Ask Me To

Book 2: The Heart's Way

by Elizabeth Castle

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Suspense; Workplace Romance; Romantic Suspense; contemporary romance; office romance; workplace romance; steamy romance; boss daughter

Synopsis

She found a dead body. It's his job to protect her. They shouldn't get close. The heart finds a way.

Dowdy lawyer Theo Landry's career is in shreds. She isn't happy when she's forced to accept her father's job offer, but his lead investigator makes coming into the office every day worth the while. Tall, dark, and very handsome. She doesn't expect anything to come of her infatuation with Jack Warner, but it doesn't hurt to look.

Private investigator Jack Warner was interested in and intrigued by his boss's daughter, despite Theo's severe hair and boring wardrobe. There is something about her that has caught and kept his attention. But dating his boss's daughter isn't a good idea.

When Theo finds herself in need of protection, her father assigns his favorite investigator to watch over his daughter. Jack and Theo find themselves thrown together and living in close quarters. Theo wants Jack, but doesn't think she's his type. Jack wants Theo but knows that his first priority is to protect her. But the desires of the heart can't be put off indefinitely, and if Jack wants Theo to stay with him always, he'll have to find a way past her defenses to keep her.

Note from author: “This is the second book in The Heart's Way series, approximately 55,000 words. Jack and Theo's story was actually finished before the first book, For Now And Always, because I became obsessed with Jack. I hope you love him as much as I do. All The Heart's Way books can be read separately, but like most series, it's more fun in order. Please note this is an open-door romance. I hope you enjoy.” – Lizzy Castle.

Release date: April 5, 2018

Publisher: In The Air Publishing

Print pages: 199

Content advisory: Open door romance.

Sample

Chapter One

Theo sat in her small office, gazing through the clear glass walls that made up the front of her office.  It was odd how she always knew when Jack Warner entered the building.  No matter how hard she was concentrating on the task before her, she sensed his presence.  To be fair, it was more the shift in the behavior of the women in the office outside her glass walls that hinted at his return.  Every single woman in the office was secretly primping behind her cubicle walls.  Faces were powdered and lipstick reapplied.

On top of that, Jack was hard to miss.  He was six feet, five inches tall.  She knew because one of the more forward women in the office had asked him, and she felt it was her obligation to share with the rest of the women.  He was broad-shouldered, muscular, and quite possibly the most handsome man Theo had ever seen.  With his height, his raven-black hair, and his twinkling blue eyes, he was impossible to miss.  This was not a man who would ever blend in with a crowd.

Theo tapped a few more keys on the keyboard, trying to ignore him.  It was not easy.  Jack wasn’t around much, at least not in this part of the building, but when he was, she had a hard time concentrating on her work.  From her vantage point, she saw him every day when he passed through on his way in and then out of the office, but that was it.  As a senior investigator, he rarely sought out the help of the legal team that kept the company, and the investigators, out of legal trouble.  But when he did pass through, she and the rest of the women watched him.  In the mornings, she had a view of him from behind, the fluorescent lights gleaming on his hair.  She would hide behind her monitor when he came back during lunch so that his observant eyes wouldn’t see her watching him.

She had been working for her father, Tom Landry, for the past three months, and every day she paused in her work to admire Jack.  Her father owned the exclusive private investigation firm.  When she found herself out of a job at the legal firm she had worked at, he had insisted she come work for him.  She had hesitated because she didn’t want any favors from him.  At least, not any more favors.  But finding a job had become an impossible task, and she had finally accepted. 

She had met Jack before she started working here, and she had to admit that being able to ogle him on his way in and out was as good a reason as any other she had for taking the job.  Her dad introduced her to Jack when she had come to one of her dad’s weddings.  She had met him at the reception.  Since then, she had met Jack socially on a few rare occasions when she visited her dad.  Even after three months of almost daily exposure, she hadn’t been able to stop her immediate, very physical reaction to him, though she was sure she hid it well.  Just watching him walk through the office, she had an urge to throw herself against his massive body.  She wanted him to catch her up in his arms and kiss her like she was the last woman on earth.  She, of course, could never tell him that.  And what had become painfully apparent after three months of exposure was that Jack didn’t particularly like her.

