Chapter 29
Just as I reach the elevators, I hear footsteps behind me. “Lucky?—”
“Leave me alone.” The elevator doors slide open and I step inside. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Bullshit.” Noah steps in beside me.
So I step back out again. “I’ll take the stairs, then, if you insist.”
“We’re on the eighteenth floor.”
“Then I guess I’ve got a long walk.”
Noah sighs heavily, like I’m testing his patience. Jerk! He’s testing my patience! “Fine,” he growls. “You take the elevator then.”
He’s holding the door, to keep it open.
Glaring at him, I step back into the elevator.
He removes his hand and the doors start to close. Just before they close all the way, he slides through.
“You—!” Oh my god! Now I’m trapped in here with him.
“Lucky, we need to talk about this.”
I almost punch the door-open button again but I don’t want to play his games.
So I punch the button for the lobby impatiently until the elevator starts to move.
At least I think it’s moving. Like everything in this building, it’s so swish and modern I can’t actually tell.
“I already told you, I have nothing to say to you.”
“Irish—”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap.
With infinite patience that pisses me off: “Lucky. I couldn’t have known the company we were trying to buy was yours.”
“That doesn’t change who you are. A bully, that’s what you are. An evil bully who doesn’t care about anyone but yourself.”
He exhales a laugh. The asshole!
“You think this is funny ?” I seethe.
“Not at all, baby girl.”
“Do not call me that.” I swear if I could shoot daggers out of my eyeballs right now, I would. Mercifully, the ride is vertigo-inducingly swift. The elevator doors slide open and I stride out, making a bee line for the front door.
Noah easily keeps up with me, returning a few greetings of gorgeous, glamorous-looking people who obviously adore and respect him as we walk through the busy, ultra-luxurious lobby.
Of course it’s luxurious. Because he’s siphoning money out of every struggling company in New York and straight into his own bank account.
I march out onto the street to wave down a taxi, wildly annoyed that he’s still standing right next to me. “Lucky. This is my car. My driver. Let me take you home or to your office or wherever you’re going and we can talk this through.”
“We can talk it through right here. You and your shark brothers made an offer for my company that was too low. I rejected it. There. We’ve talked it through.” A cab pulls up and I open the door, sliding in.
Noah slides in next to me, actually lifting me up to carefully place me further along so he can get in. Why does he have to be so fucking big and built?
“What part of leave me alone don’t you understand?” I ask icily.
“Where to?” the driver asks, oblivious to the tension going on in the back seat.
I think about getting out of the cab and trying for another one but I know he’ll just follow me.
My eyes are blazing.
We sit there for a few seconds.
I’m stalling, because I don’t want to say the address. Then he’ll know where I live.
Noah gives the taxi driver my home address.
“Sure thing, Chief,” the driver replies, pulling into traffic.
Right. Of course the evil CFO has thoroughly done his due diligence and knows everything about me, my business and my home.
Every gory detail of my life has bled all over those spreadsheets and paperwork he’s no doubt been poring over for weeks.
I cringe when I think about all that red ink, which might as well be printed in my own blood.
I scooch all the way over to the door on my side, ignoring him. He can dominate me in the bedroom of our dreamy, one-off, unrealistic little bubble all he wants, but not in the boardroom. And not out here in the real world.
As if I’m not furious enough, he keeps glancing over at me with actual concern and an inkling of amusement. Like he feels for me. Like he’s not my heartless arch nemesis who’s in the process of unfeelingly destroying me.
The cab pulls up in front of my building and Noah hands the driver a hundred dollar bill.
Fine. He can pay for it. He can fucking afford it, no doubt about that.
I get out of the cab while he’s paying and hurry to try to find my fob that opens the front door of my building.
But he’s already there. Damn it!
“I can ask the front desk to call security, you know,” I tell him. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you into my apartment.”
“Lucky. You’ve got this all wrong.”
“All wrong ? Actually, you made everything crystal clear, Mr. Maddox. I didn’t have any difficulty whatsoever understanding the terms of your offer.” My hands are fisted on my hips. “You think you’re a big shot who knows everything and controls everyone, but you’re not. And you don’t.”
The bastard has the nerve to bite back an empathetic smile. “I never said I control anyone.”
“You act like you do.”
“Lucky. Invested Enterprises’ offer is off the table, we agree on that. No harm done.”
“No harm done ? That’s easy for you to say. Your life isn’t imploding!”
“Let me come up. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“No! You’re the reason I’m not okay! How can I be okay when you’re pulling out all the stops to devalue and destroy my livelihood and dismantle my father’s legacy?
” I fully understand that it’s not Noah’s, Cash’s or anyone else’s fault that I’m in the position I’m in.
