making,” Jefferson grumbled, rubbing his white goatee with his fingers. “I don’t need to see him today. I also don’t need you to take me home.”
“Yeah, you do.” I got up, doing up the two buttons on my jacket as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I’ll arrange with Leah’s assistant to collect her from the hotel personally. She can take her out to breakfast and go over the basics for the next two days while I drive you home.”
I’d really wanted to be the one to do it, but Jefferson’s health trumped my desires. She’d be around later anyway, and Katie had been with the company for a long time. She was perfectly capable of getting Leah to the office on time.
Jefferson glared at me but finally nodded and closed the folder he’d had open in front of him. “I’m not gone yet, you know. There’s still a lot to be done before I will be.”
“Exactly, which is why you need to take it slow. If you don’t, you’ll be forced to leave much sooner than you’re planning.”
It was never easy for either of us to talk about this, but it was happening. His health was declining and his doctors had been very clear that he needed to reduce the stress in his life. To start slowing down for real before his body forced him to.
“You understand why I needed to be in Texas, right?” he asked as he got up, reaching for the jacket hanging on a special hook on the wall behind him. “I know they said I need to cut down on travel, but if I hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have found the girl. The shortlists you kept sending me were crap.”
“They were also the best options available to us at the other auditions,” I said, but I knew he was right. I’d never have even considered offering the job to Leah. “Some of them could’ve worked.”
“Not as well as Leah James will,” he said, his voice firm and certain. “There’s something about her that says she’s real. She’s authentic and sweet. She’s exactly what we were looking for, and now she’s here. You’ll have to give her some extra guidance, but that doesn’t matter. Spending some time with a beautiful woman should be good for you.”
“I spend plenty of time with beautiful women,” I said, grinning as I handed over the cane he used on days he was feeling particularly unwell. “You know I do.”
He pursed his lips, taking the cane but pointing the end at me instead of resting his weight on it immediately. “Yes, but you’ve been spending time with beautiful women you’ll never see again. Don’t make the same mistakes I did, son. Learn from this girl what women like her want, and then go get yourself one of them. In a few years, of course.”
“Of course.” I knew why he’d added a timeframe to it, even if neither of us acknowledged it out loud.
He wasn’t expecting to be around anymore by then and he wanted me to focus on the company before I started looking to settle down. Lucky for him, I wasn’t in any rush to find the future Mrs. Oliver—if I would ever get that far—but I also planned on having him around for much longer than the next few years.
Realistically, I knew he wouldn’t be in the office every day anymore once he retired, but he’d be around. It wasn’t like he was dying anytime soon. Over my dead fucking body.
Chapter 9
LEAH
New York was loud. It also smelled funny and was incredibly cramped. I knew they had Central Park, but it wouldn’t have killed the city planners to have left a bit more green space around here.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to cities. I went to Austin all the time, but obviously, I wasn’t in Texas anymore.
All that being said, I had to admit that I freaking loved New York. The city had an energy so vibrant about it that it was like the place had a pulse of its very own.
I hadn’t even been here for a whole twenty-four hours yet, but I already had a feeling it was going to be difficult to leave this place when the time came. Since Dane had told me he’d meet me in the lobby of my hotel at nine thirty, I climbed out of the elevator at nine twenty-nine on the dot.
Instead of the handsome, tall, blue-eyed former football player and off-limits eye-candy I’d been