Chapter Fifteen
Last night was fun,but I have to admit, I feel a bit guilty about not being completely honest with Anastasia about the dinner. In my defense, she started this. When I had gone behind her back regarding my meeting with Ronan, it had been for the good of the company. I wasn’t trying to play games. But then she deflated all of my damn tires, and I had no choice but to sink to her level. The sprinklers were probably enough payback, and I planned to tell her about the dinner—figuring she’d be forced to quickly get ready or show up, looking like hell—but when she told me she’d rather starve than eat with me, my pettiness reared its ugly head.
After our meeting this morning, I’m going to talk to Anastasia and see if she’ll be willing to call it a truce. We both want the CEO position, but there’s no reason we have to act like teenagers to get it.
I step into the conference room where the meeting is being held. Only instead of several of the department heads being present, like I thought there would be since we’re here to discuss ideas for the Ronan collaboration, it’s only Samuel and Anastasia.
“Morning,” I tell them, closing the glass door behind me and then having a seat next to Anastasia and across from Samuel.
“Morning,” Samuel says, but he barely makes eye contact, and his tone sounds off.
“Okay, now that you’re both here, let’s get down to it,” he continues. “I want our collab with Ronan to go beyond the norm. We need to schedule for him to come in and design his own drink, but we want a marketing plan that will stand out. He made it clear last night that he doesn’t do subpar, and neither do we at Kingston.
“Which is where you two come in.” His eyes flick between Red and me. “I want something that will go above and beyond, leave the competition in awe. Consider this your next test for the CEO position. We’ll meet back on Monday so you can pitch your ideas to the team.”
“Sounds good,” Anastasia chirps way too happily for someone who got left out of the dinner last night. “Oh, by the way, the day-care proposal has been approved by legal. We just need Julian’s seal of approval since he has the final say in everything.” She glances at me and flutters her lashes. “Maybe we can go over it at dinner tonight, so we can move forward?”
I bite back what I want to say—what the hell are you up to?—and go with, “Sure, sweetheart. That sounds good.”
“Great! See you later.” She leans in and kisses my cheek and then stands and practically skips over to the door before turning back around. “Oh, Dad,” she says, “lunch today?” This time, when she speaks, her facial expression matches her genuine tone. She’s not asking him to lunch as a ploy. She’s doing it because she loves her dad and is trying to make shit right.
Samuel grins. “That sounds lovely. I look forward to it.”
Once she’s gone, Samuel looks at me and says, “We need to talk. IT flagged your IP address last night.” He pushes a packet of papers my way. “IT verified several inappropriate sites had been viewed on your work laptop.”
“What?” I hiss, flipping through page after page. “That can’t be right.”
“They confirmed your password had been entered. Have you given anyone else access to your laptop or given them your password?”
“No. I would never give my passwords to anyone.” I take my position at Kingston seriously and would never jeopardize it over fucking porn.
“Look,” he says, pursing his lips in disappointment, “accessing porn of any kind at work is unacceptable, but I have to say, as your future father-in-law, the fact that you were watching”—he leans and whispers the rest—“gay porn is a bit disconcerting.”
What the actual fuck?
“Sir, I?—”
And then it hits me. My laptop was in my home office last night while I was at Lush. Anastasia could’ve easily grabbed my password from where I keep it in my desk drawer and used it.
Motherfucker. I’ve been set up.
She’d warned me, but I didn’t think she’d act this quickly or do something this devious.
“I’m sorry, Samuel,” I tell him as I mentally come up with ways to destroy my fiancée. “I don’t know what happened, but I’ll get to the bottom of it, and it won’t happen again.”
“Please see to that,” he says. “The last thing I want is my daughter getting caught in a scandal. She’s been through a lot, and I worry something like that could send her running when I’ve only just gotten her back.”
“I understand.”
I stalk straight back to my desk and pull my laptop out of my briefcase, firing it up. I find that my internet history has been wiped clean, which IT can do remotely.
I push out of my seat and go straight for Anastasia’s office, finding her typing away at her desk.
“Oh, hey,” she says, her tone too fucking upbeat to be sincere. “What’s up?”
“Did you do it?” I ask, getting straight to the point. “Did you put goddamn gay porn on my work laptop?” I slam my hands on the top of her desk and lean over it, glaring at her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says innocently. “But if that’s what you like, maybe this engagement isn’t going to work out. I don’t exactly have the right equipment … if you catch my drift.”
She smirks, and before I can think, I’m rounding her desk. She sees me coming and gets out of her seat, but before she can get away—or hell, maybe come after me because she’s that fucking crazy—I push her against the wall.
With my hips pressed against hers, I slide my knee between her legs and wrap my fingers gently around her throat. I would never hurt a woman, and I’m still fully in control, but, fuck, I’m fuming, and her innocent act is only making it worse.
“This is how you want to play it, Red?” I ask, squeezing her throat just enough to get my point across, but not enough that she’s in pain or struggling.
“Damn right it is,” she hisses, glaring daggers at me. “Do your worst, fiancé.”
I squeeze a little tighter and notice her legs clench around my knee. Of course she’s turned on right now.
“You like this, don’t you?” I taunt.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she denies, but I’ve got her number.
“The games,” I clarify, then lift my knee slightly, rubbing it across her material-clad cunt. “I bet if I reached into your pants, I’d find you dripping fucking wet.”
