Instead of going downstairs to Sable Concierge’s offices via her apartment overhead, the next morning Isabella drove to Elijah Crane’s warehouse downtown. The building featured its own parking area, fenced and locked. Reese had given her the passcode—a passcode that didn’t work as he’d predicted.
“He changes it all the time,” he’d told her when she’d stopped by the Crane Hotel yesterday to pick up a key. “You can bypass it with this. He knows you’re coming.”
She locked the gate behind her and let herself into the warehouse. Eli lived upstairs, and the downstairs was empty, a huge sprawling area not set up for anything in particular. Shame. It was a great space.
Shaking the early autumn rain from her coat, Isa ran a hand through her hair and pressed a button on the freight elevator to Eli’s lair. Upstairs, she slid open a heavy, metal elevator door and stepped inside, shutting it behind her. No doubt Eli was aware of her entrance. The metal scrape had echoed off high ceilings and tall windows she had no idea how he kept clean. They were, though. Rain pattered the cobweb-free panes as she stepped into the apartment, her mouth gaping in awe. She’d never seen anything like this place.
Stylish exposed brick walls dotted with windows; concrete floors with rugs separating rooms. A long, wooden table encircled by mismatched cloth chairs took up most of the dining room. A leather couch, chair, and coffee table (no TV) marked the living room area. Fat concrete pillars were interspersed with a few dividing walls—like the one hiding the area behind the dining room table. A bed peeked around a doorway at the end of the corridor, and a room she guessed was a bathroom bisected the hall. To her right was the kitchen, divided by a long countertop and a half wall over the sink.
“Don’t get comfortable,” came a low, male warning from behind the wall that must be hiding Eli’s office.
Heels clicking, then muting when she stepped onto the rug, Isa made her way into the bowels of Eli’s sanctuary, her heart hammering. She wasn’t typically the nervous type, but the dim light inside the warehouse and somber rain pecking the windows gave the space an eerie quality. As she paced closer to the room where the voice had come from, she heard the distinct crackle of a fire.
In the air there was a different kind of crackle entirely, a low buzz of premonition in her bones.
She’d owned her confidence on the phone with Reese, but now that the air in Eli’s home was pressing down on her, she was less sure of her promise to reform the middle Crane brother. Standing in Eli’s hallway was like hovering at the mouth of a cave where a hibernating grizzly bear hid. And she was unarmed.
But you are armed, she reminded herself. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Reese she could handle this situation. As a woman who had walked away from her family’s money, expectations, and the man they’d chosen for her, Isabella Sawyer was nothing if not capable of overcoming challenge.
She was a woman who’d branched out on her own and had taken control of her life, without her family’s blessing. One surly ex-soldier with a chip on his shoulder wasn’t going to scare her away.
Squaring her shoulders, she stepped around the wall to find no door separating her from Eli’s office space. The dark-haired man in question jotted notes on a paper, his head down, a lamp on his desk lighting his way. In the dim glow, she made out the edge of a beard and a trail of tattoos decorating one arm. Squinting didn’t help her discern the inky images.
Without looking up, he spoke again. “You can leave.”
Bite me, Crane.
She was tempted to say it aloud, but she wasn’t positive he wouldn’t bite her. In his case, his bite could be worse than his bark, and his bark was downright intimidating. It wouldn’t be the first time Isa had stood up to a man who believed he held the cards, but she was playing a long game. Best not to push too hard just yet.
She stepped into his office and introduced herself. Or, well, the version of herself she wanted him to know.
“Hello, Mr. Crane. My name is Isabella. Sable Concierge sent me to serve as your personal helper. I’ve already been brought up to date by your brother about Crane Hotels’s latest—”
“Isabella.” He tossed the pen onto his desk. Lifted his head and met her eyes.
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, the remainder of her speech glued to it. Dark hair ruffled like he’d repeatedly pushed his fingers through it, an equally dark, thick beard lining a strong jaw, Eli Crane commanded attention. Deep blue eyes narrowed as he tracked down to her stilettos and up her professional—and, yes, a little tight at the thighs—dress she’d worn for this appointment. There was nothing overtly sexual about the dress, but no matter what she wore, her curves tested the limits of the seams. She was a woman and refused to hide her femininity—or mute it—especially for this man.
He shifted at the desk, pushing one palm into the wood, and his tattoos flexed, his muscles shifting temptingly.
