Chapter 2
SUTTON
The parking garage was empty at six-fifteen in the morning, which was exactly how I preferred it.
It was easy for me to park in my regular spot and not have to deal with the hassle of rushing to the office.
I pulled down my visor to take one last look at myself before I was stationed at my desk for who knows how many hours.
My auburn hair was pulled back into a low bun without a single strand out of place.
I double-checked my foundation, noting that it was still smooth, my eyebrows were set, and the red lipstick I had on cost more than it should yet was worth every penny.
I made it my mission to make sure that my face looked the same at six in the morning as it did at six in the evening because you never knew what could pop up.
Today, I was wearing the black blazer and slacks with the single exception of the deep burgundy silk blouse underneath that brought out my lipstick choice for the day.
With a final nod of approval, I flipped the visor back up and grabbed my bag from the passenger seat.
However, I took a smidge longer than necessary to exit my car.
Those extra seconds gave me time to get my head on straight before I had to have my game face on.
Now, the chances of me running into anyone at that hour were slim to none, but it was important to be prepared for whatever life might throw at me today.
When I finally left my vehicle, a small tingle ran through my body as I got the feeling that something was off, but I refused to linger around to try to piece it together.
After I used my key fob to let myself into the building and walked down a long hall, I was greeted by silence in the lobby.
The security desk was empty, which wasn’t unusual for this hour.
The overnight guard made his rounds on a loop that I had memorized without trying to, but that’s because it was a part of my routine too whether I liked it or not.
I nodded out of reflex at the empty chair anyway, then crossed the floor toward the elevator bank.
The ride up was quiet, giving me even more time to figure out the first ten things I wanted to accomplish within the next couple of hours.
The doors slid open on the fourteenth floor and I stepped onto the floor that Prescott Vantage occupies.
When my father started this firm over forty years ago, he told me it had occupied a modest suite on the sixth floor of a building three blocks east of here.
He built it with two associates, a part-time bookkeeper, and a conviction that building strategies for people and companies with integrity was worth something in a city that had a complicated relationship with both.
He was right, though it took him the better part of a decade to prove it.
I was the biggest component in getting us moved to the fourteenth floor.
That wasn’t arrogance. It was just a fact I allowed myself to think about every so often because it was just one of the many accomplishments I’d had in my career. I was instrumental in getting us to where we currently were and it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. But we made it.
The lights in the hallway came on in sections as I moved through them. I’d always liked that about arriving early because it felt as if the building woke up for me rather than the other way around.
I twisted the knob of my office door and stepped inside. I quickly dropped my bag in its usual spot in the bottom drawer of my desk and shrugged out of my blazer before I’d even turned on the overhead light.
Once I’d settled at my desk, I pulled up my calendar to triple-check what meetings and calls I had today, although I checked before I left my condo.
Three calls, two internal check-ins, a noon block I’d carved out for deep work, and a four o’clock to review the language on an amendment that was being presented to Congress.
It would be a full day, but it was still manageable as long as there weren’t any emergencies I needed to deal with.
I opened my laptop and first checked for any news stories that might have appeared overnight.
Nothing concerning popped up, which was always a relief.
I checked my email next, quickly sorting through the overnight messages that required immediate attention versus those that could wait until I had some coffee running through my veins.
But there was something that was going on that I hadn’t been anticipating.
The memory of last night’s fundraiser was at the forefront of my mind.
Cain Ashcroft’s presence and the way he worked the room was something to behold.
I was convinced he was smarter than 90 percent of the men I’d gone to war with professionally, and far more dangerous as a result.
He was still intriguing, nonetheless.
The man had a gravitational pull. I’d heard stories about how he worked his magic on congressional members, other CEOs, board members and more, many of whom should have known better than to get too close to him.
The real question wasn’t what Cain Ashcroft wanted; he never hid what he was going after.
It was how much of yourself you were willing to give him before you realized the exchange was over and he had got what he wanted.
I’d spent years building and solidifying my boundaries against people like him.
I swear those values carried me farther than raw talent ever could.
I liked to think that I was immune to compliments, subtle manipulation, and the supposed authority of all these men I dealt with day in and day out.
My father called it willful blindness, like I had to purposely ignore the social grease that made business relationships possible.
When I sat back and thought about it, I realized how much of it connected to my own sense of self-preservation.
As a result, I had a list of enemies that was almost as long as my client roster.
