I kind of like it. It has a nice alliterative ring to it. Better than being called Rectal Raiden, Ridiculous Raiden, or worst of all, Rectal Raiding Raiden. And no, I didn’t earn that nickname because I treat people badly.
I’m actually quite nice. At least, I like to think so. I’m not the guy who you “have to get to know”. I don’t “grow on people”. I’m fair if people are fair in return, and I’ve had zero complaints from the women I’ve dated, or well, “hung out with”.
No, my reputation is completely business. When it comes to business, I’m every bit as ruthless as people say. I’ll admit it straight up. I’m a bossy devil. I have to be if I want to make it. I’ve earned every syllable and letter of my reputation. I built a tech empire from the ground up, or should I say, from my mom’s garage up. After I burned down half of it, she became serious about sending me to computer camp to learn how to do things the right way. I got a job when I was fifteen and paid for everything after that.
Now my mom lives in a two-million-dollar log shack just outside of Denver because she’s crazy and said she never did like the heat and didn’t want to stick around Florida. She prefers the mountains to the ocean, which I’ll admit has its draw. She has two sports cars, a brand-new truck, and an SUV. Not like she wanted any of it, but I like to spoil her, although she still has and prefers the fifteen-year-old minivan she bought for like two grand all those years back. It hasn’t improved with age, and I’m hoping that one day soon, it will die a hard van death and go to van heaven. By this, of course, I mean the scrap yard.
Bringing my mind back to the present, I wrap up the speech I’ve perfected. I answer all the anxious questions and give reassurance to the people seated around me. Fortunately, there aren’t many questions at all because almost everyone in the room has probably figured out that this takeover is a good thing, I’m not here to crush them to dust, and if they’re honest and hardworking, I’m fair and pay well. There are still a few anxious stares and trembling hands that shake mine at the end of it all, but I’m known for making believers out of the worst doubters, so it doesn’t bother me.
The room empties out.
Except for one. One person who gets a few dubious looks and raised brows from the crowd shuffling out of the room in an orderly line.
Zoe Scarlet Anderson stays firmly rooted in her seat. I’m standing at the other end of the room, but she’s not looking at me. She’s just staring down at her hands, which are folded over the notebook she never once opened. She’s going to make me clear my throat and make the first move. She’s not going to be the one to break the oppressive and incredibly awkward silence. She’s the one who wants to be in control, and I can read that from her rigid posture and body language. If this were a pissing contest, she would have soaked the room already before turning around to ask me how in the fricking-frack—because Zoe probably still doesn’t swear—I could top that.
She wins.
I clear my throat.
But she still doesn’t look up at me.
My stomach cramps up, and a cold sweat breaks out all over my skin, soaking into my three-thousand-dollar custom-tailored suit. My shoes even start to pinch because my feet are getting sweaty.
“Do you have a question for me?” My voice comes out throaty and ragged, and I hate myself for it. I hate how I’m suddenly reduced back to a fourteen-year-old kid in her presence, except the fourteen-year-old version of myself would never have been intimidated by Zoey Zo Zo.
Then, her face tilts up, one slow degree at a time. She makes me wait for it. How in the ever living nine realms of special corporate hell did eighteen years transform this woman into the most practiced frigid ice queen, and why in the ever-living hell is it so hot?
Suddenly, I’m more worried about popping a hard-on, which is going to be very obvious in a suit, than anything else. The room closes in around me, and the air becomes thick as soup. Boner action is happening. Slowly. No matter how much I try to