And business ethics aside—Tav was done with relationships. He wasn’t the type to convince himself he didn’t believe in labels or just wasn’t a relationship guy or whatever knobs were telling themselves these days. He’d married young; he’d been a silly kid fresh out of uni and so besotted with his wife, Greer, that he hadn’t realized divorce was a thing that could exist in the perfect world they’d envisioned with each other.
He’d tried. He’d failed. He didn’t want to feel that awful, impotent guilt as his hopes and dreams for the future circled the drain ever again, and there was only one surefire way to avoid it.
“Oh. I just assumed—”
“Jamie is the one who set up this apprenticeship, lass. I had nothing to do with it,” he continued, ignoring the way her expression caved a bit at that. His younger brother had said it would be a clever way of bringing attention to the business and for Tav to finally get the help he needed, and Tav had gone along with it. He’d never been able to say no to Jamie, but then again, Jamie had never been one to ask unreasonable things of him. Until now. Expecting Tav to put up with Portia for three months was entirely unreasonable.
“He’s the one who contacted the newspapers to promote it, went through the applications that came in, and selected yours. I’d say it’s because you had a pretty face, but now I’m wondering if maybe he wasn’t just trying to find a way to aggravate me to death.”
Her tentative smile dropped then, and her brows raised in a way that was both delicate and dangerous. “I have an MFA from NYU and a master’s in art history from Columbia.”
“That’s n—”
She cut him off with an impatient swipe of her hand.
“I’ve interned at the Museum of Ancient Arts, the Museum of New York City, and several prestigious art galleries. I’m also quite confident I have the technological skills that you so clearly lack, judging from your crappy website and general lack of a web presence. I mean, honestly—Papyrus for the site’s header?”
“What?” Tav had no clue what she was on about.
She leaned forward a bit, holding his gaze. “Exactly. Perhaps Jamie didn’t make this clear, so I will. I’m the pretty face that’s gonna save your business for the low, low price of room, board, and a meager honorarium.”
Tav dropped the sandpaper and knife on the desk and stared at her, his hurt pride edging out his professionalism. “You can keep your American saviorism shite, lass. Bodotria Armory is doing just fine, so you can roll up that ‘mission accomplished’ banner and haul it over to someone who needs it.”
He gestured toward the door with his chin.
That wasn’t exactly true. Orders had dropped to the lowest they’d been in the armory’s ten-year history with no explanation. The rejuvenation of the neighborhood had been a boon, but it also meant higher taxes and the council breathing down his neck about the historical status of the building and the million repairs that needed to be done to get it up to code. His gaze tracked to where he had gestured, landing on the huge crack in the wall beside the door.
Tav hadn’t asked for the property and all the worries it brought—his knob of an absentee father had put it in trust for him, like some kind of shitty “sorry for denying your existence and hiding mine” eighteenth birthday surprise—but Tav had eventually turned it into the headquarters for his passion. He was bleeding money, stalled in sales, and worried he would lose his business, but he’d be damned if he revealed any of that. Tavish took care of people, and he’d take care of this.
“Mr. McKenzie, do you know what my nickname is?” she asked. There was that brow raise again. “And if you say bawbag or some other weird Scottish insult, I’ll be forced to mace you again.”
Tav suppressed a laugh at that. He gave her as stern an appraisal as he could muster, his gaze lingering on her nose for some reason. It was a cute nose, which made no fucking sense to him. A nose was a nose, but hers was the kind of nose you could imagine dropping a kiss onto, if you were into sappy shite like that.
She’s annoying, remember? You’re not that boss, remember?
“Freckles,” he responded drily. “Freckles McGee.”
Portia smirked, and he hadn’t thought smirks could be beguiling, but fucking hell if hers wasn’t.
Christ, take a cold shower, McKenzie.
“Cute, but it’s Search Engine Brown. Friend is going on a date with a strange guy? I can have all the info on him, from his middle school to his favorite T-shirt, in under an hour. Museum can’t track down info on a rare piece? I’m on it. Going to work for a new employer and need to know what the deal is with them? Guess who can dig up that info for you?”
She tilted her head to the side and gave him a know-it-all grin that conveyed a very explicit message: she saw right through him. He should have known that from the moment she’d looked him in the face all wide-eyed innocence and then maced the fuck out of him. There was no point in playing coy.
“What did you find out?” He thought he did a good job of sounding unconcerned.
“Everything available in the public record,” she said. “People always underestimate the public record. Lots of interesting stuff there.”
“So you want to add blackmail to the assault charges then, eh Freckles?”
“I want to do lots of things. I want to learn how to make swords, and I want to know the how and why behind every decision that goes into a blade. I want to rebuild your entire web presence, from social media to the website, and I want to get Bodotria Armory positioned as the premiere manufacturer of Scottish swords, knives, and various other weaponry. Basically? I want to do what I was brought here to do, which is to be your apprentice. Whether you allow me to do all, a fraction of, or none of that in the next three months is up to you.”
Tav allowed his chuckle to escape this time. She’d gone from doe in the headlights to brash businesswoman in no time flat. It shouldn’t have surprised him. Jamie was no fool, goofy as he was, and he had selected Portia. That and she’d shown uncommon bravery when she’d thought Cheryl was in trouble.
She held his gaze, but then her shoulders drooped and the fight left her eyes. Tav’s gaze dropped to her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap.
“Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but don’t fire me,” she said quietly. “I . . . really need this right now. You don’t even have to pay me the honorarium. I’ll make my time here worth your while. I promise.”
Suddenly, she wasn’t an annoying apprentice or a savvy shit talker. She was a woman in freefall searching for something solid to hold on to. Tav knew that feeling well; he’d spent his whole damn life looking for a foothold, a sense of stability, and he was going to lose the one he’d found if he didn’t try something different. Portia Hobbs was most definitely something different.
He hadn’t planned on firing her, and he wished he’d made that clear earlier because the pleading look in her eyes gutted him. He felt an illogical need to soothe her, and despite all the swords and armor, chivalry was most certainly not his thing.
He scrubbed a hand over his stubble.
“Aye. Jamie will be back this evening to teach a class and he can talk over all the administrative shite with ye. Enough with this puppy dog face.” He waved a hand dismissively in the air between them. “I prefer the ‘I’m about to burn your fucking eyeballs out, ye creepy bastard’ look you gave me earlier.”
He schooled his expression into a scowl and reached his hand across the desk, holding it in front of her. “Welcome to Bodotria Armory.”
She let out a sigh of relief and took his hand, giving it a good, firm, professional handshake. Tav touched women all the damn time during training and demonstrations without feeling a thing, but the feel of Portia’s slim fingers curling against his sent something bright and electric zipping through his veins.
Bloody hell, it’s going to be a long few months.
He noticed her gaze had slipped past his face, over his shoulder to where the framed photos lined his bookshelf next to souvenirs from trips to his parents’ respective homelands; a Moai statue from Chile and a small Jamaican flag. There was a photo of him and Jamie and their parents, a spectrum of browns with Tav’s face the only pale one. Portia was a smart woman—she’d figure it out.