It was nothing Jack said that made her think he didn’t like her; it was his behavior.  He flirted with almost every female in the office, from the young receptionist who just had her first child to the middle-aged computer technician who ran the firm’s technical support team.  It was a friendly type of flirting, but he’d never used his charms on her.  He smiled at her when he saw her, but his behavior was quite reserved in comparison to the way he treated the other women.  She didn’t know if it was because she was the boss’s daughter or if there simply was something about her he didn’t like.  She’d gone over their brief meetings time and again to come up with a reason for his aloofness, but nothing she said or did stood out to her.  To be fair, she didn’t talk much when they were together, opting instead to listen and hope that he might feel even the smallest hint of attraction to her.

Theo tucked a strand of her thick, unruly, blonde hair back into its tight twist and sighed.  Jack had a thing for redheads.  She couldn’t count the number of single women in the building who dyed their hair red.  Theo wasn’t quite that desperate to gain his attention, especially since it hadn’t worked for the other women in the office.  As far as she knew, he never dated anyone in the building.  And there was no chance she was going to be the first, red hair or not.

Theo wasn’t attractive, at least not in the way men seemed to like.  She was taller than a lot of the women in the building.  She was five-nine, certainly not small and petite.  Her blond hair wasn’t a nice platinum shade or a pretty gold.  Her hair was more the color of straw, the dried-out kind.  Her body was slim, not curvy or busty.  She had the build of an athlete, not a centerfold.  And while she didn’t know if Jack preferred the centerfold type or not, she imagined he did.  What red-blooded man didn’t want a curvy, large-breasted female?  That was two strikes against her.

Theo tapped a few more keys, then sighed again, her gaze making its way back to the office where Jack was chatting with someone in finance.  On top of being blonde and slim, she was mousy.  She didn’t know how to primp and fuss with her appearance the way the other women in the office did.  She could never seem to find the right shade of lipstick, and she became frustrated with blush and eye shadow.  Her skin was pale, and makeup always ended up looking very unnatural.  She kept her cosmetics to a minimum, simply putting on a little mascara, a little blush, and a clear lip gloss.

On top of that, she didn’t know how to dress her body in a way that accentuated her figure.  And anyway, how do you accentuate something you don’t have?  While she worked as an attorney, it had been to her advantage to play down her femininity.  Clients were more comfortable with someone who looked the part.  Here at her father’s firm, her lack of femininity was a disadvantage.  Working in the main office area like she did now, she was surrounded by attractive females, all of whom knew the tricks of the trade and used them to their advantage.  And when male clients walked through their offices, she could tell their efforts were appreciated.  More than one man had checked out the women in the main office area, and a few were bold enough to ask one of the women out.  Romance was often in the air.

Theo watched Jack greet a few more people as he headed to the other half of the building where his office was.  She let out the breath she’d been holding, happy he was now behind the doors that led to the investigator’s area so she couldn’t see him anymore.  Most likely he’d be in and out during the day, but he usually only lingered and chatted in the morning.

Professionally, she admired Jack.  He had started off working for a rival firm in his youth, working his way up.  Eventually, he had come to work for her father and quickly became one of the most sought-after investigators the firm had.  Jack was very particular about the cases he took; a luxury he’d earned.  Her father had mentioned Jack often when they’d spoken on the phone.  Theo only lived an hour away, but neither father nor daughter bothered to make much time to see each other, though Theo did pop in every six months or so.  Theo’s monthly phone call to her father eased her guilt for not visiting him more often.  She imagined her father was more than satisfied with their long-distance relationship.  He’d never had much time for her growing up, preferring to leave her in the hands of her very capable nanny.

But six months ago, she had walked into his office unexpectedly.  She had to give him credit for realizing something was terribly wrong.  She wasn’t sure if it was her unannounced appearance at his office or the dark bruises under her eyes from lack of sleep.  She’d blurted out her problems, and he’d immediately promised to help her.  She knew, despite their distant relationship, that she could count on him.  He might be a womanizer, might be flamboyant and flashy, but he was still her father.  And though she’d done her best to be the opposite, at that moment she appreciated him in a way she never had.  She supposed it was his belief in her and his unwavering support that made her agree to work for him.  When the chips were down, he was there.  She couldn’t say the same about anyone else in her life.

