Page 5 of Silver Fox Grump
The next option is to try a longer game. Keep her close and see if I can lure her in.
“What were you employed to do?” I ask.
“I’m a junior administrative assistant,” she says tentatively.
Oh good, I definitely have things she can assist with. Administering to my every need, for instance. This is going to work out well.
“You’ll be assisting me.” I have a perfectly adequate PA already, but fine. I’m a mafia boss, which is basically like being a very privileged and homicidal toddler. I require a lot of assistance.
“Yes, Mr. Blackwood.” She drags her gaze over my face, and I like to think that bright smile is all for me.
My desk phone shrills, and I mentally curse.
Wes Matthews, Incoming Call.
7 Missed Calls.
What?
2
SEV
“Don’t move,” I tell my potential wife. Yes. That feels right. My wife-to-be, she just doesn’t know it yet.
“Wes,” I answer with what I hope is a clip that implies “Make this quick, I have a beautiful and completely inappropriate woman to claim”.
“Have you got my daughter?”
I stare at the girl as all the blood drains from me. “Your daughter?”
The girl’s eyes go wide.
“She’s run away. Disappeared.” Wes sounds stressed. “And there’s something in her search history suggesting she applied for a job with you.”
“I don’t make hiring decisions for the legal stuff,” I reply truthfully.
She shakes her head quickly, and mouths, “Please.” Her big brown eyes look into mine, and beg.
This is not the sort of begging I was thinking of.
“I don’t know anything about it.” Denial. Totally healthy, right?
Wes makes a frustrated noise. “Could you not be an arsehole, for once in your life, and check?”
Bouncing my gaze between my best friend’s daughter and my computer screen, my brows knitted with irritation, I pull up employment records.
“Miss Maisie Matthews,” I say after a moment. “Twenty-one years old.”
I have tattoos older than this girl. I was doing terrible things when she was innocently learning to toddle around on baby legs.
She presses her pink lips together. Black hair, brown eyes. I can see the shadow of my best friend’s features in her face now. Except Wes is a six-foot-seven chiselled piece of granite, and his daughter is delicate and sweet as a doll. She looks like I could lift her with one hand.
“Good.” He lets out a huff. “Keep her safe until my men can pick her up, will you?”
“You don’t want her working?” I ask neutrally, watching Maisie.
“You’re kidding me? No,” Wes snaps. “No, she’s a mafia princess. She’s a child. She doesn’t work in an office. Especially not in Morden Company.”