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Dear fucking God.
“How the hell did this happen? Why didn’t you contact me sooner?”
“Thatone,” Andrew started, jutting a thumb back at Michael, “refused to bother you. But we’ve run out of food, we’ve run out of drinks, and the hotel is insisting we shut it down before both they and we get a hefty fine, or worse, insurance claims.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Andrew cut me off.
“This ship is not fucking tight enough,” he continued, spittle flying in the fluorescent lighting. “Do you understand what this will do, Adrian? We have to shut it down. We have to refund everyone. We have to eat the cost of this, both in revenue andreputation. Cedarwood will be furious. We could lose them as a client over this. We could losemultipleclients over this.”
My fingers twitched inwards, my hands curling into fists. The temptation to hit him square across the jaw crept up on me, starting low and small and increasing to a high-pitched ringing in my ears by the time he’d finished speaking. “You think I don’t know that?” I seethed. “Respectfully, Andrew, I am not the one in charge of final checks.”
Michael pushed off the wall behind Andrew, his jaw steeled and his gaze averted. “I should have…”
I shook my head. “You know damn well that isn’t your responsibility either.”
“You should have been there to oversee it,” Andrew snapped, his gaze locked on me. “This is your company. Take the fucking responsibility. Handle this.”
Silence, or as much of that as one can get on the forty-fourth floor in downtown Manhattan, settled in around us. It nearly crackled with charge.
None of us wanted to be the one to make that call. None of us wanted to be the reason the conference shut down. None of us wanted to be on the receiving end of the damages, the consequences, the wrath that this would bring.
It would be corporate suicide.
Andrew would never. He was too proud, too pompous, too up-on-his-high-horse to ever come down. And Michael…Michael was my best friend. The second he opened his mouth again, I knew what he was doing. And I couldn’t let it happen.
“Shut it down,” I said. “Shut it all down.Now.”
————
There wasn’t a chance in hell that David Riley wouldn’t find out about this in the next hour, and considering his company was one of the few showcasing at the conference I’d just had to obliterate. I figured it would be better coming from me.
Nervously, I fidgeted with the cuff of my sweater as I sat in the back of my car. I didn’t love turning up at David’s uninvited, even if he was one of my closest friends. But the anxiety of what I’d just done was eating away at me, and it was mixing in a horribly nauseating cocktail with the knowledge that Ava would be there, and I’d have to keep my hands and thoughts to myself.
And I’d have to look David in the fucking eye after everything I’d done to his daughter. Somehow that seemed harder than doing the same thing weeks ago when I’d only slept with her once and everything else was simply a cacophony of debaucherous, debased thoughts that filled my head—now I had to speak to him with her a foot away, close enough to reach out and grab and beg for her to drop to her goddamn knees again. I could do it. It just wouldn’t be easy.
But none of this was easy, not now.
Chapter 23
Ava
Why the fuck didn’t he text me?
Dad’s phone had gone off thirty seconds before Adrian’s tall, overwhelming form had stepped through the doors of my father’s penthouse. I sat on the sofa opposite Dad’s recliner, the lighting low and the curtains drawn, in my leggings and paint-stained band shirt from last night. I wasn’t dumb enough to turn up in one of Adrian’s shirts, even if there was a chance Dad had never seen it before.
But I knew what the heat that filled my skin meant, and it had crept across my cheeks and neck the moment Adrian’s eyes had locked with mine.
Beforethey turned to my father.
I just had to hope that the unexpected arrival was enough to keep Dad’s attention off me while I got myself under control.
“David,” Adrian said, his eyes wide and chest heaving as if he’d run up the sixty flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator. “I’m sorry. I need to talk to you,now.”
What?
“Yeah, I figured as much.”
What does he need…
