News had gotten out the boss’s woman was on her way up.
All eyes came to her as she walked across the marble flooring toward the desk in simple, but kickass, high-heeled, black patent Louboutin So Kate pumps. She was wearing a silvery-gray-leather pencil skirt that fit her like a glove and hit her at her knees. She was also wearing a skintight, silk knit, sleeveless, mock turtleneck tee.
Her only adornment was her square-faced Michele watch and a pair of small diamond studs in her ears.
Really, the skirt and shoes were all she needed.
And the bugged-out eyes fastened to her proved that to be true.
“I’m here to see Stellan,” she shared with the receptionist when she arrived at her desk. “Sorry,” she went on, belatedly realizing who she was speaking to. “Mr. Lange.”
“I, uh … yeah, uh … right, um … obviously,” she stammered, clearly unable to cope with Stellan Lange’s girlfriend showing up in her sphere. “Uh, let me—”
Sixx heard from the side, “Allow me to put Maureen out of her misery and take you back.”
She looked that way to see a very pretty, petite, blonde, well-dressed woman who had a knowing smile on her face and a measuring look in her eye.
The glorious Susan.
God, she even looked like the perfect baby sister you lived to adore.
Sixx inwardly drew her shit tight, gave a small smile to the receptionist and her other onlookers and moved toward the blonde.
“You’re Susan, yes?” she asked, lifting her hand when she got close.
“I am. And you’re Simone.”
That threw Sixx for a second, so much she let it show.
“Sixx,” Susan said quickly. “Sixx. Sorry.”
“No apology needed, Simone is fine,” Sixx told her as Susan took her hand, gave it a firm squeeze, and they both let go. “I was in the neighborhood, and I had something I needed to share with Stellan, so I figured I’d just pop by. Am I being a nuisance?”
“No. Absolutely not,” Susan assured. “Though he’s on a call and told me he didn’t want to be disturbed.” Susan was speaking as she indicated a hall to Sixx with a swing of her arm, and they both began to walk down it. “I haven’t shared you were here yet as he should be wrapping it up soon. And I suspect he’ll do that even if he wasn’t wrapping it up when we poke our heads through to show him you’re here.”
“I don’t want to bother him, or you. What I have to share shouldn’t take long.” That was a partial lie. It might, she had no idea how Stellan would react or how long that would take. “I can call him and leave a message on his cell. I was just a block away, though, so I thought—”
Susan cut her off. “No worries. All good. In fact, you here will make his day.”
Sixx examined the well-appointed hall off of which were large rooms filled with well-appointed cubbies. Sprinkled around were fabulous art and more fresh flower arrangements.
She was taking this all in despite the fact she was not quite able not to think about making Stellan’s day, but for her sanity, she wanted to.
“I’m glad we have a chance to meet anyway,” Susan went on, and Sixx looked to her. “Take the pressure off tomorrow night.”
Sixx had never met anyone that mattered to a beau. She’d never even had a beau. And most the people she dealt with, nothing mattered to them but power and money.
It hadn’t occurred to her Susan might be on edge too.
“Right. So I’ll give you the honesty and share that was also behind me walking a block in one-hundred-and-seven-degree heat in a leather skirt to have a word with Stellan,” Sixx admitted as Susan led them into a well-appointed office that was large, had comfortable seating around, and a huge desk filled with what appeared to be lots of work scattered on top as well as one of the bigger fresh flower arrangements at the corner of it.
“That skirt is something else, to be sure,” Susan replied, stopped in front of her desk, and looked up at Sixx. “How do you wear leather in the summer in Phoenix?”
“Like every other Phoenician, I limit my time outside in the summer to racing from the air-conditioning of a building to the air-conditioning in my car and vice versa. So it really doesn’t matter what I wear since most of the time I’m enjoying a soothing seventy-something degrees. And if I spend any time outside, it’s in a bathing suit by a pool, no leather to be found.”
Susan gave her a big smile. “Too true.”
Sixx hesitantly returned the smile.
“So, I’m just going to say, since we’re being honest,” Susan began. “I figured you’d be daunting, the woman who caught Stellan’s eye. But, you know, meeting you, you’re not daunting. You’re terrifying.”
Oh no.
“I’m not, really, it’s the leather. It’s a power material,” Sixx tried to joke.
“It is that, but it’s also the fact you walked a block … or anywhere … in those shoes. I’d break an ankle or fall flat on my face.”
“You can best anything with practice. That’s how I did it.”
“I sucked at ballet, so I’m thinking you’re wrong.”
Sixx gave her a less hesitant smile and lowered her voice to share, “I’m just a person, Susan. I’m no different from you or anyone else.”
“You look like the famous ex-wife of a rock god who dumped his butt the minute she found out he cheated on her, proving he’s the most idiotic man on the planet and unworthy of her time. Then she went on to get more famous just for being awesome but also building a designer handbag dynasty. At the same time she tamed an until-then-untamable, unspeakably handsome and glamorous playboy, earning his utter devotion and a one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar, custom-designed wedding gown to top the five-carat diamond engagement ring he slid on her finger aboard his yacht.”
Sixx blinked at her.
“I don’t know about the rock god part,” Susan went on. “But I know the second part is true, and so is the last part since Stellan’s already told me I can pick your engagement ring, and I’m seeing from taking in all that is you that five carats is the way to go.”
At hearing these words, unable to stop herself, Sixx reached out with her fingers to Susan’s desk and leaned into them, staring at the woman and trying with everything she had not to hyperventilate.
“Oh God, I’ve freaked you,” Susan whispered in horror.
“I’m a mess,” Sixx whispered back, so off-kilter from what Susan had just said, not to mention being the recipient of such open honesty, unable to stop that too.
“You’re the most put-together woman I’ve ever seen,” Susan kept up the whispering.
“Camouflage.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“I still don’t believe it.”
“He’s going to give up on me,” Sixx shared, yes, also still whispering. “I’m such a mess, I’m going to make that so.”
“He never gives up on anything that matters to him,” Susan was still whispering in return. “And you really matter to him.”
“Then I’m going to have to leave him before I hurt him.”
Susan suddenly looked panicked. “Leaving him would hurt him.”
“You don’t understand—”
“He’d slay dragons for you,” Susan declared desperately.
Sixx shut her mouth.
“He would. He would,” she said like she was chanting, leaned in, and continued fiercely, “Let him.”
Sixx took a step back, looked side to side, realized what the fuck she was doing, and opened her mouth to find a way out of the mess she’d somehow created.
Seriously.
This was Stellan’s Susan.
She couldn’t talk to Leigh, but she could know Susan for all of five minutes and let this vomit out of her mouth?
“My dad’s a dick, excuse my language,” Susan declared suddenly. “And my mom let him be that to me. So outside of Harry and Crosby, Stellan’s all I’ve got that’s mine, and there isn’t a single woman on the planet I’d think was worthy of him, not one. That was, I thought that until I just met you.”
Sixx shook her head. “You don’t know me.”
“I know why he’s falling in love with you.”
Sixx clamped her mouth shut again.
“Do you want to know why?” Susan asked.