Employed by the Boss (Managing the Bosses 7)

Alex smiled and pulled back onto the main road they'd left to get to the deserted little side street. “I told you it would all be okay.” His tone was gentle instead of condescending. “We'll be home soon.”

“I know,” Jamie said and she reached out to take his hand again, watching the light from the streetlights move across his face.

How had she gotten so lucky? She had Alex. And she had Benton and Lillianna. She had Mark and Christine. Her father. She'd gone from a family that hardly gave her the time of day to one that she treasured every minute with. Her hand squeezed Alex’s a little tighter, and she felt him squeeze back. They’d had some new stresses with the birth of the twins, but everything was going to be fine.

Sometimes life really could be perfect.

Chapter 6

“So,” Mark said as he and Christine washed the crumbs off the twins’ hands in preparation for feeding them, even though they would probably get formula all over themselves instead as soon as they were within arms’ reach of it, bottle or no bottle. “I assume you know that I'm Alex's brother Mark, and I know that you're Jamie's sister Christine, but beyond that I don't really know very much.”

Christine looked up from the washcloth she was very patiently trying to capture Lillianna's hand with, and offered him a smile she didn't look like she was entirely certain about.

“That's all there is to know, really,” she said softly.

She didn't sound like the sister Jamie had described to him before. They’d met and chatted once before, but so much had been going on at the time that he hardly remembered it. Although, he could see why Jamie had never let him meet her before the abrupt turnaround that had apparently happened in Christine's attitude. She was gorgeous. A little on the thin side, but filling out a little now, and all that blonde hair... Mark pulled his thoughts away from the direction that they were headed. He wasn't going to hit on Jamie's sister.

As much as he liked Jamie, Christine wasn't the same person, and approaching her in the hopes that she would be was just going to hurt her and frustrate him. That, and Jamie probably wouldn’t approve. So he offered a smile that was friendly instead of flirty, and finished cleaning Benton's hands.

“I'm

going to be opening a country club,” he offered, for something to talk about. “Alex and I just bought the land.”

Christine looked up at him. “That sound like a tough job,” she said. “Isn't there a lot to worry about with a place like that? Management. Profits. Upkeep.”

“It's not going to be easy,” Mark agreed. “The golf course is already in place, but we're going to have to do some renovations to make sure that it's really up to the quality of the rest of the club. And we've got to put in the club house, as well as a vineyard.”

“So when you say country club,” she said, “you mean really upscale.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mark said. “That's where the real money is. You've got to get the rich people to come in and play.”

She laughed a little, very quietly, and Mark kind of wanted to give her a hug. Even when she smiled there was still a kind of sadness that lingered around the edges of her mouth. He wondered if a hug would be considered brotherly or inappropriate, and decided that maybe he should wait a while before making that decision. It wouldn't hurt to get to know her better first.

“What do you do?” Mark asked.

“Nothing, at the moment,” Christine said. “I'm staying with my dad. I guess I kind of help take care of him. But he's pretty much recovered from his surgery now.” She looked down at Lillianna instead of up at him. “I'm going to start looking for a job soon. He's retired; he can't afford to support both of us indefinitely.”

“What kind of jobs are you looking at?”

She scoffed. “Well, that's kind of the question. I don't really have much of a résumé. Most places aren't looking for a woman in her mid-twenties who's never worked a day in her life.”

It was obviously a sore point with her, and Mark kind of wished that he hadn't raised it. Jamie had said something about that he remembered, back when she and her sister had still been fighting. He should have thought of it before he asked.

“Can you answer phones?”

Christine looked up, her eyebrows drawing together. “What?”

Mark sighed and set the cloth he'd been cleaning Benton with back in the sink as he got the bottles out. “I mean, can you answer a phone? Use proper phone etiquette, all that?”

“Yes,” Christine said, still looking at him like she had no idea why he was asking her such a stupid question, and he thought he could see a little bit of the woman who had frustrated Jamie so much.

“We're going to need a secretary at the country club, once we get things up and running. Someone who can answer phones and take appointments. That kind of thing. Basically just manning the front desk. If you're interested, I'd be willing to give you a chance at it. Your sister is the hardest worker I've ever met. Well, aside from Alex. I'm sure that, if you go looking for it, you'll find out that you have the same talent for making sure everyone stays in line and all the gears keep working.”

Christine, who had looked at him wide-eyed when he started making the offer, looked away. “I'm not Jamie,” she said, and there was regret in her voice.

Shit. He'd done it again. “You don't have to be,” Mark said. “What I mean is I'm willing to bet that, if you just tried it, you'd find out that you were really good at working. That kind of stuff is hereditary. Probably. I’m not my brother.” He smiled at her. “I think that you'd be a great addition to my team, and it saves me having to look elsewhere. Besides, you're family. That's what family does. We help each other.”

Even if they'd all spent the first couple decades of their lives fighting like cats and dogs. Mark didn't add that. He didn't think Christine needed to hear it any more than Alex would have if it was his brother on the other end of the conversation.