Millionaire Romance: In Love With My Boss - A Contemporary Romance (Millionaire Romance, Contemporary Romance, Comedy Romance Book 1) (6 page)

“My shoes are good. I want to see a waterfall,” a childish urgency entered her voice. She smiled. “Please?” The more she smiled, she more her agitation at Melone seemed to ease. “I’ve never seen one before,” she said at length, searching Andrew’s face.

A chuckled escaped Andrew. “If you say so. It’s not an easy trek though.”

Jennifer rolled her eyes. Now she was starting to feel a bit annoyed. “You said I could choose, right?” Andrew nodded. “I want to see the waterfall.”

With a smirk, Andrew shrugged. “Okay then. It’s about an hour to the Springs and then thirty minutes more to Manitou.” His smile widened. “Ready?”

Jennifer couldn’t keep herself from smiling back. If Andrew wasn’t here, she knew she’d be retouching her hair and nails, eating alone or taking a long bath in her room. She still wasn’t sure how much she liked the tease Andrew seemed to carry in his voice for her, but at the moment, she was grateful for his company, even if she was doing a piss poor job of showing it. She was ready for any distraction to keep her mind off James.

“Sure, I’m ready. As much as I’ll ever be.” Jennifer shouldered her purse and followed Andrew as he led the way to the Charger. They rode the first half of the way in silence. Jennifer tried to keep the angry thoughts of Melone from flooding her mind, but was failing miserably.

She couldn’t understand what made Katie so special that he would drop everything and head to New Jersey. Furthermore, since when had he begun to keep secrets? Jennifer realized from the way her face had started to ache that she was scowling fiercely. She hated falling down this pattern of thinking. Melone was nothing more to herself other than a boss. That’s what she had to remind herself.

Were they close? Yes, but it was a professional close. He didn’t invite her over to his house for happy hour and the two of them sure as well didn’t sip martini’s on Saturdays.

Jennifer took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to spend the whole day being angry at a ghost. She’d never be able to tell James how he made her feel anyway, a thought that threatened to take her back into anger. With effort, she swallowed the feelings and forced another deep breath.

So far along the driver they had listened to old news stations. Jennifer accessed the XM stations for commercial free listening and settled on a smooth dance trance station playing hypnotic beats. It definitely wasn’t her type of music, but perhaps that was exactly what she needed to shake the funk off her attitude.

She tried to dance from the waist up, shaking her shoulders, head and hands to the rhythm flowing through the speakers. She turned towards Andrew and began to shake her head and twirl her ponytail; she tried to see if she could get her hair to smack him in the face. She missed barely. Andrew glanced towards her, trying to stifle a smile.

“Are you a secret raver?”

Jennifer’s eyes brimmed with entertainment. “Just on the weekends.” She lifted her hands, twirling and twisting them in front of her. She thought again about trying to hit Andrew with her pony tail and flipped her hair in his direction. She got him this time and grinned. He frowned.

“You’re distracting me.”

“That’s what all your winking does to me,” she responded in truth. Andrew glanced towards her. Their eyes met and she looked away. Perhaps she should have kept that last part to herself. Jennifer reached for Andrew’s right arm, but it was more like a snatch.

The car swerved dramatically towards the shoulder. She gasped, the shock immediately turning to laughter as she released his arm.

“Oops!”

“You’re crazy,” Andrew said with a half-smile. He checked his mirrors. “You’ll get me pulled over for driving like a drunk person.”

Jennifer relaxed against the seat and took a deep breath. Her mind fluttered to James and Melony, her boss’s longtime friend. From what she knew, Melony was some single mother who knew James from college back when they were both single and ran from serious commitments. She didn’t think anything was likely to happen between the two of them because see appeared to be a bit of a drama case.

Jennifer still wasn’t sure what kept those two in contact; but, knowing James, it was probably the fact that whenever he needed to unplug, he rushed out to the country to Melony. If the roles were switched, Jennifer was sure she wouldn’t likely relinquish the small place in Melone’s life she would have held in Melony’s place either. With another wistful sigh, Jennifer looked towards Andrew. She needed to stop thinking about James Melone.

“What’s your story?” She said, tipping her head towards Andrew.

