“Right.” Cassie nodded, and her eyes narrowed. “And this is all happening in Muskoka. Up north. On an island.”
Another abrupt change of topic that made him a beat late in answering. “Yeah. Next Thursday through Saturday—too close to Christmas?” They’d be back in Toronto just under a week before the holiday. He hoped she didn’t have travel plans. Normal people spent holidays with people they loved. It was the one thing he didn’t really have an argument for.
She ignored the question. “So there will be stars.”
“I guess—assuming it’s clear.”
She stuck her hand out. “It’s a deal.”
Chapter Five
Fifty thousand dollars. Holy…shit. Fifty grand was enough to justify a non-pasta curse. Cassie couldn’t stop replaying that evening as she prepared garnishes the next night at Edward’s. The trip, his bombshell revelation of dyscalculia, the fact that she was going to help him. But mostly the crazy surge of electricity between them when they shook hands on the deal. He’d been in her apartment for nearly thirty minutes before that handshake, enough time for her body to tune in to his every move. It started in earnest when she was mixing his second drink. When he’d told her about the dyscalculia, it felt like she was getting her first glimpse of something real about him—something about who he was, not just what he did or how much money he had. She’d had to stop in her tracks and take a sustaining breath, because in a split second she’d gone from wary over having a near stranger in her apartment to desperately wanting that near stranger to throw her down on the bed and have his way with her. So by the time they’d finally touched, even a simple handshake had the power to set off a five-alarm fire inside her.
A fire that had been doused when the handshake was followed by a speech about how they had to keep things professional. How he didn’t screw around with employees. He didn’t do relationships at all, actually, he’d said. And he was right. It wasn’t a good idea to spend their working relationship sneaking off into alleys—or forests, or whatever the Muskoka equivalent was. Still, she’d be lying if she didn’t cop to a tiny bit of disappointment. He didn’t screw around with employees. Yet she got the feeling that Jack Winter did whatever the heck he wanted to do.
And if he “didn’t screw around with employees,” it meant he was done with her. Her cheeks heated. Had he not liked what he…encountered last time? Ugh. It didn’t bear thinking about because all that would happen is she would die from embarrassment. Meanwhile, there were limes to zest. And fifty thousand dollars to earn.
The ping of an incoming text drew her attention, and she leaned over to eyeball her phone.
Getting you business cards. Don’t know your last name.
Ha! Just went to show how foolhardy this whole venture was. She dried her hands on a towel before picking up her phone.
James.
The return text pinged back immediately.
You want to be “Cassie?” Is it short for anything?
Cassidy.
As in Butch and the Sundance Kid?
As in David Cassidy.
???
She paused. Well, it’s not like it was a secret. As if anything about Laura could ever be kept discreet anyway, even if she’d wanted to.
Partridge Family. That’s what happens when you’re the spawn of a woman who was a tween in the 70s.
OK, Cassidy James, senior director of finance, I’ll stop by the bar tonight so we can begin plotting.
Well, it’s not like she could tell him not to come. He was sort of her boss now, right?
Great, but my best friend is going to be here too.
She paused, trying to think what to say about Danny. It was almost as bad as trying to explain Laura. Well, he’d find out soon enough anyway.
But only early on—he’ll want to go out later.
He?
Gay.
Gah! She’d pressed send before she could think better of it. How stupid was she? It’s not like Jack was jealous, so why was she rushing to assure him that Danny was gay?
Limes! Zesting! And if there was time before the bar got busy, she’d brought along some of her old accounting textbooks—before she’d settled on the actuary thing, she’d thought maybe accounting was the way to go, so she’d taken a few classes. To Jack it might be all numbers, but just because she was good at trigonometry didn’t mean she knew the first thing about his world of corporate balance sheets and high finance.
…
It was funny to think of Cassie as a person with friends. A stupid sentiment, Jack realized, but in his encounters with her she’d seemed so…self-contained. Whether she was standing in the center of the large bar at Edward’s or in the middle of her tiny apartment—or against a brick wall while he put his hands all over her—she seemed like a universe unto herself.