Chapter Seven
Liam
The moment Morgan walked into that conference room I’d felt like someone had pulled the air right out of my lungs.
She froze when she saw me. Just for a second.
But it was long enough to catch the shock of seeing me, then the flash of hurt in her eyes before she shoved it behind that perfectly composed expression.
It was more than enough to remind me that ghosting her that night hadn’t been my finest moment, and I’d been kicking myself for that decision ever since.
I attempted to keep my face neutral for the sake of everyone in the room, but the guilt hit me hard.
We hadn’t exchanged last names or phone numbers, and I hadn’t expected to ever see her again, let alone at a company Simon and I were investing in that was her family’s business.
I couldn’t decide if it was karma or fate that made our paths cross again in the most awkward way possible.
That night with Morgan—despite what she probably thought based on my actions—hadn’t been something I’d brushed off like I had with every other woman since Ivy.
Not even close. I left because staying scared the hell out of me.
For the first time in years, I’d felt something I didn’t know how to handle.
But that reason didn’t make my disappearing act any less insulting and I wasn’t na?ve enough to think my explanation for doing so would earn me any grace now.
Especially not in a conference room with her father and stepbrother watching us.
When I shook her hand, she kept her voice polite and distant.
She pretended as though we’d never met before and I had followed suit, knowing if I’d pulled her aside in that moment—asked to speak with her or even hinted at recognition—everyone would have wondered why.
There would be questions. Assumptions. Potential office gossip.
And Morgan didn’t deserve that. Not after the way I’d already mishandled things.
One thing I knew for certain was that I owed her an apology. I needed to fix the damage I’d done, if that was even possible. And I would, as soon as an opportunity presented itself.
So I’d stood there after our introduction, acting like a professional investor meeting a client for the first time, while my mind replayed the look in her eyes over and over.
She’d probably spent the last two weeks convincing herself she’d meant nothing to me.
That she’d misread everything that had transpired between us that night.
That I was just another guy who took what he wanted and walked away.
And fuck, I’d let her think that. Christ, I felt like an asshole.
As the meeting ended and Samuel, Simon, and I headed out into the hallway where Parker and Morgan were discussing something, Morgan didn’t so much as spare me another glance. And that, more than anything, told me exactly how deeply my actions had affected her.
Starting next week, I’d be in this office. Every day. Working beside her. Seeing her in meetings, hearing her voice, and watching her act as though we were strangers. But we weren’t. Not even close.
We parted ways with Samuel, and Simon and I made our way to the elevator. Once inside, Simon pressed the button for the lobby and glanced at me.
“Let’s go catch an early dinner to celebrate,” he suggested.
“Like we haven’t spent enough money today already?” I asked, forcing myself to grin so Simon didn’t suspect that anything was wrong.
Simon snorted. “Please. The day I pass up an excuse to eat a good meal is the day I no longer have a pulse.” His mouth curved into a self-satisfied smile.
“We closed a good deal and I’m celebrating whether you come with me or not.
I was thinking Italian. There’s a place not far from here that I want to try. ”
Simon made the decision without asking my opinion, which was typical of his detail-obsessed personality, but I didn’t care, especially not today.
My mind was too preoccupied with thoughts of Morgan.
As we taxied to the restaurant, Simon kept talking about timelines, projections, and product specs, but it all washed over me in pieces.
Every word reminded me that in a few days I would be working alongside the woman I hadn’t been able to forget, and that I’d already screwed up any possibility of a second chance with.
The restaurant Simon picked was an upscale establishment with the smell of garlic and tomatoes thick in the air. Once we’d settled at the table and ordered an expensive bottle of red wine, Simon leveled me with a serious look.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked, clearly noticing how distracted I’d been. “Is there an issue with the investment deal that I’m not seeing?”
Of course he’d think my quiet mood was business related. “No.” I shook my head and quickly reassured him. “The deal’s fine.”
“Then what is it?” he persisted, swirling the red liquid in his wine glass. “Because you’ve been off since the second half of our meeting with Samuel, and definitely pre-occupied since we left GalvaTech.”