He glanced towards her after a moment. “You want to talk now?” 

“Well, I figured we should if we plan to spend all day together. I didn’t have much to say on the plane or the first half of this drive,” she shrugged. “Gotta do something to pass the time.”

Andrew held back a scoff. “You’re incredibly rude.” He faced the steering wheel and cleared his throat. “Hope you’re more genial to your boss.”

Jennifer smiled. “He pays me to be.”

After a moment more, Andrew spoke again. “I’m not here to entertain you.” His voice lacked enthusiasm.

Jennifer pursed her lips, but said nothing at first. She turned to look out the window. “You were born in Colorado?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

Andrew’s jaw clicked. “Cascade.”

With a nod, Jennifer looked towards Andrew. His jaw was taut. “Do you remember it?”

A smile brushed his lips. He nodded. “Yeah. I remember a lot about it.” He blinked and swallowed back, keeping his hands on the steering wheel. “What about you? Chicagoan through and through?”

She smiled. “No, actually. Born in Beloit, Wisconsin.” She forced a northern accent that made Andrew laugh. It was a fully belly roar that pulled laughter from deep within Jennifer’s chest.

Jennifer responded at length after her cackles had subsided, “I was so close to Chicago that I made every effort to see it when I could.”

Andrew nodded. “Air shows.”

“The lake.”

“Parades.”

“The big Christmas tree lighting,” they both said in unison. Jennifer chuckled awkwardly.

“You’ve been to it?” Her voice was hopeful.

Andrew offered a weak shrug. “I love Christmas.”

“Me too! Ever do the Taste of Chicago?”

He smiled and nodded. “As soon as I could pay my way,” Andrew turned to Jennifer and smiled. “So how’d you meet Melone?”

His question didn’t evoke the angry feelings thought it might have. With a sigh, Jennifer shrugged.

“At a coffee shop, like I said.”

“Have you always been an assistant?”

Jennifer shifted. No, not always. She had dreams of owning a business one day. Melone was supposed to be a stepping stone, except that she never stepped on to anything else. James had kept offering her more to stay because of her organizational skills. She helped him run more efficiently. He had the brains and the knowledge, yes, but that brain was very cluttered and unorganized.

He could close deals and seal negotiations, but struggled with the follow up of the day to day. Jennifer had helped him sort that out to the point where he could accomplish twice as much as before. As his business grew, so did her job and salary.

Jennifer shrugged off the question and replied solemnly, “Melone was the first real professional I ever worked for.”

“Oh.”

“You know, many women are believed to have better secretarial skills and stuff,” Jennifer glanced towards Andrew. “I did a lot of office management with small startups and logistic companies throughout college.”

“College? Which one? What was your major?”

Jennifer blinked. “It doesn’t matter.”

Laughing, Andrew looked towards her quickly. “Yes, it does.”

“No, it doesn’t!” Jennifer snapped. The techno trance swelled within the Charger in a matter of seconds.

Andrew turned towards the road and took a deep breath. They continued in silence well past the welcoming stone of Colorado Springs. Jennifer pressed her face against the glass, eyeing the Rockies on her right. She shifted in her seat and glanced towards Andrew. He had relaxed considerably since she had raised her voice, but she could tell he was purposefully ignoring her now, taking too much interest in the road signs and other vehicles on the road.

She considered offering an apology but never opened her mouth. Instead, she interested herself with the passing colors of rock.

“Are we almost there?” She asked after he had taken a few more exits. They were coming to a town now where hippies seemed to stroll the blocks with gusto. Interesting.

“Almost.”

More silence. About five minutes later, Andrew circled around a section twice.  

“What are you doing?” Jennifer asked, watching a couple leave their vehicle on the side of the road. There appeared to be shoulder parking, but she could tell it was sparse.

“Looking for a place to park.”

“There’s one,” she pointed through the window and turned to Andrew, a hint of a smile on the corners of her lips.

His eyes trailed the length of her forearm from her fingers to her shoulder. He slowed the vehicle.

“Can you parallel park?” Jennifer asked.

“Do I drive inner city Chicago?”

