Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #1) (13)
Chapter 3
Evie
Evie followed the boss down the hallway back to the open office area. Her face was burning like she’d eaten something spicy, and the pace at which the boss was moving wasn’t helping with the redness in her neck and cheeks.
He’d just stared at her blankly. Completely devoid of all emotion. In fact, she thought she saw the little emotion that was there flicker out the minute he locked eyes with her. As if her silly comment was not even worthy enough to be embarrassed or outraged.
My stupidity is profound enough to be acknowledged, dammit.
She opened her mouth to say as much, but the boss paused in front of large wooden doors that led out to the parapet walk and opened them, motioning for her to pass in front of him. Rubbing her damp palms on her skirts, she stepped forward, feeling the rush of the midmorning sun against her skin.
Evie wasn’t a particular fan of high places, so seeing the distance from where she stood to the ground below caused her to back into the stone edge of the parapet and cling there.
“You’re missing the view.” His voice was low and gravelly in a way that made her head tingle, like the pitter-patter of rain against a roof.
“I know what Hickory Forest looks like,” she said dryly, shutting her eyes tight. But the images of the grand trees beyond were clear. She’d grown up in a village on the outskirts of the forest that took up so much of Rennedawn’s lands. Trees the size of giants blanketed the area surrounding the manor, thick green foliage standing out against a cloudless blue sky. The warm, balmy weather brushing her skin was typical of their kingdom’s forgiving climate, attracting all manner of beings to their modest section of the world.
Evie finally found enough strength to open her eyes and caught the tail end of a curve in her boss’s lips.
Glorious.
Ugh, not glorious, Evie.
She needed to be sedated, clearly.
The Villain continued like she wasn’t the blithering mess that she was. “I wanted to bring you away from prying ears.” He edged closer, his dark hair curling slightly against his tan skin. “It’s a matter of grave importance.”
Something about the way he stood, the wind billowing his black cloak about him, gave Evie a great sense of foreboding. Of course, that perfectly rational emotion was overtaken by the less sensible part of her brain that ignored the danger in favor of how attractive he looked.
Anyone with common sense knew that the loveliest blades were always the sharpest, but for Evie there was no such thing. Her sense came and went with the wind, nothing common about it.
Drawing the tip of her shoe in nervous circles, she looked the boss directly in the eye. “Okay, before you go all brooding Earl of Darkness on me, it was a dirty dream, but I meant, like…dirty. You know, with dirt, the brown stuff. It was muddy and a carriage rolled by and splattered muck over both of us and you said, ‘Better get this washed, Sage.’”
She could feel that awful tumble of words that spilled out every time she was nervous or an unwelcome quiet appeared, so she continued. “It was one of my more ordinary dreams, actually. Nothing explicit or inappropriate.” Her arms were flailing now, full-blown wing movements like she was trying to take off.
What was worse was the heightened color tingeing the sharp angle of his cheekbones and the slight widening of his eyes at the words tumbling from her lips.
A smart person would cease speaking at that clearly taken-aback expression, but Evie was not smart. Or rather, Evie was smart, but her brain and her mouth seemed to have a swift detachment from each other.
“Nobody was naked,” she said with a confident finality, rocking back on her heels.
Nobody. Was. Naked?
His eyes flashed, and her twisted imagination had the gall to see something burn there, for just a moment, before they shuttered again. He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head, seeming a little unnerved.
Seeing him lose any ounce of his impeccable composure gave Evie far too much satisfaction.
“I was not referring to your nighttime imaginings, Sage.” His throat bobbed as he walked around her to look out at their surroundings. The Manor was in a part of the forest that was so thick with foliage, no one would think to stumble this way. Every village in Rennedawn was intentionally built over natural large gaps in the trees, almost as if the gods created the map of their lands by hand.
But Massacre Manor was the exception, living encased by its surroundings, like an armor.
The boss braced his hands on either side of the stone pillars. Evie knew his shoulders and back would be tensed beneath his cloak if it wasn’t obscuring her view.
“Sage?”
Oh, he’d been talking, hadn’t he? She’d been too busy ogling him as if he were the last piece of pie.
“Oh yes, I…agree.” She nodded emphatically, rocking back and forth, doing her best to mask her confusion with a false confidence.
“Is that so?” He whistled low and raised a hand to rub the perfectly maintained stubble at his chin. “Well, with your agreement in mind, I’ll begin the arrangements to have you married off to one of the river gremlins to allow us safe passage for our shipments from the southern kingdoms.”
“What?” Evie gasped “Sir, I— No, I wasn’t— You can’t be serious!” But he could be. Evie had seen him do far worse to other employees who weren’t cooperating, and she’d arranged most of them. Her heart was pounding, blood rushing through her ears, making everything sound muffled.