“You wouldn’t,” she challenges, telling me she’s just as turned on as I am.
Yeah, I’m pissed, but fuck if I’m not turned on. I never expected this woman to be an actual adversary, but she’s been shocking me at every turn. Instead of pulling the daughter card, she’s fighting for the position with everything she has.
“Is that what you want, Red?” I lean in and snag the tip of her earlobe and bite down, making her groan. “You want me to reach in and, using your juices, make you come right here in your office?”
Her legs tighten around me, and I chuckle.
“Well, that’s not gonna happen,” I say. “Only good girls get orgasms, baby. And you’ve been a bad, bad girl.”
“Julian,” she breathes, letting her hormones get the better of her.
“The next time you do something like that, the only thing you’ll be getting is a goddamn spanking.”
I release her throat, and she huffs as I step back.
“You want to be treated like one of the guys? Fine. But be careful what you wish for.”
Without waiting for her to respond, I turn my back on her and head toward her door.
My hand has just landed on the knob when I hear her call out, her voice overly sweet, “Does that mean you don’t want to have dinner together tonight?”
“Unless it involves you taking my cock down that throat of yours to make up for what you did, no,” I tell her right before I swing the door open and stalk out, slamming it behind me.
“Gay porn?”Ryder cracks up. “She’s good.”
“She’s playing with fire. I’ve worked too damn hard to let her destroy my career and reputation.”
“Oh, calm down,” he says, still laughing. “A little porn action isn’t going to get you fired.”
“You should’ve seen the look on Samuel’s face, man. He was so disappointed, thinking I was watching gay porn behind his precious daughter’s back.” I sigh and scrub my hands over my face. “I definitely underestimated her. I mean, gay porn? What the fuck?”
“Maybe you should tell him the truth,” Ryder says, sobering. “If he knows it was her …”
“Fuck that.” I sit back in the visitor seat and spread my legs out in front of me. “I’m no snitch.”
Ryder barks out a laugh. “You guys are crazy. Maybe after you two destroy each other, I’ll go after the CEO position after all.”
I glare his way, and he raises his hands in the air.
“Kidding, bro. Chill. I got too much going on anyway.”
“Yeah, how’s that going?” I ask, referring to his fiancée being pregnant.
“Baby is healthy. We got to see him on the ultrasound.”
“Him?”
“We’re not sure yet.” He shrugs. “But Nora swears it’s a boy … says it’s her motherly intuition.” He rolls his eyes. “I guess she’s rubbed off on me. As much as I want to resent her getting pregnant, I’m excited to be a dad.”
“You know you can be a dad without marrying her,” I tell him. “Nobody would fault you for walking away from her, and you’d still be a damn good dad.”
“I know,” he murmurs, “but then what? I’d be an every-other-weekend?—”
Before he can finish his sentence, there’s a quick knock on the door, followed by the she-devil—Nora, not Anastasia. I know—it’s hard to keep track of all the evil women trying to pull us down into hell.
“Generally, when someone knocks, they wait for the other person to grant them access,” I say, taking my shitty mood out on her.
Of course, she glares with enough crazy that I wonder if she’s casting a spell on me—hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a witch. Maybe she and Red both run in the same witch circle.
“Josie said it was only you in Ryder’s office with him. We’re having lunch together.”
“And that’s my cue to leave.”
I glance at Ryder, hitting him with a look that conveys, Good fucking luck with her, and then head out of his office, determined to figure out a way to get back at Red.
She wants to make this shit personal? I can do that too. Everyone has skeletons in their closet, and I’m about to find hers. When I’m done with her, she’s going to wish she hadn’t messed with me. I’ve worked too hard to get to where I am to let her fuck it all up.
But first, I’m going home to shower, and while I do so, I’ll be imagining how damn sexy she looked against the wall with my hand wrapped around her neck while she practically begged me to get her off.
Fuck, I’m so fucked.
“We’ll discussit tomorrow at the meeting. Bring the numbers and?—”
My words come to a quick halt as I stare out back at the pool, which is currently occupied by none other than Anastasia. I didn’t see her when I got home, and I assumed she was working upstairs since her car was in the garage.
But I was wrong. Way fucking wrong … unless working involves her swimming laps in the pool, topless.
“Julian, you there?” Ryder asks.
“I gotta go.”
Without waiting for him to respond, I hang up and pocket my phone, then walk outside. She must hear the French doors close behind me because she glances back and then stops when she reaches the wall.
She turns around to face me, her arms spreading out behind her along the edge. As she lightly kicks her feet out, her body bobs up and down in the water, making her perky tits play peekaboo.
Such a goddamn tease.
“Wasn’t expecting you home so early,” she says with a smirk.
“Working from home this afternoon.”
“Same,” she says.
My eyes descend her body, expecting to see bikini bottoms, only there aren’t any because she’s completely fucking naked.
“Skinny-dipping in the pool, huh?” I say, remembering our conversation when she first moved in. “If you want my attention, you only have to ask.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I just don’t want any tan lines.”
She scowls, clearly not liking the way I threw her past in her face—which gives me an idea.
She drops her arms and dips her face into the water, then pushes off the edge and swims like a fish across to the other side. With the water crystal clear, I can just make out her naked body.
Great. Now, I can add this visual to my spank bank for when I’m getting myself off later.
This woman is seriously going to be the death of me … unless I do something to take her down first.