“I had a phone call that took slightly longer than anticipated,” she said in that cut-glass British accent of hers. “As I said, it won’t happen again.”
“A personal phone call?”
“Yes.” No hesitation this time.
He kept running, his feet hitting the treadmill hard. “About what?”
A slight—so slight that if he hadn’t been watching her closely, he would have missed it—flicker in her steady gaze. “As I said, it was a personal—”
“I don’t give a fuck how personal it was. Tell me what this goddamn phone call was about that it took up twenty minutes of your time, twenty minutes that I am paying you for, don’t forget.”
Phoebe’s stubborn jaw tightened minutely. He may not have been good at reading the subtler emotions in people, but he certainly knew when someone was pissed with him and he could tell that she was pissed with him right now.
A bolt of excitement cut through his anger. Shit, if she thought she could take him on then she was more than welcome to try. He could use a good fight.
“It was the hospital,” she said after a moment, her red-gold lashes briefly veiling her gaze. “Giving me an update on my fiancé’s condition.”
Ah, her fiancé. She’d mentioned him in the job interview three days ago, hadn’t she? The one in a coma. He was the reason she’d come to work for Nero.
How . . . altruistic of her. Not that he gave a damn about her fiancé. What he gave a damn about was the fact that the lead he’d been chasing for months now had turned out to be a dead end, and he was just fucking pissed about it. And to add insult to injury, she’d taken twenty minutes to get his coffee to him and now it would be cold.
“I don’t care what updates you’re getting,” he snapped. “I pay you a lot of money to be instantly available, not to spend your time receiving personal phone calls.”
Her gaze widened fractionally at the annoyance in his tone, which annoyed him further. “What? Is this coming as a fucking surprise to you? It shouldn’t. When I say I want you to be available 24/7, I mean it.”
Again, apart from that minute widening of her gaze, the expression on her face gave him no hint of what she was feeling. “Then, is there a time that the hospital is permitted to call me?” Her voice contained nothing but a mild query.
“No,” Nero said, nettled. “Now go and get me another fucking coffee and this time make it hot.” He turned his attention back to the screens and hit the button on the treadmill that controlled the incline, turning the thing into a goddamn mountain he was running up, because he wasn’t feeling any better.
If anything, he was feeling even angrier.
You wanted a fight, and she’s not giving you one.
He bared his teeth at the journalist on the screen, the sound of his feet pounding on the treadmill drowning out the journalist’s voice.
Yeah, he did want a fight. It had been a while since he’d had an actual person to yell at—not since his last assistant had fled the house in tears. And the guy had been the fifth male assistant who couldn’t deal. Jesus, what was fucking wrong with people these days? Men who weren’t man enough to handle a fight. Women who collapsed like sandcastles at the first hint of anger.
Phoebe would be a good opponent.
Nero turned his head and glanced at the gym doorway where she’d been standing. But it was empty.
Something shifted and tightened in his gut. She was so calm, so contained. Her back was always so straight, and there was never a hair out of place. He’d yelled at her, and she hadn’t collapsed. She’d accepted what he’d said and turned around and walked out to do his bidding.
Fuck. What would it take to get her to lose her cool? He’d like to see what that might be. It wouldn’t help him find another lead, but it would give him something to do with his anger, it would give him a target. And that was better than running endlessly on this fucking treadmill.
The thing in his gut tightened further, an electric thrill. Anticipation.
He reached out and hit the button again, upping the speed, the feral grin on his face deepening. Yeah, time to see what prim little Phoebe Taylor was made of.
Ten minutes later, the sweat pouring off him, the muscles in his legs screaming, the anticipation inside him pulled even tighter as the door opened and Phoebe came in again, another takeout cup in her hand. “Your coffee, Mr. de Santis.”
Nero gestured to a small table near the treadmill. “Put it here.”
