Her Billionaire Rancher Boss
Benedict set his knuckles on the desk and rose from his chair as Pilar stood there in silence. “Now I know something is wrong.” His voice vibrated with worry—actually vibrated—setting off tiny tremors in her limbs. “Please tell me. I want to help.”
She nearly whimpered. There had been nothing like that from him when she’d first applied. It had been all impersonal efficiency layered over what was really happening: “Yes, you’re the best qualified person, I’m happy to hire you,” instead of “You need my help.”
She closed her eyes, reached for indifference.
People leave jobs all the time. You’re not ungrateful or resentful. You’re allowed to move on.
She almost believed it.
Eyes wide, shoulders back, heels snapping, she marched to him, the envelope hanging at the end of her stiffly outstretched arm. He snatched it from her before she could say anything.
“What’s this?” he rumbled as he tore into it.
“It’s, um…” God, she still couldn’t say it. And he was already reading it!
His gaze snapped back and forth as he scanned it. “What the fuck?” he snarled before throwing it to his desk.
Whoa. He never swore like that. Ever. She blinked at the letter lying there between them.
He pointed at her. “Sit down.”
The force of her butt hitting the seat snapped her out of her odd mood. This—his reaction—was all wrong. People left jobs—even people who worked for him. He’d need a few months to adjust to a new admin, but snapping at her? Swearing?
“Yeah, that’s my resignation letter,” she said. “Which you already know.”
Snark. Her favorite weapon in awkward situations. Sometimes he even laughed at her little asides.
He wasn’t laughing now. He sat down himself, pinning her with a look that was intense. Almost mad.
No, not mad. She’d seen him irritated, and this was different. Hotter. And sadder, all at the same time.
“I won’t let you leave,” he said starkly.
The room seemed to rise, spin three hundred sixty degrees with her as the unmoving center, then settled back into place, everything as it was. Only not quite. Things gleamed a little brighter, edges were a little harder, shadows a little murkier. And Benedict, a house cat turned into a mountain lion, his sharp teeth lengthened into fangs.
Stop it. That was crazy. He was only pissed that he’d have to train a new assistant.
“I’m pretty sure you have to let me leave,” she pointed out. “The Thirteenth Amendment and all that.”
He blinked at her. “Did you just invoke the Thirteenth Amendment?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I guess I did.”
He reached for the letter again, his fingers pinching and releasing the folds but never opening it. “Of course you can leave.” His voice took on a funereal hush. “I… I can’t make you stay.”
She frowned at the letter herself, at his fingers plucking purposelessly at it. It sounded almost as if he wanted to make her stay. But there wasn’t anything deeper in his protests. Her own frustrated attraction was adding nuances that simply weren’t there.
“Why do you want to leave?” he asked. “Pilar”—his voice went to a register of pleading she’d never heard before from him—“God, I thought you were happy here. With me.”
Was this a discussion about her resignation or a breakup? Things were getting very weird. “Of course I’m happy to work for you.”
His frown deepened. What the hell? She’d just said she was happy to work for him. She’d thought he’d be pissed and that he’d try his best to hide it. That reaction she’d been prepared to deal with.
But this… guilt trip? It wasn’t fair. She’d been an excellent secretary for five years. She’d raised her brother for five years. She deserved to snatch something for herself, and she wasn’t going to feel guilty about it. Or at least she wasn’t going to let that ball of guilt forming in her gut stop her plans.
“So why?” he demanded.
“Javier graduates in three months,” she began.
“I know,” he said shortly. As if he had it marked on a calendar or something.
“After that, it’s time for something different.” Somewhere far away from Cabrillo. And from Benedict Merrill.
But not too far. She still had to keep an eye on Javier.
Benedict slid his knuckles along the edge of the desk, the menace in the gesture made ice crust her spine. Man, he was freaking out here. And freaking her out.
“What different thing do you want to do in Cabrillo?”
If he was going to offer her another job… But of course he would, if he assumed she was staying. The Merrills had a finger in every pie in this town. Hell, they owned half the town.
Which was part of why she wanted to escape.
“I’m planning on moving. Maybe to LA. Maybe even farther,” she said defiantly. She appreciated the opportunity he’d given her, but now she was going to go make some opportunities of her own, in a place not his own.
“You really are leaving,” he said slowly, his brows drawing together.
Finally. Some of this was getting through to him.
“Yep,” she said. “But in three months. Plenty of time to find a replacement and help train them.”
“Really?” He cocked that eyebrow again, disbelief dripping from the word.
How come he’d never done that eyebrow thing before? Although it was probably for the best since it made her imagine naughty things. Even while in this weird situation where she was trying to resign and he was being stubborn about it.
“I would never leave you high and dry like that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” A dark purr. A darkly sexy purr.
She gripped the arms of her chair, the edges sinking into the soft bits of her palms, and ordered her blood to slow.
A purr? What was wrong with her? He wasn’t trying to be sexy—he was annoyed. A man as controlled as he was, he liked things to stay the same. Training a new admin, no matter how competent, was going to put his mood into a kink.
Kink. Kinky.
She was heading into sexual harassment territory here. Focus.
“No, I wouldn’t.” She sat straighter, put on a blank expression. At least one of them could be rational about this. “I’m giving you three months’ notice—more than enough time to find a suitable admin.”
He leaned back in his chair, but his stance was anything but easy. He hooked his thumbs in his belt, and she ordered her stupid libido to ignore that. “What if I think you’re irreplaceable?”