Page 91 of Wait for Him

He looks at me, and I nearly cave. For a second he's fourteen again, all lost and furious, and my whole chest goes soft. But I power through it.

"Get your goddamn head in the game and your ass back in that conference room. Right the fuck now, little brother."

The next half hour passes in a blur. I can barely focus. I feel the exhaustion bleeding down into my bones. I haven't spared Jackson a single glance the entire time because I can't afford to break, and something about the way he's been looking at me lately makes me want to curl up into his arms and let him keep the whole world off me. That's not who I am. I'm the protector. He weakens me in ways I can't afford, and I can't afford much right now.

Michael walking out of the conference room clears my head enough to snap me into work mode. The rest of us stand and start heading out of the room.

"We'll head to New York first thing, get a meeting with Mr. Sakura and steady the waters. Jackson, you're with me. He's going to ask about the investment, and I'll need you at your sharpest," I say as we enter Frank's office to grab my things.

He nods, thumbing a note onto his iPad.

"Good call. And if we're going to have to loop in Tokyo, we get ahead of that now." Frank shakes his head. "This is a shitshow. He may be a grown man, but he acts like a goddamn toddler."

"Watch it, Frank." I level him with a look. "That toddler signs your paychecks, and he's my brother. So watch your goddamn mouth."

Jackson brushes a hand over his jaw to hide a smirk as I walk out of the office and head to find Michael.

Chapter Six

Jackson

Rose leaves Frank's office, shutting the door behind her, and I raise a hand before he can so much as open his mouth.

"No. I didn't go home last night, Frank. Drop it."

He shuts his mouth, but levels me with a look that could kill if I weren't the stronger of the two of us.

"She got into trouble last night," he says. "When you don't go home, she acts out."

"Then control your kid. I'm doing this for my father, and I'm holding up every inch of my end of the deal. But I'm not a babysitter. She's twenty-eight years old. She needs to grow the fuck up, or get some actual help."

Frank actually looks contemplative at that, but I'm not interested in hanging around long enough to find out whether I've finally managed to get something through his thick fucking skull. I've already given him more of my morning than I wanted to, so I leave before he can drag me into another round.

I head for Bennet's office since that's where Rose was aimed, but stop short when I reach Claudia's desk and realize we're both staring down the hallway at the same thing.

Bennet is carrying a very angry Rose toward his office.

And carrying may be too generous a description for what's happening here.

"Put me down!" she yells.

"Absolutely not."

"I am your attorney!"

"You're also sixty pounds soaking wet. Put your legs down—" She's kicking her legs so hard, she looks like she's pedaling a bike, while he hauls her along with one arm banded around her waist with the rest of her tucked against his side. Like a football.

Claudia and I exchange a glance, and I can tell from her face that she's having about as much luck making sense of this as I am. I have no idea what happened between the conference room and here, but whatever Rose is pissed about has clearly reached the point where Bennet decided physically carrying her was the most efficient available solution.

"She has a lot of nerve walking into this building after what she did to you," Rose is still going, still airborne. "I have things to say—"

"Uh. Is everything all right, Mr. Sullivan?" Claudia asks, taking the question right out of my mouth. I'm rooted in place, no idea what the hell I'm watching, genuinely unsure whether to be concerned or entertained.

"Everything's fine." Bennet waves a hand as he passes. "Perfectly fine."

Then his office door shuts.

And locks.