With a chorus of cheery goodbyes, they departed—until there remained only silence.
And Gibson Walker.
It was, Chloe knew, the moment of truth.
Some would say, Chloe was sure, that cavorting naked around a room was a moment of truth of sorts.
Perhaps it had been. After all, could whatever came next possibly be worse? As far as she could see, she had two options. She could sneak out, never show her face here again, and take the next plane back to Iowa, admitting defeat before she even got started. Or she could face the man on the other side of the door, swear that she would be a good assistant, and buckle down and live up to her word for the rest of the summer.
Put like that, there wasn’t any choice.
Chloe wanted this summer. She needed this summer. She had turned her own and Dave’s lives upside down for this summer. It was on the order of a spiritual journey, she’d told him.
He hadn’t understood. She supposed she couldn’t really expect him to. But if she really believed what she’d told him, she couldn’t go home.
Not now. Not yet.
Chloe took a deep breath, crossed her fingers, and opened the door.
“I’ve got you a plane reservation,” he told her briskly the minute the door opened. “You leave at six, get into Chicago at nine. There’s an hour layover. You’ll get the last flight to Dubuque and be there by 11:15. You can call someone to pick you up.”
He gave her one quick glance—and not only to see if she was wearing clothes and if her breasts still jiggled. Though he couldn’t help noticing that she was and they weren’t. Then he made himself concentrate on the pile of junk that had been accumulating on his desk for the past twelve years.
It seemed suddenly imperative that he sort through it.
When she didn’t reply, he glanced up again, careful to keep his eyes firmly on her face. Unfortunately that was where her lips were. Damn.
She was looking at him with a worried, woebegone expression on her face.
“I’ll pay for it,” he said impatiently, because he was willing to bet she was worrying about the cost.
“It’s...it’s not that. It’s...I can’t go home.”
“What?” Gib’s brows snapped down. “What do you mean, you can’t go home? Of course you can go home!”
But Chloe Madsen just shook her head adamantly. “No. I can’t. Not until August 15th, anyway.”
“They banished you from Iowa until August 15th?”
Granted, he hadn’t been back to Iowa once in the past dozen years, but it didn’t seem likely they’d instituted quota laws that would prevent people from returning.
“I said I would be back August 15th,” she said as if that were explanation enough.
It wasn’t. “So? They got a phone? Call them and tell them you’ll be back sooner. Call them now and tell them you’ll be back tonight.”
But she only shook her head. “I can’t.”
Gib felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. “Why the hell not?”
Chloe Madsen twisted her fingers. Her gaze flicked just a second in his direction. The blue-violet eyes blinked rapidly.
“Stop that!” Gib snapped.
Her eyes went wide. “Stop what?” She looked baffled.
“Crying. Don’t you dare cry.”
Her chin lifted. “I never cry.”
Gibson snorted a reply. He wasn’t going to argue about it.
“I don’t,” Chloe said firmly, taking his snort in exactly the vein in which it was intended. “Not about jobs, anyway,” she qualified after a moment. She hesitated, then took a deep breath. It made her breasts lift—and settle.
Gib shut his eyes. He turned away, headed for the door, opened it and stood waiting for her to go.
Edith, his office manager, was still sitting at her desk. She looked up now with interest. Gib hoped her being there would encourage Chloe not to continue the discussion.
“I know I made a fool of myself this afternoon,” Chloe said, her voice soft but firm. So much for his hopes. “But when we were talking about the job, Gina and I, I told her I was willing to do whatever an assistant did. And, well, one of the things she said they did was to stand in for models. I...wasn’t thinking. I should have realized you weren’t just setting up and running through. But I thought it was...expected of me. And then when you told me if I didn’t want to do it, to get back on the plane and go home...well, I couldn’t do that, either!”
“Why not?”
She looked at him as if he were crazy. “Because I couldn’t! Not after I’d made such a fuss and—” She stopped, clamped her lips together, didn’t say another word.
“Fuss?” Gib encouraged helpfully. What sort of fuss?
But she didn’t respond. Eventually she said, “Look, it was an honest mistake. I feel like an idiot. I must have looked like an idiot.”
No, she had looked...memorable. He didn’t figure he would forget Chloe Madsen swimming naked around his office as long as he lived. He also didn’t figure she wanted to hear that.
She bit her lip. “I really want to do this. Be your assistant, I mean. Please, don’t hold what I...what I did...against me.” She looked at him beseechingly.
“I don’t hold it against you,” he said roughly. “But you still can’t stay.”
“But you told Gina—”
“No,” he corrected her, “Gina told me. Gina is always telling me what I need to do, and I just sort of let it go in one ear and out the other. I go uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh at appropriate intervals.”
“Well, you obviously should have gone ‘huh-uh’ at one of them,” Chloe said just a little tartly. It was the first bit of spirit he’d seen from her since she’d come out of the dressing room.
“I never thought she’d actually send you!”
“Well, she did. She assured me that you’d agreed. She said you would let me work for you for two months. It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a big deal!”
She looked astonished. “Why?”
The innocence of her query stopped him dead. “Because... because...” Because he didn’t want an assistant like her—an innocent from Iowa, for heaven’s sake! New York was a rough place, a hard place. A person needed to be sophisticated to survive. Chloe would get eaten in a matter of minutes.
“It wouldn’t work,” was all he said.
“You don’t think I can do it! You think I’m incompetent.” Her eyes accused him.
Gib scowled. “I do not! I’m sure you’re very competent—”
“I am.”
“—and I’m sure you’d make a fine assistant—”
“I would.”
“—but I don’t want an assistant!”
“You need one,” Edith said.
Both Gibson and Chloe snapped around to stare at the older woman sitting behind the reception desk. She gave Chloe a little nod and Gibson a benign smile.
“You need one,” she repeated.
“I have...what’s her name...?” He could never remember their names.