“Why aren’t you at work?”
I slide my key into the lock and give it a twist. “Because … I took a personal day.”
“And when were you planning on letting me know?”
“I emailed you. Six o’clock this morning.” I push the door open.
She stands, feet planted in the hall. “No, you didn’t. I checked my email multiple times this morning.”
I jut my chin forward. “Weird.”
Sliding my phone from my armband, I see a handful of missed phone calls and text messages—all of them from her.
“That’s cute, Keane. You were worried about me,” I say before checking my email. It only takes a second for me to locate the message I’d typed in a blurry haze this morning—and neglected to send.
“Why’d you take a personal day?” she asks.
“It has nothing to do with you,” I lie. “If that’s what you’re getting at.”
Actually, it has everything to do with her.
I’ve got a meeting this afternoon with my attorney to go over her employment contract. He’s spent the better part of the morning poring over it in search of loopholes—something, anything that will make it possible for me to fire her.
“YOU GOING TO COME in or you just going to stand there?” he asks, glistening with sweat.
Just when I thought Calder Welles II couldn’t possibly get any hotter, he goes for a jog and comes back looking like this.
I can’t even go to the gym without leaving looking like a drowned rat.
“I should probably get back to the office,” I say. “If I come in, I know what’s going to happen. You’ll shower. I’ll get the urge to organize again. We’ll have hot, angry sex, and I’ll leave feeling fifty shades of confused. We have a pattern, Calder, you and me. I don’t think it’s good for either of us.”
“What are you confused about?” he asks, hands hooked at his hips and the hem of his sweaty shirt lifted just enough to give me a peek of his Adonis belt.
“I don’t know—everything? What we’re doing. Where I stand with you. How you feel about me?” I could go on, but I stop myself because it doesn’t matter. “I’m leaving at the end of this month. You’re inheriting a multi-billion-dollar empire. Our priorities are going to be wildly different the second I step on that plane once my contract is up.”
“Says who?”
“You know it. I know it. We owe it to ourselves to be realistic about this.”
“I missed you this weekend.” He shrugs. “I don’t have all the answers you’re looking for, but I know that I missed you and that was the realest fucking thing I’ve felt in a long time.”
My eyes water for a second. I glance down until the sensation passes. Those words coming from that man mean everything, and I want so badly for them to be true because if they’re not? If he’s just saying them because he’s caught up in the moment? It won’t just break me. It’ll shatter me into a million pieces.
“I should get back,” I say.
“To do what? You’re all caught up on summaries.”
“I’ll figure something out. Maybe Marta needs help with something. Or maybe I’ll organize your office.” My eyes flick onto his.
“Do it and you’re fired, Keane.”
“Ugh, let’s not joke about that,” I say. “I have plans for that money. Life-altering plans. And I’m almost halfway done.”
He studies me, the playful smirk that reached his eyes a moment ago is lost. “Still running your countdown?”
“Eighteen days …” I stand in the doorway, resting my head against the jamb, wondering what my life would be like if I stayed a little longer.
Would this, could this work?
But maybe more importantly, should we even try?
The idea of uprooting my entire life for a man I’ve known all of two weeks goes against every principle I’ve ever established. Frivolous and free-spirited has never been my style.
“Your father wants to get to know you,” I say.
“Where’s this coming from?” he asks.
“But he wants to do it through me,” I continue. “He wants me to tell him everything about you. What you like, what makes you happy, what you do for fun.”
His nose wrinkles. “What? Why?”
“I think he’s realizing he worked his life away.”
“Please, don’t feel sorry for that bastard for one minute. Let me guess, he gave you some speech, some heart-rending sob story?”
I laugh. “Yeah.”
Calder rolls his eyes. “Then please tell me you saw through it.”
“I did,” I say. “But my point is … I told him it made me uncomfortable, and he said it was part of my contract, essentially. And I read it over. He’s right. I had my brother’s lawyer friend look it over, and I did agree to do whatever I was asked as long as it was legal and within the scope of my abilities.”
He’s quiet.
“I would never betray you, Calder,” I say, “but if I don’t tell him something, he could fire me and I could lose out on half my contract.” Closing my eyes, I add, “I know he’s a selfish, vile human being. But maybe, for my sake, you could throw him a bone? Maybe tell him your favorite color, I don’t know.”