His tone was flat. He wasn’t joking. Jennifer took a deep breath, and forced herself to control her rolling eyes. Her beef wasn’t with Andrew.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said with effort.

Andrew looked towards her. Their eyes fixed for a moment before he turned his attention to parking. Once he had nestled the Charger between an SUV and a small Prius, he cut the engine.

“Thank you.” He turned to Jennifer and looked her over again. “I don’t know if hiking to the waterfall is a good idea in your thing,” his eyes washed over her body. “It’s really pretty though.”

Jennifer looked down at herself. “What’s wrong with it? I’m pretty athletic. I have a gym membership,” she said quickly.

“It’s a bit of a walk.”

“I can do it,” Jennifer left the car, tucking her purse into the side of the door before she exited. “Where are we going?” She looked around. They had parked on the side of a slope, with a steep hill behind them. She faced towards the hill once she realized that it was the direction other people faced. “Up this hill? Is that it?”

“Well, we do need to get up this hill to start.” Andrew locked the door and pointed towards the hill. He slipped a pack on his back that hugged closely to his skin once he snapped it into place.

“There are two trails over here. One is the Incline, and the other is the Bail Trail. We’ll take that one and then turn off a little ways to get to the waterfall,” he paused. “We can just do the other thing if you want.”

Jennifer began to prance on the tips of her toes as they walked up the hill. “You don’t think I could do it?” She watched Andrew for his reply. No, he didn’t think she could. He looked her over thoughtfully.

 “I think you could with the proper motivation,” he smiled. What exactly did that mean? Jennifer chuckled at his answer and flipped her pony tail.

“I ran track in high school.” That wasn’t entirely true. She was on the team but never actually ran a meet. She was a backup, or at least that’s what the coach told her. He didn’t need to know that though.

“Oh, really?” Andrew arched a brow inquisitively.

“Sure did. Fastest girl too.” That was a flat out lie. Jennifer pulled her eyes from Andrew’s and started stretching her arms across her chest. He chuckled and shook his head.

“Alright, to the waterfall it is.” They took off towards the paved him. Andrew led the way. Apprehension didn’t start to build until fifteen minutes later when her body was already covered in sweat and she was out of breath.

Chapter Seven

View from the Top

30 MINUTES LATER, they stopped yet
again
. They had already turned off the Bail Trial, so coined because it was less strenuous than the actual Incline itself, or at least according to what Andrew had told her. That statement had only pissed her off. From what she could gather, the Bail Trail was still no joke and her calves and thighs burned. Her water bottle was half gone.

Too stubborn to admit Andrew was right, they had continued to press on, even into the wall of brush that she would have classified as a thicket any other day of the week. Today, however, she only wanted to think of it as thick brush. There was no way she could actually survive a hike into a thicket on a mountainside towards a waterfall.

They had crossed many boulders, trees, stumps, and lovely flowers, but Jennifer had barely taken the time to see most of it. Her feet were already aching.

“So how much further do you think it is?” She said in a pant, trying to mask a layer of fear coming over her.  

Andrew turned towards her and placed his hands on his hips. They were beneath a canopy of trees now. It was cool, but the intense altitude climb was giving them both a workout.

“We can turn back if you want,” he said instead.

Jennifer wiped the top of her brow. “That’s not what I asked.”

“No, but you’ve asked me the same question more than five times now.” He chuckled. “I told you it was far.”

“Well, how far is far?” Jennifer looked around them. The trees and silence this deep into nature unsettled her. There were huge ants marching along the bark of multiple trees and she had already stumbled along fluttering moths that nearly made her jump out her skin.

“I don’t know, Jennifer.”

She faced Andrew at the sound of her name. It took ahold of her somewhere, softening her resolve. He smiled at her kindly. She could also see his concern.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jennifer stressed quickly. She wasn’t fine. She felt like her skin was teeming with invisible bugs. Did she like being outdoors? Yes, with cropped lawns, pools, towels, and SPF 70 to get the perfect golden tan, white girls like her cherished.

There wasn’t sun up here. Just bugs, gnats, and other flying things that made her skin crawl. But there was still that waterfall…

“Maybe I just need a moment,” Jennifer said softly. She glanced at her feet. There was nowhere to sit. Figures.