“No!” she exclaimed, pointing her index fingers to the ceiling in firm disagreement. “No, I have never been married. I don’t have any kids.”
The businessman frowned at her. “So what the hell have you been doing for the past decade?”
Inhaling, Shyla held her breath for a minute. She shouldn’t be disappointed, it wasn’t like the interview had ever been on course to go well.
“Caring for my grandfather and his best friend,” she said. “He just died last week.”
“Your grandfather?”
“His best friend… My grandfather died three years ago. He raised me,” she said, twisting and squeezing her digits again. “And my brother…” Her next admission had a tendency to cause her to hyperventilate. “Who’s in prison…” Taking a shot at laughing it off was her go-to maneuver. As always, she got nothing from the blank person seated in front of her. No one ever reacted well to that part. Her desperate, last-ditch effort was begging. “I can cook, and clean, and sew… I know how to get red wine out of soft furnishings and blood out of bedsheets…” Rubbing her lips together, Shyla kept working her fingers and raised her shoulders. “I work hard. I work long. I can do anything that’s required of me. Anything… All I need is a safe place to sleep, that’s it… and maybe an allowance for food and medical. I can take care of everything. I live frugally. I don’t drive, so there’s no expenses there. I don’t smoke or do drugs. I don’t have any addictions… I…” The guy hadn’t stirred, even his expression was static. “I’m not getting through, am I?”
She sighed, coming to terms with the truth. The interview was another waste of everyone’s time. All she needed was for someone to give her a chance, but she didn’t blame anyone for being hesitant. Anxiety was not her friend. When she was fidgety and rambling, she might not give herself one.
“Hire her.”
The deep voice came suddenly from the recesses of the apartment.
It was so unexpected that even the man opposite her jumped. “Jesus, Score, do you have to loiter like that?”
Twisting around, Shyla didn’t see anyone. Only a slight movement in the mouth of the hall she’d been peering down earlier proved there was someone there. The wall between the kitchen and that passage created an angle of shadow. This Score had used that cover to his advantage.
With his arms still folded, he moved into the light at the end of the hall, and propped a shoulder on the wall. Shyla was stunned by the picture he presented. Her wide eyes couldn’t remember how to blink. The view of him didn’t even compare to that of the ocean. She forgot about the watery dullness in a flash.
At least six foot four or five inches tall, the broad man was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt that didn’t seem to know how to contain his biceps. His hair was thicker on top than at the sides, and he had stubble across his jaw. Nothing about him appeared forced; nothing about his look or manner gave the impression he’d made any effort at all.
Shyla kept her lips clamped shut to ensure her tongue didn’t roll from her mouth. How could a guy look so mean and dangerous just standing there, leaning on a wall?
“Where’s your brother at?” Score asked, his expression registering nothing.
He was talking to her; he’d asked a direct question. His eyes weren’t wide like hers, but Shyla guessed he was looking at her too.
After a couple of false starts, Shyla got her tongue to respond and forced her reluctant mouth to open. “Raiford,” she inhaled the word in a desperate breath.
“Florida State.”
“Haven’t had the pleasure, have you, Score?” the businessman opposite her asked.
Staring was rude, but Shyla couldn’t tear her attention away from the man at the end of the hallway. So tall and dominating, so powerful and so… unlike any man she’d ever seen in real life. Though real life for more than a decade had featured men enjoying their retirement.
“No,” Score said, though she didn’t see his lips move.
His response was more like a sound than a word.
Amusement bled into the businessman’s words. “Of all the things she said, how come the only word you heard was prison? Her brother could be a rapist, you know? A kiddie fiddler. Don’t other inmates pound on guys like that? You want to cut some slack to the sister of a pedophile?”
“Oh no,” Shyla gasped, turning back around to address the businessman. “It’s nothing like that. He would never… It was just burglary, he got a seven year sentence and…”
Twisting to ensure Score could hear her too, she stopped talking when she discovered he’d vanished.
The businessman sighed. “Okay, well, I guess you’re in…” Suffering whiplash, Shyla was still trying to orient herself and barely registered his false smile. “I’m Amos Beeks, Score’s lawyer…” He continued by muttering, “Among other things.” Before Shyla could react, he returned to his smile. “Everyone just calls me Beeks, so Beeks will do… What do we call you?”
“My… my name is Shyla Bellamy.”
“Well, I suppose, that’s, uh… what we’ll call you then.”
Which he would know because he’d read her birth certificate; Shyla wanted to kick herself. He was asking about nicknames and preferences. She’d done what she always did and said a stupid thing by opening her mouth without thinking first.
With Bernard and Stan, it hadn’t mattered if she’d spoken without thinking. Even if she said something shocking or ridiculous, the pair laughed it off. Shyla had lived quite a closeted life; she knew that. Being on call required her to be at home night and day in case either of the elderly men needed her. They came first. Shyla’s primary responsibility was to them.
That meant no social life. No nightclubs. No boyfriends
