Wicked Game by Mercy Celeste Read Free Book Online Page A

smiled.
    “So this is the new assistant. No offense, Miss Pendleton, but knowing Jaime as well as I do, I expected a tall leggy blonde. Not a petite—what did you say she did?—oh yeah, kindergarten teacher.”
    “Third grade, Mr. Copeland. I taught third grade.” She narrowed her eyes, aware that her hackles were raised. Beyond the fact that he didn’t listen very well, something about him was not quite right. Probably his too easy smile that said more used-car salesman than trusted businessman. “Third grade is a tricky year—multiplication, division, and cursive writing come into play.”
    “Yes, but what do you know about the sports world? Cursive writing isn’t half as tricky as negotiating multimillion-dollar endorsement deals and wrangling prima donna athletes.”
    “Well, Mr. Copeland, if more of your sports heroes would learn cursive writing in the first place, or any writing for that matter, then your job might not be so tricky.”
    “Pepper! Down, girl. Let Sam enjoy his lunch, and then we’ll all sit down and work out how the two of you are going to work together to make my life easier.” Jaime stepped beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, easing her back into the kitchen. “Come on out to the patio, Sam, we’ll talk man things while the woman does the kitchen stuff.”
    When Sam was safely on the patio, Cass found a soft spot on the underside of Jaime’s arm, and with a pinch and a twist, she walked away satisfied with his yelp of pain.

Chapter Seven
    Over the course of the next few weeks, Cass fell into a routine that she grew to enjoy. Up in the morning early, to sync up with Sam and work Jaime’s publicity and endorsement schedule in with his day-job schedule.
    As the summer slowly slid toward July and the imminent start of football season, he was gone more and more, leaving her alone with not as much to do as he had thought. He made good on the promise of a car. A nice, sensible Mercedes wagon. And she found the shopping area closest to the house for groceries and such. Then she found the bookstore, and her world suddenly became right again. There was so much to do that didn’t fit into Jaime’s job description to keep her busy. Such as learning to cook and filling the empty rooms in Jaime’s house with furniture.
    On her third day with Jaime, she’d given herself a tour of the house and discovered that in the three years he’d been in the house, he had only bought furniture for a handful of rooms—a den, an office, his bedroom, the guest room she occupied, and a weight room. The house had four more bedrooms, a dining and living room, and a huge room that had no apparent purpose.
    At Jaime’s suggestion, she started picking out furniture and paint samples. When the food in the fridge had run low and no candidate for a replacement cook had shown up, she decided she could figure that out too.
    The bookstore gave her access to everything she needed to wear the different hats inside Jaime Dalton’s empire.
    Jaime himself posed less of a problem as the days went by. At first, he was constantly underfoot and tormenting her. Somehow, she’d managed to make it through the first week without killing him. Then that glorious day came when she put him on a plane to Los Angeles to film a commercial. His workout schedule accelerated, as June began to wind into July, and he was gone most of the days he wasn’t posing for posters or volunteering with the charities he supported.
    His life was busy and complicated. After two weeks of living with him, she finally understood why he needed someone to help him keep track of his appointments. Sam was just the person who got him extra work. He didn’t call to wake him up, after a late night with members of his team or the one or two bimbos he went out with, to make it to his appointments. Or to meet with the president of the United States to receive an award for his work with the Boys and Girls Club.
    However, just because Jaime’s life