Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
“Does it look bad if we walk in together?” I ask.
“It would look bad if we fucked on the receptionist’s desk, though I’m all in, if you are.” He jokes but then turns serious. “We’re working together on a deal that secures everyone’s future. The staff and stockholders better hope we fucking walk in together.”
“There’s the Reid I know. So warm and fuzzy and diplomatic.”
“I tell it how I see it.”
I laugh and we enter the building. Once we’re in the elevator alone, Reid glances over at me. “I don’t believe I saw what color panties you wore today.”
“Perhaps I didn’t wear any panties,” I say, as I did when we did this before.
“I’ll find out for myself,” he warns. “At the most unexpected time today.”
The elevator opens and an older lady steps on, standing beside me. I scoot closer to Reid. “I’ll spare you the work. I’m not.”
He glances down at me, his eyes hot. “You’re not?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Why?”
The elevator dings. “It’s just something I do every now and then.” The doors open and I dart forward. I can feel him at my back, watching me, wanting to pull me to his office and yank my skirt up and see for himself. Connie is at Sallie’s desk when I approach and they both look at me with keen eyes that see too much. “You look happy,” Connie says, and when Reid stops beside me, she eyes him, “Wait. You look happy, too. Who are you?”
“A man about to close a deal so big they’ll be talking about it for fifty years.” He looks at me. “We need to be at the meeting, dressed for the party, by five.” He walks away.
I turn to the ladies. “He brought so much money to the table there’s no way Grayson can’t be impressed. And he’s barely gotten started.”
“Then you two are working well together?” Connie asks, her eyes searching mine.
Sallie snorts. “He orders her around like she’s his plaything.”
My cheeks heat and Connie smiles. “And that only goes well for him when she lets it go well for him.” She winks and walks away.
I quickly bypass Sallie’s curious look and enter my office. I claim my seat, ready for tonight. I want it to be here. That’s when I hear Sallie say, “Sir. Sir, you can’t be here.”
I stand up and hurry to the door to find Reid’s father walking toward his office, because apparently the hell of the weekend is not behind us, and neither is the hate.
Chapter sixty-one
Reid
I’ve just hung up with one of the investors I’m working with who’s demanding a meeting, and promising fast cash when Connie buzzes my office. “Your father is charging toward your office while Sallie runs after him.”
“Holy fuck,” I murmur. “Get Sallie out of this.”
“Done.”
No sooner does she say that word then my father walks into my office in one of his expensive suits, and he doesn’t bother to shut the door. He saunters toward me like he owns the place and sets a folder on my desk. “I saved you the work. My retirement terms and contract.”
“You aren’t here to give me your retirement contract. You’re here to drive home the fact that you and I are in Carrie’s father’s old office. You want to cut her because she’s his daughter. Or you’re afraid she’ll marry me and get the family fortune.”
“Marry? You’re going to marry that woman?”
I said those words with no hesitation and I don’t back down now. In the back of my mind, I’ve known Carrie was it for me, the final woman, from the beginning. “I could be so lucky as to have Carrie agree to be my wife,” I say, “which should tell you how deeply I will cut you for her.”
He presses his hands on my desk. “How did you become what you are right now?”
“My mother wrote a letter that told me who you really are, and do you know her worst fear? That I would become you.”
He stands up and for the first time in my life, outside of the day we buried my mother, he looks stricken. “She didn’t say that.”
“She did. You hurt her. You cut her. She wasn’t a business conquest. She was your wife and my mother.”
His lashes lower and he cuts his gaze. “Read the contract,” he says and then he turns and leaves.
I don’t believe what I just said to him will change him, but it affected him. There is still something human in that man and I can only hope that means he’s capable of a real truce. I round the desk and I exit my office, crossing the offices and entering Carrie’s office. She’s standing at her window and she turns as I shut the door.
“What are you thinking right now?”
“I’m not. I’m waiting for you to tell me what that was.”