She slowly lifted her eyes back to his and was immediately caught by the impact of his stare. She sucked in a breath. His eyes held hers. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four--
She lowered her lashes as tension continued to grip her.
There would be repercussions for this knowledge.
The phone was taken from her hand. Renee felt mild hysteria clawing its way up her throat. She leaned against the supply cabinet.
Robert's deep voice intruded into the maelstrom of emotions rushing through her. "What do you want, Jane?" His voice was sharp, punctuated with impatience. His eyes were still on Renee, moving slowing up and down her length. "You'll get the damn check on the first of the month, and not a day before. You have a problem with that, call your lawyer." He ended the call.
Robert turned his full attention back to his new secretary. She was standing still in front of the storage cabinet and looked like she might snap in two. "You thought I was married." It was a statement. "Why?"
Renee was dismayed to be feeling so much confusion. Her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. She tried to form an answer. "When you hired me, Mrs. Argenot said--"
He cut her off. "Let's get one thing straight. I didn't hire you. Mrs. Argenot hired you."
Renee watched him with trepidation. What did he mean by that? Why the distinction? "O-Okay. When sh-she hired me, she explained about your phone calls. Which ones are urgent, and which are n-not." She finished in a rush. "She said you always wanted to know when Mrs. Thibodeaux called."
"Yeah. I like to stay one step ahead of the greedy bitch." As Robert answered, a flash of understanding came to him.
The way Renee had treated him Friday night when he ran into her at the Ninth Street Wine Grotto. The encounter had struck a nerve. He had consumed one too many, and the fierce restraint he always imposed in her presence had slipped a notch.
He remembered feeling a stroke of luck at finding her alone in the bar where she was waiting for her friends to show up. The silkiness of her hair when he reached out and stroked it. The distress on her face when he bought her a drink.
And the accusation in her eyes just before she jumped up and ran from him. Like he was lower than slime. A despicable human being. Like he wanted to have a ménage with her mother. Or make her watch him masturbate in the men's room. Or like he was…married.
Shit.
Two things were clear to him. She couldn't continue to work for him, and he had to have sex with her. In that order.
He had to run her off. Make her leave his employ. And when that was accomplished, she would become the starring attraction in his bed.
He considered the ways he could reach his goal. The situation could blow up into a major catastrophe if he wasn't careful. He could simply terminate her employment. She still had about eight more weeks of her ninety day probation period. He could just tell her it wasn't working out and that would be that. He had that right as her employer. But he wanted it to be her decision. That would make a smoother segue into his bed. A vision of w
hat she would look like, naked, with that blonde hair loose all around her came to him. Wearing those come fuck me heels and nothing else. Blood rushed to his groin. Fuck. He had been in a state of constant arousal for five weeks.
What the hell had Mrs. Argenot been thinking? He never would have hired somebody that looked like her. Never in a million fucking years. He liked to think of himself as a fair and responsible employer. But Jesus Christ, he wasn't a saint. Having her in the same office, having to work with her side by side, and never getting to touch her was never going to work for the long term. Short term was killing him.
The woman was fine, no question about it. She was five or six inches over five feet, and she wore those CFM's all the time. They brought her height up to a very respectable level. She was slender and toned, and the picture of her calf muscles was still in his head from a few moments before. Her hair was long and blonde and came half way down her back, and her face could stop traffic.
She was a femme fatale. A siren. A vamp, a witch. His gut was tied in knots, and there was no way in hell he was moving on with his life before the ink was dried on this deal. He was going to screw her, and the only question was when.
****
A week later, Renee thought she was quietly going insane. The first five weeks of this job had been bad, but the last week had been agony. Her boss snapped at her constantly. He told her she was late when she wasn't. He complained that her work was sloppy, when she knew it was impeccable.
If she didn't need the extra money and benefits so badly, she would have quit and gone back to her old position. They still wanted her. Her old boss called her like clockwork every Monday morning to check up on her and tell her that her job was still hers if she wanted it.
It was a safety net in a highly volatile situation. Things had gotten so bad here that on Monday she had actually hinted to her old boss that it might not be working out. It probably wasn't fair to keep them hanging, but a girl had to think of herself first. God knows she didn't have anybody else to take care of her. Her daughter, Brittany, was in her first year at LSU. College was expensive. Thank goodness, her kid was smart and had won a TOPS award from the state for tuition. But room and board were killing her! Brittany wanted the full college experience and that included living on campus. Renee wanted her to have it since she deserved it for all her hard work, and Renee didn't want her to miss out on what she herself had never gotten to have.
Getting pregnant and having her daughter before the age of twenty had been rough, and the small amount of child support she had received from her ex-husband had been sporadic at best. It had completely dried up the day Brittany graduated from high school. They were on their own now.
Renee heard the click of a door and looked up into the menacing face of Robert Thibodeaux. His impact on her senses was no less disturbing than the first day she met him.
Scratch that. At least then, she thought there was the barrier of a wife to separate them. Now she knew better. She felt like she was tip-toeing around an explosive keg of dynamite.
He stood in the threshold leading to his office, holding a coffee cup in his hand. "What do you call this?" His words were insolent.
"Coffee?" This was how their conversations had gone for the last week. Biting questions. Hesitant, respectful replies. She was handling the situation the only way she knew how. Forty-eight more days. Forty-eight more days. She would beat him at this. But Christ, if she made it through her ninety days, is this how her working life would be? Side-stepping him, trying to ignore the fact he wanted to sleep with her? If she wasn't sure about that before, the night at the Ninth Street Wine Grotto had underlined the fact. He wanted her. But his arrogance was over the top. Was he always such a dick? Or was it just her? She never heard him being anything less than respectful to Mrs. Argenot. What the hell was she setting herself up for? Fighting his lust? Fighting hers?