Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) (33 page)

I yawn.
Stoooop yawning.
I rub my aching jaw. “Maybe my body is preparing me for a blow job.”

He glowers. “That’s not fucking funny.”

“It is because I wouldn’t give you one.” I bring my feet onto the leather seat, and he relaxes at my words, knowing I won’t try to convince him just for the hell of it. For one, I’ve never been able to take all of Ryke in my mouth. He’s just way too big. For another, I’ve never liked giving blow jobs, and Ryke is anti-anything-Daisy-Meadows-hates.

Ryke glances between the road and me. “Lean back and fucking sleep. You don’t have to stay awake right now.”

“I’d rather wait until we’re at home.” My feet drop to the floor.

His hard eyes glued to the street, he reaches for one of my legs, stretching it over his lap. I turn, my back against the door, and I stretch the other one across Ryke.

It’s not a suggestion. It may appear flirty, my foot may graze his crotch, but the new position allows me more room and greater extension of my body in the car. I like it. He knows I like it.

I’ve fought sleep and sleep has fought me so many times that I easily remain awake throughout the car ride. After parking, Ryke unbuckles Sulli and carries our sleeping daughter in his arms. My heart has an extra beat watching them together, and I unlock the front door, flipping on the lights to our cottage.

Coconut greets us by the door, tail wagging excitedly. She first looks up at Sulli, as though ensuring she’s okay. I whisper that she is, and Coconut nudges my cheek with her nose.

“I missed you too, Coconut.” I scratch her neck and kiss her. Then I pat her belly and run with her towards the backdoor. I let her out to pee, the stairs creaking as Ryke brings Sulli to bed. And then I see something.

In the kitchen close by. I leave the backdoor open, drifting towards the counter beside the oven.
Ryke.
I instantly start crying, my fingers to my lips.

He baked a chocolate cake.
Yellow
icing spells out:
we fucking love you.

I remember what Frederick said about people having
compassion
for other people. Ryke knew I was upset, and he meant to comfort me. I picture Sulli on the counter, helping with yellow icing, staining her fingers. I bet she found the beaded keychain in a kitchen bowl—where we store knickknacks and other junk.

Dazedly, I wipe at my wet cheeks. Coconut bounds back inside, and I shut the door, put a slice of cake in a bowl, and trek upstairs. My white husky follows at my heels. I check on Sulli, fast asleep (no Ryke), and then I slip into my bedroom.

Ryke situates cable-knit blankets onto a hammock, strung in our wide window nook. Our rustic bedframe is made out of wooden logs, bark and all, but when I have trouble sleeping, which is rare these days, I usually migrate to the hammock.

The moonlight illuminates the nook, almost like it could exist outside under the stars. I wander closer, eating cake. Coconut hops onto the bed, lying down at the foot, paws beneath her chin. She’s alert and watchful.

I know what I want to tell Ryke, but I can’t break the sweet quiet. The serenity he’s created tonight warms me like a sun that sweeps the dock of a lake. I sidle next to my husband, my hands occupied by spoon and bowl.
Cake comes first.

He watches me eat a
giant
spoonful, and a smile peeks at his lips. His fingers descend to my shorts. He unbuttons and unzips me. I step out of them. Watching him.
I love watching Ryke Meadows.
His hands disappear beneath my tank top.

He unclips my bra. It’s a rusty skill since I don’t wear them often, but he succeeds. I pass him the bowl, needing to pull my tank top and my bra off my arms. Now just in cotton panties, he returns my bowl to me, and he unbuttons his jeans and takes off his shirt.

In seconds, he’s left in dark green boxer-briefs.

Ryke Meadows is thirty.

I’m twenty-three, and I fawn over his broody demeanor, his caring personality, and his compassion before I do his supremely defined muscles and rock climber body.

My wolf.

I climb onto the hammock, stretching out, and he climbs right beside me. I drape my arm and leg across his chest, pressed against him, the blankets enveloping me. I rest my head on his shoulder, able to finish my cake in a couple more bites. I offer only a spoonful to Ryke since he’s not crazy about super sweet foods, but he’ll eat pretty much anything.

The hammock brings security, but no more so than my husband. Tucked together, protected. Bowl set aside, he pulls the blankets up to my shoulders. Exhaustion tries to tug my eyelids closed.

I look up at him.

He looks down at me.

And I whisper, “I fucking love you too.”

His heart pounds against my heart. He kisses me with that
skilled
tongue, and slowly, safely, I begin to drift to sleep with love all around me.

[ 18 ]

March 2020

Hale Co. Offices

Philadelphia

ROSE COBALT

I’d like to return to when I was just ten, and there was this loathsome neighbor boy who tagged along on all family trips. We were left in the care of our nannies one week in England while our fathers dealt with business and my mother vacationed with her friends.

It stormed all seven days. We stayed indoors and played hide-and-go-seek in this old manor. The neighbor boy drew closer to my closest sister. His laughter became hers. Her smile became his.

I wanted to preserve our sisterhood, but he wedged himself in our lives. He could never be a Calloway sister.

He was just the loathsome neighbor boy. He’d be gone in a year or two years or three.

Couldn’t he see?

I held more animosity towards him than I realized. I even tried to forget the day I hid inside a wardrobe between musty overcoats and old laced shawls. I waited quietly for someone else to be found. It wasn’t long until I heard slow footsteps.

Then the wardrobe door creaked and swung open. I scrunched my legs to my chest, but the seeker pushed clothes aside.

The neighbor boy found me.

I stared right at Loren Hale.

