Foreplay with the Boss: Billionaires of Boston

34. Jameson

“That’s a sexual harassment suit just waiting to happen,” Nate said the second I closed the door to my office behind me.

“Bringing my assistant coffee counts as sexual harassment now?”

“Well, if you weren’t also fucking her on the side, it might not, but since you obviously are, it does.”

I clenched my fists. This was why I’d taken Kat to meet Ben instead of Nate. “Mind your own damn business.”

“I’m your lawyer. You are my business, and with this restructuring deal coming up, you can’t afford a misstep. Please tell me you at least made her sign a nondisclosure agreement…”

I crossed my arms.

“Talked to HR, at the very least?” he asked, and when I remained planted in place, he pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

“That’s our boy,” Ben said, picking up a paperweight one of my clients had given to me and tossing it in the air like a baseball. “High risk, high reward.”

“This is different,” I said as I rounded my desk and settled into my chair. “It’s more than…” I caught sight of Kat as she headed toward the front of the office, and that warm, softening sensation that refused to be snuffed out went through me. “It’s just more, okay.”

“You have to get her to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and it needs to be retroactive.” Nate thumbed out a message on his phone. Back in the day, he used to be a lot more fun, and he was still one of my best friends, but he was even more all business, all the time than I was, and I never took a break.

Or I never did until Kat came along.

“Look, judging from the looks of her, I’m sure she’s a good—” “Watch it,” I growled.

Ben grinned. “You really like her. I knew it when you brought her in the other night.”

“Yes, okay. I like her, and I’m going to tell her that I care about her, and try to convince her to stay in Boston. But first I have to come clean about my plans to shut down the Hartford branch which is going to suck ass since her great-grandfather formed the company that eventually became that branch, and she’s spent her entire life thinking she was going to run it someday.”

Nate pointed a finger at me. “Don’t you dare tell her. Not until after you have her sign the NDA I’m going to send you, you hear me? Then you can spout cheesy poetry until you’re blue in the face.”

“Wow, you know all my moves.”

He glared at me, and I glared right back.

“I met her the other night at the restaurant,” Ben said. “She’s solid.”

“How fucking clueless are you guys? The second this goes bad—whether it’s the relationship or finding out about the branch closing down—the claws will come out, and then all of your assets, including this company you love so much, will be in danger.”

My lungs tightened. I wanted to tell him that Kat wasn’t like that, but that was the way my dad did business, with his gut and heart instead of his head. And counting the guy in Texas who’d said something similar, this was the second time I’d been warned about how badly it could go. As much as I hated to admit it, Nate was right. I couldn’t risk anything like that happening right now, not when I was so close to clearing the Stone name and securing my future. I needed to think with my head and leave the way I felt about Kat out of it. “Fine. Type it up and send it over.”

I told myself it wouldn’t matter. After she signed it I’d tell her everything, and at the end of it all, we’d see if there was anything left to try to salvage.

I’d never been one for optimism, but I found myself hoping that despite having the odds stacked against us, we’d find a way to get past it. Because the other option was to say goodbye to the only woman who made me want a whole lot more, and I knew she’d be walking away with a piece of me that I’d never get back.