Theo turned back to her laptop and got back to the assignment at hand.  Twenty minutes later, her father knocked on her door and stuck his head in.  “I need you in my office.”

“What’s up?”  Theo looked up at the man who was her father.  She looked nothing like him.  She was blonde, whereas his hair was a reddish auburn, which he kept in a very short cut.  She was slim, whereas he was quite fit and muscular.  She was reserved, whereas he was flamboyant.  She found it funny she’d ended up taller than him.  But then again, he had a thing for tall blonds.  Her father was five-seven, which for most men was on the shorter side.  His bank account made up for any misgivings the women he dated may have had about being taller than him.  And since he tended to favor women with small IQs and large bust sizes, she supposed it didn’t matter.  If he wanted a woman to be arm candy, then he got what he paid for.

“Jack and I need to talk to you.”

The mention of Jack had her spine stiffening and her heart racing.  Unwilling to let her father know she was extremely infatuated with his favorite investigator, she nodded, closed her laptop, and scooped it up to take along.

Since she had started here, her father never sought her advice, so she couldn’t imagine what he wanted.  He had seasoned law experts on staff.  She’d been a junior member of the law firm she’d been with.  She had specialized in things like wills and powers of attorney.  She did an occasional title search and wrote up contracts for real estate deals.  Business and criminal law were not her areas of expertise, though she had some knowledge.  The only reason she had a job here was because she was Tom Landry’s daughter.  Everyone in the office knew it.  The only reason she had a private office was because all of the legal advisers did.  Conversations often needed to stay confidential, and that couldn’t be done in an open-air office like this one.

“It must be something pretty sensitive to call me in.”  She hugged her laptop to her chest, feeling very uncomfortable with her father’s serious demeanor.  He was generally outgoing and usually enthusiastic about whatever project he was working on.  He loved to share whatever that project was with whoever would listen.  And as the boss, most everyone would stop and listen.  Plus, there wasn’t a shy bone in his body.

Tom ushered his daughter into the room, his hand on the small of her back.  He nodded at Jack, who then smiled briefly at Theo.  He held a chair for his daughter and then took a seat next to Jack across the table.

Theo didn’t like the feeling she got as both men watched her.  She got a sick feeling in her gut.  Her father must have read the papers.  “This about Donovan?”

Brandon Donovan had been the head of the law firm where she had worked.  Though not an owner or a lawyer, he’d been the firm’s CEO.  He also had ties to a criminal organization.  Theo had accidentally stumbled upon his illegal activities.  And when she had told one of the firm’s owners, she’d been summarily dismissed, and a libel suit had been brought to bear against her.  No one had believed her.  Her career had ended up in shreds.  No one else would hire her.  That was when she’d sought out her father’s help.  A discreet investigation by her father showed it was quite possible the firm’s owners knew and were complicit.  He’d warned her to stay as far away from them as possible and to drop her accusations.  Since she had no proof she could take to the police, she hadn’t had a choice, though she hadn’t wanted to let it go.  So here she was, working for her father with a lawsuit hanging over her head, and nothing she could do about it.

“I’m afraid it is.  Brandon Donovan was murdered two nights ago.  An investigation is underway.  I have a friend on the force who called me to warn me that the cops would be beating a path to my door soon because of your involvement.  And when the police find out about the lawsuit against you, if they haven’t already, they’ll know you have a motive for killing him.”

Theo tucked her hands in her lap.  She forgot that her father had connections with several police departments in the state.  The paper had not mentioned she’d been the one to find his body, so even if her father had read the paper, he wouldn’t know that unless the officer told him.

Theo didn’t want to remember that night, but she’d thought of little else in the past two days.  Her only distractions came in the form of work and Jack.  But once she was home, memories of what she had seen would creep back into her consciousness.  Sleep would then be hard to come by.  She had been using concealer to try to cover up the dark circles under her eyes.  She had been drinking a lot more coffee than she usually did, trying to combat the fatigue that weighed her down.