It’s my father’s fault. His legacy is a crumbling empire with a mountain of debt.
Still, Noah’s the one standing here and I need to take out my frustration on someone .
It’s true he’s made my day a whole lot worse.
Because I fucking fell in love with him and everything about this hurts.
“Since when do you care if anyone is okay?”
“I’m not trying to devalue anything. It’s just business. A business I did not know was associated with your livelihood or your father’s legacy.”
“But you knew it was someone’s ! That’s just as bad! It’s evil!”
He gives me a look. “Shrewd, yes. Seeking out opportunities that will make a profit, definitely. I think ‘evil’ is overstating it. It’s all part of making deals. You know that.”
“Well, I don’t make deals with the devil!” Maybe I’m overreacting but I don’t care. “Stop following me. Stay here. Do not follow me.”
“Let me come up.”
“No! Absolutely not.”
I can read his thoughts as he stares down at me with that sincerity I used to love about him. Now I hate it. Always say yes. Saying yes to this man has brought me nothing but trouble.
His voice is annoyingly smooth and deep, with that smoky husk that used to turn me on. “I’m Noah, remember? The one who can talk you off a ledge and always saves the day.”
I let out a scoffing laugh. “You haven’t saved anyone’s day today. Except maybe your own.” I almost call him Steel . But of course that was just a mask.
I hate how much I miss that Noah. My Noah. I miss the haven of his comfort. I miss laughing with him. I miss our corny nicknames. I miss how good he made me feel.
How can a single weekend with a total stranger feature so many of the best memories of my life?
But that was just an illusion, of course.
“Actually,” he says, “my day isn’t going well at all.” There’s regret in him. Maybe even sadness.
Which, if I stay here, might actually sway me. “Well, that can sometimes happen when you set out to destroy other people’s lives. See you around, Maddox.”
I turn to leave but he grabs my hand. “Lucky. Stop overreacting. I’m not leaving you like this.
I didn’t know it was your company. You can’t hold that against me.
The offer we made for Ashton Holdings was a fair one, considering its value in the current market.
We’re trying to run a profitable business, just like you are. ”
“By forcing smaller companies to fold under your billionaire behemoth pressure?”
His blue eyes do that fucking sparkling thing. “No one’s forcing you to do anything. It was an offer , nothing more. And a more generous one than the other offer you got. What did Abundance offer you? Ten? Twelve? Are you holding a grudge against fucking Chad too?”
He makes it sound like I’m being petty and unreasonable. “No,” I grumble petulantly.
“Then why are you so mad at me?”
This is going to make me sound even more petty and petulant, but I say it anyway. Because it’s true. “You didn’t have to be so mean about it.”
“Mean?” Like the word is foreign to him.
“Yes. Mean.” I mimic his deep voice. “‘We’re not fucking budging on fifteen. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that company is worth even close to that much’. You know it’s worth that much! You know it’s potentially worth five times that much!”
“I know it is.”
I glare at him. “You know it is?”
“Of course I do.”
“Yet you still undervalued my potential and my father’s entire life’s work?”
“Lucky, my job is to find struggling, undervalued investment companies and make low offers on them.”
“Yeah. And you’re just so fucking good at your job .
” I don’t even know what I’m accusing him of at this point.
When he explains it like that it almost sounds reasonable.
But that doesn’t change the fact that their too-low offer is now off the table and I’m back to square one.
“Does being that grumpy and intimidating usually work for you?”
“I’m not usually that grumpy. I was in a fucking bad mood this morning. You know why? Because the little Irish minx who rocked my world all weekend was gone when I woke up this morning. You walked out on me . I should be the one who’s mad.”
We’re standing out on the street having a full-blown argument.
People glance at us as they step around us.
“I didn’t walk out on you. I didn’t want to wake you up!
And I did have a busy day. I was nervous about the meeting with your brother and his famously bull-headed CFO!
It takes all my focus these days to keep my world from crumbling underneath me.
Which of course you wouldn’t understand at all!
I needed some time to myself. Not that it helped.
” I add, in my own defense, “Anyway, I left my number. You can delete it now.”
“That’s not happening. I called it. Twenty fucking times. Actually, more. You didn’t bother answering.”
“Like I said, I was trying to psych myself up for the hellish meeting I was about to go to. Which turned out to be a lot more hellish than I ever imagined. Because of you.”
Do not cry. Do not cry.
The tears are stinging behind my eyes. Noah’s expression is so concerned and so full of care it makes this whole thing ten times worse.
I pull away from him. “I have to go. Goodbye.”
I hate the sound of the word like I’ve never hated anything.