The Ties that Bind. Emilie Rose

why don’t you check my fridge for perishables? Take them to your place. No need to let them spoil here. Oh, and there are a couple of open boxes of cereal and a jar of peanut butter in the cabinet. Grab those and the bread on the counter, too.”

      Elle shuffled off. Hollister hiked an eyebrow. “You feed the neighbors?”

      How did he manage to make that sound like an insult? “She watches Cody for me when I’m tutoring students. With us gone she won’t make any money.”

      “I’m sure she can afford a few missed trips to the mall.”

      “It’s the missed trips to the grocery store I’m worried about,” she replied as quietly as possible.

      His apparently perpetual frown deepened. When Elle returned with two bags loaded with food he scrutinized her in that same uncomfortable way he had Anna until Elle squirmed and shot a worried glance at Anna.

      “You sure you want me to take all this, Miss Anna?”

      “Absolutely, Elle. It’ll spoil here. And you know I hate waste.”

      “Do you have a cell phone?” Hollister asked Anna.

      “No.” Another casualty of her finances.

      He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and extracted a business card then a couple of bills. He folded them in quarters and covered them with his card before Anna could make out the denomination. Then he wrote on the back of the white rectangle. “Keep an eye on Ms. Aronson’s place while she’s gone. You can reach her at this number if any problems arise.”

      Elle goggled at the money then him then Anna. Anna had to bite her lip to hide her surprise. She nodded, encouraging Elle to take whatever he’d given her. “I’d appreciate it, Elle. I’ll try to keep you updated on when Cody and I’ll return. Oh. Wait.”

      She rushed from the room and brought back her windowsill herb garden. “You might as well take this too. The plants will die without water, and you and your sister can experiment with the different flavors when you cook. Be sure to write down any good recipes you concoct for me.”

      “Sure. That’ll be fun.”

      Hollister nodded toward Cody’s high chair. “You’d better bring that.”

      He followed Elle out of the apartment carrying Anna’s remaining luggage. She folded up the lightweight high chair, locked up and trailed him down the stairs.

      She stopped beside him on the sidewalk. “That was nice of you. Giving Elle the money and contact information, I mean.”

      “It was nothing.” He closed the trunk on her stuff and stowed the baby chair in the backseat.

      “Her father’s disabled and—”

      “I don’t care, nor do I need to know her circumstances.”

      His cold tone cut like a new scalpel, revealing the armor-plated personality his assistant had mentioned. “Yessir.”

      For a moment he’d seemed human, compassionate even. But she must have misread him.

      She hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

      Pierce didn’t buy Anna’s goody-two-shoes act.

      He’d taken her home rather than put her on the train not out of generosity, but because he’d wanted her taking over the care of Kat’s kid immediately. And he’d wanted insight into the woman who had hoodwinked his usually astute executive assistant.

      Sarah had been with him since his father’s sudden death had forced Pierce to take the reins of the company seven years ago, and she’d been his father’s executive assistant for twenty years before that. No one knew the company like she did, and in all the time they’d worked together he’d never once doubted her intelligence as he did today.

      But she was too valuable an employee to lose—especially now at crunch time with thousands of scholarship applications still left to go through and his aggressive agenda for Hollister Ltd. He had a distinct impression she’d have quit if he hadn’t hired Aronson.

      He glanced at the freckled female with the long auburn hair and even longer legs sitting in his passenger seat. Pretty, but not so much so that she’d drive men wild with lust, and her conservative clothing wasn’t going to lead a man to believe she was looking for a lover. Her story didn’t add up. And then there was the way she’d studied his artwork as if she knew the value of each piece. The collection was insured. But he’d have to watch her.

      Her almost empty apartment and her soap opera sob story about her ex-husband combined with the pile of bills on the counter indicated a woman in dire straights. A woman desperate enough to do things to make a few bucks.

      Like proposition a wealthy parent.

      Or fence stolen paintings.

      He’d been convinced he’d made a mistake in hiring her, then she’d helped the girl, doing so in a manner that made giving handouts look as if the teen was doing Anna a favor by taking them.

      Pierce had been surprised when the girl had opened Anna’s refrigerator and cabinets because those too had been nearly empty. He hadn’t seen a pantry or refrigerator that bare since his stint in foster care.

      It was only after Anna’s comment about missed groceries that he’d noticed the girl wasn’t fashionably thin. She was emaciated. And Anna had given her what little food she had. Sure, Aronson would be eating on his dime in the foreseeable future, but she’d handled the delicate situation with a sensitivity that he couldn’t help but respect.

      He kept his eyes on the road and the traffic, but his brain waves remained tuned in to the pale and silent woman sitting in the seat beside him.

      Sarah might believe that having a woman with Anna’s qualifications fall into his lap when he was desperate was a godsend, but if life had taught him anything, it was that when something looked too good to be true, ninety-nine percent of the time it was.

      He’d definitely have to keep his eye on Anna Aronson.

       Two

      Anna’s nerves were getting the better of her. Her boss’s frowning silence in the driver’s seat didn’t help.

      Without the contract to read or the need to give directions during the car ride back to the estate she had time to think, time to worry about whether moving into a stranger’s house—a stranger who thought she was a liar—was the right thing to do for Cody and herself. It made them vulnerable. Much more vulnerable than she’d been in her remote classroom at the far end of the hall at the academy where no one had heard Dan’s illicit invitation or his threat to make her regret saying no.

      But what choice did she have? It was mid-September and schools had already filled their teacher positions. This had been the only job available for which she was even slightly qualified.

      She swallowed, trying and failing to ease the dryness in her mouth. “Does Mrs. Findley—Sarah—live with you?”

      “She has stayed at the house for this past week, but tonight she’ll go back to her cottage.”

      “And the housekeeper?”

      “Comes in three times a week.”

      That meant Anna and her boss would be alone—except for the boys—in a house surrounded by luxuriant lawns, dense trees and a six-foot-high stone fence with an electronically controlled iron gate.

      Don’t be a worrywart. Not every good-looking rich guy is a pervert who wants to play with the help.

      Her pep talk did little to ease her disquiet. Something about Pierce Hollister disturbed her. Not in a skulking around in dark corners creepy kind of way, but…well, she didn’t really know how or why he agitated her. He just did in an adrenaline-pumping, palms-moistening kind of way.

      “Graham favors you,” she blurted