Employed by the Boss (Managing the Bosses 7)

“Follow me.”

Mark led her through the gate and around to the apartment, propping the door and the gate open so that they wouldn’t have to deal with them while they carried stuff out. The back and forth made talking a little hard, and they mostly worked in silence.

“So,” Erica said when they’d moved most of the stuff out of the apartment and were sitting on the tailgate of the truck for a break, “not to sound like I’m judging, but shouldn’t your brother maybe be helping you here?”

“Alex is at work,” Mark said with a shrug. “He takes a lot of pride in his company, and he’s very hands- on with the running. Jamie practically had to drag him away when they first started dating. It’s gotten better now, and he’s promoted a good guy to Senior Advisor. It will finally take some weight off his shoulders. Getting him to acknowledge that he doesn’t have to spend quite so much time at work is going to be easier said than done, though.”

“Personally,” Erica said, “I think that what he does sounds really boring.” She smiled at him. “I can’t imagine spending all day cooped up in an office hunching over a computer screen. Give me a green under a clear blue sky any day.”

“It’s not so much the office part that I don’t like,” Mark said, “as it is the fact that when I was working for Alex I was putting all my effort into someone else’s creation. He’s my brother, and I love him, but I wanted something of my own, you know?”

Erica leaned back on her hands, tipping her head up to look at the sky. Mark’s eyes followed the line of her throat. “I think everyone does,” she said. “Some people find that in work. Some find it other places. But all of us want to create. It’s part of what makes us human, that urge to bring something into the world that we can be proud of.”

The door to the house opened, and Jamie stepped outside, carrying a glass in each hand. “You guys want some lemonade?”

“That would be fantastic,” Erica said, straightening up again and reaching out a hand. “Thank you so much.”

“I’ll take a glass, too, Jamie. Thanks.”

Jamie handed both glasses over with a smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like a housewife before,” she said.

Mark laughed. “You? A housewife? I don’t think so, Jamie.”

“No? You can’t see it?” She placed both hands on her hips, tipping her head to the side. “Maybe I should be wearing an apron to really strike the point home.”

“If you’re going to go that far, just throw on the ’50s dress and some pearls to go with,” Erica said.

“Vacuum in my high heels?” Jamie suggested, turning her smile on the other woman. “It’s good to see you again, Erica.”

“Likewise.” Erica lifted the lemonade to her lips and took a drink, sighing happily. “Thanks again for the drink.”

“Not a problem,” Jamie said. “Just give a shout if you need anything.” She looked at Mark then, and her expression said that she knew something. Mark was pretty sure just what she’d guessed, and if her half-hidden smile was anything to go by, she approved of the attraction she’d seen between him and Erica. Of course, he could be reading the look entirely wrong, but Jamie had been not-so-subtly interested in how his romantic life was going. It looked like he had the Jamie seal of approval on Erica, at least. He raised his eyebrows at her, motioning to the side with an almost imperceptible tilt of his head. Jamie’s smile widened. Definitely approval. “I’m going to head back inside,” she said. “You two let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do,” Mark said.

She turned and headed back toward the house, and Mark turned to look at Erica, pausing to take a long drink of lemonade before he spoke. She’d been right. It was good.

“Do you create at work?” he asked. “Or through something else?”

“I teach,” Erica said. She drew one leg up so that her foot rested on the edge of the tailgate, wrist resting on her knee. “That’s an act of creation in itself. You may not be building something that you can touch with your hands, but you’re passing on knowledge. Giving someone something that they didn’t have before.”

If Mark hadn’t been kind of enamored with her already, he was sure this conversation would have made it happen. Not only was she gorgeous, but she was incredibly talented, and intelligent in a way that really turned him on.

The only problem was he didn’t know if she felt anything like the same way about him. “I’m glad I can offer a space that lets you create, then,” he said.

She smiled at him.

For just an instant, Mark thought that he saw something more than friendship in that smile, but the moment passed and he wasn’t sure again as she tossed back the rest of her lemonade and slipped off the tailgate to land lightly on the gravel. “Guess it’s time to finish up,” she said. “Should one of us take the glasses into the house?”

Mark hurried to finish his drink. “I can, if you

want,” he said. She handed hers over, and he took it. “Be right back.”

Jamie was in the kitchen with the twins. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps, and Jake lifted his head from his paws for a minute to watch him, then promptly went back to sleep.

“How’s it going out there?” she asked as he set the cups in the sink.

“It’s going,” Mark said. “We’ve got most of the stuff out of the apartment and into the truck, so we should make it out to the club before it gets dark, which will make it easier to unload.”