The police already knew about the lawsuit and her being fired from the firm.  She’d spent hours at the police station, being questioned and going over her statement.  Eventually, they had let her go but with the usual threats of don’t leave town and to stay available.  She supposed she was high on the list of suspects.

Everything about that day was stuck in her mind.  Normally she went right home after work.  She’d been job hunting every night since she’d been fired.  Even her weekends consisted of much the same.  She did her chores, ran her errands, then scoured different websites for jobs around the country.  She had yet to find a job and a place that appealed to her enough to uproot her life.  When Donovan had left her a cryptic message on her cell, she had wondered if there was even a remote possibility of getting her job back.  She’d had a pleasant fantasy of getting her job back, then quitting and leaving them hanging when she found a new job.

But on that night, instead of going home as she should have, she’d headed out to her old offices.  Donovan’s message told her to meet him at the office after hours.  In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done, but the office was never really empty, so she wasn’t afraid of a confrontation with him.  Many of the lawyers and their assistants kept late hours.  It still struck her as odd how quiet the office had been that night.

“Perhaps you should call them.  Tell them we have nothing to hide.”  Theo kept her gaze on her father, trying to ignore Jack’s presence.  Her heart was pounding already, and his beautiful eyes on her weren’t helping.

“I took the liberty.  A detective will be arriving this afternoon to talk to me about it.  I also called my attorney.  You’re not a criminal lawyer; I don’t want you defending yourself.”

“So what’s Jack for?”  Wanting to ignore Jack but unable to, her gaze settled on him.

“I’m for protection.”  Jack watched as what little color that had remained on Theo’s face drained.

“Protection from what?”

Jack answered.  “That’s the question of the day.  Your father is convinced you could be in danger.  And while it’s a remote possibility, it is a possibility.  I’m the best man to protect you should you need it.”

Jack wanted to go to her and take her in his arms.  It was an impulse he had a lot around her.  Her eyes had darkened, and she’d gone pale when she mentioned Donovan.  Normally she had an air of innocence about her, but today all he saw was fear.  She always had a shy smile for the people she met, always willing to help someone when they needed it.  Theo was different from the other women in the office, different from most women he knew, really.  She didn’t look at him with hungry eyes, eyes that wondered what he’d be like in bed, right after they wondered how much money was in his bank account.  Theo saw him when she looked at him, not the six-five giant male others saw.  She always had a smile for him, and her kind eyes drew him.  And despite the ugly clothes and habitually scraped-back hair, she was cute.  She had soulful brown eyes, and her hair was the color of honey blonde with streaks of gold.  If she ever let it loose, he imagined she’d be quite pretty.  And her height didn’t hurt.  He didn’t feel like a giant when he stood next to her.

But whatever the attraction he felt, right now she needed Jack the investigator, not Jack the man.  It was too bad, too.  He’d finally decided he’d had enough tiptoeing around her.  He’d only kept away from her because she was his boss’s daughter.  He’d been getting ready to make a move on her despite that fact, but her father asking him to protect her shot that plan out of the water.  She was now essentially a client, and he didn’t date clients.  Not only was it bad for business, but it could prove distracting and dangerous.

So Jack kept his arms to himself and concentrated on the facts.  “We know Donovan had ties to criminal activity, specifically drugs.  We aren’t sure what organization he was working with, but there is no doubt he was.  It could be drugs from anywhere in the world.  It’s too easy to get drugs over the Mexican border.  It’s not a lot harder when shipped from overseas, so we can’t rule that out.  And given the vicious nature of his murder, it was personal.  You’re the only person who ever came out and accused him of illegal activities.”

“And look where that got me?  I had no real hard facts, and I didn’t witness him doing anything illegal.  It was a fluke that the package was delivered to my office by mistake.  No one believed me, and I was fired.”  Theo was having a hard time grasping what was happening.  Despite having found his body, it had never occurred to her that she could be in danger.  Donovan and the firm had made an example out of her.  It seemed punishment enough for trying to do a good deed.

Jack tapped the top of his closed laptop.  “The problem is now that he’s dead, your accusations may be taken more seriously.  What your father and I found in our investigation of Donovan three months ago was enough to realize that whatever Donovan was involved in, it wasn’t good.  We’ll turn what we found over to the police.  It may help redirect the attention away from you and back to whoever killed him.”

