The Other Side of Greed (The Seven Sins #5) - Lily Zante Page 0,40
back now?”
Everyone laughs.
I can’t, because what happened scared me. If he hadn’t moved me out of the way, who knows what injury I might have sustained?
“Thank you.” The quiet words tumble from my lips. “The water pooling on the roof must have gone through.”
“Your ...” He touches his own lip. I squint at him. “Your lip is bleeding,” he says, pointing at it. It’s only then that I feel the pain on my lower lip. I run my tongue along it and taste the salty blood. Brad winces. “Looks painful. It could be deep. You might want to get it looked at.”
Simona comes over, motherly-like, and tilts my head up so that she can get a better look. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“I think we should split for lunch,” Fredrich announces.
“Another man who runs at the first sight of blood.” She rolls her eyes. “Get me the first aid kit before you go.”
“I’ll get it,” Brad pipes up. “I know where it is. You showed me when you took me around the factory.”
“Now that is what I call a hero,” says Simona proudly, as he disappears out of view.
BRANDON
I don’t even want to think about what might have happened had that chunk of plaster fallen on Kyra’s head.
When Emma asks me at work the next day how my little experiment is going, I don’t know how to answer that.
“It’s trickier than I thought, working at the factory.” I’m back in my own office, but lately I seem to prefer going to Redhill. I don’t even know why. I must be going soft in the head.
“Now there’s a surprise.” Her voice drips with sarcasm.
“She’ll come around. I haven’t had a chance to properly work on her yet.”
“You mean pull the wool over her eyes?”
I pick up my crystal egg-shaped paperweight. The smooth surface is cold and I roll it around in my hands as I contemplate recent events. The things I do and say, the way I’m trying to manipulate Kyra, these are things I routinely do. This is nothing new to me, but this time I’m not so sure.
“It’s impossible to pull the wool over Kyra’s eyes,” I announce. “She’s way too smart for that.”
Emma rolls her eyes, “Heavens above. The man has a heart.”
“I didn’t think it would be this hard to lie to these people.” I wait for Emma’s caustic remark, but to my surprise, she is silent. She hands me the paperwork instead.
“This could be the making of you, Brandon,” she says, sashaying towards the door and giving me a backward glance.
I stop rolling the paperweight and look up at her.
“Are you playing with her heart, Brandon?”
“No way in hell.” The way I say it seems to convince her.
“You have a ten o’clock meeting with Frontier Group, and lunch with the people from Delanque.”
I groan. A busy day isn’t what I need. Splitting my time between two places is starting to make my head spin. I’ve managed well so far, but today I have no interest in meeting with the movers and shakers of the corporate world. I don’t care about new deals and mergers.
My head isn’t in the right place. I’m in danger of turning soft. I feel bad when I say things to Kyra that are deliberately wrong.
Things that aren’t in her best interest.
She’s adamant that the factory is in a good state, but a falling chunk of plaster could have killed her or someone else. Water pooling on the roof after a storm shouldn’t cause such problems. She knows Greenways is up and coming, even though she has no clue of the vast amounts I intend to make from it, but she has a sixth sense about things.
I get through the day, but my head is at Redhill. I’m fighting to contain my feelings for Kyra, and maybe seeing Jessica tonight will remind me of the taste I have in women.
“I’m still going to drive them out.” I smile at her, even though the smile doesn’t come from the heart. Emma winces as she closes the door and I contemplate the state of events.
My project is going slower than planned. These things take time to get moving. Neville thinks I’m not being very business-like about it. He thinks I should force my way in. This is also what my father would say, but thankfully I don’t need to involve him in the minutiae of such detail. The poor old man needs to recover and not worry about his empire. I’m going to