Hayes
eleven
I’ve had a shit day. As promised, I traced the loose thread at the airport and had to fire a longtime employee because they got greedy and allowed someone where they had no right to be.
I’m technically the CFO of Olympus International, but I’ve always been the one to carry out the hard decisions and punishments we put in place.
It never gets easier having to let an employee go or shut down a business.
I know what a job means to some and taking that away makes me feel heartless and cruel, even when it’s the best possible choice.
We can’t have businesses hemorrhaging funds or employees who aren’t loyal.
Beyond that, I had to sit through hours of negotiations with a company we want to acquire in order to expand our precious metals mining capacities in overseas markets.
We have mining operations throughout the world, but we saw a need to invest in the leading metals that are used in everything from computer chips to jewelry—platinum and palladium.
Payton has led the negotiations up to this point on a few mines in South Africa, and he’s been working on this deal for months now but pulled me in to secure the deal.
The fuckers are playing hardball, though, and aren’t giving up as easily as Payton had assured me they would.
We’ve had to schedule more meetings this week to revise our contracts and meet certain demands while finding a way to get exactly what we want in the bargain.
I was hoping this could have been finished today so I can focus on my next goal of a smooth rollout for phase two.
That phase expands our business holdings to include the hospitality sector, which includes Paige’s daddy’s Xenios Group, among other small, privately held businesses.
We want to corner the market on exclusive boutique properties, and the Fairchilds have the Eastern Seaboard locked down on that front.
They’re the biggest hotel group we’re looking at acquiring, and everything hinges on their acquiescence.
All I want is to go home to my dog and have a glass of bourbon without interruption before I move on to getting Paige to fall for me.
If I can work out the details of this marriage clause in her inheritance, maybe the hotels would come easier.
So far, it doesn’t look like things would transfer the moment she is married, just that she has to be married in order to inherit the legacy.
Small difference in wording, big difference in execution.
Either way, I don’t think it would hurt to have her madly in love with me when I make the offer to her father for the Xenios Group.
Cerberus doesn’t meet me at the door when I walk into my house and I’m instantly on guard wondering what’s wrong. Has something happened to Paige? Could she have gone out with the dog and something, or more likely someone, have happened?
The smell of cooking wafting from the kitchen quickly allays those fears, as Cerb is likely right next to Paige where I want him because that’s where the food is.
“Honey, I’m home,” I call out with a genuine smile on my face.
I like the idea of coming home to someone who cares enough to cook for me.
I’d never demand or even expect it, but this is an interesting change of pace from what I have available every week by the nutritionist who does my grocery shopping and stocks my fridge with professionally prepared food so I don’t have to.
I hear a clatter from the kitchen.
“Oh, damn!” Paige swears.
I think that’s the worst word I’ve heard out of her sweet Southern mouth, but I’m betting I’ll get a few more, eventually.
I set my jacket on the metal banister of my floating staircase and head back toward the kitchen, following the noises coming from that direction.
The sight that greets me has genuine belly laughter shaking my whole body in an instant.
Cerberus’s normally sleek black fur is covered in flour as he licks up what I assume is a beaten egg from the slate floor.
Paige is on her hands and knees, trying to beat him to the mess, but he keeps rotating his body to block her from his find.
“Cerberus, out,” I command. He leaves the mess on the floor and trots out of the kitchen to sit in the hall looking like a demonic ghost. I shake my head at him for being naughty, but watching him lick his chops trying to get the flour and egg mixture off his face is pretty hilarious and I laugh again.
“What happened in here?”
Paige peeks up at me from her knees, her hair falling down in dark ribbons around her face from the messy bun on top of her head. She blows a piece of hair out of her mouth and gives me a defeated look.
“You scared me, and I dropped the bowl of flour I was trying to throw away. Then I put my hand in the bowl of eggs and flipped it off the counter. Now I’ve got a dog ready to be baked into chicken cordon bleu and a mess on the floor.”
