“You are my business, Miss Thorn. This is my business,” I said, gesturing to the building around us. “While you’re here, I own you. If you don’t like it, you’re free to leave.”
She took a deep breath through her nose and suddenly looked a little less like a puppy as she glared at me. “What is it you asked me here to talk about, Mr. Stone?” Her voice was suddenly syrupy sweet. “Or was this it. You just wanted to establish that I’m your property?”
I sat back in my chair, unable to help from grinning a little. “I wanted you to stop socializing. I’m not paying you to make friends. I’m paying you to convince them you’re actually capable of being my executive assistant so nobody will suspect you’re here to tutor my niece.”
“With no due respect, Mr. Stone, I think making friends will help me seem a lot less suspicious than acting like a robot.”
Did she just say with no due respect? I stared a few moments, but decided it was wiser to pretend I hadn’t heard anything. “I’m not paying you to think.” I snapped the words and immediately regretted them. Hell, I regretted sending the email demanding that she come up here, but I wasn’t in my right mind around this woman. That much was becoming increasingly and alarmingly clear. I was being an asshole, but I couldn’t afford to apologize for it.
Her face was a mask of stony anger. “Are we done here?”
“Yes. I need you to go to the penthouse and work with Max.”
“Last time you asked me to work with her, you showed up two minutes later and kicked me out. How long will I have?”
I checked the time. “Until lunch. Then it would be best if you made your way back to the fifty-fourth to keep up appearances. And this time, I expect you to obey me and stay away from Chase. Test me again and I’ll fire him on the spot. Am I clear?”
Her eyes blazed. “Perfectly clear.”
“You’re dismissed.”
“Thank God,” she muttered under her breath as she got up and rushed from the room.
I stared after her and waited until she was gone to let my head fall into my hands. I needed to get this under control, and fast. I was hard on my employees, and I wasn’t personable. But I wasn’t spiteful and mean. So what the hell was getting into me?
I rubbed at my temples. I was operating on virtually no sleep and I’d been nursing a headache for over two days now. Maybe with some sleep and a clear head I would be handling this better–whatever this was turning into.
I thought about calling one of my brothers and immediately shot the idea down. I could call my parents, but what good would that do? I’d vent about my shitty situation here and they’d ask me for the hundredth time if there was some way I could use my influence to help bring my brothers back into the business.
No, I was in this alone. Nobody was going to swoop in and solve my fucking problems, so I needed to find a way to get my head back in the game as soon as humanly possible. A little voice whispered in the back of my mind that I knew exactly how to do that. I just needed to fire Lola Thorn and hire another tutor–one who didn’t look straight past all my walls and shields and talk to me like I was any ordinary asshole.
But I knew I wasn’t going to do that, and I cursed myself for it.
12
LOLA
Max was blowing bubbles and watching a documentary on sharks when I entered the penthouse at the top of Stone Tower. She had on a navy green ankle-length cotton dress and a beat-up pair of converse. The couch looked obscenely expensive and Max gave no sign of caring that she had her shoes on the soft leather and had already left several dark scuffs of dirt.
“Oh, you’re still here?” she asked.
I smiled. “I am, although your uncle is doing his best to chase me off. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a man so…” I balled up my fists and decided it was probably better not to vent about my boss to his niece. For all I knew she’d repeat back everything I said and get me fired.
“So… what?” One of Max’s eyebrows raised up and her mouth curved into a grin.
I watched her for a moment, then decided this could be my only chance to get in a good first impression with her–maybe to win a little trust. “So obnoxiously rude and belligerent,” I said, smiling back.
Max laughed. “At least you have the balls to call him on it. The last ladies he brought in clammed up when he was being a dick and pretended nothing was wrong until they eventually popped.”