I’m angry with this assessment for about ten reasons, but he’s moved on about a second before I unleash on him. “I need to see every project you’ve touched in the time you’ve been here and your recommendations on each, along with the outcome,” he says. “How fast can I have it?”
“As fast as it takes me to email it to you. I record that data and have from the day I started to work.”
“Good. We’ll go over it together, later. After we deal with the staff. When can we hold a meeting?”
“It has to be after hours.”
“After hours it is then,” he replies. “Make it happen, and then we’ll review your track record.”
My track record.
We will review my track record.
Anger is starting to burn in my belly all over again. I stand but I can’t let him off, I can’t let him pretend this is anything but what it is. I press my hands on the desk again and look him in those baby blues. “You aren’t a hero. You’re the reason I didn’t get the chance to save the company and I would have had you not swept the stock. You’re the reason my father was pushed out.”
“Your father needed to be pushed out and you couldn’t save it until he was. Deep down, I know you already know that.”
“You really are an asshole.”
“There she is,” he says. “Samantha live and in person. Keep her here because we both need her, and you were wrong earlier. This is about you, me and the handcuffs. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You came at me. You weren’t afraid. You even got something out of it. That was impressive. That earned you a chance you can use that killer instinct here, but don’t underestimate me. I’m not here to be your friend, but I’m not here to fuck you either.”
“Because you already did. You fucked me. You fucked my family. You don’t need to do it again and yet I know, I know, that in the end, I will claw and fight to save this company because I have to, because this place is all I have, and yet, you will. You will fuck me, and I just signed the contract that says I approve.” I straighten and head for the door, but the minute I reach for the knob, his big body is behind me, his hand on the knob. I’m now caged between the door and Reid Maxwell.
Chapter Six
Reid
“Let me out of this office,” Carrie demands without turning to face me, my hand still planted on the door above her head; her pink dress hugging her perfect ass that’s a lean away from being pressed against me.
“If you walk out of this office with an attitude,” I warn, “you fuck me and you,” her damn floral perfume scents the air like I know it does her skin. “If you divide us,” I add, “I’ll be forced to let you pack that box and leave. Is that what you want?”
She rotates to face me, lifting that perpetually defiant chin, those perfect, pink lips tilted upward, begging me to kiss them. “If I wanted this to end that way,” she says. “I wouldn’t have signed that contract.”
“Then stop thinking of me between your legs, because obviously only one of us can do that and still get our jobs done.”
“Are you trying to be crass or is that just natural for you?”
“Does it make you hate me more?”
“Yes.”
“Then hate me, Carrie, but do it behind closed doors, with or without me. In fact, if you want me to yank your skirt up and help you fuck it out of your system, we can do that too, but you will not do it in front of the staff.”
“What happened to you not fucking where you work?” she fires back.
“Seems like breaking that rule might be a public service.”
“Stop being an ass. It doesn’t help me help you, and don’t tell me that I’m not helping you. You’ve made it clear that you wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”
“I’ll make no apologies for who and what I am. Support me or move on. Can or can’t.”
“Can,” she bites out. “I already said ‘can,’ so you’re the one who needs to move on.”
“You said ‘can’ and then you insulted me and charged for the door.”
“As you said. I’ll save the hate for more intimate moments, the ones spent without you.”
In other words, my reminder of our encounter won’t intimidate her. My lips quirk. She’s got balls and I fucking love it. “You’re with me. We are one. Say it.”
“I’m with you,” she bites out, anger vibrating off of her. “We are one.”
She’s defiantly submissive, which on her is both sexy as hell and the best I can hope for just minutes after I’ve stripped her of the control she believes should be hers. “Don’t make me regret this,” I say, pushing off the door and heading back to my new desk.
She stands there at my back, watching me, and when I round the desk, she’s still looking at me. “I will make you regret this. Not now. Now you’ll get your payday, but one day.” She turns and leaves, shutting the door behind her.
She hates me and I’ve barely gotten started. I’ve yet to force her to make hard decisions, like seeing her father in his true light. The path to getting there will surely be filled with more hate, but at least if we do end up naked, there’s no risk of her actually confusing me with that hero she already assured me I am not. And I’m damn sure not the guy any woman, most especially this one, takes home to their father. My cellphone rings on the desk where I set it and I glance at the caller ID. How well-timed. I decline the call. My father is toxic. He needs to stay away from this, and everything for that matter, and so does Carrie’s father. It can be no other way.
Just like us fucking has to happen and so does her hating me. Our families are enemies and she doesn’t even realize just how deep that runs. Which actually makes her perfect for me. I can want her all fucking day and night, but she’s safe. There will never be more than hate. And so, we’ll hate fuck when this is over—or hell, maybe before it’s over. It won’t make it all better, but I will. I’m going to make all of this bigger, better, and then I’ll be gone, which is just the way Carrie West will want it.
