The Innocent Liar (3 page)

Chapter Five

“Y
ou must be Fiona. So you and I are talking payroll today.”

Fiona reached for Candace’s hand as Jake passed her and headed around behind the desk in the showroom. Fiona liked Jake, at least what she knew of him so far. He was nicer than Eli, that’s for sure, but he was also intent on prying into her life. She’d had to tell more lies in the span of three blocks than she imagined possible. He was interested in her, and while she thought he was likely a decent man, she didn’t need the questions. Not that she hadn’t gotten plenty of that from Eli too.

Eli was only marginally less intimidating to her now than he’d been the day before. He was too assertive, too controlling, and too powerful. He just had that damn continence to him, and she didn’t know what to make of it. In the right hands, he could likely be a great man. But that assured nature in the wrong man could mean trouble. She simply had nothing to gauge him on. He wasn’t easy to read like Jake. Jake was just friendly, a bit eager to know her, but obvious.

Eli, on the other hand, was just as confusing to her now as he had been when he was kicking her out of his office the day before. But he didn’t kick her out today. Of course, she’d nearly fainted on top of him.

Jake waved to her as he turned to leave. He paused at the door to give her one last smile.

“I see Jake’s already taken a liking to ya.” Candace nudged her on the shoulder.

“Doesn’t even know me. We only just met. Besides, mixing work and romance isn’t really a great idea.”

“You’re probably right about that. Should have figured that out before I got involved with the boss man.” She laughed as a knot twisted in Fiona’s stomach.

An uncomfortable topic to say the least, but the thought of Eli and Candace also left Fiona feeling just a bit jealous, or maybe not jealous, but confused. The woman sitting next to her had obviously managed to break Eli’s harsh persona in a way Fiona was apparently incapable of. All Fiona could manage from him was a glare. She
was
jealous, but why the hell should she care? She wasn’t in the market for a man. Not a sweet one like Jake, not an intimidating one like Eli. She needed money, she needed safety, and someday, she needed freedom from the mess her life had become. So why was she struggling to like Candace after that admission?

“What do you think of Eli’s little band of merry men?”

“Can’t say I know any of them well enough to have an opinion.”

“Well, then let me fill you in. Stay away from Chris. He’s married, and even if he weren’t, he’s a dick. The others are all great.”

“And Eli?” She cringed when she asked the question. She didn’t want to sound interested, least of all not when she was asking his girlfriend about him. But she needed to know just who she was dealing with.

“Ah, well, Eli’s…Eli.” Candace was blushing. “Complicated. Hot and cold sometimes. Hard to read. But he’s a stand up guy.”

Fiona nodded but said nothing else.

“So payroll. The bane of my existence. I’m just so glad someone is going to be taking this over for me. I try to help out with some of the administrative stuff for Eli, but hell, it’s hard. My main priority is this showroom. You know, Eli’s designs are highly sought after in these parts. He does commercial furniture for regional businesses and personal custom designs for folks too. He stays far busier than you’d think for our fairly small community. I think the thing is, his designs are rustic without being campy. Everyone’s seen the log furniture that nearly every outdated cabin in the mountains seems to feature, but you’d never see that with Eli’s designs. His work maintains the integrity of our region without being a novelty item.” She started laughing. “Geez! I’ve got my sales girl hat on. Sorry. I mean, you can see by looking around what his style is. Flares of Craftsman, Stickley, hell, even Shaker. Anything earthy and authentic. Light on the stain, if not absent altogether. He hates covering up the natural color of good mahogany or cherry with stain. He’s more apt to leave it natural and finish it with a satin poly. I’m still doing it, aren’t I?”

“Maybe a tad. It’s okay. It’s interesting, and it’s good to know.”

“I just spend so much time here in the showroom. Well, enough woodshop talk, let’s get down to payroll. We pay every two weeks, and our pay period closes every other Friday. I try to get payroll figured and run between the following Monday and Wednesday. If the guys don’t have their checks in their hands by end of day Wednesday, trust me, you’ll hear about it. Our pay period will close this Friday, and I think we’ll go over the basics today, and then I’ll help you through it next week when it’s time to process everything.”