My stomach knotted and I exhaled a deep breath, knowing I needed to come clean with Simon. “I just…wasn’t expecting to see someone I knew at the office.”
Simon blinked at me in surprise. “Who?”
“Morgan. Samuel’s daughter.”
His brows raised in surprise. “And how do you know her? Because the two of you didn’t exactly seem friendly when Samuel introduced her to us.”
I hesitated. Simon was my business partner, but he was also my brother and one of my best friends. And he had a sixth sense for when I was holding something back. I didn’t want to lie to him about the details of how I knew Morgan.
“We met a few weeks ago,” I said carefully. “At a bar.”
It didn’t take long for understanding to dawn on his face. “The night of Noah’s wedding.”
I nodded, my fingers tightening on the stem of my wine glass.
“And you didn’t think to mention the fact that you hooked up with Samuel’s daughter before we signed a three-million-dollar deal with her family’s company?”
“I didn’t know she worked there. I didn’t know her last name.” I ran a hand through my hair, my own frustration getting the best of me. “We didn’t exactly exchange a lot of personal information.”
Simon swore beneath his breath. “Please tell me you didn’t do your usual fuck ’em and leave ’em routine—”
“Yeah, I did.” I opted for honesty and full disclosure, as painful as it was to admit. “Even worse, I ghosted her without an explanation. While she was sleeping.”
“Jesus, Liam.” Simon sat back in his seat, staring at me with blatant disbelief. “Of all the women you could have fucked, literally and figuratively, it had to be the daughter of the man we’re now in business with?”
I grimaced, because yeah, when he put it that way it sounded even worse than it already was between Morgan and me.
Thankfully, the waitress arrived with our orders, setting our plates of pasta in front of us. Simon took a few bites of his carbonara before returning to our conversation, which I’d been hoping he’d drop.
“Are you going to be able to handle working with her every day? Because if this is going to be a problem—”
“It won’t be.” I met his gaze from across the table. “I’ll handle it.”
Simon let out a dry laugh. “Handling it means more than ignoring the situation, Liam. You need to actually fix what you fucked up.”
“I know,” I said, my tone defensive.
“No, I don’t think you do.” He pointed his fork at me. “Because if you did, you’d be sweating bullets right now. This isn’t some random woman you’ll never see again. This is Morgan Starling. She works there. Her father owns the damn place. And we just tied three million dollars to their company.”
That was Simon. Telling it like it was. No filtering or softening his words. Not that he was wrong.
“I get it,” I muttered, pushing my lasagna around on my plate.
“Do you?” Simon cocked his head. “Because I’m not sure you’ve fully grasped how royally you’ve screwed yourself. And me. And possibly this deal if she decides to make your night together an issue. Christ, Liam, you need to fix this yesterday.”
I let out a rough exhale, fighting the urge to snap back. “I said I’ll talk to her.”
“No,” he said firmly. “Not talk. Fucking grovel.”
I scrubbed a hand over my tense jaw. “Groveling seems…overly dramatic.”
“Dramatic is ghosting a woman who obviously caught your attention enough to want to fuck then showing up in her conference room like an unexpected plot twist no one saw coming,” Simon shot back, not mincing words. “Groveling is bare-minimum damage control.”
I dropped my silverware onto my plate with a clatter, my irritation flaring hotter than I intended. “What do you want me to say? ‘Sorry I panicked and had a minor emotional meltdown after having the best night I’ve had in years with a woman’?”
“Honestly?” Simon dared to smirk. “That’s not a terrible start.”
I glared at him.
He held up a hand. “Look, I’m not trying to bust your balls more than necessary, though let’s be real, you deserve some degree of ball-busting here.” He took a sip of wine, then fixed me with a level look. “But if you don’t want this to blow up in our faces, you need to make things right with her.”
“I plan to.”
“Well, you’re not exactly Mr. Emotional Availability these days,” Simon said, pointing out my flaws in a way that only a brother could. “So what do you have in mind?”
“I’ll apologize,” I said. “A real apology. Not some bullshit excuse.”