Lord have mercy.
The crackle in the air this time wasn’t a buzz of warning but of something else. Something heavy and weighted.
Unwanted attraction.
The kind you feel for a man when you know that you shouldn’t. The kind packaged to be tempting, but when you get close, learn that the enticing beauty is laced with deadly poison.
The feeling was so strong, the pull so palpable, Isa struggled not to advance a step.
“No,” he said.
“No what?” She tightened her grip on her Kate Spade tote, wedging her heels to the floor.
“No to Isabella. Too ornamental.” His lip curled with what appeared to be disgust and she tamped down the temptation to be offended. This was his game. She wasn’t going to play. “Can’t you go by something else?”
“Most people call me Isa.”
He hummed. The rough and tumble sound snagged her chest and her heartbeat kicked up a few notches.
This was awful. Just awful. Attraction to the wrong man had happened to her twice in her life. Once with her second boyfriend, to whom she’d bequeathed her virginity, and once with the man her parents had picked for her, who had turned out to be king of the jackasses. Twice she’d lived to regret following her hormones. She’d make no such mistake a third time. Especially with her business on the line.
“As I was saying, Mr. Crane.”
“Elijah.”
“Elijah,” she corrected, forcing a smile.
“No…” His eyebrows lowered and he cocked his head in thought. “Go back to Mr. Crane.”
He was pushing her. She was supposed to react. Lash out. Start arguing. This was his pattern. A few more pokes and he’d expect her to turn and run out crying or shouting how she’d never return.
Too bad, buddy.
“Very well.” She straightened her shoulders and tried again. “Mr. Crane. So, your brother tells me—”
“What if I call you Izzie?”
“Pardon?”
“Nah, that’s no good. Oh.” He snapped his fingers. “Bella.”
“Absolutely not,” she clipped, letting her control waver. Her ex had called her Bella and she’d hated it.
“No, you’re right.” Eli’s mouth pulled into a frown. “That’s worse. I don’t like any of the short names for Isabella. What if I call you…” He snaked a gaze over her dress, which was professional and a respectable length. His trickling assessment made her feel as if she wore next to nothing. “Bettie Page?”
He leaned back in his chair, his shirt molding to a very fit chest. “You sure you’re from Sable Concierge? Not a call girl service?”
“Mr. Crane.” Her voice held an authority demanding respect. Enough was enough. She refused to let him bully her, whether the air snapped with wayward attraction or not. Whether he thought she was a lowly PA or not. She was not his plaything. And her choice of dress, no matter how evocative this male chauvinist found it, was nothing to be ashamed of. “I will not allow…”
He pushed to standing, up, up until he loomed, and then he took one heavy step toward her, then another. He favored the leg with the prosthesis, clad in a shoe to match his other one, the metal-colored leg peeking out from a tear in his jeans.
“I changed my mind, Bettie.” He tilted his head to one side, a rogue gleam in his eyes as he stared her down. “You can call me Eli.”
* * *
This one promised to be fun.
Sable Concierge had sent over an assistant who was not only female, she was sex in stilettos. The second he laid eyes on her, half of him expected her to tear off her glasses, pull her hair down, and give him a lap dance. Only she wasn’t wearing glasses, and her hair was already down.
Dark, nearly black locks flowed over her shoulders in thick waves. Her eyes were fringed with jet-black lashes, and even slitted with disgust, they were more of a whiskey hue than flat brown. Her curves didn’t stop at her shoulders. The cream-colored dress she wore hugged every hairpin turn on her body, and hers was a body made for hugging.
Reese. That son of a bitch. He had to have known what he was doing when he had them send this assistant in particular. Eli shook his head. Low blow, brother.
“Listen, sweetheart—”
“Eli, you will respect me while I’m working for you. You’ve done a decent job of disrespecting my coworkers, and I will not suffer their same fate.” She jutted her chin forward, pinning him with those whiskey eyes again. “I’m accustomed to being underestimated because I’m a woman.”
Yeah, he’d noticed the woman part.
“I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of being undermined.” She sent a glance down at his prosthetic leg and snapped it back to his face.
Confident. It was the only word that flitted through his startled brain. He looked deeper, beyond the high cheekbones, fantastic rack, and manicured eyebrows. Worry lines bisected her eyebrows, suggesting she wasn’t bulletproof. She was a woman who fretted regardless of what she wanted him to believe. Over her work? Her home life? His eyes snapped to her full, red mouth, and he noted a small silver scar at one corner.
