“Erm,” she added after the mother of all awkward pauses. “Not that I’m going to fail you. I mean, this job. Or anything.”

Jacob looked down at her seriously. “That hadn’t even entered my mind.”

“Oh.” Tentatively, she smiled.

“Until you brought it up.”

“Oh.” Her smile was replaced by a scowl—until she caught sight of his smile in the moonlight, another subtle tilt of the lips, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “Oh! You bastard.”

“You’re not supposed to call your boss a bastard. Pull.” As if following his own instructions, he began to heave Eve upward. She squawked and grabbed a fistful of grass with her free hand, until he barked, “Do not fuck up my lawn.”

Scoffing, she let go and grabbed his calf instead. “Fine. And I will call my boss a bastard when he teases me with such a ruthless lack of concern for my sensitive soul.”

“I don’t tease,” Jacob said, his voice low and strained as he dragged her bodily from the pond. For a moment, Eve thought of those same words in a different context. They flashed through her, hot and glittering and entirely inappropriate. “And,” he went on, “I don’t give a damn about your sensitive soul.”

“Clearly,” she shot back. She was almost out of the pond now, her upper body completely clear. Jacob’s muscles were straining and his jaw tight, yet somehow he managed to balance lifting a woman who clearly weighed more than him—one-handed!—with trying not to tumble back into the pond himself. It was slow, but it was steady, and Eve had the sneaking suspicion that despite her own best efforts to clamber out, she wasn’t doing much to help.

“Look,” he said, the word a rasp. “There are many ways to fail—”

“Trust me, I’m aware.”

“And very few of them are actually controllable. Life has too many moving parts.” He managed to sound resentful of the very nature of human existence, which Eve found impressive despite herself. “So when it comes to this job, and failing, or succeeding, there’s really only one thing you can promise me. And,” he added sharply, “you will promise.”

“What?”

His response couldn’t be more surprising if he’d delivered it while butt naked and standing on his head. “Try for me, Eve. That’s all. Just try.”

She stared. Had she misheard him? King of High Standards and Anal-Retentive Rules? “That’s . . . all? That’s all you think it’ll take, for me not to fail.”

“Why not? You’re a relatively smart woman—”

“Relatively!”

“Relatively. No common sense, but other than that: smart.” Eve wanted to be offended, except he was wearing that tiny smile again. So she found herself trying not to laugh instead of ripping him a new arsehole.

Only Jacob could make relatively smart sound like a genuine and unreserved compliment.

“You’re also a good cook,” he went on, “and I get the sense that you try to be a nice person, when you’re not running people over. Plus, you’re . . . determined. I can work with determined. I can respect determined. I can trust determined. So, yes, I think trying will do it. That’s all I need from you.”

Trying. Just trying. She should probably still be hung up on that part, but instead she found herself echoing with obvious surprise, “Respect?”

“Yes, Eve. I respect you just fine.” He met her gaze as he gave one last, good pull.

Eve was just thinking that perhaps she didn’t hate Jacob after all—and perhaps, even more shocking, he maybe possibly didn’t entirely hate her—when she found herself free from the pond and flying through the air. That flight ended when she bumped into Jacob, knocking him backward and probably breaking several of his already bruised ribs.

“Fuck,” he barked.

“I’m so sorry!” As quickly as she could, Eve shifted her weight onto her hands and knees, hovering over him. She bent her head to . . . inspect him for damage, or something, God, she didn’t know. But at the same time, Jacob pushed himself up on one elbow, and she thought for a moment they were going to bump heads, but somehow they both managed to stop moving—

Which left their faces less than an inch apart.

She assumed that was his face, anyway. She couldn’t quite see, with the fall of her hair surrounding them and blocking all the moonlight. But she could feel his breath ghosting against her cheek. He smelled like toothpaste and fresh lemons. And pond, yes, but it was the lemons that had her attention. Something about it, or the heat of him, or his closeness, made her feel slow and stuck, like she’d just waded into honey.

“Sorry,” she repeated softly. The word was a barely there breath.

Then he pulled back a bit, or tilted his head, or something, and she could see him now. He had warm, summer-sky eyes, although he wasn’t smiling. Not at all. His mouth was a soft, slack pout, lips slightly parted as if he’d just been kissed. Such a sweet mouth, now that she looked at it, for all the sharp things it said.

“Are you sure you didn’t come here to kill me?” he asked.

“Quite sure.”

“But you’d be so good at it. You half murder me on a regular basis completely by accident.”

“Shut up,” she said. “I’m trying to admire your mouth and you are ruining it.”

“Admire my—?” He choked a little bit. Choked, and blinked rapidly, and then, if she wasn’t mistaken in the moonlight—he blushed.

For such a hard-hearted arse, he certainly blushed a lot.

And for such a smart woman—because Eve was smart, she had decided—she sure made a lot of bad decisions around him.

I’m trying to admire your mouth? Why on earth had she said that? Was she high? Were there shrooms growing in that pond and had she managed to . . . to huff them, or whatever one did with such things?

Flushing with mortification, she scrambled backward and hopped to her feet, brushing the dirt off her knees. “Ha. You should see your face.”

A muscle in Jacob’s jaw ticked as he stood. “Has anyone ever told you your sense of humor is shit?”

“You have told me.”

“I was right.” He turned on his heel and stalked back toward the house.

“Where are you going?” she called, shifting awkwardly—and wetly—on the grass.

He shot a look over his shoulder. “To clean up.”

She waited.

He sighed and stopped walking. “You should probably come and drink some Coke at the very least. If you die of pond disease, my insurance will be even higher.”

“Coke?”

“To kill whatever was in that water you swallowed. It’s a thing,” he said stiffly, and started walking again.

Fighting a smile, she rushed after him. “You know, if you’re so worried about insurance, you should probably put a fence around that pond.”

“It doesn’t need a fence, Eve. Only you would fall in.”

Chapter Nine

They took turns in the shower.

Eve went first, of course. He wasn’t going to send her home soaking wet and filthy—and anyway, Jacob needed to think, and he couldn’t do that if she was roaming around unattended. Better to shove her into the bathroom, to hear the lock click, to lean against the door and quietly lose his mind while safe in the knowledge that Eve was contained to one room only. So that’s exactly what he did.