Tempting Eden (3 page)

“He gave me a crash course last week, so I intend to hit the ground running.” He gave another perfunctory nod before turning to leave. He was a good dresser, his medium gray suit hitting him in all the right places. It helped that he had a stunning body; broad back, narrow waist, and long legs.

The only thing that gave away his humble beginnings was his accent. It was faint, barely noticeable. Still, I could detect a certain local dialect—one frowned upon in the Rochester family social circles. He must have taken pains to erase it, to make himself sound as if he came from one of the more affluent suburbs, like Homewood where his godmother lived. Little things like that would be of no moment to the average ear, but a born-and-raised snob like myself could hear it right off, even if I didn’t ascribe any import to it. That was more of an old guard issue; one that I hoped would die off.

Still, he was definitely different. Not in the color of his skin or his accent, but in his bearing, his confidence. He was not what I expected to find in my newest assistant. I stared at the frosted glass doors long after he was out of view. This was going to be an interesting month.

CHAPTER TWO

J
ACK

I
SAT DOWN AT
my desk in the wide-open area that took up the center of the Thornfield floor. The support staff worked in this area, each assigned to different ‘pods’ of business. My pod consisted solely of Ms. Rochester and myself as far as I knew.

I kept glancing back to the glass leading to her bright office. All-in-all, our first meeting had been nothing short of a clusterfuck. I’d heard she was a ball-busting bitch, and I realized the rumors were true during my first ten seconds with her. Even so, she was toying with me a bit, looking me over too closely and blushing. I wanted to tap into those feelings, to get a better feel for the woman beneath the hard exterior. It didn’t hurt that she was hot as hell. The idea of bending her over her desk flitted through my mind.

Settle down, Jack
.

Her harsh demeanor did nothing to rid me of the feeling that I didn’t fit here, like any minute someone would come along and inform me that I was mistaken and escort me from the building. Then again, she hadn’t treated me as less than her equal, which was nice.

Assistant to Ms. Rochester wasn’t exactly a glamorous position, but given my background, I’d already reached higher than anyone else from my past.

The people here all seemed to ignore the fact that I wasn’t like them, and I didn’t mean color. My mixed race was obvious, but it wasn’t the point of difference that struck me. It was a completely different mentality; one that seemed ingrained in the people who flitted about this office. Things like having a computer that wasn’t pay-as-you-go for Internet, free coffee, even pens that weren’t attached to the desks with those beaded metal strands—they took it all for granted, as if it was the natural state of things. It wasn’t. The natural state of things was far more selfish and close-fisted.

Only a few miles from this office, in Lowood where I’d grown up, what was seen as normal here would have been thought of as impossible. The freeness was so uncommon there, lack of choice was so instilled in me, that it still struck me as foreign. It would probably always strike me that way. The people in this office were so far removed from that other world as to be on completely different planets. I felt stretched thin, bridging the gap between them.

Helen had told me things could be like this—easy, clean, open. I didn’t believe her back then. She was wise beyond her years, but I was too busy digging my own grave in Lowood to realize it. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the dark memories from taking hold. I needed to focus on this job. Keeping it was imperative. It was a means to an end, a way up and out.

My gaze strayed back to the glass doors. Fairfax had been right. Ms. Rochester—who I’d noticed never directed me to call her the more casual Eden—was difficult to read.

I’d wanted to lift her into my arms to save her the pain of the ankle, but going Tarzan and Jane in the Galway building was probably frowned upon. Still, she fit so easily against me as I carried her. I enjoyed the feeling. She was confident and attractive, tough enough to get my interest, but when I realized she was my employer, everything changed.

I’d interviewed the prior week while she was on a trip to Atlanta. I received the lowdown from Fairfax on how the office ran and which projects Ms. Rochester handled. I managed to keep up—for the most part. Fairfax ran a tight ship. He even quizzed me on Ms. Rochester’s appointments for the week, making sure I would be on the ball when she returned.

Getting the hang of Eden Rochester was already proving a puzzle, one I was more than a little interested in solving, and not solely on the professional level.