She moved immediately, collecting the bagel she’d brought in earlier and carrying it, along with the hot coffee, over to the table. As she bent to put them down, he found his gaze lingering on her hair, all coiled neatly at the nape of her neck by what looked to be a thousand of those damn pins.
His fingers itched with the urge to do the same thing he’d done three days ago, when he’d pulled those pins out and her hair had fallen down around her shoulders, the color of apricots or peaches, or a flaming sunset. It had felt so soft, like raw silk. He liked pretty things, and she wasn’t pretty. But her hair was. Maybe he should make her wear it down and not restricted to that goddamn bun. Christ, he’d love to touch it again . . .
Phoebe straightened and turned to him, politely expectant. “Your coffee, Mr. de Santis. Hot, as per your request. Anything else I can do for you?”
Nero hit the button on the treadmill, slowing it down and getting off it. Pausing, he grabbed the towel hung over one of the treadmill arms and gave his face a cursory wipe before slinging it around his neck. Then he stood there and stared at her.
She looked back at him, her gaze steady.
Fuck, she was so calm, as if nothing would faze her. Not even being told that she couldn’t answer calls from the hospital where her fiancé lay in a coma.
Why? What the fuck was her deal? Would anything faze her? Maybe he’d find out. Sure as hell would be more productive than continually thinking about that goddamn dead-end he’d run into.
Nero gripped the ends of his towel. “You have nothing to say about the fact that I told you that you couldn’t take personal calls?”
“You made it very clear I had to do what you said or else I’d be fired.” Her tone was crisp as an early-winter frost. “I would prefer not to be fired.”
Well, shit, that wasn’t the reaction he wanted.
“You’re not even going to argue with me?” He took a leisurely step toward her, watching her face closely. “Not even one word of protest?”
She didn’t move, apart from the arch of one delicate red-gold brow. “Is there any point?”
There was nothing confrontational in her tone, nothing sarcastic. And yet . . . that brow . . . Was that a challenge? Fuck, he hoped so. He wanted her to challenge him.
He took another couple of steps toward her, narrowing his gaze, studying her face.
The past few days he hadn’t paid much attention to her, too caught up in work shit. And then there had been that lead he’d been trying to follow up. She’d responded to his every request so smoothly and without drama, that he’d been able to concentrate on other things.
But now he was paying attention. Oh, yes, he was.
“Don’t you want to know what’s happening to your fiancé?” he said. “Or do you simply not care?”
Something sparked briefly in her gaze, but what it was he couldn’t tell.
“Of course, I want to know. I would simply like not to be fired more.” The crisp bite in her tone hadn’t lessened, which intrigued him.
He came even closer, prowling up to her, looking down into her eyes. But like she’d been doing for the past couple of minutes, Phoebe only stared calmly back at him, her hands clasped in front of her.
If his nearness bothered her, she gave no sign, betraying absolutely nothing of what she was thinking.
It fascinated him and infuriated him for reasons he didn’t feel like examining.
“How long have you been engaged?” he demanded. “Days? Months? Years?”
Another burst of something he couldn’t read flickered in her gaze. “Is my personal life really a topic for discussion?”
“It is if I say it is.”
That lovely, full bottom lip of hers tightened. “Five years.”
“Five years?” He didn’t hide his surprise. “What’s the point of getting engaged if you’re going to wait five years to get married?”
“We both decided we would like to wait a little bit.” She glanced down at the coffee cup on the table. “Would you like your coffee? You don’t want it to get cold.”
He ignored that. “What happened to him?”
“I’m sorry?” Another arch of that delicate eyebrow. “What happened to who?”
“Your fiancé,” he said. “And don’t pretend you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.”
Phoebe’s lashes lowered a brief second. “He was in a car accident on a business trip.” Her voice was cool and rock steady. “Severe head injury. He’s been in a coma for two years.”
So much for a fight. How could he burn off some of this anger if she wouldn’t give him the target he was looking for? If she just gave him the answers he wanted without even a cursory protest?
Perhaps he needed to be harder. Tougher.