Chapter 7
Ididn’t hear from Emmett the rest of the weekend or yesterday. Normally, I’d be thankful. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve always been the type of person to run and hide from things that make me uncomfortable.
And Emmett makes me uncomfortable.
I’m pretty sure it stems from my childhood–this desire to avoid things. My parents weren’t really the warm and loving type. They never hurt me, but they didn’t exactly take care of me either. At least, not in the way I saw other kids” parents taking care of them. I was just always kind of on my own.
Dad worked overtime his entire life, and when he was home, he just didn’t want to deal with me. I wasn’t scared of him, but I also couldn’t approach him. I learned quickly that his idea of parenting was to tell me to go to my mother instead. Plus, he always looked so exhausted, and guilt would eat me alive if I thought about asking him for something.
Mom was the same way–unapproachable. She didn’t have that ‘motherly instinct’ you so often hear about. I was always an afterthought to her. Sure, I was fed and clothed and had a home, but there was no love. There was no affection. There was no laughter. There were no hugs when I was a little girl and I’d fall and scrape my knees. There were no pictures of me in the elementary school Christmas concert. There was no talking about boys and dating and sex and all the things that come with being a teenage girl. It was always just my parents trying to get by, and me doing my own thing.
So when things got tough for me, whether it was because of school or friends or boyfriends, I didn’t have anyone other than Tracy to talk to. And when Tracy wasn’t there, I hid. I never confronted my problems. I ran from them.
The first week of sixth grade, I remember some of the girls in my class making fun of my shirt. It was two sizes too big and swallowed me whole. I got it because of the dinosaur skeleton on it, and had worn it to school with pride. I had to beg my mom to get it for me from the thrift shop, and she used what was supposed to be grocery money on it.
But walking into school that day, and getting laughed at for my clothes, made me feel small and insignificant. Embarrassed. Ashamed, even, of what I liked. And rather than face the kids picking on me, I threw the shirt away when I got home and decided I didn’t like paleontology after all. Tracy said I was being dumb, so I ignored her for the rest of that week, too.
And the mindset stuck with me. When I get uneasy, I run. I back down. I never face the actual issue.
The only problem with that right now is that I actually need to face Emmett. We’re supposed to have our final walk-through inspection of my new house tomorrow, and I haven’t heard a peep from him about it.
But I decide to stick to my status quo of not facing anything that makes me uncomfortable, and wait it out a few more hours. I’ll text him this afternoon if I don’t hear anything.
Hypocritical as it may be, it does bother me–his lack of communication. This is probably the biggest moment of my life, and he doesn’t even have the decency to let me know if we’re still on schedule for tomorrow.
Annoyed, I get back to work on the latest project Adam has me working on, hoping to distract myself for a little while.
Just as I feel like I”m starting to go cross-eyed from staring at the spreadsheet in front of me, my phone starts vibrating on my desk. I glance at it to see Emmett’s name lighting up the screen, and I hesitate. I’d been waiting for him to reach out, but now that he’s on the other end of the phone, my hands are suddenly sweating at the prospect of answering it.
Hating the way just his name makes me nervous, I grab the phone and answer before I have the chance to overthink it. My voice cracks as I answer, “Hello?”
“I have a conflict tomorrow afternoon. Can we do your walk-through at ten?” he asks, not even bothering with pleasantries. The arrogance of this man.
Fighting down my rising irritation, I take a deep breath. Two days. That’s all I have to get through, then I’ll never have to see or talk to him again. He’ll become a blip in my memory. A faded recollection of the week he spent making me nervous, and the week I spent hating myself for still being attracted to him.
“That’s fine,” I respond, trying my best to sound unaffected.
Thankfully, I’d taken the rest of the week off work. I knew there was the possibility of things getting further delayed, so I wanted the flexibility. Plus, I haven’t even started packing up my apartment yet. And I still need to rent a moving truck. And try to bribe my neighbors across the hall to help move out my heavier furniture. I still don’t know who’s going to help me move it into my new place. I was relying on Tracy to help with that.
I grab a sticky note on my desk to start making a list of everything I need to do.
“I’ll pick you up at your place at nine,” Emmett says, pulling me from my mental checklist.
My hand freezes, a bright pink sticky note stuck between my fingers. “Excuse me?” Surely I didn’t hear him correctly. He’s got to be delusional if he thinks I’m spending two hours in a car with him, driving to and from my new place.
“I said, I’ll pick you up at—”
“I know what you said,” I bite out. Collecting myself, I add, “I just meant that I can drive myself. It will be less of a hassle that way. Besides, I might hang around and check out the area a little more after we’re done.”