I cross the kitchen and grab a towel off the counter. I crouch down in front of her and pull her hand from the floor, taking her soiled paper towels and using mine to clean off her egg-covered fingers. Once her hand is clean, I pull her up with me.
“Forget the mess. It can wait. This can’t.”
I lean down and place my lips over hers as I hold her sweetly surprised face in my hands.
What I meant to be simply a chaste kiss quickly takes a hot turn when she sighs against my mouth and opens her lips to flick her tongue out against mine.
That’s all it takes to unleash every dark desire I have for her into the kiss, slanting my lips over hers and plunging into her mouth.
I pull back slightly as she stiffens, but she moves toward me for more and I comply.
I worship her luscious lips, her tongue playing with mine curiously when I sweep through to taste her deeper.
I let the kiss take on every strangled need I’ve felt for her in the past few days, taking a piece of what I’ve denied myself, making sure she feels the intense appetite she stirs in me.
When I finally force myself to pull away from the hottest damn kiss of my life, her eyes stay closed and her lips are a reddened pout. Her eyes open lazily, a haze of lust settling over her face as she looks at me.
“Wow,” she manages in a husky whisper.
The sound of that one word has me dying to set her up on the counter so I can pull her against the erection that strains my slacks and dry hump her until she begs me to stop.
The tone her voice takes when she’s turned on is my new favorite thing, and I want to hear her calling my name in that hot rasp.
“W-what was that for? You haven’t even had dinner yet, so it can’t be that I cooked for you.”
I lick the taste of her from my lips and swallow hard.
“Just how I wanted to say hello to you.”
“Mmm. Well, hello to you, too, handsome. That just blew all of my expectations for my first kiss out of the water.”
My heart nearly stops. I’m her first kiss? My God, I get all of her firsts. A possessive thrill runs through me, and I look at her with new eyes. She will be all mine and more and I want to make sure she is ruined for anyone who would dare to follow me.
“That’s just the beginning. It will get even better. You deserve the best and I can certainly offer that and more.”
She tucks the strands of hair that have escaped her bun behind her ears and takes a steadying breath as her eyes clear.
“Well, if that’s going to happen every time you come home to me, I don’t think I’ll mind having you leave quite as much.”
Home to me. I savor that thought, rolling it around on my tongue.
I’ve never liked the idea of going home to someone before, as I like my house in order, without the messy unpredictability of another person in my space.
But the thought of coming home to Paige produces a feeling so far in the other direction from my usual that I can imagine it vividly and with an unfettered desire that surprises me.
I want to share everything with her. My house. My life. My dog. Maybe even my heart. The sobering thought has me evaluating how it could have even crossed my mind just now. I’m tight with my emotions, preferring to catch flights, not feelings, but this is something else. She’s something else.
I redirect my misplaced thoughts and look around the kitchen. She has a steaming roasting pan of chicken cordon bleu cooling on the island next to a bowl of broccolini with red pepper and parmesan flakes. Farther down, there’s a platter of roasted potatoes glistening and sprinkled with parsley.
“You did all this?”
She looks around and cringes. “I had hoped to have everything cleaned up and the rest of my messy cooking habits hidden before you got home, but I wasn’t sure when that was, so I guessed wrong.
I have a sink full of dishes to do, and now this.
” She gestures at the paper towel, flour, and egg mess on the floor.
“It can wait,” I remind her. “Thank you for going to all this trouble. I wasn’t expecting it, but you just made a bad day better.”
Her smile is angelic, bright sunshine and flowers, and I want to devour her again, or eat her pussy out for dinner instead to really show my gratitude.
“It’s the least I could do. Oh, and you might want to add flour to your grocery list if there is someone who does your shopping.” She pauses and bites the tip of her thumb in thought. “Or I could shop for you if you want,” she says around her thumbnail.
I nod, pulling her thumb away from her mouth and kissing it. I would’ve liked to suck it into my mouth and give her a preview of the things I can do with my tongue, but salmonella is a bitch.
“Wash up. Let’s eat.”