Page 7 of Working for the Heiress

I hadn't expected that. I'd thought she'd keep to the office and her accommodations and the diner across from the airfield, the way the last regional manager had. But she'd been at the grocery store on Tuesday — I'd spotted the camel coat down an aisle and pulled the brim of my cap down and gone the long way around to the milk. She'd been at the hardware store, of all places, in the boot aisle, and I'd left through the side entrance without buying what I'd come for. She'd been at the gas station on Saturday morning, paying inside, and I'd waited in my truck until she pulled out before I went in.

I was a grown man hiding behind a hat brim from a woman who looked like she was half my age. I wasn’t like this. Kayla was about the same age and I didn’t give her a second thought beyond leaving a nice tip.

I couldn't trust my face around Lili. My face had given me away in the hangar on day one. It was even worse during a briefing on her second day, when she said something dry about the Q3 forecast and the corner of my mouth had moved before I'd told it to.

My face nearly teamed up with my dick when she unwrapped a sandwich during a lunch meeting. I stared as she peeled back the wax paper, noting the calluses I’d been thinking about. Then she licked a crumb off the side of her thumb, seemingly without thinking, and I stared while my body sprang to life in a long-forgotten urgency.

If I let her see me at the grocery store with no engine between us and no agenda to hide behind, my face was going to tell her something I had no intention of saying.

So I hid. Like a coward.

And then she was still overtaking my thoughts as I tried to drink in peace. I glanced at the door to the Foundry every ninety seconds, thinking about the shape of want and how foreign it felt in my bones.

The door opened and my heart stuttered, but it was Diaz.

He shook the rain off his jacket, hung it on the hook by the door, and looked around. He saw me and tipped his chin, walking over to pull out the stool next to mine.

Diaz never comes here. The crew all tended to drink at Kincaid’s. But Diaz just hooked a thumb at my beer as Kayla nodded and poured another pint of some local ale I couldn’t taste above my lust.

After a minute Diaz said, "Cold rain."

"Yeah."

"Snow up high by tomorrow."

"Yeah."

"Bell ready for the Pinedale runs?"

"She'll do."

"Good."

He drank again. The game was on third down. Somebody in the booth behind us was telling a story too loudly. The bartender wiped a glass at the other end of the bar and didn't look at us.

"Lou," I said.

"Yeah."

"You don't drink here."

"No."

I looked at him.

He kept his eyes on the game.

"I told her my wife I’d look in on you,” he said. "She’s been asking after you lately. I told her Holt drinks alone, that's his thing. She made a face." He drank. "My wife makes a face, I drive across town."

I didn't say anything.

He didn't push.

We watched the football game. A run got stuffed at the line. The clock didn't move much. I drank what was left of my beer slow because the alternative was finishing it and ordering another one and I had a rule about the second one that I wasn't going to break on a work night.

"Bell's a good bird," Diaz said eventually. To the game. To nobody.

"She is."