It’s not a complete lie. I have been meaning to spend some more time out there to get familiar with the local area. No better day to do it than tomorrow, it seems.
He chuckles on the other end before replying, “In that case, I’ll meet you there at ten.”
He ends the call, and I drop my forehead into my hands, letting out a groan. Why does everything feel so difficult with this man?
It’s a stupid question, because I know the answer. It’s because he sparks something back to life in me, and it scares me.
Not wanting to have this mental battle with myself again, I clock out for lunch. Grabbing the mail that came in for Adam this morning, I climb the stairs up to his office to drop it off before I head out to grab food. There’s this amazing food truck that parks a couple blocks down every Tuesday, and I am dying for some of their tacos.
When I get to Adam’s office, I’m surprised to find him sitting at his desk. Knocking softly on his open door, I lift the mail in my hand. “Just dropping this off,” I say, plastering on a sugary sweet smile.
Ever since last week, when Emmett pointed out my resemblance to Adam’s previous secretaries, I’ve been a little unnerved around him. We’ve never been exactly friendly before, but I’ve also never had any reason to distrust him. Now, I’m feeling a bit more uncertain.
Adam looks up from whatever he was working on and waves me in. “Perfect timing, Riley. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
I glance around anxiously, wondering what the heck he could need to talk to me about. The project he has me working on right now isn’t due for another week, and I already told him my time off wouldn’t interfere with getting it done on time.
Forcing more confidence than I feel, I square my shoulders and make my way into his office, sitting down across from him at his desk.
“You’ve been here for almost six months now,” he starts. “You’re about due for your first performance evaluation.” He gazes at me from across his desk, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands together in front of him. His expression remains unreadable. “I’ll keep it short. I’m impressed with your work ethic and am issuing a fifteen percent raise, effective immediately.”
“Oh, thank you,” I mutter, caught off guard by this. “I enjoy working here.”
“Good. I hope with your move and longer commute, this will incentivize you to stick around.” He looks at me expectantly.
“I wasn’t planning on leaving, sir.” I don’t know why I suddenly feel the need to defend myself. I haven’t even thought about looking for another job. And even if I had, it’s not like I owe him any kind of allegiance.
“Excellent,” he says, sitting back up and grabbing the paper he was looking over before. When I don’t immediately move to leave, he adds, “You”re dismissed. Enjoy lunch.”
I give him a small smile and leave, making my way back downstairs quickly.
I should be happy. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten such a large raise before. But Emmett’s words keep circling in my head, and now I can’t help but wonder how much of my raise is because of job performance, and how much of it could be coming with an ulterior motive.
Ughhh.Damn him for putting these ideas in my head. And why am I even considering them to begin with? I have no reason to trust anything he says.
Heading out the employee door at the back of the building, I make my way to the sidewalk and down the street toward the food truck. It’s a gorgeous, warm fall day, and I take a minute to enjoy the feel of the sun’s rays on my skin, knowing soon the cold will settle in for the season.
When I finally have my tacos in hand, I grab a seat at one of the picnic tables nearby. There’s a small community park here, nestled between all the office buildings, and there’s different food trucks that set up every day of the week. Taco Tuesday is always my favorite, though. I could eat these tacos everyday and never get sick of them.
Finishing up my lunch, I glance at my cell phone and see I still have a good ten minutes before I need to walk back to the office. Unable to help my curiosity, I open Google and search ‘Emmett Raythorne’ like some crazy stalker chick.
I don’t know why I feel the need to look him up, other than the fact that he is driving me crazy. Part of me is scared of what I might find, but the other part of me needs to know who this guy is.
He’s infuriating, I know that much. But other than him being a realtor from New York, I really don’t know anything about him at all. Heck, maybe he donates to animal shelters, feeds the poor, and clothes the homeless.
I snicker at the idea. That seems highly unlikely. Emmett strikes me as the type of man who looks out for his best interests first, everyone else be damned.
Scrolling through the search results, I can’t find any social media accounts. Kind of odd, but I guess not totally unusual. A lot of people have been parting with social media lately.
There are a few articles about him, several being about his rise in the New York City real estate market. One article in particular catches my eye and I click on it.
It opens to a photo of Emmett with another man–Jax Lundquist, according to the caption. The two of them are in suits, posed in front of an office building. The article talks about the success of Lundquist Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on start-up tech companies. Apparently started a few years ago by the two of them, it’s one of the fastest growing venture capital firms in New York.
