Surrendering to Us (34 page)

der and I almost had another run-in the next day, only this time it was him who was caught with his pants down. I’d walked in on him taking a piss.

“Shit, sorry!” I said.

“Knock first!” he replied as I slammed the door. We were definitely going to need the sign about knocking, but for me more than anyone else.

I waited for him to emerge and my face just kept getting redder.

He came out and glared at me.

“If you want to take a peek, all you have to do is ask. I’ll give you the whole show.” He gestured to that area of his body and my face heated up some more.

“No thank you. I already have my own ginger to ogle. But I’ll consider your offer.” My attempt at being flippant was undone by the blush on my face.

“What’s happening?” Lucah said, coming out from getting dressed.

“Nothing,” Ryder and I said at the same time.

“Okay, that’s not suspicious.” I rolled my eyes at Ryder and he acted like I was the one who’d done something wrong.

“I almost walked in on him in the bathroom and he offered to give me a show. I declined. The end,” I said.

“Oh, if that’s all,” Lucah said, shrugging.

“I also told him that I had my own ginger to ogle. You’re welcome.” I pointed to my lips so he could give me a kiss to show his gratitude.

“Thank you, Sunshine,” he said and gave me a peck.

“What are you up to today?” Lucah asked Ryder.

“No good.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Lucah said. He seemed to be loosening up a lot about Ryder and his comments, which I was grateful for. I’d decided not to believe half of the things he said, which was probably a good policy.

“Well, make sure you take pictures and send them to me. Oh, and if you need to be bailed out of jail, my phone is going to be off,” Lucah added as he put his jacket on, and I grabbed my purse.

“Will do,” Ryder said, snapping his heels together and saluting. Lucah and I both shook our heads as we went to work.

“Your brother is something else.”

“So are you.”

“I’m hoping that’s a compliment.”

“For you, it is.” He stopped and gave me one of those middle of the forehead kisses that made me feel cherished and adored.

“I love you. Have I told you that today?” he said. We might be late for work, but I didn’t care. Moments like these were more important than being punctual.

“I think you did when you went down on me this morning. Or maybe I just imagined that.” He grinned and moved the kiss down to my lips, giving me just a little bit of tongue action. He was so good at that.

“Well. In case I didn’t, I love you.”

“Right back at you, Mr. Blythe.”

He stared into my eyes and the world and sound and everything else stopped and then melted away and we formed our own reality where just the two of us existed. The moment was quick, but it was so powerful it took a few seconds for me to realize we were standing on a sidewalk in Boston with people streaming around us, cabs honking and a man up the street screaming about the end of the world.

Lucah gave me one last kiss before hailing a cab to drive us to work.

I thought about that moment for the rest of the morning. It expanded in my brain, pushing out all the negative thoughts and insecurities and other little nasty things that swirled constantly.

And then an email from Violet popped up my inbox, asking when we could have our lunch date. It sent me crashing right back to earth. Irritated, I typed a quick response that I could do it today. Might as well get it over with so I could stop thinking about it. I really wanted to stop thinking about her. I had too many nice things to think about.

She responded a second later with an acceptance and saying I could pick the restaurant. I decided to go with the burger place Sloane and I had gone to after the spa. It was a bit of a distance from the office, but it was nice and casual, and I knew I could at least get a really decent meal out of it.

I tried to throw myself back into the precious bubble from this morning with Lucah, but Violet’s damn face kept invading. So I tried to stop thinking about that and just fill my head with numbers and math and earnings projections and other things I should have been focusing on.

Lilia came to check on me when she brought me my second cup of coffee mid-morning.

“I don’t need therapy right now, but I probably will this afternoon. I’m having lunch with Violet.” Lilia’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “So. I will fill you in on that when I get back. Or after you get back from lunch. You knew what I meant.” She nodded.

“Oh, and I know you said you were going to cut back on the coffee, so I added half decaf. So you still get a little bit of a jolt, and you still get a full cup.” She was very pleased with herself.

“That’s fantastic, thank you so much. What would I do without you?” I had a bad habit of getting attached to my assistants. This could be a problem. Well, maybe I should stop hiring people that were so good at their jobs. Or people I was attracted to. Or people who fit both descriptions.

“It’s my intention that you never have to find out.”

“Surely you don’t want to be my assistant forever? You could do way more with your life. You, Lilia, are headed for greatness.” I had a test sip of the coffee and I almost couldn’t tell the difference between it and regular coffee. Genius.

“And you are going to make me blush. Oh, I got those files you wanted. It was a pain to find them because they’re still working on scanning and someone had taken them without marking which ones they’d taken. But I found them in the end.” That file scanning project was taking far too long. I had the sneaking suspicion that the interns we had doing some of the work were slacking off. Granted, scanning a million files a day wasn’t the height of fun, but it was their job and we were (not) paying them to do it.

“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll do a little whip cracking and see if that can’t move things along and get them a little more organized.” Lilia had become my eyes and ears. She had a knack, like Lucah, of hearing things and seeing things without being noticed.

“Just thought you should know. How’s the coffee?”

“Perfect.”

