CHAPTER FIVE
Two days until our Anniversary. Can it get more complicated?
SIA
Ice cold eyes stared at me across the boardroom table. Ward was as unflinching as he had been the day I suggested we separate. He hadn’t taken the news well then, and it didn’t look like this meeting would be any different.
At least I wouldn’t be delivering that death knell today.
The Chimeras’ CEO and President, Mickey Lutz, the man responsible for the intern I had left with Ward for most of yesterday, stood at the end of the table.
His hands were stuffed into his pockets as he rocked back and forth on his heels.
This was just another meeting in a long stream of today’s cluster fuckery for him.
I knew, as I was a part of that endless stream.
Unfortunately, I was also the subject of this one, if in an unintentional capacity on my part.
Ward’s gaze focused only on me, to the exclusivity of the heads of each department and the shareholders of the club seated around the table.
He saw everything. I wished I’d worn a jacket, rather than leaving it in my taped up office as an afterthought.
My flimsy, white silk shirt did nothing to protect me from his furious glare that seemed intent on razing me to ash where I sat.
“Recently, the club has been the focus of several negative attacks.” Mickey bounced on the balls of his feet, a change from his motion sickness inducing rocking. “I would like to thank Cora and Hallie for their assistance in helping cull the media storm that could have arisen from those incidents.”
On Ward’s other side, Cora positively glowed, while Hallie sank in her seat, as though she wished she’d never been invited to this meeting at all.
I know that feeling well. Especially next to Ward, who offered no support at all, and continued to glare at me like this while schmozzle was my fault to start with.
Which it was, kind of. I sent her a commiserating glance, and she inched her way back to her former position.
“The vandalism last night,” Mickey continued, oblivious of the undercurrents around the table as usual, lost in his happy CEO mental space of policy and action plans. “Has to be addressed. The damage to Sia’s office is still being cleaned up.” He nodded apologetically to me.
Ward glared at the whole table.
A breath left me, relief at no longer being his sole focus sweeping over me. “It’s okay. The clean up is done,” I said quickly. “Security was efficient.”
Ward harrumphed across the table. Okay, so he was the one who cleaned up the glass after we were allowed back into my office, and it was Ward who called the police. Neither was he impressed when they told us what I’d already figured out that pissed him off more:
That there were so many fingerprints present in my office that it would be impossible to work out who did the damage at all.
Unless, of course, one set belonged to someone who shouldn’t have been there at all.
That was a slapshot. The sort that won playoffs. Even so I still didn’t expect anything to come from the investigation. From the look on Ward’s face as his attention, twice as fierce, returned to me, neither did he.
“Clean up might have been done,” Ward seethed. “But the fact is that the glass on her office floor got there from being broken on the inside with something heavy. Like a stick.” His jaw set tight.
I knew what it cost him, admitting that one of the players he coached might have been responsible for the damage to my office. But what hurt more was the fact he still couldn’t say my name.
Or didn’t.
Mickey frowned. “Security inside the offices will be tighter. Anthony, your department will be responsible for camera feeds along the halls and inside the offices. No, I don’t care if that impinges on privacy.
” He held up a meaty hand to forestall the chatter that threatened to over run his meeting that just started.
“If it had been your office and your space that was broken into, would you want to know the who and the when?”
Silence fell around the table. Ward sat back, his arms folded across his chest in my periphery.
I didn’t need to look at him to see the satisfaction written across his face.
Either he had a hand in this or Mickey had become a remarkable mind reader in a short period of time, because the pair never aligned in terms of thought process.
I sighed. My office might be clean, but it would be overrun with visitors complaining about the new policy. A policy that…
“Sia. I’ll need a word with you after to ensure we have a draft of the wording on this new policy, and see that it’s sent out to everyone.” Mickey waited for my resigned nod. “And make sure all your people agree to it. Promptly. I have eleven minutes. Make it count.”
He fielded questions while I tapped notes on my phone, already drafting the new policy clause. A foot kicked at mine under the table. Hallie, maybe, from the angle. I doubted my husband was playing footsies after all these years.
“Later,” I muttered, giving her a wink.
