Weekends Required (Danvers #1)(7)
“Thanks again Liz.” Claire heard the door open down the hall as Liz went into her office. The room held a queen-sized bed in the center with a lovely pale yellow comforter which matched the soothing color of the walls. An antique chest sat at the foot of the bed with a dresser of similar design directly in front of it against the wall. Claire opened a door beside the bathroom and found the closet to be empty. She quickly unpacked and hung her clothing up to avoid further wrinkling. A quick check of her watch showed it was close to noon, and she wondered what time the men would return for lunch. Claire took her vanity bag into the bathroom to freshen up and gave an appreciative sigh.
The bathroom had obviously been upgraded recently and contained a huge, separate, glass enclosed shower and a lovely Jacuzzi bathtub. The floors were white marble, and the walls continued the yellow color of the bedroom. Claire used one of the cloths that had been laid out on the vanity to wash her face and reapplied a light tinted moisturizer along with pale pink lipstick. She released her hair from its clip and attempted to tame it into something tolerable before she put it back up.
Claire accidentally knocked over her vanity bag, the contents of it scattering all over the floor. She smothered a curse under her breath as she leaned over to pick up the mess on the floor and promptly hit her head on the corner of the vanity. Ouch! Claire stood with her hand over the injured area and saw in the mirror that she’d somehow managed to make a small cut. Damn, why must I always be such a klutz? ‘Mishaps’, as she termed them, had plagued her for most of her life. Claire went back in the bedroom to retrieve her purse for the emergency box of band-aids she never left home without. Suddenly, the door at the opposite end of the room opened, and Jason stepped through.
“Claire, I heard a crash. I knocked a couple of times but there was no answer.” She froze as Jason walked into the room. Looking incredible in a pair of well-worn jeans that hugged him in all the right places and a black polo shirt, he was staring at her with a look of impatience on his handsome face. The room that had seemed very large at first now seemed to shrink to almost a suffocating size with Jason in it.
Taken by surprise at his sudden appearance Claire stuttered, “I hit my head and was looking for a Band-Aid.”
“Good lord you have blood on your hand, let me see your head.”
“No, that’s ok Jason, give me a minute and I’ll take care of it.”
“For God's sake Claire, give me the damn thing.” Too startled by his outburst to do anything else, Claire didn’t resist as Jason removed the band-aid from her hand and motioned at her to go ahead of him into the bathroom. Despite the impatience in his words, his hands were gentle as he pushed her hand aside and surveyed the cut. “How in the world did you manage this Claire?”
“I dropped my bag on the floor and was leaning down to pick it up and accidentally hit the vanity corner.”
“It’s already starting to swell and will probably cause a bruise,” replied Jason. He wet another cloth and gently dabbed at the corner of the cut and then removed the band-aid from the package, expertly applying it. “That probably needs antibiotic cream; I’ll ask Liz for some at lunch. Do you feel ok? We can also ask Liz for some painkillers if it’s hurting at all.”
“No, really it’s fine Jason; you didn’t need to bother; I’m used to patching myself up from my mishaps.”
“You have this kind of thing happen a lot?”
“I seem to be quite a magnet for random household accidents, after a while you learn to patch yourself up quickly,” laughed Claire.
Jason suddenly paused and his startling blue eyes stared at her, as though he had never really seen her before. In his mind, Claire was his trusty assistant. Neither pretty nor ugly, she was just always there to take care of anything he needed. To see this different side of her now, to realize that she was actually a beautiful woman was shocking as hell, and he didn’t know how to process it. Trying to gather his thoughts, Jason said, “I don’t think I’ve ever noticed how uh… pretty your hair is. Why do you always wear it up?”
Self-consciously patting her hair down in an effort to tame it, Claire said, “It’s rather hard to control so it’s easier to keep it up.”
“That’s a real shame,” Jason said so quietly she wasn’t even sure if she’d heard him correctly.
Jason bent over and started to pick up the contents of Claire’s make-up bag from the floor. She couldn’t help but admire his long, lean form; and those jeans did things for his butt that should be against the law. She had to fight the urge to slide her hand right down that hot set of buns and give them a squeeze. Suzy would be hyperventilating if she were here to witness this. Claire looked away before she was caught ogling the boss’s butt. She had to stifle a giggle as she imagined the horrified expression on his face if his assistant suddenly gave in to the urge to feel him up.
Jason put the bag on the counter and then put the wash cloth he used in the hamper. He walked back out to the bedroom and towards the adjoining door and looked over his shoulder and said, “Meet me in the hall in five minutes. We will go down for lunch and then work for a few hours this afternoon.”
As the door shut behind Jason, Claire took a deep breath and slowly released it. She quickly returned to the bathroom and put her hair in its usual boring ponytail and sighed. Maybe Suzy is right; it is time for a makeover. How many times could someone wear brown, beige or tan and not turn into a sofa cover eventually?