a nasty situation really. Charity has a real knack for it.”
“That’s what you meant by those special Wednesday classes?” Miles watched Charity closely, and she fought hard to keep a discomfited flush at bay. She preferred to keep her private business, private.
“Yes.”
“So not Tae Bo?”
“Tae Bo?” Sam laughed, sounding genuinely amused by Miles’s incorrect assumption. “She’s taken a real shine to MMA in particular and could probably kick your arse in about seventy-five different ways.”
“Of that I have no doubt.” The admiration in Miles’s voice flustered her. She couldn’t remember the last time anybody had sounded so proud of her. Not even her family. Lately all she got from her parents or sister was disappointment and confusion. Not that she could blame them. Blaine had ruined everything, even her relationships with her family.
Sam’s next question—aimed at Miles—jerked her right back into the present, “How are you doing after your brush with death?”
The dramatic turn of phrase startled Charity. She knew he had spent some time in the ICU but, despite that, it had never occurred to her that he could have died from his illness. She found the possibility more than a little distressing.
“Fuck off, it was hardly a brush with death, Brand.”
“Weeks in ICU, hooked up to machines? That sounds pretty dire to me.”
“Who the hell told you that?”
“In my line of work, information is power, my friend.”
“And in my line of work a rumor like that can, and will, result in plummeting stock prices and nervous shareholders.”
“Fortunately for you, it wasn’t common knowledge.”
“I commissioned Tyler to guard Vicki, not to divulge my private information to you.” Miles sounded only mildly annoyed. In fact, he sounded amused. Blaine would have considered something like this a humiliating breach in confidentiality. And then he would have gone home and taken his anger out on Charity.
“Tyler would never leak a client’s business to anyone. Not even to me. You know that’s not how we operate. I have other means.”
“I was ill,” Miles confirmed, with a dismissive shrug. “I’m here to recuperate. And I left the company in capable hands.”
“Your brother’s?”
“Jesus, no. Bryan’s. Hugh is assisting him. They’ve got it covered.”
“You’ve been calling them every day, haven’t you?” Sam asked, on a laugh, and Miles grinned.
“I speak with Bryan once a week but after a very brief, uninformative update, he starts talking about his fucking golf swing or his tennis serve. He knows I find both sports tedious and will do anything to avoid hearing about them.”
“Good for him.”
“Yeah, even my assistant won’t tell me anything other than ‘it’s all fine’.”
Sam laughed again. “How’s Tyler working out?”
“Swimmingly, if the amount of complaining Vicki has done since he’s started is anything to go by.”
“That’s my boy.” Sam nodded. “Listen, my fiancée, Lia, would have my balls if I don’t invite you around for dinner sometime. She’s been on me to give you a call since she heard you were in town. She’s keen to meet you. Charity, I know she’d love it if you joined us as well.”
The latter seemed tacked on as an afterthought, and Charity smiled politely and uttered a noncommittal sound in response to the invitation. She would not be joining them for dinner. How would that even work? She was on nodding acquaintance with Lia McGregor and on friendly but impersonal terms with Sam. And Miles was her boss. It would be awkward as hell. What would they talk about?
She was saved from a proper response by Stormy. The pup, emboldened by the fact that Trevor appeared wholly disinterested in her, ventured out from behind Miles’s legs and confidently trotted up to the bigger dog for a sniff.
When she couldn’t reach his butt, she went onto her hind legs in an attempt to make his acquaintance in the time-honored canine way. Trevor, realizing what was happening at his rear, turned smartly to face her.
Stormy yelped and fell over backward before scuttling back behind Miles’s legs.
Both Sam and Miles hooted at the pup’s antics but Charity was, once again, captivated by the way the laughter transformed Miles’s face. The lines and angles shifted attractively; previously smooth surfaces wrinkled and creased, the dimple deepened, his teeth, so white and straight, contrasted strikingly against the dark stubble.
She fell a little bit in like with her boss in that moment, and the consequences of that recognition alarmed her.
He and Sam were shaking hands again and Charity, still shaken by her revelation, automatically smiled when Sam told he’d see her soon.
“Let’s go, Trev,” he called