The basics ended up being far more complicated than Fiona anticipated, and by the time she left the showroom, her head was spinning. She’d had to do some fast talking when Candace wanted to enter Fiona’s information into the program they used to run payroll, but she’d managed to avoid it, and by the time she showed back up at the shop, the other men were grabbing their coats and heading out the door.

“Don’t suppose you want to grab a drink?” Jake was looking at her sweetly, and her heart was suddenly thumping.

“Oh…I—”

“I need Fiona to stay for a while.” Eli’s deep voice interrupted her, and the pounding in her chest intensified. She’d wanted to say no to Jake because she didn’t want to be alone with him. Not because she didn’t think he was sweet, but she just didn’t want to go there. Now, her heart was pounding because she was terrified to be alone with a different man, but even as she met his intense dark eyes, her skin flushed and warmed.

“Maybe some other time.” Jake put his hand on her shoulder for a second. It was just a friendly gesture, but the second he did, Fiona watched as Eli’s jaw tensed, his nostrils flared, and his searing gaze turned to a glare.

“Good night, Jake.” She was left standing alone in the shop with Eli watching her at the bottom of the stairs.

The second the door latched, Eli turned from her and headed up toward his office. “Please tell me you’re not going to start fucking my employees.”

“Excuse me?” Intimidation or not, his comment had bunched her panties right up in a knot.

He ignored her response. “Come with me.”

“Yes, sir.” Her tone was rude and sarcastic.

He cocked his head back in her direction and he harrumphed. He waited for her to pass by him into his office to close the door behind her. “I’m serious. My staff is off limits.”

She nearly choked on her tongue as he rounded his desk and sat, but she reined it in quickly. “What I choose to do in my personal life—”

“Is my concern if it involves my staff—the legitimate ones who actually belong here. I don’t need you getting to know anyone here, raising more questions about who the hell you are, adding more lies to the heap you’ve already told. The less interaction you have with anyone on my staff, the better.”

“You’re one to talk.” She muttered the words under her breath, but he certainly didn’t miss the comment.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Didn’t I just spend the afternoon with your girlfriend who you happen to employ?”

He glared at her for a moment. He looked like he wanted to yell, and she forced herself to stare right back at him. He was being inappropriate, and she was likely treading on too thin ice to be goading him, but she was irritated. She’d done nothing wrong whatsoever. She didn’t deserve this.

“It’s none of your business what my relationship with Candace is or is not—”

“And yet you seem to think my personal life is your business!”

“I certainly don’t! Not so far as it doesn’t interfere with my business. I don’t know who the hell you are, where you’re from, what you did to put yourself in whatever situation it is you find yourself currently in, but I’m not going to let you fuck up my company! I may have decided to hire you, but I assure you, it was not in favor to you.”

“You don’t know anything about me, and whatever twisted up bullshit story you want to create is fine, but don’t suppose for a second that I’m some low-life criminal who deserves this kind of treatment.”

“How about you tell me who you are and let me decide for myself?”

Things were getting entirely too heated. He was glaring, she was glaring, and her body was coursing with the need to scream, stomp, and storm her way out of his office.

“I don’t think so.” She did stand then, but when she turned toward the door, he interrupted her march out.

“What is your name?” His voice bellowed out to her, and she spun toward him, too upset to bite her tongue.

Instead of reacting maturely, she approached his desk and bent to stare at him, knowing her cleavage would be hard to miss as she stooped over to his eye level. The second his eyes shifted down to her breasts, she hit back. “Fifi. Fiona. Fucking Bitch for all I care.”

He took his time letting his attention return to her eyes. “Be careful, Fucking Bitch. I can illegally fire you just as easily as I illegally hired you.” His voice was now much quieter. He was threatening her, and he didn’t need to yell to do it.

