In Love with Her Boss
Summary: Ginny flees abusive relationship, and finds love in the arms of another. Draco to the rescue?!?!
"blah" talking
'blah' thoughts
Gina Bene Ginny Weasley
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, Harry Potter and all character (unless you don't recognize them) are property of J.K. Rowling and Time Warner.
Chapter 2 - A Moment
"I'm sorry for your loss," Ginny said, her voice soft and sincere.
"Thank you." Draco looked away from the photo and back at the beautiful woman standing on the other side of his desk, cursing whatever it was about her that made him feel as if his hands, his feet, his Adam's apple were all too big. But he felt more than just physically awkward at the moment.
When was the last time he'd told someone he was a widower? In the small town of Leeds, after that first, awful day, everyone had known.
He cleared his throat.
She shuffled her feet.
"Is there—"
"Why don't—"
They both broke off.
Draco took a breath. "Ladies first."
Ginny clutched her notebook against her chest. "I was going to ask if there was anything else you wanted to tell me before I went back to my desk."
Yeah. He wanted to tell her she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. It was the honest truth. Auburn sunset hair, toffee brown eyes, creamy skin…. And her voice … it was moonlight. It was moonlit nights with fluttering lace curtains and bodies tangled on a bed.
He wanted to tell her he'd never considered himself a romantic man, but looking at her filled his thoughts with an embarrassment of bad poetry.
He wanted to tell her he'd fallen to the floor of the gym on Christmas Eve a settled, twenty-six-year-old man and gotten up a randy teenager again, in instant lust for her long legs, long hair, and full mouth. The way she'd stared back at him, her gaze filled with equal parts attraction and wariness, had done nothing to cool him off. That same gaze from her now didn't dampen his interest one bit.
Yet, see, there was that wariness, so instead he said, "Sit down for another minute. I want to know a little more about you."
Snails moved more quickly. Rain clouds appeared cheerier. After she finally returned to her chair, she reached inside her notebook and slid out a sheet of paper. "My résumé," she said, handing it to him.
He didn't even glance at it. "Why don't you tell me?"
She delivered the facts without emotion. "I moved to the North from Devon last week. I signed on with the Leeds Temporary Agency. They sent me to Lucy. Lucy hired me."
Despite the dryness of the details, he could listen to that soft accent all day. The words were prettier in her Southern voice. "But why?" he asked. "Why the North?"
She shrugged. "I grew up in the South. It was … time for something different. Someplace different."
"But why would you pick Leeds? We're not exactly Manchester."
She shrugged again, and her gaze dropped to her notebook.
Frustrated, he looked down at her résumé. She was twenty-five years old. She'd gone to college in France, in a town he thought he recognized as located at the southern end of the country. She had a degree in business administration. He looked up. "You have a college degree and you're temping as a receptionist?"
"It's work," she said. "Experience."
That non-explanation sent him back to perusing her résumé. Which made her even more of a mystery. For more than two years following her college graduation, there was no employment listed. And in the past three years she'd held seven different jobs in several different cities.
She was either easily bored or on the run.
He frowned. "Why—"
"Does it matter?" she interrupted. Steel suddenly hardened that soft Southern accent. "I'm technically employed by the temp agency, Mr. Malfoy. They were satisfied. If you're not…" She shrugged, as if she wouldn't care if their paths never crossed again. "Call them and they'll send someone else over."
Okay. That put him in his place. Draco had no reason to feel she'd slapped him across the face, because she was right. Her employment history – or lack thereof – was none of his business. Not as long as she fulfilled her duties as Malfoy, Inc.'s receptionist.
But he was irritated by her reticence because he wanted to know about her. Know her. And a few minutes ago he could have sworn there were sparks flying between them. Even before that, at the gym, her gaze meeting his had given him an I'm-Adam-you're-Eve rush that he hadn't felt in a long, long while. Not since Hogwarts.
With a mental shrug, he threw off his disappointment. Gina was beautiful, but so were a lot of women. She was an enigma, but he'd never been very good at puzzles. And the bottom line was that she wasn't interested in his … interest.
Sure, their mutual attraction was undeniable. Some things a man just knew; like, he knew which side to part his hair on or the exact spot to hit the basketball backboard for his best lay-up. But, right now Gina was putting up a sign that screamed Back Off in big neon letters, and she didn't need to flash it at him more than once.
So fine. The lady wanted nothing to do with him. on the receptionist's cheeks and nose.
He frowned at her. "Ms. Bene. Restocking the wood isn't your responsibility."
