“We should rid ourselves of James Townley if he makes any further salary demands.” My father flattened his hand over my desk.
For a reason beyond my grasp, my father fucking hated our anchor of the last thirty-five years. James Townley had come to this station when he was twenty-four years old, and over the years, he’d miraculously received everything he’d ever asked for—including, but not limited to, setting up his son, Phoenix, with a job here. Said son stirred up so much trouble on this floor, my father’d had to strategically remove him to the other side of the world. He was now on the Syrian-Israeli border, reporting on all things Middle East. It was my educated assumption that ISIS would sponsor the next pride parade in Damascus before trying to kidnap Phoenix Townley. Yet James was still pissy about Mathias putting his son’s life in danger.
Townley was a lovable prick, and he was well-spoken, well-respected, and well-received. He also looked like Harrison Ford’s fake-tanned, bleach-haired twin brother, which didn’t exactly hurt our ratings. If he and my father could’ve killed each other without legal consequences, I’d have two less headaches to worry about.
“Are you done?” I sat back and rolled a pen between my fingers. I was going to have a double-serving of this nonsense in about two hours when I met James and his agent for lunch.
“Almost. I added a little something special to your team I believe you’re going to appreciate.” My father raised his hand to the glass wall, and my eyes followed the direction to the fishbowl newsroom.
Judith Humphry.
She stood there, statuesque and holding a cardboard box to her chest, refusing to look petrified. With her sun-kissed hair and a dusting of freckles covering her button-like nose, she was the type of beautiful that suddenly sneaks up on you. The more you looked at her, the more you realized how striking she was. She looked like she belonged on a beach, running barefoot. Even in her size-too-big potato sack dress, she looked like freedom and tasted like a piece of the sky. I wanted to grab her and slam her over the desk, fucking her three ways to Sunday in front of my entire news crew.
Problem was, Judith also had a mouth. And it talked back. Always. It annoyed and delighted me in equal measure. Part of me wanted to screw her, the other to spank her. Those two didn’t necessarily contradict one another. But I wasn’t the type of asshole to sleep with an employee.
My father, however, didn’t seem to share my moral standards—or any morals, for that matter.
“We’ll make do without her,” I snapped. “Even after the intern cut.”
“She’ll make for pretty decoration in the newsroom.” He ignored me, sitting back and eyeing her. My father had an office over fifty floors up, on the sixtieth floor. However, he was here a lot, and he couldn’t exactly fire his own secretary and replace her with Judith. Mainly because he already had a reputation.
“She’s not a vase.” I refused to spare her another look.
My dad shrugged. “Both have holes.”
My eyelid ticked. Your face can have one, too, if you don’t shut the hell up.
I gathered the paperwork for the morning’s rundown and stood up. “Out of curiosity, are you moving her here because you want to fuck her or because you think I will?”
He’d obviously filled in the gaps yesterday when we’d made the Couture announcement. Mathias threw his hands sideways with a smile. “Why not both? This could go in so many interesting directions.”
“No. It won’t. You won’t touch her, and neither will I.”
“Because…?”
My father still hadn’t received the memo that he was well into his sixties, and that the only reason young women weren’t slapping him into unconsciousness was because he had more money than he could spend in six lifetimes and a name that was synonymous with power.
“Because she’s an employee.”
He raised an eyebrow, silently reminding me that when he set his eyes on a woman, he liked her small, dependent, and very much unemployed. If it was up to him, he would saunter over to Judith right now and whisk her to the same suite we’d shared at the Laurent Towers Hotel next door. If she proved to be good in the sack—which she would, I knew that, because I’d been balls deep in her not even a month ago—he would lock her in a golden cage and provide her with a luxurious life of imprisonment: an apartment, a private driver, a credit card with an outrageous cap—all to keep her happy and available until he got bored with her.
I pointed the stack of documents in his face. “Move her ass back to the fifth floor before the end of the day.”
He smirked. “May I remind you who is the boss around here?”