Something Real (Whiskey Men, #2)(35)

“Give me five minutes. I’ll be right there.”

I grab two cups of coffee and make my way to the conference room. She’s sitting with her hands on the table in front of her. “Thank you,” she says, taking a sip of the warm liquid.

“Tell me about yourself. Why do you want to work here?”

She holds her hands together and says, “I just recently moved to Whiskey Run, and when I saw the ad, I thought I’d be a good fit. I have a lot of the requirements for the job. I worked in the office at a textile plant in Texas. Of course, we made clothes there, so entirely different thing, but I would assume a lot of the assistant work is the same. Like I said, I’m a quick learner.”

Lucas comes in, adjusting his tie. His cheeks are ruddy as he walks into the room. “Hello. I’m Lucas Blaze. It’s nice to meet you.”

Elle sits back in her seat, her eyes wide. There’s no mistaking the fear on her face, but just as quickly it disappears, and she reaches out her hand. “Hello. I’m Elle Grace. It’s nice to meet you.”

Lucas, as if understanding what’s going on, moves so that I’m between him and Elle. “Well, Elle, tell me about yourself.”

She repeats what she told me, but this time she does so even more nervously. Lucas is looking at the resume I slid to him, and when Elle stops talking, he glances up at her. “We require a background check. Is that a problem?”

She looks shocked and then uneasy. She pulls her bag up on her shoulder and stands up. “Unfortunately, that’s not possible. I’m sorry for wasting your time. I should have realized that would be a requirement.”

Lucas remains seated and holds his hands out, palms up. “It’s okay. Sit down, please.”

She is breathless as she sits down. She’s sitting rigidly, looking as if she’s about to run. Lucas and I exchange a look, and I see the decision on his face.

“It looks like you have all the qualifications. You would be working with Lilian here. She would be the one training you. May I ask you why a background check is out of the question?”

She’s still holding tightly on to her bag. “Because I have someone in my past that I don’t want to know where I am.”

Lucas levels her with a stare before nodding his head. “You’re hired. You can start on Monday.”

Elle’s mouth drops, and she stutters, “I’m, uh, hired?”

He nods, all business. “Yes. If you want the job.”

She nods her head. “Yes. Yes, I want the job.”

He smiles. “Good. It’s yours. Lilian, can you please show her where HR is? You know what? After she’s done filling out the paperwork, put it on my desk. I’ll take care of it after she fills it out.”

I nod happily. “Will do, boss.”

“I’ll see you next Monday, Ms. Grace,” he says, but before he can get out the door, Elle stops him.

“I have to ask. Why are you doing this?”

He shrugs off the question, but she’s right in asking it. To some people, this would be considered a problem hiring her. She sounds as if she’s going through some things, and most businesses would not want to take her on knowing that. “You need a job, and Lilian needs some help around here. You can thank her for the job, though. If she didn’t want to hire you, you wouldn’t have made it in here past five minutes. She definitely wouldn’t have brought you coffee.”

I know he’s thinking about the woman I escorted out the other day, but I don’t care. Looking at Elle, I know she’s going to be a good fit here.

“Come on, I’ll show you around the place, and we can pick up the papers from Human Resources.”

I show her around the plant and then take her to Human Resources to pick up a hiring packet. We go back to where her desk is, and I let her sit there to fill out everything. There’s a thousand things I want to ask her, but I don’t. I don’t want to scare her off by being nosy.

It’s almost time to leave when Ford comes back through the door. He stops in front of my desk, and the look he gives me has my whole body reacting. I point to the woman at the other desk. “Lucas hired an assistant. Elle, this is Ford Blaze. Ford, Elle. I’m his assistant,” I explain to her.

She stares wide-eyed at him and gives him a timid wave. “Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”

He nods. “It’s nice to meet you. Welcome aboard.”

He turns back to me. “Ollie has practice tonight, so I’ll be there. Do you need me for anything?”

Looking at him, I’m thinking of earlier, and I can feel my face turn red as I remember basically that I begged him to have sex with me. Hell, I promised him all kinds of things for it. “No, I’ll call you if something comes up. Tell Ollie I’ll see him Thursday for the cupcakes. I haven’t forgotten.”

He chuckles. “Ha, there’s no way he’d let you forget that.”

I nod and watch him disappear into his office. Elle is watching me with a curious glance on her face, but I just smile at her. “Well, I think we’re all done here. You ready to call it a day?”

She nods and follows me out. I watch as she gets into her small hatchback car and drives off. A part of me wants to go back inside where Ford is, but I don’t. Instead, I drive home and try to put some distance between us. After one weekend of being with him, I’ve found that I miss him when I’m not with him. But that’s my problem to deal with.