Billion Dollar Beast - Olivia Hayle Page 0,18

out here the whole time, that would have been impossible, yeah.” I step into the hot, bubbling water. The tub is large enough that there is plenty of distance between us, but it still feels like a bad idea. The past few weeks have put her more squarely in my path than before—sometimes by my own doing.

It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

“I haven’t been here the whole time,” she says. “I’ve been skiing today, too.”

“Hitting the blacks?”

Her eyes drift closed. Two thin black bikini straps rise from below the water to tie around her neck. “No, Cole and I skied the reds today.”

“Skye didn’t?”

“No,” she says. There’s no antagonism in her voice, no anger or frustration. She sounds like does when she’s speaking to her brother or her friends. It’s deceptively easy to think I’m the latter. I shift in the water, not wanting to disturb her.

“Why not?”

“She’s pregnant, you dolt,” Blair says. “She sat out here with me earlier, but could only have her legs in the water. Apparently you can’t go in the hot tub while you’re pregnant, either. Did you know that?”

The subject isn’t overly interesting, but her voice is, warm and confidential. A small lock of blonde hair is curling at her temple.

“No.”

“We googled and made a list,” Blair continues. “You can’t sauna, either. Drink coffee. Eat sushi or certain kinds of cheeses. No rare meat. You shouldn’t wear heels. You can’t drink.”

“The last one seems fairly obvious.”

Her eyes glitter with amusement. “Yes, well, I wanted to add it for good measure. It made the list longer. Comedic effect, you know.”

“You could list all the illegal drugs she can’t take, either, if you want to really hammer the point home.” I glance past her to the snowy mountaintops above us. Cole’s chalet is fairly isolated—no one can see us from here. It’s not gated, but there aren’t exactly any close neighbors, either.

“It’s enough to make me reconsider having kids,” she says. Her voice is jovial, but my eyes flit back to hers regardless.

“You need to find someone to have them with first,” I point out. “Apparently André couldn’t make it?”

She dips lower into the water until only her head and the tips of her shoulders are exposed to the cold air. “No, he couldn’t.”

“What a pity.” I’d wanted to get a good look at the guy.

But Blair doesn’t sound the least bit sad when she says, “Yes, very much so.”

I rest my arms along the edges of the hot tub. The cold air bites at my skin, a sharp contrast to the warm, bubbling water below. It’s the first time we’ve spoken about anything other than work-related topics since the charity event. “So what have you been doing? Torturing these poor souls with never-ending rounds of charades?”

Her eyes narrow into the expression I’m used to. Good. “No,” she says. “I’ve barely even suggested it.”

“Surprising.” I lean my head back against the edge of the tub and glance up at the sky. The sun is starting to set, the clear sky darkening along its infinite edges.

“What did you discuss with Thomas York? At the charity event?”

I resist the urge to groan. “Have you ever had a thought you didn’t speak out loud?” I ask. It’s a nasty question. I don’t look at her to see if the barb struck—the imagined hurt on her face is painful enough.

“Yes,” she says tartly. “I’m having a lot of thoughts about you right now that I’m not going to speak out loud.”

Looking up at the sky where she can’t see it, I let my lips curl. The hackles are raised. “Restraint. How novel.”

“I show it every day at work,” she says. “Even you can’t tell me I’ve been anything less than perfectly civil.”

“You have,” I admit. And despite myself, I’d found myself missing our spats during the robot-like exchanges we’d had about B.C. Adams. Blair avoided me like the plague, sending all her points through Gina.

Just like I’d asked her to.

“And you can’t tell me I haven’t done my job, because I know I’m doing it well.”

Gina had expressed the same thought to me just yesterday. You said she’d be untrained, sir, but so far her insights have mostly been spot-on.

“We’ll see,” I say. “I still haven’t turned a profit.”

“You will,” she says. “I’ve heard that Bryce Adams is devastated, by the way.”

I tip my head forward to find her staring at me. There’s a flush in her cheeks, from the heat or from the cold, and a challenge in her