“I don’t give anyone the opportunity to underestimate me,” he answered, yet his thoughts returned to his family and the way they were trying to take over his life. Trying to force him into a mold of their making. Well meaning, maybe, but facts were facts.
“That’s a luxury I’ve never been afforded, I’m afraid. I’m often underestimated before I open my mouth, as you’ve aptly proven.”
Between them, the air hung thick with challenge, neither of them willing to back down first. She’d rendered him speechless. Eli sucked his tongue against his teeth. Isabella Sawyer was complex. Just what he didn’t need in his life. A complex, confident woman who challenged him.
“Do you have another desk?” she asked, eyebrows lifted, her hand wrapped around a gargantuan orange leather tote.
“I already told you to go.” He didn’t like to repeat himself.
“Very well. I’ll work at the dining room table,” she said. Before he could repeat himself a third time, her ass was wiggling away from him, one hand rising to flip her hair. Over her shoulder, she slid him a thick-lashed glare.
As he’d played up his limp, Isabella was playing up that lithe wiggle.
Eli couldn’t help but think that he’d just met his match.
* * *
Isa didn’t feel the confidence she portrayed as she swished away from Eli en route to his dining room table, but fake it till you make it had become her motto when she’d started her business three years ago in her apartment’s living room.
Old habits died hard.
The endgame was Sable Concierge earning a gold seal from the Cranes, but she’d be damned if she would allow another man to slot her into the category of brainless bimbo. She had a bark and a bite and wasn’t afraid to use either.
Her company was born of the deep-seated desire not to climb the financial corporate ladder her family had so wanted her to scale. She’d named the company after herself, after writing Isabella Sawyer on a napkin in a coffee shop and trying to come up with a combination of letters that sounded both approachable and professional.
Sable won.
She’d started out with one employee: herself. After working nearly ten years for her parents’ financial firm from the tender age of eighteen, Isa had learned plenty about what it took to be a good PA. She was organized, had a good memory, and knew the fastest way to execute any task. Her favorite part of buzzing around Sawyer Financial Group had been taking the stress from the executives’ shoulders and granting them a moment of relief. She was good at what she did. She loved what she did.
And it had never been enough for her parents.
No, her father, Hugh, and mother, Helena, insisted Isa follow in their footsteps. For too many years, Isa kept quiet as they promoted her from assistant to manager. She’d stopped short of being brought into the upper echelon when her soul couldn’t take any more pressure. The financial business was dry as toast. Numbers on spreadsheets and thirty-page forms filled with lawyer-speak so boring Isa’s eyes had glazed over.
She’d hated it.
By her twenty-eighth birthday, she dreamt of a business where she could go back to doing what she loved: organizing everyone else’s busy day onto a tidy planner page and executing tasks by checking off lists. She knew she was overqualified for a starting assistant position, and so her company was born. After a short while she’d grown from one to ten employees, then fifteen, now thirty-two.
She was doing what she loved, owned a business she loved, and there was absolutely no way she’d allow beastly, sexist Elijah Crane to inhibit her success.
An hour later, her planner in hand, she straightened her shoulders and walked back to Eli’s office. Since there wasn’t a door, she rapped on the wall instead. The rainy day cast muted light over the room, which, save the desk lamp and dying fire, was the only light in the room.
“Elijah, I have a few questions for you.”
“It’s Eli, and I’m busy,” he said, not looking in her direction. His face was lit by his laptop’s screen, turned at an angle so she couldn’t see what he was doing. In the reflection of a pair of black-framed glasses, she saw what looked like an e-mail.
He finally frowned up at her when she walked in, grabbed a chair from the other side of the room, and dragged it—damn, it was heavy—to the front of his desk. She sat, crossing one leg over the other and readied her pen over her planner page.
“First item,” she read. “Reese requests your attendance at the board meeting tomorrow afternoon at the Crane.”
“Are you hard of hearing, Bettie?”
“It’s Isabella, or Isa as you prefer, and, no, I’m not.”
His scowl deepened.
“Will you be attending?” she asked.
“No. I will not be attending. Get out of my office.” He tore his glasses off and dropped them on the keyboard.