From the chair at her desk, she looked up at him. A pencil was stuck behind her ear, pushing a lock of hair forward so that it tangled in her curly black eyelashes. "I don't mind."
"Well I do." His voice was just short of surly. "It's heavy. You could be hurt."
She brushed the hair out of her eyes. "I'm stronger than I look."
"So you've told me before," he said. "That day at the gym."
Her eyebrows rose. "Then you should believe me."
Instead of a good comeback the only thing that occurred to him was the memory of his body lying across hers, so he stomped back to his office and dropped behind his desk. He was acting like an oaf, or worse, a jerk, but there was something about her that aroused his protective instincts. It was that wariness. It was that Southern voice.
It was that peachy scent.
He opened up the nearest file and pretended he was looking at it. Perhaps he'd been all wrong about the mutual attraction. He was twenty-six, supposedly old enough to know when something was there and when something wasn't. But maybe he was going through some pre-midlife crisis. Maybe he was entering some delusional psychological state in which he imagined beautiful women had the hot's for him.
What a depressing thought.
Depressing enough to send him stomping back to the reception area. "Ms. Bene?" he barked.
She blinked those astonishing blue eyes of hers. "Mr. Malfoy?"
He hesitated. For God's sake, he couldn't come right out and ask her if she was attracted to him. There was probably some sort of employment code about that, not to mention what his sisters would say if they ever heard about it. His ears burned just imagining his mother's reaction to something so bad-mannered.
"Call me Draco," he muttered, then stalked back to his desk.
As the afternoon wore on, his mood darkened. Gina Bene was hell on his ego. On Christmas Eve, he'd been forced into buying the first round of beers for the team because he'd been bested by a woman. He'd laughed about it, been a good sport about his friends' ribbing, because he had no problem with strong females. Risk-taking women were trouble, but not strong ones. Until he'd turned ten and outstripped all three of his older sisters in size, they'd flattened him often enough for him to be used to it.
But to make him doubt his powers of perception! That ability to recognize when a woman liked a man and when she didn't was the only thing a man had between himself and humiliation. Since Pansy's death he'd enjoyed the companionship of women on occasion, always with the certainty that his attention was welcome. Because he knew which women welcomed him. Always.
But now…
Now he didn't know if be had his signals crossed or if the ones she sent out were the problem.
Sighing, he cast a look at the deepening dark outside his window, then at the clock. It was 4:55. Well, the good news was that any second now Ms. How - the - hell - do - I - know - what - she's - thinking Bene would be on her way home. Then he could settle down and finish all the work that he should have been finishing that afternoon.
At 5:05 she hadn't left her desk.
At 5:20, the only movements she'd made were to run her hands through her hair and frown at the computer screen.
When it was exactly 5:30, he made himself exit his office and tell her she'd been free to leave for half an hour. She hummed absently, wrapped up with some paperwork on her desk.
By 5:45, he considered taking all his paperwork and dumping it on her, because only one of them seemed to be able to work in the other's presence.
At 6:00 he couldn't take it anymore. "Ms. Bene," he yelled from his desk.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" came from the reception area.
"Draco." He grabbed hold of his temper. "Ms. Bene, it's time for you to go home."
He thought she made another one of those absent hmms. With a look at the massive amount of work he had yet to finish, he strode into the reception area. "Ms. Bene," he said from between his teeth. "Go home."
She didn't look at him. "Soon."
"You've done enough for today." While I've done nothing but make myself crazy. "It's time to knock off."
She sucked in one edge of her bottom lip. "I'll leave when you do."
Staring at her mouth, he knew if she stayed he'd never get anything done. Obviously, someone had sent her here to drive him over the edge. One of his competitors. One of his so-called friends. His cousin Dana, who had never truly forgiven him for catching her entire Senior Prom date on audiotape.
God, now his delusional thoughts were sliding into paranoia. Exasperated, his voice came out strangled. "Ms. Bene, what the hell is wrong with you? I tell you to go home and you stay. What is it – are you afraid of the dark?"
She stilled. Her eyelashes lifted to reveal those blue-as-some-exotic-flower eyes.
Draco's gut twisted. Don't, he thought, suddenly as desperate not to know any more about her as he'd been desperate to know more about her earlier. Don't say it.
But then she did. "Yes."
Ginny knew Draco wasn't happy as he held open Malfoy Inc.'s front door for her. "You should have said something," he grumbled, following her into the darkness.
She pretended the heat on her cheeks was from the cold night air, not her embarrassment. "I'm sorry. It's just that I'm in a new place … it's unfamiliar—"
"Don't apologize," he said shortly. "I should have thought of it myself."
