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"I really wish you’d let me do it, Atticus."
"For what purpose? He didn't have the information we needed anyway, so there's no point for you to have to live with that."
Atticus had me on the couch in his office, and he'd forced me to take off my shoes so he could rub my feet. There were worse things that could happen.
"Micah said that he was definitely an asshole, but you held your own. I believe that Dad was telling the truth about not hiring anyone to kill you. Obviously, we're going to verify that because it is my father."
"And we should verify. But I believed him, too. He didn't know. His game is all surrounding you and your mother and Micah. I can't imagine the horror he put you through."
"You don't have to."
"I know but my heart still breaks for little Atticus and Micah."
"We’re strong now. He can’t hurt us anymore. We can protect ourselves, Gwen. He can’t touch us. And I'm not going to let anything touch you either. You need to trust me."
"I know. And I do. It just feels like this is going to go on forever, you know?"
"I know. But for the time being, we'll try and focus on us. We got married in a bit of a hurry, if you remember."
I grinned at him as he used his thumb and slid it over the middle of my foot, smoothing it down my arch working out the perma-knot there from the heels I wore constantly. "Oh my God," I moaned.
"Woman, if you don't stop making that sound, you're going to give me ideas. And you said that I'm not allowed to shag you at the office anymore."
"I don't think it sets the best precedent if the CEO and the largest shareholder can't keep their hands off each other."
He brought my foot up close, kissing the arch, and I met his gaze. "So what does this mean? We're no closer to figuring out who wants me dead. All I want to do is focus on us and what we're doing. I don't want to be looking over our shoulders every second of every day. Maybe it's better if I give you back the shares."
He shook his head. "You can't actually give them back. You can request that Micah vote them for you, but you can't give them up. And you and I both know that's not why someone was trying to kill you. Someone tried to do that long before you were the most powerful woman in the tech industry. We just have to figure out who."
His assistant knocked on the door, and Atticus called out, "Come."
Andrew gave me a smile and averted his gaze when he saw my bare feet on Atticus's lap. "Atticus, three minutes until your next call. You're supposed to meet now, but since Gwen is here, do you want me to push it off for twenty minutes?"
Atticus shook his head. "No, I'll take the call if my wife doesn't mind waiting for me."
Honestly, I knew I shouldn't get that warm fuzzy feeling every time he said 'my wife,' but I couldn't help it. "I have things to do. I can't just sit here."
Andrew's gaze volleyed between the two of us, and finally, he just listened to his boss.
Atticus stood, offered me his hand, and then helped me up to my feet. When I reached for my shoes, he shook his head. "No, no. You just come sit with me."
"Oh no, you don't."
"It'll only take a minute. Ten minutes, tops."
"Argh, okay fine. But I have to leave eventually. I have things to do. I need to make sure Jack isn't fucking with my team."
"How is that going?"
"When I said I needed a redundancy, he was not what I meant. I wanted someone competent."
"Then put Macy in charge."
I lifted a brow. "Macy is good. She's extremely smart. She knows the software almost as well as I do. Only caveat is she has no leadership experience."
He shrugged. "Then give her some."
He lifted me up easily, placing me on the edge of his desk. “You sit here.” When he took his call, I remembered the last time we were seated like this, him on his call, me showing him what he was missing. I had ten minutes before I had to go down and meet with Jack. Atticus narrowed his gaze at me as he used a pen to flick up the edge of my skirt.
