Chapter 9
Aidan
The next few days kept me busy, and I was rarely in the office. It sounds like a ruse, but it wasn’t; my specialty at Tower VC was real estate deals. Real estate deals require looking at lots and lots of real estate. That’s the job.
In fact, I’d spent more time behind my desk over the past three months than I had in a year. I’d put off plenty of showings and appointments all over town, just so that I could spend more time at the office. The reason was Samantha Riley. She didn’t know that, and it was best if it stayed that way. In the meantime, I had a business to run.
We were in touch constantly, even when I was traveling from appointment to appointment, all over New York. She kept my schedule, sorted my email, filed my paperwork, drafted letters, dealt with HR and the legal team. We texted frequently and talked on the phone several times a day. She was as competent and intelligent as ever, figuring things out before I had to take the time to tell her, anticipating problems and killing them before they could arise. I turned down three deals in three days, but I also closed one. A deal that would make a lot of money. My professional life was made easier, and more profitable, because of my paragon of an executive assistant.
It was hell.
I didn’t see her first thing every morning. I didn’t hear her voice or see her smile. I didn’t get to catalog what she was wearing every day—the dark gray pencil skirt? Or had she moved to lighter spring colors? Was her hair worn up or down? She usually wore it up, but she varied the style. She’d worn it down only a few times since I’d met her, so it wasn’t her usual style. I wondered why that was.
Aside from my selfish desire to look at her, I sensed something else was wrong. Samantha was more reserved than before—she was always professional, but this was different. She was almost stiff, and sometimes when we talked on the phone I felt like she was trying to get rid of me. As if she didn’t want to talk to me at all.
It festered. It had something to do with the meeting with the Egerton brothers, I was almost sure of it. I had walked out without a word to her that day, but I’d never done anything to give her the impression that the problem was with her. I’d simply been too furious to say anything at all. It was my old, teenaged temper rearing up; usually I conquered it, but not that day. I’d been too angry. But I was calm now, and I’d figured that if the topic was never mentioned, Samantha would get the idea that nothing was wrong.
It had backfired somehow. She stopped joking and making small talk. She was all business.
On Friday afternoon, I figured out why.
I was in the office to meet with two of the lawyers from our legal team to go over contracts. Since they were Tower employees, I didn’t need Samantha to greet them at reception or show them in. Since it was almost the end of the day, I didn’t need her to furnish coffee or food. I let Samantha work in her office, and I met the lawyers in the meeting room myself.
I had forgotten a few papers on my desk, so I left the meeting room to go get them. As the door closed behind me, I heard one of the lawyers say, “That guy scares the shit out of me.”
It was as clear as if he’d said it in my ear. Something about the acoustics sent the sound straight to where I stood instead of muffling it, even though the door was closed.
I blinked in surprise for a second, and then I remembered the Egerton brothers, saying their frat-boy bullshit as Samantha walked away. I hadn’t looked closely enough, watched her body language as she walked. If I had, I probably would have seen her stiffen—because she’d heard.
I walked away from the meeting room and headed straight for her office. I didn’t think twice about what I’d heard—that guy scares the shit out of me. Scaring people wasn’t something I set out to do, but if I had that effect, fine. It could even be useful.
Besides, I didn’t care what the lawyers thought. I cared what Samantha thought.
Her office door was open and she was sitting behind her desk, typing at her laptop. She sensed me coming and looked up as I approached, her eyes wide.
“In my office,” I said. And then, because that sounded harsh, I added, “Please.”
Samantha nodded and stood. I heard her follow me the short distance to my door. The lawyers could see us through the glass of the meeting room. They might be wondering what was happening, but I’d forgotten about them.
When we were both inside my office, I didn’t round the desk and sit down. Instead I closed the door and caged her against it with one arm, letting the other drop. She backed up against the door, bumping into it in her surprise. Her lips parted.
“You heard,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“When the Egertons were here. You heard what they said.”
She blinked, and the surprise left her eyes. I was so close I could watch her quickly calculate, the thoughts moving swiftly. “I heard some of it, yes,” she said, her voice cool.
