[COMPLETED] When down on her luck, Abby Redding lands a position as the personal assistant for wealthy businessman Alex Carter, her first assignment is to fix up his new cabin in a remote town.
Things don't go as planned when an unsolved murder and...
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There's a reason secrets are supposed to stay hidden. Alex Carter knew that the moment he revealed Abby Redding's. Her face paled and he swore she would have fallen if her back wasn't already pressed against the wall. He slowly took a step back and stared at the woman he had hired as his personal assistant. The woman he was forced to hire. She was a puzzle to him and he hated puzzles. He knew she had murdered Bryce Cruise. It was in the report he received from his company's security team. Still, there was something about her that made him believe the report was wrong.
She claimed self-defense. He supposed it was true since the grand jury didn't find it worthy enough to take to court. Open-and-shut was the death of Bryce Cruise, a divorce attorney known for helping his male clients leave their wives and children without a dime to their name.
Initially, he was adamantly against using Pathways to hire someone for his company, much less his personal assistant. His mother, Joyce Carter, had convinced him it would be good for PR and his karma. The latter was something he had been lacking lately, so he gave in to his mother's wishes with the caveat that it had to be someone with at least a smidgen of qualifications.
He should have known better as Joyce Carter hadn't become the wife and mother of top entrepreneurs without being a shrewd negotiator herself. The following day, she had placed Abby's resume on his desk with a triumphant grin on her face.
"I do believe a smidgen of qualification was your only qualification?" she asked raising an eyebrow as if she dared him to deny it.
Alex knew that if had really wanted to, he could have avoided hiring Abby but her background intrigued him. She was a woman intelligent enough to go through college but naïve enough to stay in an abusive relationship. She also had this secret of murdering her ex-boyfriend. Her records weren't sealed but who would think to ask during a job interview, "Have you ever murdered anyone?"
Then there was her interview. He had planned to intimidate her enough to back out on her own with her tail between her legs. His mother wouldn't be able to fault him if her candidate quit. Instead of being intimidated, Abby Redding answered all of his questions with aplomb. In a situation where most men would have cowered, she became brave. He wasn't sure what he expected of her but since arriving at the cabin, he'd been shocked by Abby. First, she knocked herself unconscious, then she screamed bloody murder in the middle of the night, and now here she was accusing him of attacking her in her sleep. Not to mention her annoying propensity to apologize incessantly.
Was she really insane?
"It...it was self-defense," Abby whispered.
Alex pursed his lips together in thought. "So I read."
"You have no right to ask me about it," she said, covering the bracelet she always seemed to be wearing with one hand.
