Yeah, maybe I’d call her. Ask her a couple of questions.
“Seriously, man, you’re getting a little doughy around the middle. I don’t think it was your abs.”
I glanced down at my stomach and then back up to find John chuckling. “You wish you had a body like mine,” I said. I put in the work and I got the results I wanted. It was the same with most things in life. The gym was no different.
“Now, enough with the girl talk.” He stuck his hands behind his head. “Tell me you’re going to close Cecily Fragrance this week.”
Fuck. That was the file I was looking for. I’d had our researcher do some comparable valuations that I could put in front of the owners at our meeting this afternoon. I spotted the file half hanging off the edge of the desk and grabbed it. “I’m going to settle it at this meeting.”
“You going to up the offer?”
I hadn’t quite decided that yet. “I need to convince the two major shareholders to walk away. I just haven’t found a way to make that compelling for them. They’re being emotional.”
I got the feeling it wasn’t about the money for Cecily. I was going to make her a very rich woman, an extra twenty thousand dollars wouldn’t make the difference. No, I think she wanted to retain a stake in the business. And that just wasn’t going to happen. She’d hate what I’d want to do. Instead of staying with a few product lines in very high-end stores and boutiques, I’d expand and go into as many department stores as possible.
And it wouldn’t be me doing it. I’d parachute a new president in. Cecily wouldn’t like that either. This was personal, and that was her weakness. I’d find a way to get her to accept my offer this afternoon.
“You want me to come with you?”
“No, thank you. I don’t need a nursemaid.”
“Well, you seem a little off your game. Maybe it’s the jet lag.”
“I told you, I—”
“Don’t get jet lag. I know. Maybe it’s this woman.” He slapped his hands down on the arms of the chair and stood up. “Maybe you just need a break. I know you’re close to your grandfather—why don’t you take this meeting with Cecily Fragrance and then fly back to England? Take some time with him?”
Little did he know that my grandfather in hospital was only the tip of a very large iceberg. As much as I wanted to close Cecily Fragrance, what I really needed was to keep control of Westbury Group.
I needed to stop thinking about last night and focus on my future.
Five
Scarlett
I’d prepared thoroughly for my meeting with the Westbury Group. I had all the arguments about retaining a stake in Cecily Fragrance memorized. I closed my notes on my iPad and took a deep breath. I’d found a place I loved to work and I was going to fight to keep it. This was personal for me and no one could trump personal.
The people from the Westbury Group would arrive any minute. I took out my compact from the top drawer of my desk and checked my makeup. If I hadn’t taken Violet’s advice last night, I wouldn’t have had to put so much concealer under my eyes this morning. My best preparation would have been a good night’s sleep. But I guess if I’d have done the sensible thing, I wouldn’t have had the most amazing sex ever.
How was it possible for last night to have been so different from the sex I’d had with my ex-husband? I’d been nervous until I’d actually gotten into the apartment with Ryder, and then he completely took control and it took all my reticence and nerves with it. Violet had been right; I’d been equating sex with a relationship and become paralyzed. Ryder somehow had just unburdened me of all that. Marcus had always been so cautious with me, so worried I was enjoying it. Ryder took what he wanted from me—apparently that was exactly what I’d wanted from him.
The knock on my office door jolted me back into the moment.
“Hey, the guys from the Westbury Group are here,” Karen, my financial controller, said. She was going to join me for the meeting so she could take notes and be an extra set of ears. I didn’t want to miss a thing.
“Are you ready?” I asked, picking up my notepad, tablet and business cards.
Karen nodded—her movements jittery.
“Don’t be nervous,” I said, trying to reassure her. “Like we said yesterday, just write me a note if you think I’m missing anything and you don’t want to speak up.”
I knew what it was like to be across the table from a bunch of overconfident suits. What Karen didn’t realize was these guys would be as full of shit as anyone. They just dressed well and had a lot of money. “Remember, they still have to use toilet paper, just the same as the rest of us.” My dad had always encouraged Max, Violet and me not to be intimidated in the boardroom. He told us office life was just a game and to remember if you worked hard and lost, it just meant the other players understood the rules better. You had to dust yourself off and start fresh for the next game. I hadn’t realized how right he was until I’d started my corporate career.
I had to pretend this was just another game. But this was the first time I was going into a meeting where losing would be personal. “Right, I think I have everything,” I said as I headed toward her.
“They’re in the boardroom,” Karen said as we walked side by side down the corridor lined with gray carpet tiles.
Boardroom made the room sound grander than it was. It was just the bigger of the two meeting rooms we had.
It’s just a game.
“How many came?”
“Two,” Karen said. “There’s Mr. Westbury, who you were expecting, and his assistant who looks like he just started shaving.”
I could do this.
I clasped my hand around the cool metal handle of the conference room door, took a deep breath and entered.
“Gentleman.” My smile froze as I took in the face of the man standing in front of me.
It was the man who had made me come three times last night.
The man whose fingers I still felt digging into my ass.
The man’s whose cock had split me in two and filled me with pleasure.
His eyebrows raised and he smirked as he held out his hand. It wasn’t just my smile that had frozen, I was blocking the door and Karen was behind me. I shook off my surprise and took his hand.
“Ryder Westbury,” he said, his index finger making a small circle on the inside of my wrist. “Good to see you.”
I pulled my hand away. “Scarlett King, Finance Director,” I replied. “And this is my colleague Karen Chung.”
I knew Ryder’s assistant was speaking but I couldn’t hear what he was saying through the booming in my ears. I was putting all my energy into not screaming How the fuck did this happen? at the top of my voice.
“We were expecting Cecily. Is she coming?” Ryder asked. That accent. No wonder it was him that I decided to end my period of celibacy for.