The Merger (2 page)

He knew this feeling. He’d had it before. Crap! That woman had kissed him senseless. That’s what it was.

Something was up with
the blonde
with those dark, burning eyes. Never before would he have imagined a woman like her in tears. No, something was hurting her—or someone. He’d make sure to take the time tomorrow and find out what was going on.

Spencer lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. The heat of that kiss swam in his head again. Her hips under his hands. Her body pressed to his.

Oh, hell, she’d messed with his mind.

Tomorrow, she’d finally see his fire. She wasn’t going to mess with him like this. All hell was going to break loose tomorrow.

For now, though, he was going to take a very long, very cold shower.

Once
again,
Spencer sat in the boardroom at Pacific Line Lumber, and once again he waited for the moment that
bitch
of a lawyer, with those amazing lips, walked through the door.

They’d already started breaking ground on the first Benson, Benson, and Hart residential neighborhood project, which he’d made happen. Since he hadn’t locked down the merger with the lumber company, costs were already going to go over budget, which meant they’d have to raise the cost of the houses.
Every day
she opened her mouth it cost him more and more.

When the door opened, Steven McDaniels, another lawyer, walked through the door and set his
briefcase
on the table.

“I’m very sorry to keep you waiting. I’ll be wrapping things up here.” His dark suit was pristine. His salt and pepper shaded hair gave him some distinguished credibility, but the man had never spoken during the negotiations when he was in the room. Now he was
wrapping things up here
?

He began to pull out papers and pens from his leather case while Spencer kept his eye on the door. It never opened again and the meeting began with, “Congratulations. We have finally decided to accept all of your terms.”

Papers were set in front of him, and all the while the eighty-year-old man at the head of the table talked about hard times and how this would be a new start for the company.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer interrupted not even having listened to the man. “Where is Ms. Jacobson?”

The man in the suit pushed his shoulders back. There was a flash of something in his eyes. Anger? Sadness? Spencer wasn’t sure. “She’s no longer with the company. I’ll be handling the final portion of the merger.”

Spencer sat back in his seat as Steven McDaniels began to explain the paperwork. Spencer had merged more than one company with Benson, Benson, and Hart. He knew what the paperwork said. He wondered if this man was the reason Julie Jacobson was crying in the elevator last night before she jumped on him and landed that mind-blowing kiss. Had he taken over her position on this merger?

“Mr. Benson?”

Spencer looked up at the man and realized he’d zoned out, back to that elevator.

“Sorry.”

“I was asking if you had any objections to the new clause wording in the contract.”

Spencer rubbed his eyes. He needed to pay some damn attention before this guy suddenly owned Benson, Benson, and Hart and he walked away with nothing but Julie Jacobson on his mind.

~*~

Friday mornings were usually quieter around the office and that suited Spencer just fine.

He’d taken the red eye out of Portland just to get the hell home. If it rained in Nashville
today,
he was going to be pissed. He’d had enough cloudy skies and mist on his face to last a very long time.

His mood further soured when he saw his brother’s car parked in his parking space. Tyler didn’t even work for their father’s company. Why was he there and parked in his space?

With more force than necessary he pushed open the door to his BMW, stepped out, and slammed it. He needed to get a freaking grip on his mood. His brother was forcing him to walk an extra car space, not walk around the whole damn building.

He slid his key into the private elevator, stepped inside, and rode it to his father’s office.

When the door
opened,
he heard them all cheering. He didn’t have to see their faces. He knew exactly who stood there.

His mother, Regan Benson, ran to him and enveloped him in her arms. “Oh, I missed you.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I missed you too.”

His father, Zach Benson, was there to pat him on the back, “Thought maybe you’d bitten off more than you could chew.” Spencer gave him a chuckle and accepted the jab.

As he stepped into the
office,
his brother Tyler stood there with his wife, Courtney. He hadn’t even seen them since the wedding. Things had become so hectic for him that he’d neglected his family. He was sure that was why they’d all joined him on this
fine
Friday morning.

“You parked in my space,” Spencer said as he held out his hand to Tyler.

“Couldn’t help myself,” he said with a laugh pulling his brother in for a hard hug.

Spencer looked at Courtney who kept a proper smile on her face as she took in everything with her ears. If anyone
knew
he wore a mask of happiness it was his vision-impaired sister-in-law.

“It’s nice to see you, Courtney.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“Been a few days since you shaved, huh?”

That was just like her, “Didn’t think I needed to impress anyone. I should have thought about you. I should always try harder to impress you.”

She giggled and touched his arm. He tensed under her fingers and she nodded, but kept her smile. He’d been caught and she’d corner him later.

“You always impress me, Spencer.”

His cousin Ed and Spencer’s half-sister Darcy stood near the window. Darcy was leaned up against the credenza rubbing her pregnant stomach while Ed bounced their little girl Emily in his arms.

“Well done,
cuz
,” Ed shot him a smile, “You almost went over budget.”

That made Spencer laugh. “No Benson, Benson, and Hart job goes over on time or budget.”

“We taught you right.”

Spencer walked to his sister and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m a pro,” she said with a groan. “Six more weeks. I can do anything for six more weeks.”

Spencer laughed as he ran a hand over Emily’s thick dark hair. They’d adopted her eight months ago and then become pregnant a moment later. They’d have their hands full for a little while.