“How’d it go?” Fairfax walked up behind me and startled me from my thoughts.

I wasn’t sure how to answer.

He laughed conspiratorially, his eyes twinkling to the point where I wondered if he didn’t have a bottle of Jack stashed in his desk. “Moody? Sharp? She give you an inquisition?”

“You could say that.”

“That’s her way. She works hard. She expects everyone else around her to do the same. And she can be mighty temperamental, but she doesn’t mean anything by it.” He took a swig from his coffee cup. “That’s one of the reasons why I hired you, you know. You seem so calm. Like everything just rolls off. She needs that, needs someone to even her out a bit. You’ll do just fine.”

He gave me a reassuring pat on the back before striding down the hallway toward the accounting offices.

I fired up my computer, ready to start ticking off calendar entries for the hectic day ahead. She’d been gone for a week, but her work and appointments had piled up the entire time until it was an avalanche of to-dos. Daunting was an understatement. How could one person be so busy?

As soon as my email was open, a reminder pinged that Ms. Rochester had a meeting with Gray Poole, a developer on several of her projects.

Showtime.

I rose and knocked on her door.

“What?” Her tone was sharp, no-nonsense.

I pushed through the glass and into her office. She had composed herself a bit more. Her light auburn hair was less messy than it had been on her way in. I liked it better before, not that my opinion mattered. She’d added some lipstick, too.

“You have an appointment with Mr. Poole in five minutes. Main conference room.”

“Fine.” She stood. If her ankle pained her, and I was certain it did, she didn’t show it. “Get your notepad and meet me. I’ll be there in a moment. Make sure he has a cup of black coffee ready for him, two packets of sugar on the side.”

I did as she asked, hitting the light switch in the wood-paneled conference room and preparing the coffee. After setting out the cup and sugar as instructed, I settled into one of the leather chairs. I ignored the luxuriousness of everything in the room, pretending it was commonplace so that I could continue to pass as one of them. I arranged my notepad and the spreadsheet of her projects, including Mr. Poole’s expenditures and other data on each one, on the table in front of me.

She walked in, her face pinched. Her injury was taking its toll.

“I could have brought Mr. Poole to your office for you.”

She glared at me, as if I’d crossed some line I didn’t even know was there. “No, I’d rather not have him in my office. We always meet him in here.”

She took the chair at the head of the table. “Mr. Poole is a very important client. His money keeps my projects going, keeps me selling real estate, keeps me—and now you—employed. Just keep that in mind when you speak with him.”

“Got it.” I didn’t intend on speaking at all if I could help it. Being a listener was one of my hardest-won traits, especially because it didn’t come naturally to me. But it always served me well.

There was a brief rap at the door, and then who I assumed was Mr. Poole entered. He looked in his early forties, fit, blond hair and tanned skin, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors. Ms. Rochester rose. I did the same. He took her hand in a familiar shake.

“Rochester.”

“Good to see you, Gray. Did you have a smooth trip back from Atlanta?”

He took the seat opposite me, at Ms. Rochester’s right hand. I sat along with them, ignoring him ignoring me.

“I always do. The private jet helps; turns the trip into a taxi ride. I was only sorry that you left too early to share the flight back with me.” His tone was familiar, as if he knew more about her than he should.

He smiled, his teeth white and even, too even to be natural. He turned to me. “And who is this?”

“Jack England. He’s my new assistant.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jack. Don’t let her run you off too quick. She has a habit of doing that.” He had the sort of Southern accent that seemed fake. The one from old movies. Or the one from new movies where the Southerners were played by British people—too strong, too Old South. He winked at me.

I forced a pleasant smile onto my face which he didn’t see because he’d turned back toward Ms. Rochester. I was dismissed. I didn’t mind. His attention wasn’t what I was after.

“So, let’s talk about new business,” he said.

Ms. Rochester clasped her hands in front of her on the table. Then she seemed to spy the coffee stain on her sleeve and thought better of it, placing her hands in her lap. “Belle Mar.”

