4. Meg
4
MEG
A t 9 am on the dot, I stood in Roman’s big fancy office reporting for duty as his younger brothers’ contract law advisor. Dressed in my smart velvet dress, confident and ready to kick ass.
But within a few minutes, I felt my inner tranquility slip into a bona fide wrath. Mingled with some glaring confusion.
I’ll tell you in a minute why, but first things first.
Being summarily propelled into this richer-than-God world with this job wasn’t the most horrible thing to happen. Unlike Isabel, I didn’t view all this money as evil. I viewed it as an opportunity.
After signing a year-long contract with the Belmont Trust as one of their (junior) attorneys, the world became my oyster with a big shiny pearl inside.
Once I left here, the name Belmont Trust on my resume was going to open the doors of my choice. Hell, I could even start my own little law practice with some heavy-hitter clients lined up. So, as you can see, I already had it all worked out perfectly. I had a solid plan.
BUT…
Someone could have warned me. Or, at the very least, have given me a heads-up about Byron Belmont.
A text, an email, anyone?
Let me give you a quick rundown of this travesty. There he stood. Bruised and battered, all of him poured into bespoke casual wear, standing at least three inches over six feet, eyes two azure pools blazing into mine, slicked-back hair the color of the blackest soot.
A breath-stealing hunk of a man.
I had no words.
Okay, that was a lie. I had words. A few.
What did this outrageously beguiling dreamboat look like without those bruises and that cane? Sure, it was a pretty fancy cane, with the Belmont crest plastered just beneath the curve of the handle, but even so, a cane that he needed to walk. For now, at least.
Yeah, yeah, I could hear your eyebrows hit the roof all the way from over there, and I can only imagine how crazy I sound.
After all Byron was the asshole who made Isabel cry. And he’s the brother of the man who broke Isabel’s heart into a million pieces, so basically, they should both be pond scum in my eyes. And yes, they were, they were for sure.
Next, you’ll probably want to know why I’d betray my best friend like this, my soul sister Isabel, by getting all gushy about this toxic brother-dude. Why Megan?
First off, calm down, and bear with me while I explain…
For some mystifying reason, the minute I laid my eyes on Byron Belmont, butterflies invaded my stomach, twisting and fluttering around as if they were dancing their asses off in a strip club for tips.
Suddenly, I was entertaining the idea of removing Byron’s casual wear and kissing all his owies away one by one.
Kill me now, please. And make it super quick.
I chalked my lame-ass thirst for this joker up to the complexity of the current situation (Isabel fleeing Newport) and not the insane possibility that I had finally met my match, something that sure as hell had never happened to me before.
I was all in for sexy and delectable, but this guy with his bedroom eyes, perpetual smirk hiding in the corners of his mouth, and his quick comebacks took my mind and body where no laws existed.
Which was an annoying and savage twist to my first day starting a life-changing job.
My sisters-in-arms before me hadn’t burned their bras in pyres for my knees to buckle at the first lady killer I crossed paths with in my budding new career.
Like I said, kill me now .
After our introduction, I refused to make any more eye contact with Byron because I could literally feel my natural defiance crumble like a century-old fruitcake under his azure gaze.
I calmly and professionally directed my attention to Roman. “Do I have an office, or should I make myself at home on your fancy couch?”
Roman locked a pair of tired eyes with me. “Two doors down from the conference room, next to Byron’s office.”
Next to Byron’s office.
This was a nightmare penned by the man of horrors himself, Stephen King. And I was now the main character in that dark, twisted tale that could only end up with someone dead on the floor.
I might have pouted derisively. “Not to sound ungrateful, but putting a wholesome, innocent woman next to the Antichrist in the workplace is how many true crime novels start.”
And would you believe Dreamboat, aka the Antichrist, smirked like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“I’m the Antichrist now?” Byron asked.
I was stone. “Ask your brother to explain.”
With that, I sauntered out of Roman’s office in search of mine.
Roman’s voice trailed in my wake. “Call Nelson if you need anything.”
It took quite a bit of willpower not to yell back “whatever” and I hissed it quietly to myself on the way to my new office. Which, judging from the size of this place, was going to take a while to get to with zero refreshments along the way.
For all the resentment I felt toward Roman at this point, there was a moment I felt a sliver of sympathy. He looked like crap. Like his heart and soul had been ripped from him and tossed into a dark, bottomless well.
But I guess that was what you got when you stomped all over my best friend's precious heart, causing her to flee to a convent in some medieval town in France.
All that said, I had no misgivings about working at Belmont Manor, except that to find the kitchen for a snack or six, you needed a GPS, a compass, and an energy bar for the road. I was definitely going to insist on a mini fridge near my desk.
But…always the pesky but .
There was still one obstacle in the way of polishing my resume with awesome credentials, and that was Byron Belmont. It would have been way better if he was who I thought him to be, the runt of the litter, the spoiled, obnoxious weak spare to the heir.
That I could handle with the necessary grit and skill. But oh no, he had to be nice, or as he calls it reformed asshole . Who the hell saw that coming?
Did I mention how sexy he was? Yes, I did, sorry. But if you were here, and you weren’t for which you could thank your lucky stars, you’d run all the hell to Panic Town too.
In my love life, I kept things light, as in zero complications. I mean, who liked complications anyway? And this bizarre development with Byron not being a cringe bonehead anymore definitely qualified as a complication.
But since this was just us talking, who among us hasn’t at least once crossed paths with a soul-snatching stud, prompting a private fantasy to spring to life.
You know that one guy who made you steal a few moments from reality, where you couldn’t help but imagine him pinning you against a wall, dragging a hot, lazy finger over your lips, across your jaw, and down your throat to the valley between your breasts until your insides were ablaze with blistering want.
It was just a fantasy, mind you, because none of that was going to happen with Byron Belmont. Like ever. So, this was me brushing away this stupid, intoxicating feeling of what-if and spooling back into the real world.
Besides, he didn’t seem so taken by me anyway. I knew when a man liked me, and this wasn’t it. If Byron thought I was the bee’s knees, he definitely hid it very carefully behind the bruises and cocky smirk.
All I knew was that I could not give this man an iota of attention. He was the person I worked with, and basically all I had to do was be cordial-ish, do my job, and pretend he didn’t exist outside of work.