“We have bagels and coffee in the boardroom. I got your favorite
schmear
,” his mother said as she took his hand and began to lead him there.

He might have been annoyed as he drove into work, but his family always had a way of making things better. Always.

The rest of Spencer’s day was spent catching up. He’d spent so many hours, days, weeks even, working on getting the merger to go through, he was behind on everything else.

The first Benson, Benson, and Hart community was his brainchild. The houses were being sold. Model homes were going up. School districts were restructuring for the influx of new families, and now the cost of the homes could stay in the affordable range due to the merger with the lumber manufacturer.

His assistant had kept him abreast of everything going on in the office and on his sites. They’d assembled a good team at BBH. And he had perfected it, he thought.

His father and Ed had carried on the old way of doing business, but Spencer was
bringing
it into the twenty-first century. Yeah, he was good at what he did.

Tyler, his older brother, wasn’t interested in the family business. He didn’t care if
a building
went up at all. He was heading up their Aunt Simone’s
Diamond Gift
non-profit. Tyler’s heart was certainly in a different place.

Spencer liked the spoils that success brought. He didn’t live in the old house his Aunt Arianna had owned and nearly every Keller and Benson had lived in. No, he lived high above Nashville in the penthouse that his own father had designed years earlier. He’d designed it for himself, but had married Spencer’s mother and moved out into the country before the project was ever finished. BBH had kept ownership of the penthouse for all those years, but now it was his.

It had been decorated with the very best of everything—he had dated the decorator. It had some of the most exquisite art hanging on the walls—the artist had been a love affair one hot summer.

Spencer Benson had it good for his mere twenty-five years. Money wasn’t everything, though he enjoyed it a hell of a lot.

He’d seen the world, and he’d fallen in love in every country he’d traveled to. He wouldn’t say he was a player— mostly because no one wanted to think of themselves that way—but he enjoyed the company.

Spencer knew he wasn’t the only one in his family that hadn’t settled down with the first person he’d met. His Uncle Curtis had a lot of
friends
before he’d fallen in love and married his aunt. Curtis was refined enough now not to talk about it, but it was there. There were a few stories lingering.

Not that it mattered. Spencer loved his family and cherished the business he was helping to build. As long as it had perks he was going to enjoy those too.

Of course, the whole reason the
perks
were even on his mind was because of that bitchy lawyer in Oregon.

He scrubbed his hand over his face. Where the hell had she gone the
next
day? Did they fire her because of what had happened in the elevator? Surely no one knew about that, unless she told them. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why he cared. She was old news in another state. He was home and had already solidified a date for the evening and he was fairly sure his date would still be around by Sunday morning. He deserved that after having put up with that lawyer and her attitude.

But she kept gnawing at his brain, which she always did. Over the last five
months,
she’d crept into his consciousness more than once. There had been many late night discussions over the contracts—or arguments might be a
better
term. They’d walked away from each other at least a hundred times in disagreement. Oh, she made his blood boil in anger, but then she’d creep into his thoughts again.

She was married, and that was what always made him mad that she’d be on his mind. He wasn’t that kind of man. He shouldn’t care where she went on that last day, but the problem was, he did care what happened to her. Something had her crying in the hotel, and what about that ring—or lack
thereof
—on her finger. She was hurt. Perhaps not physically, but emotionally.

Spencer might like to move from woman to woman, but he never broke their spirit. If they thought something was going on, he nixed it. There was no forever with him. He didn’t want it. But he wouldn’t hurt a woman over it either.

Then that kiss crept into his mind. If you’re crying in the elevator why do you kiss a man? None of it made sense.

He sat up in his desk chair and rolled back his shoulders.

He didn’t need to be thinking about it. She’d been a bitch. She had cost him thousands of dollars with her questions and her demands. Good riddance to her. If he never saw her
again,
it would be too soon.

Someone moved past his office door and it caught his attention. He looked up to see them
backtrack
and stand in his doorway.

Spencer’s shoulders dropped. What-in-the-hell was she doing there, he asked himself as the bitch looked at him from the hallway.

Julie stood there as if she’d been frozen in place. She was the last person he thought he’d see in his own office. That was evident by the wide-eyed, jaw-dropped look he was giving her.

Every part of her was shaking. The entire trip to Nashville had been a mistake. This man hated her. Most men hated her. Okay, that wasn’t fair, but it seemed to be a current trend.

She was opinionated. She was stubborn. And now she was alone, homeless, and jobless in a town she knew nothing about. Worse, she was still staring at the man she’d kissed in an elevator and then run off.

Was he going to say anything? Should she just keep walking? Where was she going to go?

Yes, she’d just walk on. So she turned away from his office door and continued down the hall. She heard his chair, then his footsteps. Julie sucked back a breath of courage and turned around to go back toward the office just as he rounded the corner.

Spencer Benson plowed right into her, and her shaky legs simply couldn’t
hold up
. Julie fell backward and landed right on her ass.

Damn that hurt! She sat on the floor, every part of her body aching from the collision. He was just standing above her looking down at her. His eyes were dark and his lips were tight, just as they’d get when he was mad. She’d seen that part of him even if he
wasn’t
the kind of man who lashed out. No, he grew silent mad and she’d many times caused it.