Mr. Poole shook his head and took a leisurely drink from his coffee cup before pouring in the sugars. “Oh, I don’t know, Rochester. I haven’t decided where I’m going to place that project. I may not use Thornfield at all.”

She leaned forward. “Gray, you know Thornfield is the only company capable of selling such a luxury complex on the coast.” Her voice had grown higher, almost girly.

Mr. Poole smiled a little. She clearly knew how to work him. She continued, “And really, where else could you get a bigger bang for your buck than with us? We have all the best stagers, access to all the high-end clients. No other broker in the Southeast will be able to put together the total package for you like we can.”

Mr. Poole drummed his fingers on the dark wood of the conference table. “All that may be true. And you
have
always done me right in the past. But even if I do choose Thornfield, there’s no guarantee that I’ll give the project to you. There are several other vice presidents, that new Emily for example, who need to get a taste of what the business is really capable of.”

He smiled again. Like his accent, it seemed fake. Apparently, Ms. Rochester wasn’t the only one who knew how to toy with people.

Ms. Rochester furrowed her delicate brow. “I don’t think that’s what you want, Gray. Inexperience breeds mistakes.”

She ran a hand through her hair, fluffing it along the front of her blouse. I followed her movements. So did Mr. Poole. He licked his lips.

They were speaking English. But they were speaking something else, too. There was a deeper negotiation going on, one it seemed they had done before.

He leaned back, expanding his chest. “Maybe you’re right. But, I’m worried about my profits. I’ve been giving you my projects to sell for years. We’ve had a good run, but I can’t help but wonder if I could do better elsewhere.”

“Unlikely,” I said.

Mr. Poole raised his eyebrows and gave me a stern look. “No offense,
Jack
, but you just got here. And I don’t make business decisions based on the opinions of secretaries.”

Ms. Rochester shot me an acid look. “I’m sorry, Gray, he’s new—”

I pulled a spreadsheet from my pile of papers. “This documents the profits you’ve gained for each of the past dozen projects you’ve done with Ms. Rochester. It shows your investment, the time frame your capital was used in the project, the eventual gains, and how close to asking price each of the units sold. As you can see, your profits have risen with each subsequent deal, only dropping slightly in 2007-2008 during the real estate crash. After that, the increase in the amounts you’ve made have been far higher than the gains in the real estate market in general and, obviously, far higher than the gains you would have earned in the open stock market, especially given the too-big-to-fail market of 2008. Also, note that on several deals, she got you more than asking.”

Mr. Poole drew a pair of drugstore reading glasses from his inner coat pocket and perched them on his nose so he could follow along. I pulled another spreadsheet from my stack. “This one shows your return on investment when you’ve put money in projects at Thornfield that were supervised by VPs other than Ms. Rochester. Here, when you chose to give a Mississippi high-end condo project to VP Cheryl Ingram, the project barely broke even. You would have had a better return betting blind on the stock market during that same time period. There are a couple of other examples on there where you did earn a profit, but nothing approaching the same results as Ms. Rochester provided.”

I slid my last spreadsheet over to Mr. Poole. “This final spreadsheet isn’t quite as detailed, mainly because I had to cobble it together from a multitude of sources, but it shows a handful of your investments in companies other than Thornfield. You made some modest gains, especially on the condominiums in Seaside. However, just like with the other VPs, none of these projects even come close to the returns Ms. Rochester’s projects have provided.”

I quieted and stole a glance at Ms. Rochester. Her head cocked to the side as she studied me, ignoring the spreadsheets Mr. Poole pored over. She seemed almost impressed, a slight smile on her lips.

Her green eyes, flecked with hazel, seemed to see every bit of me. Her face wasn’t the sort of pretty that you see on billboards or TV. But she was beautiful. Her beauty seemed more pronounced, her features written in starker lines. Her high cheekbones caught the light, and her small nose was a nice complement to her fuller lips. Her eyebrows were dark and faintly arched. Is this what people meant when they said a woman was “handsome”?