"You have been?" I repeated dumbly.
"I've been trying to think of a way to bring it up since the funeral, but I didn't know how to say it without scaring you off or offending you," she said as she held my gaze. "But after everything that's happened in the past few weeks, and now that Riley and I are staying here, I thought it was probably time to bring it up."
"I see," I said, feeling the blood rushing away from my brain as I anticipated her next sentence.
"Yeah, I don't know quite how to say this, but Jack…" she hesitated for a moment and then took a deep breath and let it all spill out. "I really need a raise. I'm doing a lot of work in the warehouse and taking on a lot of responsibility and with the fire and my mother and Riley. I need a raise so that I can afford to pay for Riley's tutor and move her into a better school. We need to get our own apartment because it's really nice of your mother to put us up like this, but she can't have two guests living in the house indefinitely. Plus it's kind of weird for an employee to be living with her boss, don't you think?"
I stood staring at her as the words tumbled out in rapid succession, shocked that they weren't what I thought they were going to be.
"Ah, yes," I said to hide my disappointment. "Well, then tomorrow we'll talk about what a fair raise would be. I definitely can't afford to lose you."
"Thank you, Jack," she said, smiling up at me. "I appreciate your understanding and your willingness to
consider my proposal."
"No problem," I nodded as I turned and walked out the door.
"Sweet dreams!" she called as I pulled the door shut behind me. I went back to my room and took a long cold shower, hoping that it would quell the aching need. But as I climbed into bed, I realized that nothing but Leah herself was going to accomplish that.
The image of her pretty face and her curvy body under the nightclothes she wore would not leave my mind, so I lay under the sheet stroking myself. The release gave me enough relief to fall asleep, but my dreams were full of Leah.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Leah
I arrived at the office the next morning, ready to take on the challenge of negotiating a raise and finding out what the next steps would be in the plan to stop Lincoln and Sloan. I checked in with Norma. She said Jack was in his office with the door shut, and she had instructions not to disturb him.
I set to work on the day's orders and double-checked what had gone out the day before.
"Yo, boss lady," Burt teased as I walked through the warehouse inspecting the inventory and making sure the deliveries had been unpacked and stored. "How much longer before the construction crew is done and gone?"
"I'm not sure," I said as I looked down at my clipboard and back up at the stack of diapers on the shelf. "I'll ask when I go to the meeting later, but I'm fairly certain that it's only going to be another week or so."
"Good, the guys and I are getting a little tired of them shoving us out of the way while we're trying to work," Burt said.
"I'll make sure I mention it to Mr. Yates," I replied, being careful to maintain an air of distance from Jack. I didn't want anyone to know I was living at his mother's house, and I especially didn't want them to know that I'd fallen for Jack.
After lunch, Norma called down to tell me that Jack was going to visit the warehouse around four and that he wanted a run down on the status of the new orders along with a summary of the status of everything we had going out this week. I assured her I'd have it all ready for him when he came down.
I spent the rest of the afternoon compiling reports while I fought back the memory of Jack's arms around me and the feeling of his lips on mine. I had no idea how I was going to negotiate a raise while I fantasized about what it would feel like to pull off his shirt and press my naked breasts against his skin.
"Knock it off, Walsh," I muttered to myself as I typed up a summary report. "If you're not careful, you're going to get yourself fired for inappropriate behavior."
I reminded myself that men like Jack didn't fall for poor, Irish girls from the wrong side of the city. Any fantasies of that happening would be relegated to nothing more than my imagination.
But I still held out a sliver of hope that the impossible could become possible.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jack
All afternoon, I'd been making urgent phone calls as I steadily worked to put the pieces in place for the plan to save Baby Steps from destruction. By the time I looked at the clock, I realized I was late for my meeting with Leah.
"Darlin', you need to get a move on," Norma called from the front office. "You were supposed to meet with Leah an hour ago. Oh, and the construction foreman said Leah's office is finished, so you might want to go take a peek at it.
"I know, I know!" I said as I grabbed the folder with her employee file in it. I rushed past her desk without stopping to check my schedule for the rest of the day.
"I'm out of here in a bit. I’m having a party for my granddaughter tonight, and I still need to frost the cake!" she called after me as I headed for the back stairs. "Your schedule is clear!"