Tempting the New Boss(3)

Her new boss was a little quiet—actually completely silent—but after years of listening to blowhard superiors, in title if nothing else, and seven noisy siblings, quiet was a refreshing change. She decided against trying to start a conversation right off, since he seemed distracted. It gave her an opportunity to study him.

Business casual didn’t begin to describe Talbot’s style. Student casual was more like it. Homeless casual may have even been closer to the truth. The jacket he’d shrugged into on his way out of the office was of a muddy color that had once been tweed but was worn down to a smooth sheen, ill-fitting at that, and his shirt was a simple T-shirt with a slogan on it that she couldn’t quite read. The jeans and tennis shoes completing his outfit were beaten up enough to look chic, but she doubted that was on purpose. He clearly didn’t care what he looked like.

Interesting, then, that the rest of him actually looked quite yummy. Sure, she’d been working nonstop since she passed the bar and hadn’t shared her bed in almost as long as that, but she still recognized attractive when she saw it.

With his overlong curly black hair, dark blue eyes, and inky lashes, Talbot had a distinctly Byronic thing going on, with none of the eccentric or tyrannical undertones her predecessor had hinted at.

Even now, she couldn’t help but notice his long fingers, nails short and blunt, as he rested them against his full lower lip, or the way his chin was slightly squared, making his angular face more than just planes and hollows. His legs, which took up most of the space between the two sides of the limo, were crossed as he leaned toward the window, completely still. What was going on in his head? She thought about his assistant’s surprising last-minute addition to her work responsibilities. He didn’t look the slightest bit ill at ease or awkward.

But most people didn’t sit in absolute silence with a new employee. Small talk might be a nice way to ease into the gentle tutoring that she supposed she should be flattered Marcia wanted her to undertake. So she said, “Horrible weather we’re having, isn’t it? And it’s not even April showers, right? What do October showers bring I wonder. Halloween?”

No slight turn of his head in her direction. No hum. And above all no talk, small or otherwise. It was as if he hadn’t heard, glued to the sight of the bleary city streets, blaring honks punctuated by jarring starts and stops, not just for the limousine, but all the cars around them. An occasional biker veered in and out of traffic for variety, risking his life in the name of whatever package he was delivering.

“I don’t know how they do that,” she tried again, leaving the statement ambiguous so as to prompt the obvious response. Who? Or even You mean bikers?

But again there was nothing. Thinking of her little brother, Joey, who was hard of hearing, among his other issues, she wondered if maybe that was part of Talbot’s problem. Was it possible he had some hearing loss and was hiding it behind his aloof exterior?

“I said I don’t know how they do it. Bikers.” Spoken as loudly as she would to Joey if he wasn’t facing her.

That did the trick. He turned sharply toward her. “Is there some reason why you’re shouting at me?”

“Oh, sorry.” She forced a laugh. “I thought maybe you hadn’t heard me. Just making conversation.”

His phone buzzed with a text, and he glanced at it, then at her. “I thought you were my lawyer.”

“I am.”

“Hmmm.” He pocketed his phone. “Marcia says it’s going to be part of your job to make me more amenable to people and help me with my social skills.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Of which she says I don’t have any.”

She was starting to think maybe the assistant didn’t, either.

One corner of his mouth turned up, a dimple making him look boyish. “Good luck with that,” he murmured.

The limousine stopped, and the driver came around to the curb to get their door. An open umbrella was clutched in his hand, but Talbot walked right by it, long strides in the rain toward the Time-Life Building just beyond the slippery sidewalk.

Camilla clasped her computer bag, accepting the umbrella from the driver with a smile of thanks and, taking care not to slip on her four-inch heels, rushed after Talbot who was already in the grips of the revolving door. He was rustling around in his pockets a few feet from the lobby desk when she caught up to him.

“Forgot your ID?”

He nodded. “Left it at the office. This damn checking in.”

“Let me try something. Can I have your phone?” She tapped out a quick text to Marcia, and a moment later had what she had asked for. She brought the phone to the front desk, slipping her own ID out from the wallet in her computer bag.