Hallie turned bright red. “I’ll send you notes,” she muttered as the meeting began to devolve into a special sort of chaos.
The people stuffed into this room should never have been together.
Too many heads of departments who didn’t get along outside their allocated times, too many shareholders who never quite had their heads around what those same people did, providing the company ran as required on a day to day basis and the team won most years anyway.
Ward’s face closed, colder than ever, and all I wanted to do was sink my head onto the table and hide, though I suspected that wasn’t quite boardroom etiquette. Someone yelled at Anthony, the IT guy seated on Hallie’s other side, about password requirements and strict cyber security rules.
I risked a glance at Mickey, giving him my best deer-in-headlights stare, and had the impression I wasn’t the only one.
He got the hint, and closed off the meeting with a few words that few people listened to.
Hallie escaped at the head of the still arguing crowd.
Cora followed soon after, giving me a one armed hug as I finished a quick draft of my policy fragment.
Mickey stood at the end of the table, gathering his papers that he hadn’t used then tried to turn the Powerpoint presentation off. After a moment I offered mercy, switching the equipment off for the next user.
“I’ll send this to you.” I waved my scrap of policy in his face, and knew right away that he’d forgotten what he asked me to do. That might have hurt, once. Now I knew how fast Mickey's head worked, and some of the mental bits he skipped on his ways to answers.
“Appreciate it,” he muttered, his personable facade fast fading as the crowd he had to deal with vacated the room.
“Mickey. Give us the room? I’d like to talk to Sia about the…protective measures put in place for her well being.” Ward’s voice close behind me left me blinking.
I had all of two seconds to school the abject panic off my face before Mickey emerged from his haze.
He glanced between us, seeing nothing more than a husband and wife team in his office space, having been privy to the secret years before when he hired us. The joys of a CEO who stuck it out to run the club as he did. In Mickey’s case, longevity was a curse for us.
Or a boon, because that was how Ward played it.
“I’m fine,” I started, edging toward the door.
Mickey waved me down, and I knew I was stuck. “Stay. Talk it out. This isn’t to happen again,” he berated me, as though the entire break in was my fault.
I seethed, leaning forward, prepared to barrel my way through that door and tell Mickey what really happened in my office. That my space had been invaded by a person unknown, that Ward helped me clean up while I was a total ass to him.
That now I was scared of my own damn shadow every time someone else’s shade crossed my threshold.
The cameras were actually a great idea, regardless of how everyone else would bitch about them. I just hated that they were Ward’s idea, so heroing them was counterproductive to my cause. The cause that stood in the room with me, breathing down my literal collar.
Mickey vacated the room, completely unaware of my plight. I dashed after him, half a second too late.
The door slammed shut under Ward’s hand, his arm extended over my head. “We need to talk, wife.” Warm breath brushed my cheek.
I closed my eyes, willing him to lean forward. Brush his lips across my skin. Hold me. Touch me. Anything.
His soft laugh promised me that my thoughts were anything but hidden.
“Are you that desperate for attention?” His hand lowered on the door, inching its way downward.
Just your affection. But that wouldn’t be happening any time soon.
My nipples peaked in their lace cups regardless of how I tried to hide my reaction to the man who had always commanded my desire.
I crossed my arms over my chest, but a tap at my heels reminded me that when he was in the room, only one person was in charge.
“Hands at your sides.”
“Fuck. You,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Soon,” Ward murmured lovingly. His fingers trailed over the door like a caress, then dropped away.
I swore I felt that removal like a chasm that opened between us, deeper than ever. Colder. He leaned back, and a chill kissed my cheek instead of his breath.
“Fine.” I shook my hair back and hoped I hit the asshole in the face with the itchy ends. Serve him right. “What do you want?” I twisted back toward him, but that annoying foot tapped the side of mine.
“Turn around.” His voice was sharp. “Face the door.”
“What, are we playing school master and student?” I sighed, though the fantasy took immediately in my mind. Would he spank me? Push my legs apart, work his knees between them, let my skirt slither up, and—
“Christ, do I need to visit you twice a year, wife?” The dark delight that laced Ward’s voice dampened my panties worse than before.
“Fu–”