“Very well.” She struck through the item with a line. “I said I’d phone in with your responses. I assume you ignored my e-mail.”
“I hate e-mail.”
“You’re replying to one now.”
He blinked. Isa swallowed a smile. This man had no idea who he was dealing with and she sort of loved it.
“I kept the e-mail short and sweet, Eli. You can finish it in ten minutes even with that blunt-fingered, caveman-style, hunt-and-peck typing method you seem to favor.” She made a show of checking off the task box on her planner page. “Next: lunch. Will you be ordering out, or do you have special dietary restrictions?”
“I can feed myself, Bettie. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“It’s Isa,” she corrected calmly. “And feeding you is now part of my job. Not literally, of course. I trust you can maneuver a fork to your mouth if you can move around on a prosthesis.”
He blinked again. She’d been testing him. She’d bet none of her employees had spoken of his injuries or prosthetic leg so garishly. But if he insisted on being blunt with her, she figured turnabout was fair play. Especially since he was content to insult her.
“I don’t like Isa,” he snarled.
“Well, then call me Isabella.”
“What if I don’t like Isabella?”
“Then you are welcome to call me Ms. Sawyer, but it’s rather formal, don’t you think? I’d feel enticed to call you Mr. Crane.”
“Mr. Crane is my father.” Eli crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair. The stance could have appeared relaxed if every muscle in his upper half wasn’t flexed.
“Then I suggest you find a suitable name to call me so I don’t accidentally age you thirty-five years.”
His mouth compressed into a line, but a spark lit his eyes as if he were enjoying the banter. The dark blue flashed with a heat that consumed the room and stole her cheeks. She swallowed thickly, licking her bottom lip as she recrossed her legs. Rather than watch him, she pretended to write in her planner. She was enjoying the banter, too. Her knees weren’t as strong as she’d like.
“Sable,” she said, clearing her throat of the awareness that’d pooled there.
“Say again?” His handsome face contorted.
She lifted her head. “Like my company. That…I work for,” she tacked on. “You can call me Sable if you don’t prefer Isa or Isabella.” It was her nickname after all.
“Sable,” he muttered, and the heated air between them intensified. Eli’s low voice raked along her spine, sending a zap of electricity to her brain stem. In spite of not wanting to feel anything for him, she felt all sorts of confusing things.
Intrigue.
Curiosity.
Want.
“There you go.” She flashed him a quick smile, then went back to her list, ticking off three more boxes before she stood and moved for the exit. “I’ll order for you, then. No preferences on what you eat?”
“No meat unless it’s seafood,” he said.
“You’re a vegetarian?” It was out of her mouth before she’d thought about saying it. She never would have guessed Eli, clearly a man’s man, didn’t eat meat. Now who’s being sexist?
“Sort of.”
“Very well. I’ll let you know when it arrives.” She gave him a curt nod and turned to leave the room, mindful of each step she took and wondering if he watched her as she left.
* * *
For the second time today, Eli watched his assistant’s ass sway and wondered at the chutzpah of this woman. Didn’t she know who she was dealing with? It wasn’t often, if ever, he trotted out his family crest to remind people to respect him, but maybe the reminder was overdue.
“Sable” behaved as if she had little to no respect for his billions in the bank, or maybe she’d worked for so many billionaires in the past, she was bored rather than impressed.
Not that he wanted to impress her.
She’d knocked him off center for sure, and there was no denying that the palpable snap of attraction in the air was as inconvenient as it was enthralling. Eli Crane wasn’t easily enthralled.
She’d succeeded at getting him to fill out the e-mail for a conference call she’d handle later. For the first few minutes, he pecked away with a childlike scowl on his face, answering carefully and succinctly, before deciding he was behaving a tad melodramatically.
Reese would be thrilled at the participation, and his assistant was right—filling out her requests wasn’t time-consuming. Still, Eli wasn’t stepping into COO until he was ready—no matter how many tasks Isabella Sawyer conned him into doing.
He clicked SEND and leaned back in his chair, arms over his chest, mind lost in thought on the upcoming boardroom meeting.
Until a samurai sword blade sliced down his back.
He barely contained a surprised bleat, swallowing down the pain and putting both hands on the arms of his chair to ride it out. It would pass. It’d always passed before.
