Shayla Black - Their Virgin Secretary

He sighed, unable to stop himself from letting his head roll back until their cheeks brushed. He closed his eyes, damning himself. He was addicted to her. He could keep telling himself he’d walk away, but every time she offered him even the smallest taste of her, he took it greedily with both hands.

“I’m not alone,” he said. “I have Sir. He sleep barks by the way. And I think he’s sleep running. His paws keep twitching.”

Belle laughed and let him go, moving around the desk to see Sir asleep on the couch. “Thanks for letting him stay in here.”

He’d gotten used to the mutt. Another thing he would miss when he was back in Chicago. He was getting used to New Orleans, used to living with her…used to having this little slice of heaven. “No problem.”

Belle scooped up her puppy, who looked at her with sleepy eyes before giving her a lick. “Did I ever tell you about what happened the day my dad died?”

He sat up straight, his whole being focused on her. She so rarely talked about her past that he knew she was about to tell him something important. “No. I know there was a car accident.”

She nodded, stroking Sir as though finding comfort in the action. “Yes. I was just a kid. It was raining that night, but I wanted to go to my friend’s slumber party. I didn’t usually get invited to stuff like that. Kinley did, and she talked this girl into asking me, too. I think her name was Brianna, but I can’t remember. How sad is that? I can’t remember her name. I should remember everything about the night my dad died.”

“You don’t have to, baby. All you have to do is remember he loved you. What happened?” He had an inkling, but she needed to say it.

Her eyes took on a far-off look as though she wasn’t really there with him, but lost in the past. “My mom thought the storm was too bad to drive in. She told me I couldn’t go. She wouldn’t drive me. My dad came home from work early and I cried and threw a temper tantrum and I got my way.”

“Baby, it was not your fault. You were a child.”

She sniffled a little. “He lost control on his way home. He died at roughly eight pm according to the police reports. I was playing with lip gloss and listening to music when he died and do you know how I found out? She came and got me the next morning. She didn’t even tell me that night.”

His heart ached for her. “Maybe she was trying to give you one last night.”

“I wish. She claims she had a lot of things to do concerning the accident and dad’s body. She said she thought it would be best to tell me after I got a good night’s sleep.” Belle shook her head. “That wasn’t it. She shut me out, Tate. She pulled her grief around her and she wouldn’t let me in. She blamed me.”

He couldn’t keep his distance when she looked so miserable. He stood and crossed the empty space between them. “Baby, it wasn’t your fault.”

She sniffled, tears welling in her eyes. “One day I was a kid with two parents who loved me. The next day my mother resented me, and I was alone.” Her voice shook. “Tate, I’m so scared it could happen again.”

He hugged her and sighed, an odd relief filling him. They were finally at the heart of the matter. “You think if Kellan leaves, we’ll resent you.”

She closed her eyes, letting her forehead rest against his. “You guys are so close. You all need one another.”

Belle was also afraid she would lose the little family they’d formed. She was afraid she would be all alone again with no one to blame but herself. Tate wanted to rail at his own idiocy. He’d been so hurt by her rejection—seemingly like every other one he’d been dealt—that he hadn’t thought to look for the real reasons behind Belle’s refusal to let them close.

“Do you know what I’m going to feel if Kellan leaves us? I’m going to feel sorry for him, Belle. I’m going to pity him because here’s the truth: we could have an amazing family and a beautiful life.”

“But—”

“No, let me say this. Eric and I have been talking. If you’d let us, we would be together for as long fate allows. If anything happened to one of us, we’d cling to whoever is left because that’s what family is supposed to do. Mine didn’t. My parents’ version of love and support was to punish me when I didn’t perform perfectly. Eric was only valued athletically. We could be different. We wouldn’t have to do anything the way they did. In fact, we wouldn’t. If you agree, we’ll figure this out. The one thing I do know is that I won’t hate you if Kellan leaves. You didn’t push him out the door. He’s a grown man choosing to let his past hurt him. That’s not your fault.”

Tears splashed on her cheeks, and Tate knew he was making the right decision. Now he just needed to make Belle understand that he wasn’t walking away. Too many people had disappeared from her life. He refused to be another.