I was fine with that. I had never needed many friends, and the professional respect of people that I worked with or against was a better prize than any mutual ass kissing society D.C.
could offer. What annoyed me about last night wasn’t that I’d let Cain Ashcroft—or Cain as he gave permission for me to call him—get under my skin.
I’d expected he would try, but I didn’t realize how much I’d actually enjoy it.
There was still a thrill passing through me due to the mental sparring session we’d had just last night.
There was something almost embarrassing about how much I’d wanted to keep going.
There was just something about the way it felt to stand in a crowded room and see that this man had chosen to single me out, even if he was surely doing it to get the upper hand on me.
The kind of interest that Cain took in me could become a professional liability if I let it.
I wouldn’t, obviously, because my self-regulation was ironclad, and the last time someone got close enough, they ended up regretting it more than I did.
Still, I allowed myself a moment to consider what it would feel like to just…
let my guard down for five minutes, to see what happened if I engaged with him without constantly tracking every syllable for clues and motives about what he might do next.
That was a luxury for people with less to lose.
But that also didn’t mean that I hadn’t noticed the man was sexy as fuck.
The way his dark brown hair was slightly longer than you would normally see in corporate America, as if he’d decided those standards didn’t apply to him.
Which, if I’m being honest, they really didn’t.
And to make matters worse, he was also tall and his bright blue eyes could probably light up a room if he wasn’t so busy calculating everyone’s demise whenever he entered it.
I could feel my cheeks heating up as I thought about how at certain points when we were talking, my eyes landed on his hands because they were distracting.
I had noticed them early and wished I hadn’t.
I’d expected his hands to look like someone who didn’t bother to lift a finger, but it was obvious to see some of the calluses that made me wonder what had caused them.
Not to mention, I couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like under the suit he wore because it was hiding some of the things I was most interested in seeing.
I shook my head and forced myself to concentrate on the document in front of me and worked on it for another thirty to forty minutes.
I re-read the first paragraph three times and couldn’t get any of them to work without undoing several clauses, so I jumped to the middle.
Editing was my superpower. I could take any mess and break it down to essential, actionable components.
After 7:30, the office had started to come to life as people started rolling into the building.
By 9:00, the floor was bustling with activity and with that in mind, I quickly got up to close my door and grabbed my headphones from my bag.
Before I could snap my AirPods in and tune everything out, there was a knock on my door.
With a quick sigh, I said, “Come on in.”
My office door swung open and I found Nico Hollis standing there. “I figured you’d be in,” he said. “Have you got a minute?”
I gestured to the chair on the other side of my glass desk. He closed the door behind him, which always meant something or nothing, depending on what kind of morning we were having. “We need to talk about the Briscoe PR initiative,” he said.
Nico was the very first actual hire I made after my father told me that I could create my own team.
He fit seamlessly into the Prescott ecosystem and to be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure why.
Maybe it was because he showcased his need for control as protectiveness over the company, or maybe it was because he never once pretended to not know who was in charge.
Today, he’d decided on a navy suit and tie with a white button down that was pressed to the nth degree.
His salt-and-pepper hair was slicked just so, and, as always, he had a file under his arm.
“I haven’t even had my coffee yet,” I replied because I didn’t want to deal with this yet.
“I can come back,” he started, but he sat down anyway.
I shut my laptop lid with a little more force than necessary, which made both of us smirk. There was no way I was going to let him walk out of here without us having this discussion. “Just tell me,” I said.
“On second thought, you might want to get that cup of coffee first.”
I mumbled quite a few choice words under my breath. “How bad is this going to be?”
“I don’t know if I would say bad… intense maybe but not bad.”
“Is this about to ruin my Monday?” I narrowed my gaze at him, but didn’t give way to what I was feeling inside. I wanted to curse myself for bracing, but I would never let that outwardly show. Hating surprises is one thing, but I hate not knowing the most.
A flash of concern crossed his features and I wasn’t sure if it was for me or for himself. “I’m going to grab that coffee first. Then we can discuss. Plain black, right.”
I nodded and watched as he scrambled out the room and closed my door behind him.
Once I was completely alone, I threw my head back and let out a low growl because if I was picking up on what Nico was putting down without explicitly saying, my carefully planned Monday was about to get thrown into a proverbial blender and I wasn’t sure what was going to be spit out.