Surrendering to Us (40 page)

Holy crap!
That was basically my feeling on the matter. Now that the moment of crisis was over, all I wanted to do was talk to Dad and make sure he was okay.

The minutes dragged and dragged, and I had to stop checking the clock because it never seemed to move. Lilia was taking notes, and I hoped she could fill me in on what was going on, because everything I was supposed to be paying attention to was just a blur of PowerPoint slides and words and numbers and percentages.

It seemed like I had entered some sort of alternate universe where time stood still. Or maybe the same minute was repeating itself over and over. Groundhog Minute.

“Well, that’s, uh, all we have for today. Have a good weekend everyone.” Mr. Buckley seemed beyond relieved that the meeting was over, and I had to agree with him. I tried to get to Dad, but he was attacked by several other Board members, not including Hal, who left with a group of other members who all had pissed expressions. That must be the anti-Walter Clarke group. I made a mental note on each of them for future reference.

“You okay?” Lilia said as she tugged at my sleeve. I nodded. I didn’t want to talk about anything when there were so many ears that could hear.

I wasn’t going to be able to talk to Dad right away, but I finally caught his eye and he nodded. I hoped that meant I could go see him later because we definitely needed to talk.

“That was interesting,” Violet said as she walked by me. That was one word for it.

“Yeah, do you want to go back to my office and discuss it?” I had to talk to someone, and Lilia and Violet seemed like the only ones, apart from Lucah, I could talk to.

“Great idea,” Violet said and we quickly exited and went to my office where I shut, and then locked, the door.

“What the hell just happened?” Violet said as I sat down at my desk. Lilia leaned against the table with the water pitcher and glasses on it, and Violet took the seat across from me.

“I mean, did you know that was going to happen?” she asked me.

I considered for a moment what to tell them. It was so hard to trust anyone at this place anymore. But when I looked at Lilia and Violet, I decided that these were two of the people I could.

“Yes and no. I knew there was going to be some kind of confrontation, but I didn’t know it would be like that.” Nothing could have prepared me for that, which was probably why Dad didn’t tell me much.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Lilia said. “I thought they were going to start punching each other.” Me too.

“So what now?” Lilia said, folding and unfolding her arms.

“That is a good question I don’t have the answer to,” I said. For that I’d have to talk to Dad. I couldn’t imagine he and Hal could go back to working together like they had before, but what did I know? Maybe Dad could convince him to step back to avoid any excess drama. Now that Hal knew he didn’t have the upper hand, he might be more willing to back out while he still could.

“Batshit crazy,” Violet said, shaking her head. “Oh, sorry for the language.”

“No, no. It was warranted,” I said. I’d gotten almost completely desensitized to cursing because of Ryder. Also, because I was a frequent user of said words.

“I really need to go talk to my dad,” I said, looking at the door. The other two seemed to be lost in thought.

“Oh, sure. Of course. I’m going to go back to my office. Would you mind letting me know what you find out? I’m rooting for Team Clarke.” I had to laugh about that comment.

“Absolutely, I’ll let know what I find out,” I said and Violet went back to her office.

“Need a therapy session? Just call me,” Lilia said and left as well. Before I marched myself down to Dad’s office, I decided to call first.

“Hello, Rory. I think I can guess why you’re calling,” Mrs. Andrews said.

“I’m sure. Is he available?”

“Hold on dear, let me check.” She set the phone down and I waited for her to come back.

“Come right on over,” she said and I hung up and walked briskly down the hall. His door was open, but he motioned for me to close it when I walked in. I hadn’t seen his face so grim since we’d found out about his friend (and my former assistant) Sal’s ailing mind.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said, scrubbing his face with his hands. “I wish I could have shielded you from it, but there wasn’t any way. I knew it was going to be ugly, but I thought if I gave them an out, they’d take it. This is going to tear the company apart. Not to mention the relationships I’ve built over so many years—” his voice broke and he bent over, his back heaving with sobs.

My heart shattered and I couldn’t do anything else but get up and put my arms around him.

“I’m sorry, Rory. I didn’t think it was going to be this hard. How could they do this to me?” He raised his head and I grabbed tissue from the box on his desk and blotted his eyes. I’d been doing that a lot lately for those I loved. We’d certainly found a lot of reasons to cry.

“I don’t know, Daddy. I wish you didn’t have to go through this. I wish I could fire them all for you.” That made him laugh and he took another tissue and blew his nose. I rubbed his shoulder, wishing I could do more than hand him tissues. Wished that words were like magic and could fix everything.

“You don’t have to do that, but thanks for the offer. I had a brief image of whacking Hal with a golf club, but the club would probably break on his hard skull.” We both laughed this time.

“So many years and he could turn on me like that. Makes it hard to trust people, doesn’t it?”

“You can trust me,” I said, tossing the tissues in the wastebasket.

He cupped my cheek. “I know, sweetheart. I trust you above everyone else. And not only because you’re my daughter. Sometimes it’s astounding that I get to call myself your father. I’m a blessed man indeed.” He managed to smile and I smiled as well. I was blessed to get to call him my Dad. I had so many amazing men in my life. How did I get so lucky?

It made me think of Lucah, and how he’d lost his parents, but at least he still had Ryder and Tate. And me. He’d always have me.

“I love you, Dad. And if they fuck with you again? They’re going to have me to deal with.” I almost never cursed in front of my father, but it seemed like an appropriate time.

“Language, Rory. But I appreciate the sentiment.” I gave him one last hug and stood up.

“Team Clarke!” I said, holding my hand up for a high five. I didn’t think he would understand the more modern fist bump.

“Team Clarke,” he said, smacking his hand with mine. “I wouldn’t want to be on any other team.”

