It was an untimely and unpopular attitude, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. He was perversely glad that he was on the step above Jade and she had to tilt her head back in order to speak to him face to face. She might be the boss lady and have the means to buy new trucks, but she wasn’t going to bash his masculinity.
“You’ll have to drive me home.”
“Sure.”
“I’d like to see the office you’ve set up first.” He didn’t budge. She smiled up at him with feigned sweetness. “If this is a convenient time, Mr. Burke.”
He locked eyes with her, sensing that there was an undeclared war of wills going on. Eventually, he stepped aside and waved her into the trailer. To keep the dog from coming inside, he closed the door, then wished he hadn’t. The trailer was too small for two people—at least it seemed that way now that he was alone in it with Jade.
He had never seen her dressed in anything except suitable office attire. She had changed since the town meeting and was now wearing a pair of jeans and a white pullover. If he hadn’t known better, he would never have guessed she had carried a child for nine months. Her thighs and ass were firm and slender. Her belly was flat. Her breasts…
He cleared his throat. “The phone lines will be installed tomorrow.”
“Good,” she said, turning away from her inspection of the desk he had installed. The living area of the trailer had been converted into a compact office. The only items not used for business were a radio and a small portable TV set. “This doesn’t leave you much room to live in.”
“I don’t need much room.”
“Are you sure you won’t reconsider my hiring a secretary for you?”
He shook his head. “If I decide later on that I need one, I’ll let you know.” Her eyes roved beyond him, toward the kitchen and bedroom. “Did you want to check out my bed, too?”
Her eyes sprang quickly to his. He would have bet his next paycheck that a scathing
comment was on the tip of her tongue, but that she thought better of speaking it. She said crisply, “The only thing that interests me is where you’ll be conducting company business.”
There was a limit to Ms. Sperry’s toughness, he decided. It didn’t extend to interplay between the sexes. That’s where her sophistication collapsed like an umbrella. He had observed her interaction with the men at GSS headquarters in New York. She was uncomfortable with double entendres and innuendos. The lady wasn’t a flirt. With her, it was all business, or it was zilch.
He had concluded that she wasn’t married. She had never mentioned an ex, either. One of the young executives at GSS had sidled up to him at the office coffee machine and asked, “Are you screwing Jade?”
Dillon had never approved of locker room braggadocio, especially between strangers. “What possible business is that of yours?”
“I’ve got fifty bucks riding on a bet.”
Dillon calmly took a sip of his steaming coffee while dangerously squinting at the other man. “Tell you what, if you want to talk sex, why don’t you go fuck yourself, then come and tell me how it was.”
Apparently Jade had left a few of her male counterparts frustrated enough to generate speculation about her sexuality. Dillon was rather curious himself about her kid’s father but had refrained from broaching the subject.
“Perhaps we should get another trailer,” she said now in her brisk, businesslike fashion.
“What for?”
“I need an office, too. It would be more convenient to have it here at the site than downtown. Besides, you should have a facility where you can confer with subs, and so on. What do you think? Something large enough to accommodate my desk and a sitting area.”
“It’s your money.”
“I’ll look into it tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
“Well, I guess that’s everything.”
She was at the door, her hand already on the latch, when he stepped around her and blocked her path. “Not quite everything, Jade.”
Reflexively, she took a hasty step back. His sudden movement seemed to have startled her, inordinately so, he thought. She looked almost afraid of him.
“What do you want?”
He couldn’t account for her breathlessness, either. She had all the control. What did she have to fear from him? For the time being, he tabled personal curiosity and addressed the practical matters. “Tell me about Ivan Patchett.”