“I don’t care what she wants you to deliver. She has feet and a limo at her disposal. She can deliver it herself. Tomorrow I want you here. Who is it that pays your salary, Bell?”

“You do, Mr. Gable.”

“So then it’s rather important that you please me, isn’t it?

“It is.”

“Good girl. Be here at nine thirty a.m.”

The phone goes dead and after a moment I gently place it back in Jessica’s hand. Jessica, who still won’t meet my eyes.

“He wants me to do something for him at HGVB.”

“He wants you to ‘do something for him,’ ” Jessica repeats, spitting out the words.

“Just business,” I assure her. “He won’t touch me, I promise you that.”

Jessica looks up, meets my eyes, and then smiles . . . and then laughs. She laughs so hard that for a moment I worry she’s going to choke.

“It’s ridiculous,” Jessica finally manages. “Ridiculous that you should have to promise me that. Ridiculous that I should have to ask!”

She walks away from me, sits down on the settee. “The Gable men are highly intelligent individuals. My husband was first in his class at Princeton. His father says he could have been a chess master if he had put his mind to it. His brother too . . . although Lander was always more into Scrabble, anagrams, crossword puzzles, things like that. Used to create crossword puzzles too. Three of them were published in the New York Times . . . although none of them made the Sunday paper. These men, their minds absorb information and knowledge like sponges . . . but their hearts . . . nothing gets inside there. Nothing at all.”

I don’t say anything; there’s nothing really to say.

Jessica’s lower lip starts to quiver. “And will you come back, Bell?” she asks. Her voice is soft, almost pleading. “When Travis starts using my assistants—”

“I’m coming back,” I assure her. “I’m not going to be one of those assistants who lasts only a day.”

“You promise?”

“Oh yes,” I say sweetly. “I’m the kind of girl who sees things through.”

chapter fourteen

I surprise Lander by showing up at his doorstep with grocery bags full of food. It’s not that he wasn’t expecting me; it’s that he thought we were going out.

“Why would we do that?” I ask with a laugh as I breeze past him, into the kitchen. “We have everything we need right here.” I start unloading the bags. “I make the most amazing lasagna you’ll ever taste.”

“Lasagna?”

I turn to him with a wide smile and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling myself close to him. “Mexican lasagna. It’s kinda spicy. You think you can handle it?”

He smiles, kisses my forehead. “I can handle anything you can dish out.”