And I waited for him to claim victory and laugh at my loss. As our eyes latched, as he saw my hate, he wore remorse like he understood how much my sisters meant to me and how much he’d take away. Lily would become his best friend over me. In time.

His gaze dropped.

He shut the wardrobe door and let me stay hidden. He kept searching.

I’d like to return to when I was just ten and tell myself that this loathsome neighbor boy would always be a part of our lives.

Loren Hale would always be one of us.

Maybe not a Calloway sister, but the closest thing to one.

“Take a seat, Mr. Hale, Mrs. Cobalt.”

“No,” we say in unison to one of the fourteen Hale Co. board members. Loren and I stand side-by-side at the head of the conference table, a red megaphone in his hand. We’ve practiced how this unnecessary meeting will pan out, and neither of us will shelve our battle armor and weapons for this fight.

It means too much to me, and I’ve learned in the past three years that it’s meant equally to Loren.

Loren stares down the fourteen shareholders. “I’d never
manage the board. It’s not part of my job description, I get that, but you can’t manage
management.
”

Of course I understand what we’re dealing with here. I don’t have to be the CEO of Hale Co. to understand the corporate hierarchy. The CEO oversees management: the Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Communications Officer, etc.

The board of directors is an entirely separate entity, full of shareholders who
should
be in favor of the company’s best interests, not their own. Seeing as how Jonathan Hale opened the door and invited in these
rotten
shareholders, Hale Co. is in need of house cleaning, but you can’t just dismiss a director.

You have to put up with them.

Loren has done his best, and I can see in his angered amber eyes that he’s about to do even better.

Daniel Perth rises at the other end of the table, unfurling file folder after file folder as evidence to our three-year revamp of this company.

I’m proud of
every
single folder.

After he dredges up more, the towering stack hiding the man beside him, Daniel says, “
These
are all the women you’ve hired to this company.”

I smile triumphantly.

Loren says, “I’m the CEO, and this is part of management. I have the authority to hire and fire anyone I
goddamn
want.”

The board lets out disgruntled noises. The four women who serve on the board stay quiet.

I snap, “What’s the issue? They were all qualified—”

“Caitlin Brown,” Daniel cuts me off, shaking a folder like it’s his sole piece of evidence. “She has
no
experience to work in the marketing division, yet Theo Balentine hired her and seven more.”

Loren promoted Theo to Chief Marketing Officer just last year. He went from Mark’s assistant to taking Mark’s job, and he agreed to help us in our mission.

“Todd Wentworth,” I rebut. “He has
no
experience for an entry-level position in sales, and yet
he
was hired five years ago.” I list off ten
more names until the men around the table grow red-faced with agitation. “Hale Co. has been hiring white males based on potential, not experience, and just as Loren starts diversifying this company with more women and women of color, you start throwing tantrums.”

Someone on the board—I should name his name but my rage has stabbed holes into it—pipes up with, “We’re trying to stop the company from turning into a sorority.”

I see red, gritting my teeth with widened
hostile
eyes
.
I turn my face away from the board and growl to Loren, “I’m going to bludgeon him slowly and set his ugly hair on fire.”
Violence is not the answer, Rose.
My hyperboles still feel good. I know I can’t give these men a reason to generalize women as
unpredictable
and
unruly
and whatever else they want to attach to me, to then attach to them.

Loren doesn’t have time to respond to my fury.

Daniel Perth adds, “We’re trying to direct you to a more profitable avenue. We don’t like huge risks.”

Loren turns on his megaphone and uses it wisely. “Bullshit.” His loud voice booms through the conference room. “Can you hear me now?”

I raise my chin while his glare slaughters their intolerance.

“Let me explain then.” Daniel is still on the offensive, but so are we. “You’ve used company money to add in a
daycare
for the children of…
twenty
female employees. Not to mention, you hired dozens of women who could potentially need maternity leave.”

At this, the
entire
board, including the four women, stare right at my baby bump, incredibly visible in my high-collared black dress.

My due date is next month.

“If they were men, they’d need paternity leave,” I rebut.

Daniel shakes his head. “Not as long.”

It can’t be about money. Why do I know this? Before Loren Hale became CEO, women were being paid
significantly
less than men who were in the same positions. Theoretically, they would’ve hired
more
women in the past to keep costs down.

But they didn’t.

Loren says out of the megaphone, “Everyone we hired is driven and motivated to do a damn good job, regardless of gender or race—”

“This isn’t the time for change—”

“Cut me off again, Millard, and we’re going to have a bigger problem than this goddamn meeting,” Loren says with the
utmost
confidence. He can hold his own in front of these men.

I talked with Connor about this meeting on the phone, about an hour before it started. I was in the bathroom, and he told me, “I believe Lo can do even more than we all think.”

The Loren Hale today is a stark difference than the one years ago. It’s his self-confidence that will annihilate their contempt. I can’t restrain my smile.

I whisper to Loren, “Slay them.”

Loren speaks into his megaphone. “Anyone else?” Everyone is quiet for a second, and then he spins to me. “Rose?”

My turn.

I take one step forward and brush my hair off my shoulder. “The company’s job is to reach out to the market. Our market is mostly female. More
women
buy Hale Co.’s baby products than men. I was tired of seeing men being hired as interns, and I brought this fact up to the CEO three years ago. He made sure that in ten years’ time, this company will look less like a WASP all-boys boarding school and more like the world it serves. If you’re upset with this, then…” I think about what Connor would say. “…then maybe you should
reflect
on your own choices and try to understand this one.”