I back out of the article, scrolling through some of the other results. There are a couple articles about Emmett and the Voletti Family. I click on one, scanning to see it’s about their rapid acquisition of real estate across the city. Apparently, he’s built quite the investment portfolio for this family.
Not finding anything else worth noting, I switch to the photo results. There are tons of photos of him, many of them staged shots featuring him surrounded by other men in suits. There’s a few candid shots as well, but nothing that stands out. Other than the few articles I found, there’s not a whole lot of information out there about him. His entire online presence is limited to his business endeavors. There wasn’t a single photo of him with any women.
I wince when I realize I had been searching for some evidence of a woman in his life. As if that would suddenly make things any better. At best, he’s single, and it makes his visit to my apartment on Saturday less sleazy. At worst, he’s in a relationship, and it makes his visit to my apartment on Saturday much more sleazy.
I try to ignore the relief that I feel at not finding any evidence of a woman in his life, but I can’t. A small, tiny part of me is excited.
And that confuses me more than anything.
“You listening to me, man?”
I glance up from my phone to see Jax staring at me, a frown on his face. I close the tracking app and lock my phone.
Riley was at the little park by her office, and I can’t help but wonder if she walked there alone. She should really carry a weapon. There are a lot of creeps out there who would grab her from the sidewalk without a second thought. Shit, I’d grab her from the sidewalk without a second thought.
Shaking my head, I focus my attention back to Jax. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
I’d met up with him for lunch so we could go over the financials again for Adam’s properties. I’m still going to buy them, but his numbers aren’t quite making sense. He’s definitely inflating his profits–which I had anticipated he would do.
I don’t trust anything about him, and the more Jax and I dig, the more we find. Two of the office spaces I want to acquire have fudged rental histories. I know because I called every single previous tenant to get copies of their leases and rental receipts.
We’ve spent the last hour combing through the numbers again, and determining exactly what kind of offer we want to present to Adam at my next meeting with him.
I grind my teeth, hating that Riley works for that bastard. But I have a plan to change that.
Jax gives me a curious look, considering me for a minute, then says, “I was asking how the deal is going with our newly elected representative.”
“Fine,” I mutter. That deal is the least of my concerns right now. Besides the fact that it’s going through the shell company, it’s a straightforward purchase. “We’re under contract. Should close in three weeks.”
“Didn’t think you’d get pulled back into illegal bullshit so soon after being freed from our leash in New York,” he responds with a smirk.
Even though Jax doesn’t actively do much with real estate anymore, I still run a lot of my deals through him. We’ve been through so much shit together that it’s a force of habit to have each other sign off on everything we do. When I told him about the agreement I made with Blake to run his dirty deals through the shell company, Jax had just laughed and said he was on board. Which didn’t surprise me. Illegal as it may be, it was the perfect opportunity for us. This partnership with Blake, and consequently his brother’s construction company, will be a critical part of building our real estate portfolio out here.
“Yeah, well, you know me,” I tell Jax, flashing him a grin. “Gotta keep things interesting.”
He laughs and waives down our waitress to pay our lunch bill. When she finally returns with his card, we head toward the valet for our cars.
I’ve just tipped both the valets when I turn to see Jax leaning against my car. I’m not expecting it when he says softly, “I know you hate this sappy bullshit, but is everything alright with you? You seem distracted lately.”
I suppress the urge to laugh. If only he knew.
Clapping him on the shoulder, I ask, “Remember when I asked you to have that security system installed for me?” He nods. “It’s for a woman I’m,” stalking, “seeing.”
His brows shoot up to his hairline. “The fuck? Since when are you seeing someone? You were just fucking Ashleigh in a club bathroom last week.” He pushes off my car, straightening his suit jacket and tightening the bun holding back his hair.
“It’s complicated,” I say, not wanting to go into the details. I never told him about Riley or how Tracy had asked me to help her with the closing.
Jax narrows his eyes at me. “Is the notorious playboy of NYC catching feelings for someone?”
“You,” I point a finger at his chest, “can fuck right off.”
He laughs, throwing his hands up in front of him defensively. “That answers my question.”
I resist the urge to wipe the grin off his face. What I have for Riley is so goddamn beyond ‘catching feelings’, he wouldn’t understand. Hell, I don’t even understand it.
I move past him and round the front of my car, opening the driver’s side door. Before I get in, I call out to him, “Jax?”
He pauses, one foot already in his car. “Yeah?”
“Tell the guys when they put the security system in, I want cameras in every room, too.”
I don’t get a response. Jax instead just shakes his head and gets into his car. But I know he’ll make sure it gets done, because I would do the same for him.