He thought it would be possible to sympathize if the best assistant he’d ever had wasn’t leaving him. Instead of answering, he asked, “Speaking of distant towns, where are you moving?”
She blinked at his rapid change of topic. “What?”
“When you abandon me, where are you going to live?”
“That’s not information you need in order to hire my replacement.”
Why was she being so stingy with details? “The least you can do is tell me his name.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
He leaned back in his chair and grinned. “See how well you know me?”
“All right. It’s Leonard,” she finally said. “There, go ahead and make fun.”
“Would I do that?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“That’s harsh.” But accurate. He’d almost said it was marginally better than Aloysius. “So, where did you meet Leonard?”
“Out of town,” she said vaguely.
“That goes without saying. If you were dating a guy from Blackwater Lake, it would be all over town.” For a to-the-point person, she was being uncharacteristically difficult. This was frustrating and Brady felt his curiosity picking up momentum. “Where specifically did you meet? On vacation?”
“Vacation?” She laughed. “What’s that? When you’re in the office I am, too. And you’re always in the office. There’s no such thing as time off.”
“Point taken. I’m a workaholic. Would you consider a leave of absence instead of resigning? I could spare you for that.”
“No.” Primly she folded her hands in her lap. “Not everything is about you.”
“So you keep reminding me. And now it’s about Leonard.”
“Exactly.” She brushed imaginary lint from the leg of her slacks.
“If you didn’t meet him on vacation, it must have been a trip for work.”
“Remind me not to try and put anything over on you.”
Sarcasm was one of his favorite things about her. “So, was it in Austin? L.A.? Chicago?”
“I definitely went to those cities. You should know. We were there together.”
She was right about that, but when business hours were over they’d gone their separate ways. He’d picked up women and if Olivia had met men she never said anything to him. Until now. He’d never thought to ask how she filled her time away from work. Clearly she’d found Leonard, and the sense of betrayal Brady felt was out of proportion to the situation. He was being unfair. Not to mention completely irrational.
As crazy as he knew it was, he wanted to know everything. “Do you have a job lined up in Leonard’s neck of the woods?”
“I have an offer.”
“I’d be happy to give you a glowing recommendation.” Well, not happy, exactly, but he’d try not to be spiteful, what with his festering bitterness about her jumping ship.
“But I’m planning to take some time off first.”
“What are you going to do with yourself?”
“Anything that strikes my fancy,” she said, a little defiantly. She stood and walked to the doorway of his office. “Any other questions?”
Why are you leaving me?
Brady didn’t say that out loud, even though the idea of it had preoccupied him way too much since she’d dropped her bombshell. Besides his mother, sister and niece, he had no personal attachments—yet somehow he’d become attached to Olivia. He wouldn’t be making that mistake with his next assistant.
She looked over her shoulder on the way out the door. “Think about Shelly. And I’ll be lining up more candidates to interview. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll approach this process more seriously than you just did.”
“I conducted those interviews very seriously.”
She ignored that. “You need to ask yourself what’s wrong with the two women you saw today.”
“I don’t need to ask myself anything. I already know what’s wrong.”
“Care to share?” She put a hand on her hip.
“Neither of them is you.”
Chapter Two
After work, her boss’s words sent Olivia to her best friend’s house. A friend who just happened to be Brady’s sister. Now she sat on Maggie Potter’s comfortable sofa in the cozy, spacious log cabin home where Maggie lived with her infant daughter, Danielle, after her husband was tragically killed in Afghanistan. Danny had built this place for her and it was where they’d planned to spend the rest of their lives and raise their family. That was before his Army National Guard unit had been called up and deployed to Afghanistan, where he was killed by a roadside bomb, leaving his pregnant wife a heartbroken widow.
Maggie was a petite brunette with big brown eyes that now always seemed a little sad. After Danny’s death Olivia had tried to be there for her friend as much as possible and had insisted on a weekly girls’ night out. After baby Danielle was born, Olivia brought dinner to the house so the little girl wasn’t left out of the female ritual. But tonight the toddler had gone to bed early, worn out from a play date.
Olivia scooted forward and took her glass of Merlot from the coffee table where it sat by the pizza box. “I have something to tell you,” she said.
“Gossip?” Maggie’s brown eyes gleamed with undisguised feminine interest. “Please tell me it’s juicy. There hasn’t been any good buzz since Emma Robbins came to town, got a job as nanny to Justin Flint’s little boy, then announced she was the long-lost daughter of Michelle and Alan Crawford.”
Olivia grinned, remembering the sensational events. “Don’t forget the part where she and Justin fell in love and are now engaged to be married.”
“I couldn’t have said it better.” Maggie put her paper plate with the half-eaten slice of pizza on the ottoman in front of her. “So, what’s the scoop?”
“This isn’t gossip or even buzz. If you haven’t heard about it already, you will soon and this news should come from me.”
“You’re not sick, are you?”
“No.” She hadn’t meant to be so melodramatic. This woman had lost the love of her life and didn’t need another scare. “I’ve never felt better. Have you talked to your brother?”
“Not for a few days.” The frown eased, but only a little. “Just spit it out. What’s going on and how is Brady involved?”
“I gave him my notice. I’m quitting and moving away from Blackwater Lake.”
Maggie looked shocked, but not alarmed. “Where are you going?”
“California. A friend from college is going to start a tech business and offered me an upper management job.”
“I see.” Maggie smiled sadly. “So you’re really going to quit this time?”
“Third time is the charm.” Olivia wasn’t sure she could pull off a this-is-good-news face, so she took a sip of wine instead.
“What makes you think Brady can’t talk you into staying? Just saying...past history and all.”
Cradling her