Page 7 of Hot Nights in Morocco
Freed from his laser-beam scrutiny, I shoot my gaze around the room. Straightaway I’m drawn to a black and white photograph lying in amongst the debris of paperwork on the coffee table. Intrigued, I inch forward to take a closer look.
A small boy of about eight is laughing delightedly for the camera at some undetermined joke, his arms clinging tightly to the torso of the older man next to him. There’s no mistaking the boy’s intense brown eyes nor the pair’s likeness in features, and the love shining forth from the photograph is irrepressible. It makes me ache for a time I don’t remember. Did I ever feel that way about my father?
I stop that train of thought before it takes me to dark, dark places I buried long ago. Taking a step back, I catch Jake staring at me again. His eyes swivel from me to the photograph and his face turns to stone.Shit.I hope he’s not mistaking my expression for pity.
“Are you for real?” he says into the phone. “Listen, you’re a smart girl, I’m sure you can handle it. Oh, for God’s sake. Fine. Tell her I’m on my way.”
Hanging up, he grabs his car keys from his desk and heads for the door. “Come,” he barks at me. It’s a command rather than a request.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“But what if Max needs me?”
There’s a pause as we both digest the unwanted connotations behind my words.
“Call it a baptism of fire—a show-and-tell of some of those rules I was just talking about. Max will understand.”
“But—” I give up. “Fine. Where are we going?”
“Out.”
Jake stalks though the production office and out into the hallway.
Rachel shoots me a puzzled look as I jog after him with a shrug. “Jake, there’s a Lydia on hold for you,” she calls out. “Oh, and a Dee. At least I think that’s what she said her name was.”
“Get rid of them,” he says without turning back.
“Mr. Dalton? Could you please slow down a little?” I’m starting to pant like a dog.
He does so, but only marginally, and as soon as we step outside he’s spinning around to grasp my upper arm, sending a jolt of electricity straight to my core. “Rule number one,” he declares briskly, his face tense with some unreadable emotion. I can feel my bare skin burning beneath his fingertips. “Do not fuck my brother. Or else.”
“Or else what?” I say with a gasp, too shocked to offer up any of my usual antagonism.
Jake’s mouth twists in scorn and—dare I say it?—a touch of disappointment. “Already considered it, have you? How predictable. There’s a reason why your predecessors have flittered away like ashes to the wind, Miss Winters.”
I wrench my arm away from him. Who the hell does he think he is, talking to me like that? “Not that it’s any of your business,Mr. Dalton,but your HR department hired me for my brains and not for any other part of my anatomy. Furthermore, I have no intention of sullying my reputation with Max the manwhore.”
Way to go, Charlie. You just called your new boss a manwhore in front of his brother.
Jake arches his eyebrows at me. “Sullyingyour reputation? What a decadent turn of phrase.” He takes my arm again and hauls me over to a waiting black jeep. “I’m just dying to see how long that moral turpitude lasts around here.”
Chapter Five
“Get in.”
I scowl at Jake’s terseness. I hate people barking orders at me, and he seems to sense it.
He drops my arm and opens the passenger door with an exaggerated flourish. “Would you like to take a seat,Miss Winters?”
I slide in obediently and he slams the door behind me so hard it makes the whole jeep rattle.
Two large men have emerged from the studios and are striding toward a second vehicle parked nearby. I turn to watch as they open their doors and shift sideways into their seats. The sunlight catches the exposed metal of the firearms in their holsters and my heart clenches in fear.
Meanwhile, Jake is vaulting into the driver’s seat, the black leather creaking in protest beneath his large frame. He’s barely three feet away from me and all I can smell is his bloody aftershave again. I focus on the dashboard and try to block him out. I need to get ahold of myself. I feel like I’m tumbling headfirst into a dark-eyed abyss.
“Do you ever do as you’re told?” he rumbles, grabbing the wheel with one hand and smashing the heel of the other against the ignition switch.
