his backside in those custom-made pants...
She had seen the headlines, of course. He’d been left at the altar. He’d been named one of the “Top Five Billionaire Bachelors of Chicago.” He’d been ruthless in his business dealings. But none of that was who he really was.
Was it?
Even if life had changed them both, she knew that deep down, they were still the same people they’d been back when they’d been kids. He wasn’t a heartless bastard, no matter what people might say.
Heartless bastards wouldn’t have rubbed her back when she’d had a panic attack. They wouldn’t have gotten her water. They would have laughed her and her crippling anxiety right out of the office and slammed the door in her face.
Heartless bastards wouldn’t have looked like they were going to kiss her and they most certainly wouldn’t have stopped at just a look.
At least, Sofia thought that’s what Eric had been thinking. She hadn’t been kissed in a long time so she couldn’t be sure. She and David had enjoyed a passionate four years together before she’d gotten pregnant. But after her body had begun to change, so had their love life. The intimacy had been deeper, richer—but at the cost of some of the heat.
She fanned herself. It was unnaturally warm in here.
“Are you sure you want me to work for you? Good office managers don’t have panic attacks.”
“Of course they do,” he answered without turning around. “They just choose their locations wisely. I’ve always found it’s best to have a panic attack safely behind closed doors. No one wants to pass out next to the coffeepot.” He glanced back at her with a smirk. “Location, location, location—right?”
“Eric...”
A ripple of tension rolled over his shoulders. “Does that happen a lot?”
“It’s...better.” How to answer this question without making it sound like she was incapable of doing the job? “They started after David collapsed. One of them actually triggered early labor, but they got it stopped in time and I was on bed rest for five weeks. I hadn’t had one in a few months, though. I just wasn’t expecting any offer to be that...”
“Generous?”
“Insane.” This was the first time an attack had been triggered by something positive. “Eric, I can’t take that much money. The position was for seventy thousand. You can’t just randomly double it because we used to be friends.”
He made a scoffing sound and at that moment, he did sound a little ruthless. “First off, we’re still friends and second off, I absolutely can. Who’s going to stop me?”
A hundred and twenty was slightly more than she and David had earned together in a single year. The things she could do with that kind of money...but she didn’t want to be Eric’s charity case. “Most comparable positions are fifty to sixty thousand,” she protested.
That made him snort. “Comparable to what, Sofia? If you’re saying this position is just like running your suburban brokerage, you couldn’t be more wrong. I can promise you regular hours most of the time, but I’ll expect you to travel to potential sites occasionally. This isn’t just ordering paper clips and deciding how ten agents divide them. I employ forty lawyers, architects, agents, tax specialists, lobbyists—”
“Lobbyists?” The fact that she had no idea why he would have lobbyists on staff was probably a sign that she was in over her head.
“To negotiate with municipalities and influence laws, of course. We’re pursuing a project in St. Louis as we speak. If we play our cards right, we’ll get tax breaks from the city, county and state.” He grinned like he’d won the lottery.
“Of course,” she mumbled, unsure what else she was supposed to say. He was right. She was vastly out of her league.
“Besides,” he continued, sounding more than just a little cold as he turned his attention back out the window, “what’s a spare fifty thousand or so to a guy like me?”
Nothing, probably. She could see how that wouldn’t bankrupt a billionaire. Still, though. It was the principle of the matter. “But—”
“By the way,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I have a better boat now. You should come with me sometime. I like to sail in the afternoons.”
He still wasn’t looking at her, but it was clear from the tone of his voice that the conversation about salary was finished.
“Is it a sailboat?” she asked.
“Nope. It’s a yacht. And we won’t sink this one with a rock, so don’t worry. You could...” He paused and then continued, “You could even bring the kids. I bet they’d love being out on the water.”
What was happening here? Eric was giving her a job and paying her way too much money. And now he was inviting her boating? With two rambunctious toddlers in tow? “Eric...”
“Never mind. I hear you’ve got a real bastard of a boss who won’t let you take off work just to go jetting around.” He turned and she barely recognized him at all—his face was that hard. “Come on. Let’s find out what you’ve gotten yourself into, shall we?”
More than she could handle, she thought as she followed him to the door of his office and into the heart of Jenner Properties.
* * *
Three hours later, Sofia knew she was in over her head. She was reasonably confident Eric knew it, too—but it didn’t seem to bother him. He would give her a look and say, “All right?” as if he were willing it to be true instead of asking a question.
He was putting a lot of faith in her and she didn’t want to let him down. She didn’t want to let her mom or her kids down, either. But most of all, she needed to do this for herself. This was the first big change she had undertaken on her own since her life had been thrown into upheaval a year and a half ago. She was tired of life happening to her. She was going to happen to her life. This job was the first step.
Even if that meant she would have to make it up as she went along.
“And here are Meryl and Steve Norton,” Eric was saying as he knocked on the last door to the office closest to his. “Meryl is my chief negotiator for the St. Louis project and Steve is the project manager. It helps that they’re married,” he added in a stage whisper. “Guys, this is Sofia Bingham. She’s our new office manager.”
“Hello,” Sofia said, smiling. Eric had stopped accidentally saying Cortés after only five or six introductions.
“Welcome,” a tall, jovial man with thinning hair said as he rose from a desk on one side of the office. He was a little soft around the middle, but his smile was friendly and his eyes were warm. “To the madhouse,” he went on, shaking her hand. “I’m Steve. I handle contractors.”
As big as Steve was, an equally tiny woman hopped down off her desk chair from the other side of the room. Steve slid his arm around her shoulders as Meryl Norton said, “Don’t listen to him. It’s not that bad—as long as you can embrace the madness. I’m Meryl and I handle politicians. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m generally friendly.”