She swallowed, trying to stow the anger that had most definitely gotten away from her. She took a deep and steadying breath as he watched her. Being humble was not what she wanted to do at the moment, but she forced it painfully. “I’m not your enemy. I’m just a woman in trouble who needs your help.” She waited for something. She didn’t know what to expect, and so she held her breath, waiting.

His focus hadn’t strayed down again, and he simply studied her as she started taking calming breaths.

What she didn’t anticipate happening was him fishing his wallet from his pocket and handing her a twenty dollar bill. “Get yourself a meal tonight. Then perhaps we can keep you standing on your feet tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Wednesday. It’ll be your last day in the shop during the day. I’ll bring you up to speed on my schedule, the invoicing program we use, accounts payable/receivable, and who our larger and more regular clients are. Thursday you’ll need to be here about an hour before we close up shop. Aaron will go over your responsibilities for cleaning, emptying the vacuum bags, and how to keep from hurting yourself on the shop floor. Now get out before I start regretting this decision again.”

Chapter Six

B
y the time Eli left that night, he’d converted the small conference room that sat off his office into an office for Fiona. At the top of the stairs was an open walkway that ran the shortest length of his building and was open down to the shop floor below. His office took up the majority of that side of the upstairs loft, and the room she would be in was connected to his and to the main walkway. The space was a rarely used conference room, and rather than sticking her downstairs in one of the empty rooms under him, he opted instead to keep her close. The wall separating them was glass with a door that opened from his space to hers. He didn’t give a shit if it made her uncomfortable to be so close to him.

His groin tightened when he saw her stepping off the top step to the loft the next morning, and he shook his head in irritation at himself. He wasn’t Chris. Hell, he wasn’t even Jake, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to try to bed the cute little vixen. She was finally wearing a different pair of jeans. Her hair looked clean, and it was long and wavy, cascading down her back. Her skin was still pale, but her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were wide and alert. She took a deep breath as she poked her head in his door.

He ended up spending the morning sitting beside her at her desk as he showed her one application after another on the desktop computer. She was obviously familiar with computers, and she kicked his ass at typing speed by a long shot. When he started reaching for the mouse, fumbling with her hand, she instantly grabbed the top of his.

“How about you let me drive, and stop trying to hold my hand.” Her voice was as sarcastic as it had been the night before, but without the anger they’d both exuded.

He couldn’t stop the chuckle in his throat, and she actually smiled at him. He held his hands up in mock defeat, and she took over. There was little he had to show her more than once. She was a quick learner, and he figured out fast that she knew more about computers than he did.

When Jake popped his head in, Eli once again fantasized about punching the man in the face. Jake didn’t deserve the resentment, and Eli knew it perfectly well.

“You guys want to run to lunch with us?” At least it wasn’t a personal invitation for just Jake and Fiona.

“I’m not hungry. Thanks anyway.”

Eli figured out quickly she was lying when he caught her in the break room fifteen minutes later eating a stale bagel.

“Thought you weren’t hungry?”

“Thought you didn’t want me mingling with your
legitimate
employees.” Well, she’d got him there.

He watched her for a moment, and then he opened his mouth to speak. He closed it again quickly before opening it yet again. “Let me buy you lunch.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have—”

“I’m well aware of what my obligations are, and I’m well aware that feeding you isn’t one of them. Get your coat.”

He walked with her in silence to the square, and they found a table quickly at a small café. She ordered a burger and fries, and he watched her eying other people’s food in anticipation. She really was hungry.

When Candace suddenly walked in, he groaned inwardly. She caught sight of him and Fiona quickly and scooted into the booth next to him. She was sitting entirely too close to him, and he was instantly annoyed with her—nothing new there.

“Well, fancy running into the two of you.” Her focus shifted between he and Fiona, and he could nearly see the jealousy emanating from Candace.

“Is one of the guys covering you for lunch?” He already knew there was little chance of that.

“No. I just locked up, so I could come—”

“Do you think perhaps you should get your food to go, then?”

