Billion Dollar Beast - Olivia Hayle Page 0,64

say. “But isn’t it fun to sneak around, at least for a little while?”

He reaches up and pushes back my hair. “That excites you?”

“A bit, but it’ll feel much so better when he knows,” I say, remembering the closeness we’d shared yesterday, the conversation without words. “And if you don’t want me to work for you anymore, if you see this going somewhere… well, then it doesn’t have to be a secret.”

Softness had been the wrong tactic.

It breaks against him like a ship against an iceberg, unyielding and unforgivable. “Tell Cole and Skye,” he repeats. The gentleness in his voice isn’t the same as mine—his is cold. “And then what? Do you expect us to arrive to dinner at their house hand-in-hand and announce that we’ve decided what, exactly? To get to know one another better and please wish us luck?”

The scorn in his voice… Is that so unthinkable? “Why not?” To my horror, my voice wavers. “There’s no rush, but yeah… one day, eventually, I do kind of hope we’d do that.”

Nick shakes his head, pushing away from me gently. “I can’t do that. I can’t be that for you.”

“Why not?” I hate the smallness of my voice, the meek question.

Nick pulls at the dark fabric of his coat. It stretches across his shoulders, struggling to contain an uncontainable man. I can empathize.

“Can’t you imagine it?” he says. “What they’ll say, what they’ll think. It won’t work.”

“Nobody will care.”

“Everybody will care,” he says. “Have you never read the newspapers, Blair? You’re admired far more than you’re scorned.”

“You think I care about what people might say about us? People I’ve never even met?”

“I know you would,” he counters, throwing an arm out in the direction of my couch. “You just punched everyone who ever critiqued your business sense. What will you do when they critique who shares your bed? You think I don’t know that everyone in your circle, your own mother included, wonders why your brother claims me as his friend?”

He’s thought a lot more about this than I have.

I shake my head. “That won’t happen. And if it does, I’ll handle it. Just give me more pillows to punch.”

“You say that now,” Nick mutters, a hand on the handle of my front door.

“You’re leaving?”

“I don’t see us getting anywhere with this discussion right now,” he says, and the tone in which he speaks… it’s the same one I’ve heard him use for years. Cold, dismissive.

The door shuts behind him with a decisive sound. I sink down onto my couch with a sick feeling in my stomach. How had everything changed so quickly? Where, exactly, had the day gone wrong? I’d fallen asleep in his arms, closer to him than I’d ever been before, and now he’s running as fast as he can.

A puppy would probably be easier to manage, I think, but I don’t even have the energy to smile at the thin joke.

21

Blair

“Are you certain?” Gina asks, the professional concern in her eyes warming me.

“I am,” I say. “I feel like I’ve done all I can to consult on B.C. Adams’ new image and inventory. The rest is up to your financial team and marketing experts.”

She nods reluctantly. Both of us know I’m making sense. “I understand that, and I can imagine that you have a lot of projects competing for your time. It’s a shame, though. You have a keen understanding of this industry and I’ll be the first to recommend that we bring you back if we have need of it.”

Is it possible to grow a few feet from praise alone? I feel like I have. “Thank you, I truly appreciate it. Would you mind informing Mr. Park about my letter of resignation during your afternoon meeting?”

“Not at all.” Faint speculation is in her eyes. “I was under the impression that you were family friends, though.”

“Oh, we are, but he’s nothing if not busy. I’ll call him tonight and explain.”

She taps her fingers against my desk. “Very well, then. Feel free to leave your keys and access pass here when you leave.”

I release a shaky sigh as she walks away.

This is the right thing to do. I accepted this job to prove a point to Nick and Cole, and the point has been made. B.C. Adams’ profit margins are getting better by the day.

I leave the office without having glimpsed Nick once that day. Professionalism to the very end, I think, gathering up my few belongings and waving goodbye to his assistant. The decision feels