Adelaide Confused by Penny Greenhorn

something that
would utilize your gift.”
    “No.”
    “ I would pay you well. You
wouldn’t have to live like this.” He gestured to the room around
him. “You’re wasting yourself.”
    “ I’d tell you that it’s
none of your business, but you obviously don’t understand the
concept of privacy.”
    “ You don’t understand your
own potential. You could use your gift for so much more. Don’t
throw it away.”
    I was angry then, but I buried it down and
spoke calmly. “Should I use my gift like you use yours? Should I
influence and manipulate until I’ve built myself an empire? Is that
my potential?”
    “ I have an unfair
advantage,” he admitted. “But the glamour is harmless. It’s not a
crime to have a charming disposition.”
    “ I don’t think your
secretary would agree, or my friend Francesca, if either was in
their right mind.”
    He raised both his
eyebrows. It was the perfect expression for the confusion he was
feeling at my accusation. “What does my personal aide have to do
with this? And who is Francesca?”
    I slammed the kitchen door
shut and stalked toward him. With a shove, I sent him stumbling
down the hall. “She says she loves you, and you don’t even remember
her.” I continued to push him through the front room, he only
resisted a little.
    Astonished, he muttered,
“The first woman who can see past the charm and she hates
me.”
    “ I have a feeling your ego
will survive. I imagine it’s rather resilient.” I opened the door
and tried to push him through.
    He became immovable,
resisting my effort with ease. He’d been humoring me before,
allowing me to herd him along, but he wasn’t leaving until he had
his say. The realization tasted sour.
    He sobered, looking down at me with chilling
blue eyes. “Your life is your own, waste it if you will. I can’t
force you onto my payroll, but you will do a job for me, freelance,
and that’s nonnegotiable.”
    “And if I refuse?”
    “ Your family is still
waiting, hoping to hear from you. All it takes is a phone call.”
The bastard was blackmailing me. “We’ll be in touch,” he said,
stepping out the door.
    I slammed it shut while
considering my options. Contacting my family would be like opening
a can of worms, I’d put it off with good reason. But being
blackmailed rankled, and being a pawn in Reed Wallace’s pocket was
unthinkable. Unable to commit myself to a course of action, I
wandered back to the kitchen for more cake batter.

Chapter 9
     
    Stephen shambled into the
office carrying a stack of new phonebooks, Ben close at his heels.
Being old, Ben didn’t do the whole eight hours of sleep thing. He
was scheduled to work from five in the morning until one in the
afternoon, but typically he started his shift before the appointed
time. That meant Missy got to leave early while I got stuck with
Ben hovering around the office hours after he was supposed to go
home.
    “ Over there,” Ben
instructed Stephen, pointing a knobby finger. “No, no, bend at the
knees or you’ll have a bad back when you get to be my age. Not that
I’d know—I’m fit as a fox.”
    “Is that even a saying?” I asked. “I thought
it was healthy as a horse.”
    “Bah,” he said, waving my words away.
    “ Change the phonebooks out
while you’re cleaning,” I said to Stephen. “Room seven is probably
gross, the customers seemed shifty. I think they snuck a dog in or
something.”
    “ They’re not customers,
they’re guests!” Ben hollered, sounding aggravated. I knew better,
he wasn’t aggravated, just his usual gloom, a misery that followed
him like a second shadow. He still mourned Mary.
    “ This is a cheap motel,
Ben, calling them guests is pretentious,” I argued.
    “ No, using the word
pretentious is pretentious.”
    “Fine,” I conceded. “I’ll call them guests if
you’ll only do a landlord’s duty and have my window fixed.”
    “What window?”
    “ The window at my house,
it’s broken.”
    “How the hell did