“Me neither. So what are you going to do in the meantime? You know, instead of smashing in skulls with golf clubs?”

He shook his head.

“Well, we’re going to have to have yet another meeting to discuss what happened at this meeting and get everyone to air their grievances. That way I can give anyone who wants to a chance to leave gracefully and judge where we need to go next. I just sent Hal an email. No response yet.” He glanced at his computer, waiting for that little window to come up to tell him he had a new email.

“That sounds like a good plan. If you need any help with it, need me to talk to anyone, you know I’m here.” He nodded, glancing at something on his computer.

“We’ll get this sorted out. If it comes down to having to find new Board members and losing Hal, I guess that’s what we have to do. I need a drink.” He took a key out of his upper drawer and unlocked his bottom drawer.

“This is only for emergencies, and this feels like one.” Pulling out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses, he plunked them down on the desk. It was a good thing the door was locked.

He poured a little bit of the amber liquid into each glass and handed one to me.

“Bottoms up,” he said and we both sipped. I choked a little on my sip, but he swallowed with incident. It took me a little longer to drink the rest of my glass.

“If anyone busts me for being drunk at work, it’s all your fault,” I said, handing him back the glass.

“I have some friends in high places. Your secret is safe with me,” he said with a wink. “We’ll get through this.”

“Yes, we will.”

I wanted to call Lucah, but I didn’t think his voice would be enough for me. I wanted to see him. To touch him. To explain what had happened. And it was time to give him something he’d been asking for and I’d been wanting for a while. So I picked up the phone and dialed his extension.

“Lucah Blythe, how may I help you?”

“I need you. Right now,” I said. There was a pause on his end.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yes. I’ll text you when I’m there.” I hung up without saying anything else. The only other thing I needed to do was ask Lilia to cover for me. Just this once.

I grabbed my purse and walked out of my office.

“I need you to do me a favor,” I whispered, leaning over her desk. “If anyone asks where I am, I had to run an errand and I’ll be back soon.”

She raised one eyebrow, and I couldn’t help but grin at her.

“Consider it done, Miss Clarke. Your whereabouts are safe with me. Enjoy.” She sort of sang the last word and winked as I dashed to the stairs and down two floors. To prevent people from stealing supplies, we’d put a keypad on our supply room. There had been talk of installing a camera, but that was voted down, which was the only reason I was willing to meet Lucah here. I punched in the code and went into the room and waited. I kept the lights off and rested against a shelf of paper and other items.

My heart was going a million miles a minute, and my skin tingled in anticipation of Lucah’s touch. I sent up a quick prayer to whomever would listen for us not to get caught. Not that I cared much at the moment, which was why I’d finally given in.

The door clicked, letting in light and illuminating Lucah from behind. I’d kept the lights off in the room on purpose.

“Why, Miss Clarke. Fancy meeting you here. I have come for some paperclips.” He shut the door and walked slowly toward me.

“Hello, Mr. Blythe. I’m here for paper,” I said, patting the shelf behind me. “But there’s something else I might want,” I said meeting him.

“And what’s that?” His lips hovered inches from mine and I could feel his breath on my skin.

“You.” I grabbed his lapels and crushed his mouth onto mine. We only kissed for a moment before he was moving his mouth down my neck. His hands went to lift up my shirt and pull down my panties, my hands went to work on his belt, pants and boxers.

We made short work of the clothes and then his hands were on my bare ass, lifting me up on a shelf as I fitted my legs around him.

“Quick and hard,” he said as he positioned himself.

“Quick and hard,” I agreed and he thrust into me so hard, the shelf rattled and a few boxes of staples clattered to the floor. Neither of us cared as he pulled nearly all the way out and thrust again, causing more things to fall. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him as he slammed into me, over and over. We both cried out and I knew that if someone walked in, there was no way we could pretend we were doing anything other than fucking each other’s brains out.

“Oh, Jesus,” I moaned. Despite the fact there hadn’t been any foreplay, I was almost ready to come, and I reached one hand between us to speed things along.

More items clattered to the floor and the shelf actually started wobbling a bit and if I wasn’t so in the moment, I might have worried about it coming crashing down on top of us. It wouldn’t be a terrible way to die . . .

But before I could think more about my potential death at the hand of the shelf, I was calling out his name and then he was calling out mine and slumping against me.

“That was completely worth it,” he panted against my neck. “Have I told that you’re my favorite?”

“Not today,” I said, stroking his back. A sharp bit of the shelf was digging into my ass, I realized. It was actually kind of painful. I wiggled a little bit to alleviate the jabbing.

“If you keep doing that we’re going to have to go again.” As tempting as that sounded, we’d already put ourselves in enough danger by doing this once. I released my legs and he lifted me down from the shelf and he pulled out.

“Ah,” I said, looking down and realizing I couldn’t go back to my desk like this.

“They never mention the cleanup part in the sexy books, do they?” he said, looking around for something. “Ah!” He snatched a box of tissues that had fallen and got down on his knees. So sweet. He also pulled up my panties and made sure my skirt was back in place. I helped him with his pants and then we both tried to rearrange the shelves the way they were supposed to be before we came and destroyed them with our fuckery.

“Does it look okay?” Lucah said as we stood back to assess whether or not we’d done a good job of putting things back together.

“Good enough.” I’d gone and turned the lights on so we could make sure we did a good job. It looked as good as it was going to get, so I pushed myself up for a quick kiss.

“Oh, I meant to ask you how the meeting went. I was a little distracted by the need to have my cock inside you.”

“Team Clarke is on top and I had to comfort my father who is losing one of his oldest friends. It was a barrel full of fun. But I’ll tell you all about it when we go home. Right now I think we need to escape the scene of the sex as quickly as possible.” He gave me one more kiss and smiled.