She’ll get you started on what she needs done first.”
Liana nodded. She’d had her final interview with Lilith Mercer, which had surprised her; she’d thought Josh would have the final say. But he’d told her before that last session that Lilith knew what she needed in an assistant better than he did, knew what kind of person she could best work with, so she would make the decision and he would back her. That was the way things worked at Redstone.
That simple statement from a man who’d built an empire had taken her from hoping she got the job to thinking she would be missing out on the chance of a lifetime if she didn’t get it. The position was entry level, not where she wanted to be or stay, but it was at Redstone, and few jobs opened there because once you got in you stayed.
“My door’s always open to family,” Josh said. “Remember that.”
Yes, she was very glad she’d gotten this job, Liana thought.
“Thank you,” she said, fervently this time.
He was almost out her office door before he turned back. He looked toward her desk once more, then at her. “I’ll have our security look into that. Maybe there’s something we can do.”
She was sure she was gaping at him, but was too stunned to restrain her reaction.
“I tend to agree with you,” Josh said easily. “From the report I read on what happened with you, he doesn’t seem the type.”
“No,” she finally managed to say. “He’s not.”
After Josh had gone, she sank down into the desk chair, feeling oddly wobbly. It didn’t matter that she’d spent a relatively short time with Logan Beck. Didn’t matter that she hadn’t even known his name until It was all over. What mattered was what he’d proven to her during those agonizingly long moments they’d been together.
He was the type of cop who literally laid his life on the line for the people he served.
The type of cop who would die to save a total stranger.
The type of cop who had nearly done just that, to save an innocent life.
Her life.
She looked down at the newspaper again, at the stark black and white photograph. It was hard to believe it was really him; the spit-and-polish young officer of eight years ago had vanished. The photograph showed a tall, lean man in a slightly disreputable-looking black leather jacket, his dark hair falling in a long sweep down to an unshaven jaw. That jaw, strong, unyielding, was the same. But the eyes were shadowed now, and she wondered what had happened
