“Oh, lady. If you can do that, I’ll take you for myself.” He held up a hand. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
She liked Clint. He had a good sense of humor. “Just give me time. Tanner will become obsessively neat.” Kind of like she was.
“I see you like the impossible. Good luck.” He took less than fifteen minutes to mount the board. “All set.”
“Thank you!”
Clint nodded, saluted, and then left.
Ella wrote some notes on the board to show Tanner what a good tool this could be. After she wiped down his desk and straightened what she could, it was time to head back to the hotel, have a drink, and relax. Not wanting to run into Sasha without Tanner by her side, Ella decided to order room service at the hotel and then take a long, luxurious bath.
Tomorrow, she’d have her car back and really start her job. Maybe getting stuck in the avalanche had been the best thing to ever happen to her.
Chapter Six
Tanner hadn’t expected to take all day to retrieve Ella’s car, but he wasn’t in charge of traffic. At least now she wouldn’t be stranded in Plux without a way out. He parked her fancy car in the lot behind the hotel and then headed to the office. Needing to keep informed about the day’s events, he had called Clint a few times, but his second-in-command said everything was under control.
Tanner half expected Ella to call with some emergency, but she hadn’t. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t had to deal with an irate client for a whole day.
The lights were off in the office. Good. Clint had gone home, and clearly Ella had returned to the hotel. When he stepped into his office, he froze. “What the hell?”
Sure, he’d asked her to straighten up, scan, and shred some documents, but there was no way she could do all of that in one day. He walked over to his desk and touched the organizer. Where had that come from? Did Ella think he needed this?
When he looked at the labels on the hanging folders and on the shelves themselves, he had to admit they might come in handy. He checked out what she’d placed on the new bookcase and liked how she’d set it up. Not that he thought she was just a pretty face, but she didn’t seem like the uber organized person to him. Tanner was rather proud of himself for hiring her.
Ella had mentioned she might do a little rearranging of his folders on his computer. When he studied them, he shook his head. Color coded folders? No self-respecting business owner wanted that.
And her folder names? They didn’t make a lot of sense, but he wasn’t about to trash anything until she explained her system. If he deleted some billing information, it could be disastrous. As he leaned back in his chair, he noticed the whiteboard directly to the left of the door. That was new. On it was a note: Hi, Tanner. Don’t be upset by how I labeled everything. I’ll explain it all tomorrow—Ella.
Thankfully, she understood that change didn’t come easily to him. While he had planned on working this evening, he couldn’t find anything to do. Sure, he’d asked her to shred whatever she scanned, but that meant he’d have to find it on his computer, and right now he wasn’t in the mood. Trying not to let this new system bother him, Tanner pushed back his chair and headed out. Tomorrow would be a new day indeed.
When Ella knocked on his office door the next morning and peeked her head in, any frustration he’d had disappeared, especially since he smelled the coffee in her hand.
“I wanted to thank you for driving my car back here. I owe you. A lot,” she said.
“It wasn’t a big deal. It was probably better that I got out of your hair for the day so you could do your organizational work in here.”
She set down the cup. “You don’t seem pleased.”
“No. I am. It’s different, that’s all.”
Ella smiled, dragged the spare chair in his office around to his side of the desk, and sat down. She scooted closer to him, and her scent made his cock harden. Not good.
“Let me explain what I did.”
When she reached across him to rotate his computer screen toward her, Tanner leaned back. He’d never had such a visceral reaction to anyone before, and it bothered him. He was a man of control, and Ella was definitely messing with his state of mind. “I figured out some of it, but the colors were a bit over the top.”
She laughed. “I didn’t take you for someone who wasn’t secure in his masculinity.”
Now she’d crossed the line. “I am totally fine with who I am.”
Ella grinned, acting as if she’d won some prize. “Good, then colors it is.”
Had she just manipulated him? No woman ever did that.
For the next half hour, Ella explained how she’d organized everything by clients. She had a spreadsheet that listed who was up-to-date in their payments and who was behind. She also had itemized which suppliers he owed money to. By the time she finished, his head was spinning.
“That is amazing. How did you know how to do all that?”
“My father is in the business.”
He hadn’t expected that. “Really? Does he do commercial or residential?”
She looked off to the side. “A little of both.”
Clearly, she didn’t want to discuss it. That was okay. Tanner wasn’t in any rush to learn about her deep, dark secrets. “Nice.”
The phone rang on his desk as well as in the entryway. She pushed back her chair. “I’ll get that!”
He chuckled. He loved her enthusiasm. Her voice traveled down the hallway, and then his line buzzed. “Yes, Ella?”
“It’s Mr. Domingo on the line.”
“Thanks.” His firm was buying windows from him. “John, how’s it going?”
They talked about adding a new line of windows for