***
Carrie
Don’t think of him with his head between my legs? Asshole. He really is an asshole. He said that to make me think about his head between my legs and his mouth, too. And that damn cologne of his, woodsy and earthy, I couldn’t stop smelling it when I left him in that room.
I walk past Sallie, and just as I’d feared, she follows me into my office. By the time I’m on the other side of the desk, she’s shutting the door and crossing to stand in front of me. I sit. I would rather not be eye level. She sits. Wonderful. “What is happening?” she asks. “And why is that man still in your father’s office?”
The words I have to speak hang in my throat, but I have to say them to everyone tonight. I need to practice now. “My father’s retiring. Reid Maxwell’s firm is now the majority stockholder. And Reid Maxwell is the man sitting in my father’s office.”
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “A hostile takeover.” Panic lifts in her voice. “We’re under siege. My God.” She stands up.
“Sit,” I say, feeling like I’m repeating what just happened between me and Reid.
“I can’t sit.”
“You can. Sit. I need you to listen to me.”
She sits. “Are you being fired?”
“No. I’m working with Reid to make some positive moves forward and the plan is for me to reclaim the role of CEO.”
“And controlling stock?”
“I’ll have the opportunity to be majority stockholder, not controlling. Not now.”
“That’s not good.”
“A successful CEO of a monster company like this one is not bad.” It’s true, I remind myself. “We are going to be bigger and stronger.”
“Without your father?”
“This kind of thing happens often, and if we do what Reid Maxwell wants us to do, we’ll all have bright futures.”
“So you will be CEO, right?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see
.” I want to comfort her and tell her everything will be okay, but I’ve never made promises I can’t keep. I don’t lie. I hate lies. They’ve burned me. They’ve hurt me. I don’t want them to hurt anyone else.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“We made mistakes, Sallie. You know that.”
She nods. “Yes. The two big projects that went bottom-up in six months.”
“Yes. Stockholders don’t take kindly to those kinds of losses.”
“You were against those deals,” she says. “We did report after report to convince your father to walk away.”
“It’s done. We can’t look back.”
“You need to make sure the board knows you said no to those deals.”
“Reid knows.”
“Which is why you’re still here and your father is not. Will you get your father’s seat on the board?”
“That’s up in the air,” I say, and I hope it really is at this point. “For now, there will be a mandatory staff meeting at six. No one can miss it. Please arrange it.”
“I will.” She starts to get up.
“Sallie.”
“Yes?” she asks, settling back into her seat.
“Please don’t bail. If I make it to the other side of this, I’ll take care of you. I promise. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“And if you don’t make it to the other side?”
“Do a good job, and you might survive even if I don’t. I’ll make sure Reid knows how good you are, and you do the same.”
“He’s a hot piece of arrogant man. That means demanding and difficult.”
“Yes to all. Is that a problem?”
“Just one of my random observations.”
Which I normally like, but at this moment, I’ve had enough arrogant, demanding man for one day, and the day has only started. “An accurate one,” I say, and with that, she stands and heads for the door while my phone buzzes with my father’s extension. I pick up the receiver. “Yes, Reid?”
“Yes,” he says, as Sallie shuts me inside my office, in what could represent peace, if not for this man on my phone. “I like that word,” he says. “My secretary, Connie, is joining us tomorrow, after the announcements. I need her cleared to get past security.”
I wonder if he’s been between Connie’s legs and before I stop myself, I say it. “Have you been between Connie’s legs, too?”
“No. I have not. I told you—”
“You don’t fuck where you work unless it’s a public service, and who knows how easily you decide it’s a public service.”
“Never,” he says. “As in never, Carrie, but you changed our dynamic, not me.”
“For the record,” I say. “I never planned to actually—”
“Have an orgasm?” he supplies. “Those are the best kind. The unexpected ones.”
“I didn’t say it was good,” I say.
“You didn’t have to,” he says. “I was there, remember?”
All too well, I think. “I’ll have my assistant Sallie handle Connie’s security clearance,” I say tightly.
“I’ll have her call Sallie. When can I expect you and those reports to be back in my office?”
“Soon,” I say, which translates to too soon.
“In other words, you haven’t had time to call your father and talk about me.”
That comment pisses me off. He’s trying to find out if I function without my father. I don’t say a word. I hang up, grab my MacBook, round my desk, marching out of my office and toward his office. This man will not make me cower, and damn it, I think, when I reach the door about to open it, he will not make me quiver, quake, or moan either. Period. The end. I won’t let it happen.
With that vow, and once again, without knocking, I open the door and walk into Reid Maxwell’s new office, ready to prove I mean it.
