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“I’ll see what I can do and get this to go away. In the meantime, you now also don’t do anything outside of work without me knowing. Is that clear?”
“Like glass.”
“Good. I think we should come up with an itinerary—”
“Excuse me?” I call a car on my phone and give her my most neutral look. “I’m not a child.”
“You want to change or at least appear to change, or what?”
It takes less than a minute for one of the Sinclair town cars to pull smoothly up to the curb and I open the door and gesture for her to get it. She’s tall, so she doesn’t have to lift her chin too far to meet my gaze. And hers is positively straight from the darkest period of the ice age.
I don’t answer and it’s a silent battle of wills. Normally, I’d go the charm route, a little smooth talking, compliments, warm glances. She doesn’t like those and I’m not here to seduce her—whether it be out of her panties or me into her good books. So I wait. Behind us horns honk and people scream abuse as they want the parking spot, which is a coveted thing in this city.
“What I want is for you to get in the fucking car.”
She’s about to say something, but Elliot shakes her head instead and gets in and I take a moment to admire her ass as she does so. Her outfit doesn’t do it justice, but the way her trousers stretch across it does.
I follow and clip my seatbelt on. Then I tap my fingers against the door’s armrest. “I don’t need an itinerary. This isn’t political, this isn’t even me trying to win the favor of the public—”
“No, but you’re trying to win favor and prove you’ve changed, so to do that, you have to. Appearance wise and behavioral. If it was going to be easy for you, you wouldn’t have hired me, Ryder.”
“You got that right. But I don’t need an itinerary. My life is ruled by that bullshit enough.”
Her glance is long and thoughtful and she crosses those long legs. Because even in the trousers, her unflattering trousers, they’re definitely the mile-long type of leg. “Structure, Ryder, is important here. It’ll keep you out of trouble and your life ordered.”
“Order is the bane of the gods.”
Her mouth twitches a little as she clearly tries not to smile. “I’m not sure that’s true.”
“Well,” I say darkly as the world of Manhattan shifts past us in the window of the car as we make our way to SoHo. I’m assuming she’ll want to be at her office. “It should be.”
“I’m not the enemy. And all my clients have an itinerary. It helps.”
“Thing is, I have meetings that pop up, events. There are impromptu meals and drinks that are basically meetings in disguise. Many deals are lost or made over a drink or three.”
“And in a strip club, no doubt,” she mutters. “Which are off your schedule.”
I open my mouth to say I don’t go to places like that, but it’s a lie. I joke about them with my brothers, but there are plenty out there who want places like that, and I go when I have to. There’s an underlying sleaze to many, and there’s also an honesty. Again, it’s not something I’m about to say to this woman.
“You’re in luck. I don’t have anything like that penciled in on my dance card.”
This time she does smile. “Or high class places where the waitstaff are barely clad.”
“Now you’re trying to ruin my life.”
“Four weeks, Ryder. I’m sure you can manage.” She pulls out her phone and mine pings a few seconds later. “Go through that. Places to keep away from, places you can go.”
I look at my phone and shake my head. Her list is long. “Half the board of Sinclair’s go to these places.”
“Half the board isn’t trying to keep Sinclair’s within their namesake family’s grasp.”
“If it’s fine with you,” I say with heaping amounts of sarcasm, as if she hadn’t made a salient point, “I have a whole bunch of meetings today—”
“Wear your most conservative suit.”
“—and then I have to meet my brother and then go home.”
We pull up outside her office, double parking on Prince Street, and she opens the door and gets out. Then she turns and bends to look at me. “Report in after.”
