Crossing the Line

Somehow she doubted that he had much of a life. It was all work with him. Hours in the office, hours outside the office. She didn’t know much about his personal life, other than that he had no wife, no kids and seemingly no family. Maybe he’d sprung full-grown from a trumpet, like in that old Greek myth she could never remember—and that would make sense, because he sure had the body of a Greek god.

Hold it in, girl, she counseled herself. He’s your boss and a little too bossy for you even if he didn’t sign your paycheck.

“I have a life,” she said instead, like a challenge.

He took it. She’d known he would. It was in the glint of his eyes and lift of his chin and something in the way his breath shifted. She’d watched him go head-to-head with too many people not to know what sorts of things got him going, but had she deliberately chosen this tone of voice, those words? Caite thought that maybe she had.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said in a lower voice, meeting his eyes without looking away. “A rich, full life that includes time for television, along with lots of other...things.”

Jamison pinned her with his gaze, his teeth bared a little in a predatory smile. “And you think I don’t have a rich, full life? Why? Because I don’t rot my brain with shitty reality television shows?”

“No,” she said on a low breath. “Because you don’t make time for those other things.”

For a moment, she thought he’d reach across the table and take her by the chin. Or, oh, God, fist his fingers in her hair. But of course he didn’t, and wouldn’t, even if he was suddenly looking at her as though she were Little Red Riding Hood and he a different sort of wolf. Still, the look made Caite shift in her seat, squeezing her thighs together, watching him look her over.

“Like what other things?” Jamison asked.

“When’s the last time you went dancing, for example?”

He frowned. “I don’t like to dance.”

She laughed. “I’m not surprised.”

For a moment, it was his turn to look offended. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re not patient enough to be a good dancer.”

“The hell does that mean?” His frown didn’t break his face the way it would’ve on another man. It only emphasized his intense good looks. “Not patient enough?”

Caite shrugged. “It means that even though you’re athletic and in good shape, you don’t have the patience to learn any sort of coordinated dancing. And freestyle would annoy you, trying to keep up with someone who wasn’t zigging left when you wanted to go right. You’d need a partner who understood you better than you know yourself in order to keep up with you.”

His mouth opened as though he meant to speak, but Caite kept up before he could.

“You don’t like crowds with loud music, and though you like to drink, you don’t like being around people who are out-of-control drunk. That’s why you don’t like the new clients, isn’t it? At least part of it?”

“They’re disgusting,” Jamison muttered, cutting his gaze from hers. He wiped at his mouth with his fingertips before looking back at her. “You seem to think you know an awful lot about me.”

“Sorry if I overstepped,” she said, not sorry at all.

Jamison wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “You really think you can handle those three?”

“Yes. I really do.” Confidence was everything; Caite had learned that a long time ago. She smiled at him, hoping to get at least the hint of a grin in return, but Jamison only stared at her steadily. For a long time.

He broke first, finally. “Fine. You’re on it.”

“Hooray!” Caite cried.

He looked taken aback, then shook his head and sighed. “Hooray.”

“C’mon. Say it like you mean it,” Caite said, standing and leaning over the table to put her hands flat on it so she could look him in the eyes. She only meant to tease him—Jamison Wolfe had long impressed her as the sort of man who needed to be teased now and then. But at the way his eyes narrowed and mouth thinned, Caite worried she’d gone a little too far.

Then, watching him watch her, she began to hope she had.

* * *

“I’ll be able to call in every day.” Elise, looking tired, plucked at the comforter with a surreptitious look toward the bedroom door, where Steph was likely hovering. She gave Jamison a small smile. “And I’ll have my laptop. I can handle some stuff from here.”

“You should just take it easy.” Jamison settled on the edge of the bed to pat her hand, then had a second thought and twined her fingers in his. He and Elise had been friends since high school and had spent more than a few nights tangled up in the same blankets. Never lovers, always friends, they’d shared probably every dark secret each had ever had. He knew better than anyone how unbreakable she was. And still, looking at her now, so pale and somehow shrunken despite the disconcertingly enormous mound of her belly under the blankets, all he could think about was how close he might be to losing her.

“She’ll be taking it easy.” Steph peeked around the doorway. “If I have to tie her to the bed, she’ll be taking it easy.”

“Kinky,” Elise murmured with a loving smile toward her wife that lit her eyes but didn’t do much to put color back in her cheeks.

“Too much information.” Jamison squeezed Elise’s fingers and stood. “I’m going to head back to the office. I’m glad you’re feeling better, and you take care of yourself. Stay in bed, do what the doctor tells you, you hear me?”

“Jamison, hang on. Stay a minute. Steph, baby, can you bring me some hot tea?” When the other woman had gone, Elise turned to him. “You and Caite have the new clients covered, yes?”

He hesitated, thinking about the conversation he’d had yesterday evening with the wily Ms. Fox. “She says she’s good to take them over.”

“You’re going to have to let her. We hired her for a reason, you know.”

“You’re the one who told me the triplets of destruction were going to be our name makers. And you want me to leave them in the hands of our junior office assistant?”

Elise laughed. Hard. “She’s a junior account manager, and she’s been taking on client work since a few months after she started. Caite has a good strong PR background, first of all. And social media savvy. Which is supposed to be our thing, you know. Remember?”

“I remember.” He’d always been much better at the background aspects of the business. Getting clients and keeping them. Negotiating. Not the day-to-day handling of them, or even of the office itself. That was Elise’s expertise, and now, he guessed, Caite’s.

Elise looked at him. “You can’t handle everything alone, Jamison. You’re going to have to let her do her job.”

“And if she totally screws up? What then?”

“She won’t.” Elise held up a hand to keep him from saying more. “But if she does, look...those crazy kids have their own mess already. It’s not like we could make anything worse for them. If anything, we should pray they screw up, big-time, and soon, so we can actually work to redeem them.”

“You’re good at that.” He laughed, thinking of a lot of the things with clients that had happened over the years. Press releases in the beginning, carefully crafted statements of apology. More recently, well-timed tweets or Connex updates.

“You need to relax.” She eyed him. “You don’t want to be the next one to end up in the hospital bed.”

For a moment, he thought about laughing off her concern, but then he shook his head. Elise had been there with him when his dad died, too young, of a stroke and heart attack brought on by a lifetime of unhealthy habits. “I take care of myself.”

“Sure. You run, you watch what you eat to the point where I wonder if you even like food. But you don’t take care of yourself, honey.” She paused. “I worry about you.”

“You shouldn’t.” Her words sent a flash of heat through him. Embarrassment more than comfort. They’d been friends for a long time, and she could look right inside him, down to his core, but that didn’t mean it ever felt easier to be seen that way. Jamison liked his walls high, strong and topped with iron spikes.

“Well, you can’t stop me. Now get out of here before Steph chases you out with a broom. Dinner next week?”

“Yeah. Here, I presume.” He grinned, ducking away from the pillow she tossed at him. “I’ll bring something good.”