The unfortunate side effect of fucking his employee was she didn’t always follow his rules because she thought she was above them. She wasn’t, and she knew perfectly well he expected the showroom to be open all day and for her to be there unless one of the guys came down to cover for her. Eli would gladly send someone down, so she could take a lunch break, but the damn thing was, she rarely actually called saying she wanted a lunch break. Instead, she pulled stunts like this that were completely against his poorly written employment manual that she damn well had a copy of. Too bad he didn’t think to include a nepotism clause and then follow it with her.

Candace left quickly after that, never wiping the jealous, hurt look from her face. The guilt Eli felt was minimal, not because he didn’t know he was partly responsible for the mess he’d created by becoming loosely involved with the woman, but because he’d made it clear they weren’t going to be continuing their relationship, and she seemed to be intent on ignoring that fact.

“Are you always so rude to your girlfriend?” Fiona was smirking, and he almost smiled.

“She’s not my girlfriend.” He studied her eyes, but she gave nothing away.

“Maybe you should tell her that.”

He rolled his eyes. “I have—a few times.”

He couldn’t believe how ravenously she devoured her lunch. She looked like a content baby when her plate was empty.

“How old are you?”

“You’re not supposed to ask an employee that.” She was taunting him, but her expression was good-natured.

“Wrong. I’m not supposed to ask an interviewee that question. You’re already hired, and could I actually have you fill out tax forms and an I-9 like I’m supposed to, I’d already know. Your age cannot possibly be that confidential.”

She looked at him for a moment, and he could see her contemplating. “Thirty-ish.”

“Well, I’ll admit I pegged you as younger than that, but thirty-ish doesn’t tell me much. Early thirty-ish, mid thirty-ish or late thirty-ish?”

“Early. I’m guessing you’re mid-ish?”

He nodded. He might actually be late-ish, but seeing as they hadn’t defined the
ish
, he wasn’t going to correct her.

“Have you been married?” Apparently she wasn’t above prying either.

“Yes. Divorced now.”

“Children?”

“No. Why, out of curiosity, are you so interested in asking me personal questions that I’m quite certain you would lie about if I asked you?”

She shrugged. “Just trying to figure out who you are.”

“That’s cute.” His voice was getting that cold edge again. “Here’s what you need to know about me. I’m not a bad person. I am, however, difficult to get along with. I know that, and frankly, I don’t much care. I don’t like liars, and I don’t like feeling like every other word coming out of that cute little mouth of yours is a lie. I’d much prefer you flash those pretty blue eyes at me and refuse to answer than make shit up. I need to trust you in order to hand over my accounts and my payroll to you, and that’s not an easy thing to do when you lie to me. So stop lying.”

She watched him a bit stunned for a moment.

“What’s your name?”

She wasted no time responding. She apparently understood him well. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. You may call me Fiona.” She stood then, pulling a twenty-dollar bill from her pocket and offering it to him.

“You really want to pay for lunch with my money?” He pulled his wallet from his pocket, tossing another twenty on the ticket, and when he stood, he snatched her twenty from her hand. He held it up in front of her face, folded it, and then reached for her hip. He tucked the money into her pocket as she gasped. He pushed deep into her pocket. It was completely unnecessary, and as he let his fingers run over her hip bone and trail along the indentation of her bikini line, her gasp turned into a lurching breath she couldn’t contain. Her fingers gripped his upper arms, and he stilled his hand for a moment before pulling away from her.

He ignored her and his raging hard-on as they walked back to the workshop. She seemed to be a bit speechless herself, and when they pulled the door open, he was met with Jake and the other men. Jake’s easy and natural smile faltered, and Eli felt guilty. Fiona ignored the curious eyes of the men and the hurt look on Jake’s face, and she followed Eli upstairs.

He handed her a stack of notes from bids he’d completed at the end of the week before, and she set to work entering the details into the template he used for formal bids. When his phone rang, he snatched it up quickly. He was looking for pretty much any distraction at all at this point.

“Your new girl there?” It was his father.

Eli’s gaze shifted up to her. “Yeah.”

“Put me through to her.”

“Being a little
Cloak and Dagger
aren’t we?” He transferred the call without waiting for a response, and he settled back in his chair to eavesdrop on her.