The leather seats are comfortable below her and the air conditioning feels cool against her skin on a hot July morning. The drive is smooth unlike the bumpy and noisy bus rides. In fact the drive feels so relaxing she starts to close her eyes.
“I take it you like the car?”
She peels her eyes open to find Alexander staring at her. Shyly, she nods her head. “Very much. I’ve never been in a car so nice.” She strokes the seats loving the leather feel.
“I could show you my others.”
“Your others what?” Scarlett asks confused.
“Cars.”
Her eyes widen. “You have more than one car?”
“Fourteen in fact,” he smirks. “I’m a collector.”
Scarlett has to remind herself that Alexander is a billionaire. The cost of one of his cars could solve all of Scarlett’s money problems for the rest of her life. She starts to feel a touch of envy.
“So...no?” For once his voice falters in confidence and Scarlett swore for a moment he frowned.
Remembering the question her eyebrows raise in surprise. Was he asking her out on a date? “Sure. I’d love to see them.”
He doesn’t say anything back, he wears a smug expression the entire drive to the office.
When they reach the 75th floor Alexander’s siblings are standing, arms crossed and pissed expressions, at his office door.
“Where have you been?” His sister Olive nags. “You were supposed to be in the office at seven,” she looks at her diamond encrusted watch, “it’s nearly eight-thirty.”
“I picked up my secretary, is that a crime?” Alexander pushes past them to unlock his office door.
“Alexander,” Olive’s voice sounds in warning.
They all follow him into the office except for Liam who stands staring at her. He gives her a heartwarming smile exposing dimples that make her want to melt. Although none of the Novak siblings are related, they are all breathtakingly gorgeous.
“I see you made home okay after the club,” he leans against the wall watching me settle into my desk outside Alexander’s office. “Any creepy crawlers in the night bother you?”
“No,” she snorts.
“Good,” he grins exposing perfect white teeth. “Hey...uhm...has my brother been giving you any trouble? I told you if—”
“I know, I can come to you if he’s bothering me. He’s been a perfect gentleman offering me rides home to and from work instead of taking the subway.”
“I could give you rides home. I go home much earlier than Alexander does. This way you still don’t have to take that disgusting subway and you can be home hours before midnight.”
“Oh, thank you,” she scratches at the back of her neck, “I don’t want to be a burden and I don’t feel comfortable leaving the office unless my boss does. He might need me for something.”
“And so far has he?”
“What?”
“At nine...ten...eleven o’clock. Has he needed you?”
“Well no. Not ye—”
“Then it’s okay to go home. Alexander stays here to busy himself. He doesn’t need to busy you. I’ll drive you home tonight.” Before she can answer back he enters Alexander’s office.
Her phone vibrates in the desk drawer catching her attention. Her heart leaps when she sees the number unknown.
“Daddy?”
“Scar,” his gruff tone sounds relieved.
“Daddy, how are you? What’s been going on? I miss you. I love you,” she tries to cram in everything afraid that their conversation will be cut short again.
“I love you, too. Listen, I know you love New York and you have a job but I really want you to come live with me.”
Frowning, “I can’t. I’m tired of moving all the time. I have a life here and things are finally starting to look up.”
“I found a remote place to stay. No neighbors, just a drive away from town. A small population. Hell, I don’t think you can even find this place on a map. We can stay there.”
Scarlett is silent for a heartbeat. She doesn’t know how to answer him. All her life she dreamt of having one place to stay, but she has that now and in her favorite city in the entire country. “I can’t,” remorse fills her tone. “I can’t just drop everything. What about Jo, my apartment, my job?”
“Scarlett,” he says sadly, “I’m your father. I’m not getting any younger and I want to spend my life seeing you. You know I can’t come to New York. Please, come visit your old man. Stay with me.”
“Dad,” she pinches the bridge of her nose. “I just started this job but maybe sometime in the next few weeks I can take some time off to visit you.”
“No.”
“No?” She feels hurt.
“If you take time off they will want to know where and then they will know my location. I won’t be safe. You need to leave your job and come live with me.”
“Let me visit you,” she pleads. “Where are you?”
The line clicks as he once again hangs up on her. She wishes things could be different, but giving up the life she now has to go back to a life dictated by her father’s paranoia isn’t the future she wants for herself.
***
CHAPTER THREE
Alexander decides to cut work early to Scarlett home thinking maybe she’ll say yes to going out to dinner or making taking him up on his offer to go see his cars.
When he locks his office for the night he sees Liam standing at Scarlett’s desk waiting for her to pack up her things. His forehead wrinkles in confusion.
“Scarlett, I thought I was taking you home?”
She looks between the two brothers, not knowing how to answer as she stammers.
“Since you’re always so busy in the office, I offered to take her home,” Liam smiles politely while Alexander has a look capable of murder.
“Well, I’m not busy so you can go home. I’m taking Scarlett for dinner and then dropping her off at her apartment.”
“You are?” Liam and Scarlett say in unison.
“I am,” he holds his hand out for Scarlett to take.
Much to his relief she grabs his hand, but he doesn’t miss the apologetic look she flashes Liam as he leads her to the elevator.
“I didn’t know we were having dinner tonight,” she scratches her head.
He is all too aware that their hands are still interlocked the entire elevator ride and when they step out. The simple gesture makes his heart flutter, annoyance flashes in his mind. He wasn’t supposed to find her attractive.
“I’d like to get to know my secretary better.”
“I don’t have any money for dinner,” her cheeks flush with embarrassment.
“That’s why I’m paying,” he holds up his car door.
Alexander has always liked his girls easy. He never had time for relationships—except for that one time—he dated a girl named Ava his senior year of high school. Relationships were too much work and he realized he liked sex better than commitment. He never had visions of his future with a wife and kid, his visions were of money and power. There’s something about Scarlett that makes his stomach twist and his heart leap. He can tell by her quiet demeanor and the way she doesn’t know what to do with her hands when she talks that she isn’t easy. The way she avoids his stare when he talks to her and the way she blushes at the simplest of things tells him that she has very seldom been with a man if not at all.