“Good,” Simon said with an approving nod. “And sooner rather than later, before she convinces HR that you’re a walking liability.”
I huffed out a humorless laugh and drained the last of the wine in my glass, wishing it was something much stronger.
From across the table, Simon studied me intuitively. “Do you…like her? I mean, beyond the sex, is there something else there?”
I didn’t answer right away when I should have replied with a swift no. How could I explain that Morgan had gotten under my skin in a way no one had since Ivy? That leaving her that night had been about protecting myself, not dismissing her and what we’d shared.
When I didn’t respond, Simon’s expression softened, but his voice remained firm. “Look, whatever this thing is between you two? Deal with it. Apologize. Clear the air. Because if you go into that office next week with all that negative energy unresolved, you’re both going to be miserable.”
“And the investment deal?” I asked, wanting to make sure Simon wasn’t worried about my personal mess bleeding into our professional one.
“The deal will survive,” he said confidently. “As long as you don’t act like a complete idiot twice.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Anytime.” He twirled his fork in his pasta. “Now eat before I take your plate and finish your lasagna for you. You’re clearly too stressed to appreciate a good meal.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. I picked up my fork, but my appetite was gone. All I could think about was Morgan and how much I’d earned every bit of her disappointment. And how badly I needed to make things right between us.
“So, since you’re going to be spending most of your time at GalvaTech for the foreseeable future,” Simon said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, “I’d like to borrow your assistant to help me go over the financial reports and performance metrics for Stark, Inc.
If we decide to invest in that business, I want to know everything about them and I need someone competent to run those stats. ”
It took me a moment to realize what he was asking. “Wait a minute, why would you need to borrow Clara for that when you have your own assistant?”
Simon shrugged. “Lisa wasn’t working out so I had to let her go.”
I gaped at him in disbelief. “You fired another assistant? That’s the fourth one this year. What the hell is going on with you?”
He didn’t even flinch, just casually refilled his wineglass. “What can I say. I have high expectations.”
That was putting things mildly when it came to Simon’s rigid personality. “And what did this one do to earn your disdain?”
“She forgot to pick up my dry cleaning and she used the wrong version of there in a company-wide memo. It was supposed to be t-h-e-r-e. Not t-h-e-i-r.”
I stared at him incredulously. “Seriously? You fired her over those two small grievances? Those are minor issues, and she only worked for you for a couple of weeks.”
“Forgetfulness and lack of attention to detail are issues that can snowball into a full-blown crises,” he said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t have the time to double check every email and document because I can’t trust the person doing the work.
I need an assistant that I can rely on to not make crucial mistakes. ”
He said it with his typical no-nonsense certainty, but I could see the tightness around his mouth and knew exactly what he was referring to.
Last year, his assistant Olivia had screwed up badly.
Missed a key deadline, misfiled critical documents, and cost us a major deal that made us look like amateurs in the industry, which we were not.
Simon had never forgiven her…or himself.
He’d taken the mistake personally, like her failure reflected directly on his abilities as a leader, and he’d never really gotten over that hit to his pride.
“Simon…” I exhaled, letting my tone soften just a fraction. “You need to let that go.”
He didn’t look at me or respond, choosing instead to focus his attention on adjusting the silverware on the table.
“Fine,” I said with a sigh, giving in. “I’ll tell Clara to help you out, but if your grumpy ass scares her off, I’ll be furious.”
Simon rolled his eyes and grunted, which I took to mean that he agreed to behave.
We finished our meal, or at least Simon devoured the rest of his pasta, and we parted ways, both of us heading home. It had been a long day and by the time I walked into my high-rise apartment, exhaustion dragged at me.
I settled on the couch, let my head fall back against the cushion and released a long breath, feeling as though everything in my life was about to change.
My close proximity to Morgan was inevitable, and whether it complicated my life or not, I was ready to face the tension between us head on, instead of avoiding it.
Because the more I tried to deny the truth of what I had felt that night, the more some part of me pushed back. I was running out of ways to pretend those feelings for Morgan didn’t exist or matter.
However, what I should or would do about that realization was something I’d yet to figure out.