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On the elevator ride back to the executive floor, my fingers twitched at my side. The week I’d gone back to work after having Nellie, Miller’s mother had shown up at her day care and demanded entry, which, for some inexplicable reason, she’d been given. Had I not been watching the parent cameras at that exact moment, I shuddered to think what would have happened. As it was, sprinting two blocks to her day care had taken years off my life. Mrs. Fairfield was not a stable person, and what little sense she’d had left after her only son was sent to prison.
My reaction had been swift and extreme, but if I couldn’t use my wealth and power to keep my daughter safe, what good was it? That was why I’d overseen the construction of the Rossi day care center. Now, I was assured Nellie was in the safest place she could’ve been, and the rest of the Rossi employees were able to take advantage of a top-of-the-line facility as well.
A win-win, and any whispers of me having lost it after everything with Miller had been squashed.
I returned to my office, annoyed at myself for still being so on edge. If I were honest, I’d been tense ever since I’d run out of Jake’s house.
So, maybe I wasn’t doing such a great job of pretending he didn’t exist, but I’d never had a vivid imagination. I’d always been one to deal in facts. My kindergarten teacher had had to call my mother. Informing her that while the rest of the class had done the assignment of creating their own colorful monster out of paper plates, feathers, and tissue paper, I’d read a book. What she didn’t know was that I’d been told I wasn’t allowed to draw Mrs. Payton, our mean old neighbor, and she had been the only monster I could think up.
I hadn’t gotten in trouble, though. My mother had kissed my cheek and said, “It takes all kinds of people to make the world go ’round. Some of us make up monsters, some of us see them in the real world.”
If only I’d seen my husband for what he was.
My assistant, Thomas, poked his head into my office, and I raised a brow. “Do you have the Salt Lake City numbers?” I asked.
“I don’t.” He slumped in my doorway, dramatic as always. Over the five years he’d been working with me, he’d gotten comfortable enough to let his true personality show the last four. “I’ve been hassling Greg Thorne’s admin for days. She’s a real cunt. She won’t put me through to him, and I have a feeling she’s not passing along my messages either.”
I rolled my eyes. “Greg should have fired her years ago.” Then I wagged a finger at him. “Not that I condone you calling a woman a cunt.”
“She deserves it.” Thomas flipped his flop of blond hair off his forehead.
“True, but let’s keep the cunt talk to a minimum at the office.”
He cocked his head. “You’ve now said it more than I have.”
Resting my chin on my woven fingers, I smirked. “Whose name is on the building?”
He huffed. “Rub it in.”
I laughed and glanced at my computer screen then back to my assistant. “I need the Salt Lake City numbers. Get Samantha on the phone for me, please?”
Straightening, he tapped the doorframe. “On it, boss.”
Just like that, I returned to what I understood best: facts and figures. Men and monsters were still a mystery to me, and since my imagination was far too underdeveloped to figure them out, they’d likely remain that way.
Chapter Fifteen
Jake
Jeremy strode through the restaurant with his usual confidence. This was his domain—the place where he conducted his outside the office business and felt like he had the upper hand. It was why he’d suggested meeting the Rossi execs here.
Rossi had been serious about getting to know us before making any decisions. They hadn’t even begun their SWOT analysis of Motor Zone. It seemed Jeremy and I were still being weighed and measured.
I feared my fuckups would lead to them finding us wanting, something I sure as hell should have thought about sooner. As we approached the table where Clara was already seated between a pair of suits, I was reminded of how I’d gotten here in the first place.
She glows in candlelight.
Laughing, smiling, leaning in to speak lowly to one of the men, likely lawyers or analysts. My fists clenched at my sides. Logic knew no place when I looked at her. Each version of her sent me reeling, and I wasn’t familiar or comfortable with that feeling.
Luca stood first, smiling amiably at Jeremy and me. We’d chosen not to bring a team with us. Jeremy had reasoned, when it boiled down to it, we were reminding the Rossis we were a family business. I couldn’t say he was wrong, but faced with the Rossi siblings and their team put me on my back foot.
Luca took my hand and patted me on the shoulder. “Nice to see you again, Jake.” He turned my hand over in his, inspected it for a beat, then chuckled. “Just seeing if you’d spent time in the garage today.”
Forcing a grin, I shook my head. “No, Mondays are my garage day. That’s all the time out of the office I can afford.”
Jeremy had worked his way around the table to Clara. He shook her hand gently, barely gripping her fingertips, and I somehow knew she wouldn’t like that at all. I followed his lead, forcing myself to stop and greet the men between us, whose names I immediately forgot, before holding my hand out to her.
“Clara. It’s nice to see you again.” Under different circumstances, I would have added how gorgeous she looked, her black dress flowing over the silhouette of her body.
