I have some things that I need you to do this afternoon?”
She stands, clearing her throat. “Yes, Landry.”
I watch her sweet ass sway as she walks away from me. Julie is standing next to the door, her brow lifted as she stares at me. I don’t say a fucking word, instead, I get right to business, refusing to address the elephant in the room, or my hard dick.
Chapter Ten
LANDRY
Lawrence watches me from across the table. Tennessee made reservations, flawlessly, although calling a restaurant and booking a table with a time isn’t a particularly difficult task, there are people who can’t quite do it.
“Tell me about your assistant,” Lawrence drawls.
Lifting my gaze from my avocado BLT, I grimace. I can’t help it. After yesterday, consoling her and then kissing her, there is something there. There is something building that shouldn’t be. It’s so fucking wrong, but it feels so damn right at the same time.
“She’s just graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in finance and has moved from Tulsa to Dallas. She needed a foot in the door, your mother used to be friends with hers when she was young.”
“Oh god, I can only imagine.” Lawrence chuckles.
Shaking my head, I take a bite of my food, chewing it as I attempt to explain Helen Bradley and how she’s the polar opposite of Susan Astor. I tell him a little, about how Helen married young and wrong for her, how she raised Tennessee on her own.
“So she’s young and poor? Be careful, it’s obvious you already harbor a soft spot for her,” he warns.
He’s right, but he has no fucking idea how hard I am for her at the same time. Clearing my throat, I attempt to change the subject, but Lawrence won’t have it. He is determined to ask me a million questions about Tennessee and why I’ve given her the job that I have.
He can probably sense that I’m not doing this solely out of the goodness of my heart, but he isn’t going to get anything from me, because nothing more than a single kiss has happened between us.
“Mother will have a field day,” he warns.
“Your mother asked me to hire her, what are you insinuating she would have a field day over?” I ask, arching a brow.
He snorts, his eyes widening before he shakes his head. “I am looking directly at you, Dad. I know without a doubt that you are attracted to her.”
“How?”
His lips twitch into a smirk. “I can hear it in your voice when you speak about her. I can see it in your eyes when you think of her and answer a question. This is my job, noticing peoples tells. Yours are easy. You’ll have to do better than that when you go to the meeting with Mother and her attorney.”
“Nothing’s happened. There’s no need to assume anything.”
He clears his throat, leaning forward. “Yet. Nothing has happened yet. But it will and you want it too, which makes it that much worse. My advice is to just stay away until the divorce is final, afterward if you want to have a fling with a sweet young thing, then be my guest, after the past few years, I can’t help but think that you deserve it.”
“You know I’m still your father and you are still my son, right?”
Lawrence throws his head back, letting out a laugh. “You are and I am. But I’m also a man, so I get it.”
After leaving lunch, I head back to my office, only to have my phone ring when I’m standing right outside the main door. Glancing down at my watch, I blink at the name that’s displayed on the screen.
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my device and slide my thumb across the screen before I turn and continue to walk down the sidewalk. I don’t want to take this call anywhere near my building, anywhere near where it can be overheard.
“Talk,” I state.
There’s a moment of silence, then I hear my private detective clear his throat. “She appeared to be a completely normal American teenager. She was a latchkey kid, her mom worked two jobs always to make ends meet. She worked hard in school to get decent grades so that she could get grants and scholarships to college. She was accepted to Arkansas.”
There is a moment of silence and I hold my breath as I wait for him to tell me the rest, because I know without a doubt something happened while she was in