Theo blinked back tears.  It was a relief to know that Jack didn’t consider her a suspect in the crime.  She expected her father to believe her, but Jack had no reason to.  “So now what do I do?”

Tom held up a hand to hold off Jack.  “First you meet with my attorney and tell him what you know.  He’s due any minute.  You’ll talk with him before you talk to the police to go over your statement.  Then you will meet with the police here in a private office.  Then Jack will take you home so you can pack your stuff.  We’ll stash you at my house.”

Jack interrupted.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.  You’re the first place someone would look for her when they can’t find her at home.  Her being with you could put you in danger, too.”

Tom nodded, taking what Jack said into consideration.  “You may have a point.  I could rent an apartment and stash her there.”

Jack shook his head.  “If you do that, the apartment could be traced financially back to you, which then potentially puts you in danger.”

Tom considered that.  “She could stay at your place.”

Jack vetoed that idea.  “We’re too close.  When they see she’s not with you, I’d be a reasonable next guess.  But I do know a place I can take her.  I have a friend who’s going out of town, and he asked me if I could check on his place while he’s gone.  Instead, I can take her there.  There is no reason anyone would trace me there should someone realize she’s with me.  I’ll call him this afternoon.”

Theo listened while the men made plans for her.  She was still in shock and was only half listening.  Things like this didn’t happen to boring, unfeminine attorneys.  These things happened to adventurous women, flashy women, women with exciting lives.  These things happened to centerfold types.

Theo lifted her head when her father rose and kissed her brow.  “I’ll meet Davis.  He’s the attorney.  We’ll put you in the large conference room.”

Theo watched her father leave the room, then faced Jack.  “I didn’t realize you investigated my boss.”

Jack shrugged.  “When you brought the case to your dad, he turned it over to me.”

“He thinks you’re a better investigator than he is.”  Theo had heard her father tell her often enough that Jack was the best, better than he’d ever been.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but he’s a bit out of practice.  He’s been a businessman too long.  He wanted someone with experience and someone still active in the field looking into it.  Donovan was bad news.”

“I still don’t understand what anyone would have against me.  Not a single person believed me.  Brandon Donovan had a sterling reputation.  There were rumors he was going to go into local politics.  Had his eye on a future governor spot one day.”

Jack opened his laptop and started typing.  “That’s exactly right.  There was no way he was going to let a junior associate at the law firm ruin his career.  Immediately after your allegation, he started manufacturing lies about you.”

Theo rubbed her brow where her father had kissed it.  “He accused me of having an affair with a junior lawyer, and when the affair went sour, I wanted revenge.  He said I was under investigation for drug abuse, but that he had no proof, so that was why he hadn’t fired me before.  He said I was unstable.  That I stalked my coworkers.  He had no one to substantiate those allegations, but the rumors did enough damage.  Then the owners got on board and confirmed the allegations in a secondary meeting with the press, expressing their dismay that an employee would turn on them the way I did.  There is not a respectable company in a two-hundred-mile radius that would hire me.  Other than my dad.”

“Your dad has faith in you.”  Jack clicked through some web pages, looking for anything on Donovan’s murder.

“So other than playing bodyguard, what else do you plan to do?”  Theo rose and walked over to stand behind Jack.  She tried to ignore the breadth of his shoulders while she gazed over them at the screen.  He’d done a rudimentary search on Donovan.  There were several mentions of his future in politics, the unfounded accusations leveled against him by one Theodora Landry, and news of his brutal murder.  The press was only too happy to print all the gory details.  She was happy to see her name still hadn’t been released to the press as the one who found him.

“Right now I gather facts.  I even gather rumors.  I take all the seemingly unrelated pieces and use them to figure out what Donovan was involved in and who he was involved with.  Knowing the players is the first step.  From there I decide if there is any danger to you or not.  It seems an unlikely scenario, but I never rule anything out.”

She could smile at that.  “At least not until you gather all the facts.”

“Precisely.”  He made a few notes on his laptop, then closed it.

Theo took a careful step back and released the breath she’d been holding.  Standing so close to him, smelling the soft scent of his cologne, had her knees feeling shaky.

