Hawk & the Lady - Elizabeth Stevens Page 0,54

good. But if Leah hadn’t told her…

“They’re eating at the Watson tonight?”

“As far as I know, yes.”

I could just go and see her before dinner, talk to her about it. She’d probably tell me it was a harmless dinner and she forgot to tell me about it. Then again, what if she’d purposefully not told me? Had I assumed something had changed but nothing had? I’d thought our agreement had been pretty self-explanatory, but maybe I’d somehow got things wrong. If I rocked up to her place and asked her why she was going to dinner with Edward I’d either look like an idiot because I’d misunderstood what was going on with us, or I’d look like an idiot because her mother had made things up.

Neither option felt like a win.

The only thing I could think was I could contrive a client meeting at the Watson tonight and see for myself if Leah was there. If she was there with Edward, then I’d deal with it in a calm and grown up manner. If she wasn’t there, I could maybe tell her that her mum was a dick, like she didn’t already know.

For Priscilla, I was going to play it calm and cool and like it was all going according to plan.

“Well, good. I hope they have a good night,” I said as I stood up.

Priscilla’s eyebrow rose. “Indeed. Well, it was a pleasure seeing you, Patrick.”

“Likewise,” I told her as I held my arm up and indicated she get the hell out of my meeting room.

She thankfully did and headed straight for the elevator. I walked her as much to make sure she got on the damned thing as I was being polite.

“I’ll tell Aubrey you said hello.”

I nodded as I hit the call button. “Please do.”

We stood in awkward silence as we waited for the doors to open. I could feel Flo’s eyes on my back, but resisted the urge to look back at her. Finally, the doors opened and I put a hand over one side for Priscilla to get in.

“Goodbye, Patrick.” The way she said it was so final, so full of triumphant victory that I felt everything in me plummet and it was all I could to hold together my prim and proper polite façade.

I supposed, at that point, I didn’t have to put on any act for her, but I had my pride and I wasn’t about to go to pieces in front of this woman.

“Goodbye, Priscilla,” I said carefully.

Then the fucking bitch grinned at me as the doors closed and it was the final straw. I’d never had a particularly good lid on my temper, but it blew fucking sky high at that moment.

“Fucking hell!” I yelled as I grabbed a spare chair in the waiting room and threw it into the other wall.

“Whoa, Hawk!” Flo cried from her desk in the middle of the room. “Not cool, dude!”

I deflated somewhat. “Sorry, Flo.”

“What happened?” Chaos asked as four of the skidded into the waiting room.

“Hawk threw a chair,” Flo answered. “No biggie.”

“What the fuck, man?” Rollie asked, looking at me as he went to pick it up and put it back.

“She’s going to dinner with one of those rich wankers,” I grunted.

“She’s who what?”

“Leah. She’s going to dinner with fucking Edward Barnes tonight.”

“Is that what the mother told you?” Tank asked.

I nodded.

“Then how do you know it’s true?”

I shrugged. “I don’t.”

“So, why don’t we put on our big boy pants and go talk to her before we destroy more furniture, yeah?” Chaos said calmly.

I practically growled at him. “Yeah, and where were your big boy pants six months ago, arsehole?”

“Don’t get pissy with me because you went and found emotions and can’t deal with them, you shit-stain,” was my best mate’s response.

I opened and closed my mouth a few useless times, but had nothing to say to that.

“Just fucking go and call her and sort this shit out like a fucking grown up.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Okay, I’m going!”

I muscled through them all and into my office where I snapped up my phone and called her number.

“Hey,” she said when she answered.

“Hey. What are you up to tonight?”

She sounded somewhat distracted. “Uh, meeting up with someone.”

“Someone?”

“A friend?”

“Anyone I know?”

“Uh, no. Why do you ask?”

“I just figured, if you weren’t busy, we could do something.”

“Oh. I’d have liked that, but I’ve already made plans, sorry.”

“Not to worry.” I kept my voice calm and neutral. So, she was going out? Didn’t mean anything. “Your friend