“That’s why you’re pissed at me.”
“I’m not pissed at you.”
I searched for different words. I was so close to her, I could smell her delicate scent. Words weren’t coming easily with that scent in my nose. I’d shrugged off my jacket in the meeting room and loosened my tie, and being in my shirtsleeves in that moment felt almost naked. “You’re not talking to me,” I tried again.
“We’re talking right now.”
Her chin was up, her eyes sparked with quiet defiance. Still, even though I had one of my arms at my side, she didn’t make a move to get away. “It isn’t the same, and you know it,” I said. “Something’s been wrong for days.”
“Why would you think that? You’ve barely been here.”
Were we fighting? I couldn’t tell. “I had things to do.”
“I know. I keep your schedule. Which was suddenly very full.”
“Do you have something to say about my schedule, Samantha?”
“Only that everything became quite urgent as soon as I was worried I was about to get fired. You’d rather avoid me than talk to me about it.”
I looked into her eyes. They were blue, but not a searing blue—more of an understated shade. Her makeup was understated, too, mascara and liner and a light, flattering shadow. My sister was a fashion stylist, and I knew plenty about how women made themselves up. Samantha did it expertly, just as she did everything expertly. I’d never been close enough to see her precise magic before.
“You thought you were going to get fired,” I said. It wasn’t a question. Her words had hit me like a punch in the gut.
She blinked once, looking at me with a trace of scorn. “Of course I thought it. You were set to make a multimillion-dollar deal. Then one of the Egertons made a remark about my ass, and the whole thing was off.”
“That’s what you heard? The ass remark?”
Again, her expression was subtle, but it was there. A wince I was close enough to see. This got to her somehow. Got right under her perfect skin. “Yes,” she said.
So she’d walked away before she heard anything else. “Let’s get the truth out, then,” I said. “He also called you the best pussy in New York. And he said he’d do you.”
She winced again, harder this time. The words hurt her. Oh yes, the Egerton brothers were going to pay. She didn’t speak.
“Does that bother you?” I asked her, not letting up.
“I’m used to it,” she said. “It means nothing.”
“It means nothing, yet it’s bothered you for days.”
“The words don’t bother me,” she gritted out. “It’s the fact that…”
“That what?”
“That he said them to you.”
It was like a slap to the face. I had a sudden understanding of what was wrong with us, and I wanted to rip my own guts out to undo it. “You thought I’d welcome them talking about you like that,” I said. “You thought it would be fine with me.”
“For a second, yes.”
“And it hurt your feelings?”
“Yes, and it made me angry.” She paused, thinking about it. “Furious, actually, because it hurt.”
I felt my hand twitch at my side, but I made myself stay calm. “And then?”
“And then you kicked them out, and I wondered if I’d get fired.”
“Fired for doing nothing but your job?”
That trace of scorn again. “Life isn’t fair, Aidan. If you’d done the deal, Tower would have made a lot of money. So in a way, I cost you millions.”
Money. She thought I gave a fuck about money. Well, maybe she could be excused for thinking that. I certainly made a lot of it. “Okay, you want to talk, I’ll talk,” I said. “No one, and I mean no one, talks about you like that to me. I don’t care who it is. If Steve Jobs comes back from the dead and calls you a piece of ass, I’ll kick him out of this fucking building. Is that clear?”
I heard her slight intake of breath, and she nodded.
I gestured briefly to the door behind her. “If anyone out there gives you any shit, they’re finished. If anyone makes comments about your weight or the way you dress. If any guy asks you out when you don’t want him to. My tolerance is absolute fucking zero. You say you’re used to it, but you aren’t used to it if you work for me.” I made myself say it. “That includes from me. I don’t look at you or talk to you that way, and neither does anyone else.”
She paused for a moment, and then she nodded. She had so much composure, this woman. “Thank you,” she said, her voice calm.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “You can go home for the weekend whenever you want. I’ll see you at the airport on Monday, when we go to Chicago.”