He counted to three, then back to one, then up to three again. A few low and slow breaths later, the spasm relaxed enough that he no longer saw spots. Used to be the phantom pains, tingles, and stabbing needles came from the part of his right leg he no longer had, but that had since ceased. He’d noticed back pain more and more often lately. He swiped his hand over his brow to find sweat beading there.
God. He hoped this wasn’t a new thing. Or, worse, that the phantom pains were planning to return for an encore.
“Stupid fucking chair.” He pushed himself up and rolled the chair several feet away from the desk. He walked across the room, stopping halfway to prop a hand on the wall and take another breath. The elevator door screeched open. Lunch delivery, he assumed. Sable was nothing less than efficient. She’d insisted on ordering lunch and he had no doubt she’d marched out there and checked it off her planner right away.
He hobbled from his office, straightening his back as he clenched his jaw. He’d made it a habit to limp around the other PAs like Frankenstein’s monster, but with Isa he sensed it was more like being the lame antelope in a lioness’s sights.
A wave of admiration crashed over him in spite of himself. She was seriously underutilized as an assistant. She should be someone’s boss. And not mine, he thought with a frown.
Eli arrived at the table as Isa returned with a bag of takeout.
“You’re making a face,” she said. “Do you not like Indian food?”
“I like all food.”
“Except for meat unless it’s seafood.”
“Right.” She didn’t ask him to expound and he was glad. He was sick to death of qualifying his preferences since his unwelcome trip home.
Honorably discharged was a shitty way to say goodbye.
“Do you eat a lot of takeout?” Her tone was conversational as she unloaded foam containers and plastic ware. “I do. Too much. Probably I should cook more, but I’m so busy at work.” She paused to send him a glance as she folded the paper bag neatly. “Lots of people need assistants.”
He didn’t respond.
Her full lips pursed as she set the bag aside. He watched as she stacked her sleek laptop, planner, and phone and pushed them to the side. Her pen rested flush against the stack. It was like watching a live-action game of Tetris.
“You do this a lot?” he asked before he thought about it. He was supposed to be running her off, not conversing.
“Do what?” When she tilted her head, her long, dark hair hung at her side like a drawn curtain. He was momentarily blinded by how damn gorgeous she was. He blinked out of his stupor and waved a hand in her general direction. “Assist.”
“Oh, of course.” She opened the lid to her food and handed him a plastic fork.
A tantalizing, spicy scent curled into his nostrils and his mouth watered.
“This is my job, after all. I’m well versed in how to serve,” she said.
Seemed an odd choice for someone who was so damned bossy. But maybe that was her specialty. Bossing around her boss.
“Well, this can be your last day. I don’t need your help.” He dug a fork into his food and scooped up a bite. Holy hell, it was like having a mouthful of fire ants. Sweat coated his forehead anew as tears pricked his eyes.
“I should have warned you, I had them make both our entrees the same heat level.” She took a dainty bite and chewed, not reacting to the hellfire the way he had. “Today isn’t my last day, Eli, but if you’d like, I can finish up after lunch. I have another assignment that needs my attention.”
Mouth the temperature of Hades, he reached for the water bottles on the table, knocking one over to get to the other. By the time he’d drained one and caught his breath, Isa had finished half her food and was pecking into her phone at the same time.
“What’s it going to take to get you out of here?” he croaked, cracking the lid on the other bottle.
She finished typing on her phone, shut off the screen, and set it aside. Before she answered, she ran a tongue over her teeth, pushing her lips out and making him curious if they tingled the way his did.
He hadn’t lusted after a woman since the last woman he’d lived with. Clearly he needed to have a conversation with his dick, because this was not the one to start with.
“Start by telling me what had you cursing and grunting earlier. Did you hurt yourself?” She cocked her head.
“No,” he lied.
Her eyebrows jumped briefly. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m not your nurse.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“You don’t answer any of mine.”
“Dammit, Sable.”
Her nickname suited her. It was exotic like her eyes and matched the deep brown of her hair. Her steady gaze reminded him of the spice in the food. She was almost too hot for him to handle.
“Forget it.” Rather than continue to argue, he pushed himself from the table and stalked back to his office, fists balled at his sides in frustration. Having a woman here—sharing a meal with her—reminded him of a time he couldn’t get back. A time in his life when he’d opened up, but it hadn’t been enough. The one time when everything blew up in his face.
In his office, he glanced down at his leg in consideration.
Correction. Twice.
Twice now life had blown up in his face.