said, I’m super, super busy today.
I’m sure I can persuade her otherwise once she’s here, even if sex is off the table.
And if it is off the table, then I’ll just have to make sure it’s on the desk, conscientiousness be damned.
Resisting the urge to adjust the flicker of interests in my pants, I put down my phone and return to the mound of documents to be signed and begin skimming through them. We’ve recently broken ground on a development that will become a boutique hotel just outside of Menton Old Town on the edge of the Côte, the first of its kind in decades. Pen poised over the contracts, I consider taking Rose on a trip down there sometime. Nestled between the mountains and the Mediterranean, the little town has a charming old-world feel and is full of buildings from the Belle Époque period that almost seem to turn rose gold at sunset.
Maybe she’d like to go to the lemon festival next spring?
The thought is like a dart to the psyche because spring is months away—next year, in fact. I’d be a fool to think this thing between us could carry on as it is now. The secrets between us can only fester and gnaw, and when the truths eventually surface, could I forgive her if our positions were reversed? Forgive her for hiding the truth from me, for intruding on my past by paying for an investigation. For keeping the balance of power in her favour and forcing me to continue to work for her when I’d already be rich in my own right.
At least this I know the answer to.
‘I wouldn’t—couldn’t—forgive her,’ I recount quietly, pen still in hand, my gaze unseeing. In the same breath, I know I’m not prepared to let her go. The past three weeks have been unlike any other time in my life and Rose unlike any other woman. She requires nothing but my attention for the time we’re together, yet she invades my mind continually.
‘Fuck,’ I exhale, dropping my head into my hands.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
My head jerks up, swinging sharply to Rhett. What I’d prefer to be swinging is my fists.
‘Don’t you ever knock,’ I complain, looking down at the annotation I’m supposed to initial for at least the third time.
‘The dragon said I could come in.’
‘You’re talking shit again.’
‘She did, honestly. She said, Everett, my boy, go right on in because God knows when you’ll see him next.’ In the periphery of my vision, he folds his arms across his chest, leaning his thigh against the table at the centre of the room. ‘You missed a meeting last Friday, I hear.’
‘Madame Bisset—’
‘Paulette, to you.’
‘Madame Bisset would no more tell you I missed a meeting than she would flash you her underwear.’
‘I think I just vomited in my mouth,’ he says with a grimace. ‘Never, ever say the word underwear in relation to your assistant in my hearing again. They’re probably like . . . huge, grey tents.’
‘The woman is the size of a sparrow.’
‘With the viciousness of a pterodactyl, but she’s old.’
‘And?’
‘It stands to reason she wears ugly underwear.’
‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.’
‘You started it. You and your malingering ways.’
‘Even the chairman of the board is entitled to take a few hours off.’
‘Yeah, but you’re not by yourself, are you? You can’t entertain yourself for that length of time.’ No need to ask what he means by that as he unfolds his left hand, beginning to shake his curled fist in the air.
‘Don’t confuse my free time with yours,’ I answer witheringly.
‘They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him every-fucking-where.’
‘You’re not French.’
‘I don’t go looking for you. I know where you are when you’re not with me. If they’d picked up the phone to me, I would’ve told them.’
‘Which is where?’
‘With your latest squeeze.’
‘Jealous, Rhett?’
He chuckles unpleasantly. ‘Not a fucking bit. You’re tying yourself up in knots so tight it’s only a matter of time before you come a cropper. Or as my delightful niece would say, before you get effed in the a.’
‘You don’t have family, do you? I thought you were made in a lab somewhere.’
‘No, I think you’re confused. What I said was that my mother is a bitch, that she’s more pitbull than Lab.’
‘I sometimes wonder why I keep you around,’ I find myself grumbling.
‘Maybe because I can kill a man with one hand without spilling my pint. Or maybe because of my sunny temperament and my charming personality.’
‘You