Page 67 of The Confidentiality Clause
“They wouldn’t be stealing your clients. You’d be their boss. You could give them some lower-profile clients to help with your workload. Didn’t you say something about college athletes? You could give them all of those.”
I’ve briefly considered hiring someone in the past. But the idea of handing my clients off to someone else is nerve-wracking. No one can do things the way I can. I get to know all my clients personally, and make sure they’re taken care of. How could I trust someone else to do the same?
I wave a hand. “I don’t have time to train someone.”
Ariel rolls her eyes. “That’s the exact reason why you should. Or have Marie do it. I’m sure she knows what needs to be done. You had to train her, right? I think it’s worth at least considering.”
I rake a hand through my hair. Not gonna happen.
“I’ll consider it,” I say to appease her.
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. Her eyes rove over my face. I feel exposed and wonder what she sees when she looks at me. “I know you won’t, but you should. I bet Shaw would help you vet people too. He would know what to look for as a client.”
“It’s too late at night to talk about this,” I mumble.
“You mean too early in the morning, and I agree, but someone thinks that circadian rhythms are meant to be disturbed.”
I sigh. “If I go to sleep, will you leave this alone?”
“Sure.”
I give her a flat look.
“Oh, you don’t like being lied to?” She smiles. “How funny, neither do I.”
“I regret bringing you here.”
“If you were asleep, you wouldn’t have to see me anymore.”
Unlikely, considering the image of her in my clothes is going to haunt my dreams tonight.
“Give me ten more minutes, then I’ll go.”
“Okay,” she says, but she doesn’t leave the room.
“What are you doing?” I ask her with a raised brow.
“Waiting for–” she glances over her shoulder at my computer screen. “Three twenty-three.”
“You’re going to sit right there while I’m trying to work?”
“No, I’m going to sit here until you admit that the ten more minutes thing was a lie to get me to leave. Then we’re going to go to bed.”
“We?” My voice is low. “Is that the real reason you came in here? Can’t sleep without me after Wednesday night?”
She leans slightly toward me, a challenge in her gaze. My blood heats. “If I said yes?”
I swallow. Any comeback I had disappears in the face of her boldness. It takes me too long to recover. Tension thickens in the air.
“I’d say it’s late, and we’re both tired,” I finally manage to whisper. “We shouldn’t do anything we’ll regret.”
Something that looks a lot like hurt flickers across her expression, but it’s gone just as fast as it came. She fakes a laugh and kicks my leg with her bare foot.
“I wasjoking. You’re too easy to mess with, Carolina. I’m going to bed.” She hops down from my desk.
“Goodnight,” I call before she’s out the door.
“Night,” she says softly, then disappears.