“That’s what I aim for.” That was obvious. “Oh, and I’m very interested to see how things go with Violet. You can always text me if you want.” I could. That actually wasn’t a bad plan. If only you could text without looking like you were texting. Science needed to get on that.

I tried not to stress out about lunch, and the coffee actually helped. Probably because of the lower caffeine content. The clock ticked down the minutes until my lunch date. I wished it was with Lucah, and not his ex, but you couldn’t have everything you wanted.

“This is nice,” Violet said, looking around the restaurant. It was filled with the lunch crowd, and it was diverse, which I was pleased about.

“Yeah, I’ve come here a few times and I keep coming back.” We both ordered iced tea and then sat with our menus, studying them in silence.

I was waiting for her to make the first move. Or for her to at least tell me what she wanted to talk to me about outside of the office.

“So what do you normally get?” Her eyes scanned the giant menu, skipping everywhere.

“Um, the burgers are really good. That’s what I always get, but I pair it with a salad because then they cancel each other out and I don’t feel so guilty.” She looked up and smiled.

“I like the way you think. Have you ever had the French onion burger?” I hadn’t, but I assured her it was probably fabulous. The waiter came back and she ordered the burger and a salad. I had a cheeseburger and tomato salad. Once the ordering was out of the way, I waited some more. Waiting and seeing . . .

“So I had an ulterior motive for having lunch with you today,” she said, confirming my worst fears.

“And what is that?” I sipped my iced tea and pretended that I wasn’t terrified of what she was about to say. As if her words didn’t have the ability to alter my world, or shift its axis.

“I still feel like there’s some tension between us. I feel like we’re taking our personal lives and bringing them into the office.” Really? This again? I thought we already dealt with this. “I want you to trust me, and I want us to be friends.”

“I want that too,” I said automatically. I mean, I did, but I wasn’t THAT eager. I had been when I didn’t know who she was.

“Good. Good. So maybe we could go shopping sometime. I’m guessing you know where all the good shoes are.” I most certainly did, but I wasn’t going to share that information with just anyone. But, if I didn’t, then I was going to look like I had a problem with her. Which I did, but I didn’t want her, or anyone else, to know that. Maybe I should have asked Lucah to talk to her.

“Was that it?” I said, just making absolutely sure she wasn’t hiding anything else from me. Her eyes went from my face to the napkin on her lap and I could tell that there was something, and she was still trying to get up the guts to say it. Whatever it was.

“This would have been so much easier if you were a total bitch,” she muttered. I thought maybe I’d heard her wrong.

“What would be easier?” I asked. She still wouldn’t look at me, and I started to have a creeping sense of déjà vu.

“When they hired me, they asked me if I could become friends with you, and then . . . I don’t know, feed them information. It was all really vague so they couldn’t get busted for it.”

“Who is ‘they’?” As if I didn’t know.

Her eyes finally went back to my face and I could see tears forming.

“The Board of Directors. Mr. Marksman, specifically.” I wanted to leap to my feet, point and scream, “AHA!” But this wasn’t a crappy spy movie.

“I see,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “To what purpose?” I knew, but I wanted to hear her say it.

“They want your father, and you, out. They want to force a takeover.”

And there it was.

Silence followed her declaration as we both tried to think of what to say next. The waiter came back with our salads, unaware of the tension.

I smiled and thanked him and Violet did the same, but after he left, the silence descended upon us again. Or maybe crashed would have been a better way to describe it.

“Please say something,” Violet said after I’d taken two bites of my salad. I wasn’t going to speak first.

“What do you want me to say?” I was reminded of Lucah the other night when I’d asked him to talk to me.

“So what did you tell them?” Her eyes flew wide.

“Nothing. I swear. I’ve been telling them that it’s taking me more time than I thought it would to get close to you. They’re not very happy with me.” She tried to make a joke, but it was too soon.

“So you haven’t told them anything?”

“No. I promise.”

“Have they paid you?”

“No, but they offered all kinds of things. Or they talked about things in such a way that they would be offered to me if I gave them what they wanted.” Bastards. “I wanted to say something to you about it forever. That’s why I’ve been so weird, and I keep coming to your office, or asking you to come to mine. But it’s my word against theirs and I wouldn’t have a prayer in court. Besides, like I told you before, I love this company and it’s my dream to work here. I thought if I could put them off long enough, they’d let me off the hook and I could forget about it.”

I was sure I would have done the same thing in her place. Dream job that you’d worked your whole life to get? Nothing would stand in the way of keeping that job. I wouldn’t even let the love of Lucah get between me and my job. Well. I’d at least tried. Luckily, I’d gotten away with it.

“I understand,” I said, surprising both of us. I hadn’t meant to say it, but the words had a mind of their own. They wanted to be said.

“What?”

“It’s not your fault that those, for lack of a better term, assholes, took advantage of you. I was aware of what they were trying to do, but I didn’t think they would stoop so low. I underestimated them.” Never again.

“I’m so, so sorry, Rory. I feel so awful about this whole thing and lying to you and everything. It was a really terrible thing to do. I totally understand if you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. Honest. It could have just as easily have been me. I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am, but it definitely helps having your father be the president of the company you want to work for.” I hated, more than anything else, admitting that. Because it was what nearly everyone thought who met me and heard what I did for work.