It wasn't his fault. "It's me. The dark parking lot…"
"I'm going to get one of the men to install a light out there tomorrow," he said.
Halting on the brick walkway, she turned to him. "Oh, no—"
"Gina." In the darkness, his body was a massive shadow, but his voice was gentle. "It's done. But to ease your mind even more, remember this isn't the big city. You're in Leeds now."
"Yes." Looking up, she took a deep breath of the clean, icy air. Leeds, the North.
"The stars seem so clear, so close here," she said. "It's as if someone polished the sky."
"Someone did," he answered lightly. "We like things to look their best when Southern girls arrive."
She laughed. "Well, I'm impressed. I didn't expect it to be quite so beautiful." With a hand, she gestured toward the building they'd exited. "I didn't expect a construction company office to look like an old schoolhouse either."
Draco started toward the parking lot again. "It is an old schoolhouse. Miss Lilah Malfoy's schoolhouse, as a matter of fact. I rescued it a few years ago."
"Lilah Malfoy? A relation?"
"Yep. An aunt. I forget how many greats," Draco answered. "My cousin Dana knows, though, she's the genealogist in the family."
"Your roots go deep in Leeds, then." Ginny had roots here too, roots that she wanted to reconnect to. Roots that she hoped would help her build a new life. "It must be nice."
"Are you rootless, Gina?"
She figured he was thinking of her résumé and the many jobs she'd had and cities she'd lived in over the past years. But she didn't want to go into that. "I don't have a big family," she said instead. "My mother died when I was young, after a long illness. We were … alone in the world." So alone that she'd made a mistake she'd been paying for every day since.
They reached her car. Though Ginny had her keys in her hand, Draco leaned against the driver's-side door, blocking her way. Goodness. His shoulders had to be twice the size of the average man's.
"You make me realize I shouldn't take so much for granted," he said. "My family's always been there for me. And the business was always there for me, too."
Ginny dipped her hands in the pocket of her coat. "So you always wanted the business? You always wanted to build things?" She could see him, she thought, a tall lanky kid following his uncle around with a hammer and a hundred questions.
His grin sliced whitely through the darkness. "I wanted to play for England until I was nine years old and broke my hand."
"Poor baby." Ginny shook her head, amused by the picture he painted. "Though you're ruining the North's image for me. I didn't think you Northerners knew how to quit."
"Yeah," he said dryly. "Just like we all smoke pipes and drag our Christmas trees behind sleighs through snowy fields."
"Wearing bowler hats," she added.
"And long coats."
She couldn't help but smile. "You don't have a long coat? I think I'm going to cry."
"I'll get one tomorrow," he said promptly. "Just so you won't."
The teasing note in his voice made her nervous again. "Well…" she started.
"Well?"
"I guess it's time for me to take myself and my fractured preconceptions home." She drew her hand and her car keys from her pocket.
He moved away from the door so she could unlock it. "It's not that I quit, Gina. Just that I know when a fight is worth fighting."
When she opened the door, the car's overhead light pooled on Draco's heavy construction boots but didn't come close to illuminating his face, somewhere above her. "You seem to have bad luck with things falling on you," she said, daring to tease a little about their meeting in the gym.
"I wouldn't say it's bad luck at all."
With just those words, her pulse quickened again. She looked up at him, then swallowed, because he was so big and because there was that current running between them, that hot, tingly current she'd worked so hard to ignore all day. She had no business feeling this. For Draco, or for any man. It was too easy for her to become dependent on one. The wrong one.
"Draco." She meant to say the word as a warning, but instead it came out uncertain.
"Gina." He took a step closer, and she automatically shrank against the car. He froze. He muttered to himself. He turned away from her. "Good night."
"Good night."
But before she had the door shut, he turned back. "Gina."
"Yes?"
His face was still in shadow, but it didn't take night vision for her to know he was battling himself. "Are you … is there…" He broke off, muttering again.
"What do you want, Draco?"
His voice was rueful. "For the moment, the answer to a question."
"Yes?"
He sighed. "Did you come to Leeds to be with someone?"
To be with a man, he meant. "No, Draco." Ginny almost laughed. "Good night." Shutting the car door, she wondered what he'd think if she told him she'd come to Leeds for precisely the opposite reason. She was here to get away from someone.
To get away from a man.
I would like to thank those who read Chapter 1 seeing how fast people were attracted to my story made me smile, I would also like to thank those of you who reviewed Chapter 1, your words were an insperation for me to post Chapter 2 so quickly.
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