“I’ll come with you when the police question you.  Davis is fine to handle the legal stuff, but I want to hear what the police have to say.”

Theo wasn’t sure of police procedure.  “Will they let you stay?”

“You’re not under arrest.  You’re just being questioned.  Unless they decide to haul you down to the station for questioning, there is no reason why I can’t be in on the interview.  You and your father are doing this as a courtesy, and you’re doing it voluntarily.  And I can answer some of the questions you can’t about Donovan.”

Theo felt a brief moment of shame.  Her father had warned her that Donovan was involved in something illegal, but it had been hard to nail down details.  She hadn’t wanted the details.  By the time she’d sought out her father’s help, all she wanted was to be left alone.  Her career was in shreds no matter what her father found.  But it had made her feel better that he had confirmed what she thought she knew about Donovan.  But like the proverbial ostrich, she’d buried her head in the sand.

Jack swiveled in the chair to face her.  She was frowning, but some of her color was back.  It relieved him that she didn’t look like she was going to pass out anymore.  When her face had drained of all color, he had hoped she would remain on her feet.

Jack was struggling for something reassuring to say when Tom came back into the room.  He gestured for the two of them to follow.  Jack pressed a hand to Theo’s back and guided her down the hall.  She shot him a look of surprise, but she hadn’t protested his touch.

Davis Montgomery sat at the head of the table in the conference room.  He rose and shook hands with Tom, then Jack.  His gaze drifted to Theo, but he didn’t extend a hand to her.

Theo didn’t know whether to be insulted or not.  Instead, she took a seat.  Her father and Jack seemed to be running this show, so she felt no need to take over now.

Tom took a moment to explain to Davis what had happened at the law firm and how Theo was involved in Donovan’s murder.  She shuddered when her father explained that Donovan had been beaten and stabbed.  That grisly scene would forever be etched in her memory.

Theo listened patiently for a while, became irritated, then blurted out, “I don’t suppose it matters whether I did it or not.”

Davis nodded.  “No, it doesn’t matter to me.  It’s not usually any easier to defend an innocent person than it is a guilty one, and the result is the same.  I do whatever I can to keep you out of jail.  Failing that, I do my best to take a plea that lessens the sentence.”

Theo squirmed in her seat when Davis didn’t so much as glance her way as he mentioned the word jail.  Then Davis started asking her dozens of highly personal questions.

“The man your previous employer said you were having an affair with, was there any truth to that?”

“No.  I barely knew him.  We didn’t even work in the same department.”   Theo answered the question, keeping her gaze off Jack.  She’d only had one lover before, and it had been a long time ago.  The fact that she spent a good part of each day wondering what kind of lover Jack would be had her face flushing.

“Do you do drugs, or are you involved with anyone who does?”

Theo shook her head at that.

Davis jotted a few notes and moved on.  “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

Exasperated with his questions, Theo rose, as did her voice.  “No, I have not been convicted of a crime.  I am not involved with anyone who has.  I’m not currently in a relationship.  I don’t do drugs or sell them.  I don’t have any enemies.  I don’t owe anyone money.  I have never committed a crime.  I don’t even have a parking ticket.  And I didn’t kill Brandon Donovan.”

Jack didn’t smile at her, but he was proud of her for standing up for herself.  She might look like a quiet type, but she had spirit.  She was going to need it if she was going to get through the next few weeks.  And if he found her flushed cheeks and the passion he sensed in her extremely arousing, he kept it to himself.

Davis wasn’t even fazed by her outburst.  “Good.  I don’t want to find any skeletons hiding in your closet that will come out and haunt us later.  The police may simply question you about your relationship with Mr. Donovan.  They’ll probably ask why you were fired.  If you’re innocent, then they won’t have any evidence against you that isn’t circumstantial.  It won’t be enough to build a case against you.”

Theo gritted her teeth at the “if” part and dropped back into her chair.  She could see her father smiling at her, obviously pleased with her outburst.  He was always telling her she needed more fire in her belly.  The next words out of her mouth stunned the group.  “I suppose this is the part where I tell you that they already questioned me right after I found his body.”