He tilted her chin up, forcing her to look in his eyes. “If you let me into your life, Annabelle, I will never leave you. I love you. I won’t regret anything except losing you.”

Her eyes closed briefly. “I hope you mean that.”

It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. She hadn’t told him she loved him back. She hadn’t agreed to marry him, but she also hadn’t run away. She stood here with him. As long as she was in his arms, he had a shot and he intended to take it.

Sir lay between them, but he didn’t seem to mind being squished. The puppy simply chose the most important moment of his life to start licking his ankles. “Belle, look at me.”

Her eyes opened and widened before she laughed. “Sir, stop.”

Instead, Sir pranced with a happy bark, then tried to mount his leg. Tate sighed. “I’m pretty sure he licks his own butt, and I may die of some horrible puppy venereal disease. Would any man who didn’t love you to the core of his being allow himself to be molested like this?”

“Definitely not. Will you come to bed with me?”

He would go anywhere to be with her. He would even study for another damn bar exam. “Yes.”

He took her hand and led her up the stairs.

Kellan frowned as he looked down at the massive stack of information Tate had compiled in a short period of time. “I don’t see how this changes anything.”

Afternoon light filtered through the stained glass, making the floors Belle had splurged on to have sanded and stained again absolutely gleam. Another knock sounded at the door, and he heard Eric begrudgingly welcome back the electrician inside the house again.

“Where’s Belle?” Mike asked with a grin.

Kell wanted to punch him until he lay flat on the floor. “Busy.”

Mike shrugged. “Tell her I said hi.”

“Maybe we should try someone new,” Tate muttered as Mike made his way toward the stairs. “I don’t care how old and complex the wiring is in this house, he should have fixed it by now. And you should really read all of that info before you start telling me I’m wrong.”

Between the endless contractors and Tate’s newfound belief in the paranormal, Kellan’s day was rapidly going to hell. “I don’t see how a bunch of rumors help us figure out what’s going on in this house. I don’t need to know the history. I need to know who’s trying to scare Belle out of it right now.”

Eric shouldered his way back into the kitchen. “That’s an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, and some woman with a god-awful amount of something she calls swatches. Belle’s trying to pick between five colors that all look the exact same to me, but apparently they have different names so the decision is massive. Who are our most likely suspects here?”

So many people walking in and out of the house. Every single one of them was a suspect in his mind. “Don’t forget the landscaper she brought in. And someone’s coming in today to look at all the old photos. Belle wants to restore some she found in the attic. I put them over by the copy machine.”

The photos didn’t matter now. “Process of elimination. Who was here that first day? Mike, Gates, Captain Ron—”

“Who?” Tate looked confused.

“Mullet guy,” Kell supplied. “Big belly, lots of crack.”

“Oh, the plumber.” Tate sighed. “Who else was here that first day? The interns.”

“They haven’t been back,” Eric pointed out.

“And nothing else has happened.” Kell crossed his arms over his chest. “Any one of them could have done it and none of them appear to have a motive. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“Wow,” Tate exclaimed, looking at a framed photo in his hands before he passed it over.

Kell took the big black-and-white picture of Belle’s grandmother and a bunch of women. They were all standing in front of the house, smiling and looking like they were ready for an evening at the disco. It had been taken in the seventies from all appearances. Wow was right. Belle’s grandma had clearly had some gorgeous girlfriends. Every single woman in the photo was stunning.

“See? Maybe we can’t find a motive because none of those people left Belle the warning on the wall.” Tate looked more animated than he had in days, surprising Kell.

“You’re back to the ghost theory?”

“Hear me out. So a few owners before Marie Wright bought this place, a man named Fredrick Peterman lived here with his two daughters. Peterman was rich, and the rumor around town was he was involved in the local voodoo scene.”

Kellan shook his head. When was he going to wake up? Obviously, he was having a really weird dream. Logical, rational Tate believing in ghosts and now this? “Voodoo? Seriously?”

Eric shrugged. “Hey, it’s not a game down here. These are hard-core believers.”

And his friends weren’t going to shut up until he heard them out. “All right so Peterman was into voodoo before he died?”