Chapter Seven
Carrie
I enter Reid’s office and pull the door shut to find him, once again, sitting behind the heavy wide desk that somehow fits him, like this entire office fits him a little too well. This isn’t his place and yet it is, and I still haven’t had time to digest this, to accept it. He arches a brow and looks too damn good doing it. He’s so damn good looking that it makes every arrogant action ten times more arrogant. “Did I hear a knock?” he asks.
“You did not,” I say, and I offer no apology. I walk toward the small round conference table to the left and just in front of the sitting area, and claim one of the four seats, choosing the one that allows a view of Reid and the door. “Which email do you want the reports sent to?”
He stands up, towering over the desk. He is just as big as he is good looking. Tall and broad with the kind of body that comes from hard work and good genetics. His brother looks just like him. He’s probably just as arrogant.
Reid grabs his own MacBook and crosses to claim the seat immediately to my left, no doubt to allow him a view of the door as well. Close. So damn close that his knee brushes mine and I quickly yank it away. Heat radiates up my leg, and my God, my sex clenches. Those full, harsh, beautiful lips of his quirk with my reaction. He now knows that outside of me intentionally seducing him, he affects me, and I hate him and me for it, too.
I want to get up and change seats, but I can’t without handing him power that I won’t give him. Not when he already has too much. “You can’t reach your father,” he says, “but you rushed in here to prove to me that you don’t need to speak to your father to do your job.”
“I didn’t try to reach my father,” I say, leaving out the part where I’ve tried plenty and failed. “Which email do you want these reports to go to?”
“Reid underscore Maxwell at Maxwell dot com. Tell me exactly what your father told you about the takeover.”
“That’s irrelevant,” I say, keying in his address and attaching my document before hitting send. “The file’s in your inbox.”
“What did your father tell you?” he repeats.
My lips tighten. He won’t let this go. “On a professional level, he told me nothing we haven’t talked about.”
“I want more than that.”
“I’ve gathered that to be your way in all things.”
His lips quirk. “Have you now?”
“Yes,” I say, and of course, we’re once again talking about him between my legs. “I noticed.”
“That was the idea,” he replies, his voice now a silky taunt. “I do want more. Are you going to give it to me?”
I’m spared this verbal sparring when his phone rings and he pulls it from his pocket, grimacing as he does. “I said no,” he says, without preamble. “No means no.” He hangs up and sets his phone down next to him.
“Was that a client?”
“That was my pain-in-the-ass brother, who you’d probably like a whole lot more than me, and perhaps more than your own brother. He’s in Japan, correct?”
“You had me investigated,” I say flatly.
“Weeks ago,” he says. “When I was being asked my opinion on the next CEO of this company. I even had a photo, but you were blonde, and—different. I like you better brunette.”
“I’m brunette because I like me better brunette and that photo is ten years old. Back to you investigating me. Obviously, something in that investigation led you to believe that I need you as a babysitter.”
“No,” he says. “I’d decided to leave you in place without me taking over, right up until the night I met you at that charity event. And no. That has nothing to do with you cuffing me and forgetting to fuck me properly.”
“I thought I did it quite properly. I assume that’s the problem.”
“Fucked properly would have been a) me naked, you naked, lots of moans and pleasure, or b) what I was about to do to you before that night. I’d all but finalized a deal to have Smith Mitchell Investments swallow you whole.”
I blanch. “You what? Is that what this is? You’re selling us off?”
“Not anymore,” he says. “I told you. I convi
nced those I had to convince that we could come out ahead, going another direction. We get a big payout, you get your father’s stock back and my position on the board, while everyone ends up with a winning investment.”
“You changed your mind because I cuffed you to a bed? I’m expected to believe that?”
“Because all this company is missing is a good driver.”
“And that’s you.”
“That’s you,” he says, “but thanks to your father, you need assistance to get back up the hill or perhaps to the top on your own for the first time. Back to your brother.”
“What about Anthony?”
“When was the last time you spoke to him?”
My brow furrows. “Why does my brother in Japan matter? What game is this?”
He stands up and walks to his desk, grabbing a folder and then returning before he sits down, and slides it in my direction. “The week your father made that final kiss-of-death deal that put us in this room together, he spoke to your brother every day, at least three times. How many times did he talk to you?”
He didn’t, I think. He shut me out. I open the folder, finding proof of the conversations between my father and brother. My call logs are included. I spoke to my father twice, and they were each sixty seconds. Of course, my call logs mean nothing. I was right here with my father, and he was behind a closed door, with me on the other side. I shut the folder and glance up at him. “My brother must have needed advice,” I say, but deep down I know that’s not what happened.
Reid fixes me in an ice blue stare. “Make sure your brother doesn’t need advice from you.”
“I like you slightly better than I like him,” I say. “We don’t speak. Since you know everything there is to know about me, I’m certain you know that, too.”
“Why don’t you speak?”
“There’s really nothing complex about this,” I say. “We don’t like each other.”