The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss

Angrily, he started the car and drove to the office, to be met by the whole staff the minute he walked in the door. It shouldn’t have surprised him that his employees loved Tess. She was forever doing things for them.

“Will she be all right?” Helen got in first, her big dark eyes worried.

“She’s fine,” he assured them. “Still drowsy from the anesthetic, but there won’t be any impairment. She has to heal.”

“When does she come home?” Helen persisted. “She can stay with me. She’ll need looking after.”

“She’ll stay with me,” he said, shocking all of them, including himself. “I’ll take her down to the ranch. Josе and Beryl can take care of her when I have to be in the office. Did you get a temp for the next week or so?” he asked Helen.

“She’ll be here any minute,” she agreed. “Good typing and dictation speeds and her agency says she’s discreet. No worries about loose lips sinking ships.”

“Good.” His eyes went involuntarily to the desk where Tess worked. It wounded him to see it empty.

“See if you can make any sense out of her appointment book, will you?” he asked irritably, glancing at Helen. “I don’t even know what I have on my calendar today.”

“You’re having lunch with Harvey Barrett,” she reminded him. “That’s on the extortion case. This afternoon you were supposed to see a couple who want you to find their daughter—the Allisons—and a man who wants his wife watched.”

“And this morning?”

She stared at the appointment book and shook her head. “Nothing urgent.”

“Good. I’m going to the apartment to change and then I’ll be at the hospital until lunch.”

Helen frowned. “I thought you said she was okay.”

He moved toward the door without answering. “If there’s anything important, you can reach me in her room.” He gave her the number.

“Okay, boss. Tell her she’s missed.”

He nodded. His mind wasn’t on what was going on around him. It was on Tess.

Chapter Two

TESS MOANED IN HER SLEEP as the pain caught her unawares. She’d been dreaming. Probably about Dane, she thought drowsily. She never dreamed about anyone else. That was almost comical, considering how badly he’d hurt her.

A sound penetrated her semiaware state. She opened her eyes in time to see Dane sitting down in the chair beside the bed.

“What are you doing back?” she asked, her body going rigid. “It’s a workday.”

“I’m working,” he said. “Looking after you.”

The wording brought back unbearable memories of the time that he’d been shot—and what had followed. She closed her eyes on a wave of pain. “Please go away,” she whispered huskily.

He took a slow breath. The anguish in her face made him uneasy. “You don’t have anyone else.”

That was true. Her grandmother had died a year ago.

Her eyes met his, and there was nothing in her face to betray what she really felt. “You’re just my boss, Dane,” she said quietly. “That doesn’t require you to look after me.”

He sat up, his forearms across his knees as he stared at her. “I’ve never asked. Maybe I need to. How much damage did I do that day?”

She flushed and averted her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said stiffly.

“Don’t you?” he asked on a cold laugh. “We’ve waltzed around it for three years. I can’t get near you, even to apologize.”

“Why should you care?” she replied. “You wanted me out of your life. You got it. I wouldn’t come near you now for a handful of diamonds!”

“Me or any other man,” he said out of the blue.

She pulled the sheet closer, her eyes on the window, not on him. “Don’t you have something better to do than bait me?”

“I’m taking you down to the ranch to recuperate.”

She went white. She sat up in bed, her eyes like saucers in a face drained of life.

“Oh, my God, don’t!” he said harshly. “Don’t look like that!”

Her hand trembled on the sheet. “No,” she whispered, choking on the word. “Not in your house, with you. Not ever!”

His eyes closed. He couldn’t bear the way she looked. He got up jerkily and went to the window, lighting a cigarette as he stared out at nothing at all. He drew in a harsh breath of pungent smoke and let it out.

“I didn’t realize you were a virgin,” he said curtly. “Not until it was too late and I’d frightened you half to death. Don’t you think I know why you don’t go out with men?” He turned, pinning her shocked eyes with his. “Don’t you think I care about what I’ve done to you?”

She swallowed, dropping her gaze to her cold, nervous hands on the sheet. “It was a long time ago….”

“It might as well have been yesterday,” he said heavily. “God in heaven, stop pushing me away!”

She flushed. “I haven’t.”

He turned, moving back toward the bed, his face as drawn as her own. He paused beside her. “Tess, I know you’re afraid of me physically. I’d have to be blind not to be aware of it. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want you where you’ll be taken care of until you’re back on your feet again. Beryl will be at the ranch if I’m not.”

“I don’t know Beryl. Helen says I can stay with her….”

“When Helen isn’t at work, she’s at ballet class. If she has any free time at all, she’s eating pizza with her friend Harold. She means well, but you’d be alone most every evening, and all day while she’s at work.”

“I’d be all right by myself.”

He moved closer, hating the way she stiffened. “Listen,” he said through his teeth. “You saw a drug deal go down. You’ll have to testify. The policemen didn’t actually see the drugs being passed, do you understand? You’re the only witness who actually saw them. One man is still loose, and he almost certainly knows who you are by now. Do you get the picture?”

“You can’t mean what I think you do,” she said slowly.

“The hell I can’t! I dealt with this kind of vermin for ten years. I know what lengths they’ll go to. You aren’t going to be safe until they apprehend the second man and bring them both up for trial. I want you where I am, where I can take care of you. When I’m not home, my ranch manager is. He was a ranger back in the forties, and he’s almost as good a shot as I am.”

She put her face in her hands. It was agonizing to have to agree to what he wanted. She’d almost rather have taken her chances with the drug dealers.

“Hate me, if it helps,” he said. “But come with me. Don’t throw your life away.”

She smoothed back her long, disheveled hair. “What kind of a life do I have?” she asked miserably. “Work and television don’t add up to much.”