Chapter 10 Phoenix #2
He stares at me like he wants to believe that, but doesn’t. I can’t blame him. We’re all surrounded by truths, lies, and our understandings and misconceptions of situations. Breaking through those walls is something we have to do before we can really move forward.
I step closer, looking deeper into his eyes.
“You’re creative, Mav. You are the clever one who can make people laugh and have fun.
I’ve seen it my whole life. You charm people, you adapt to what they need and manipulate it to serve you and what you want.
You’ll find ways to survive in any situation, and then thrive. You’ve done it forever.”
He looks down, a shadow flickering across his face as he watches the chip disappear between his fingers.
“I feel like I’m playing pretend,” he breathes.
I can’t help the breathless laugh that escapes me.
“So am I,” I whisper back. “I’m not made for any of this, but I’m following your lead and adapting, making this work for me, and you know what?”
“What?”
“We are both very good at faking it.”
He leans in, and his whisper, when it skates over me, is dark and hot. “I know a few things you are very good at. But faking it with me isn’t even in the realm of your skillset.”
If I don’t walk away now, I know there’s no chance I’m going to be able to check on the others, so I give him a quick kiss and practically flee before I throw my panties at him and ask him to fuck me in a bathroom.
Unfortunately, Storm is in a meeting with someone it looks like he’s in the process of firing. Instead of interrupting, I make eye contact with him and blow a kiss before walking away.
Instead, I set off to find Con, which shouldn’t be as hard as it is.
Like Atticus, he needs a desk and a computer to get his shit done. Unlike Atticus, Con doesn't like to work in the penthouse.
He should’ve been in his father’s office. Unfortunately, Con refuses to go into that office and doesn’t want to tell me why.
Which is how I’m playing a game of hide and seek with someone who doesn’t know he’s playing with me.
Finally, I spot him in one of the offices in the business center. Technically, it’s open to all guests. But since it’s the middle of summer and Wi-Fi is available in the rooms, it’s usually empty.
I have to admit, even after growing up in this resort, I’ve never been in these rooms. The one Con is using as his office is surprisingly luxurious, the walls a warm wood tone, the chairs plush and comfortable.
One long polished wood conference table dominates the center of the room, and smaller work carrels built into the sides of the room provide a semblance of privacy for others who might need to get some work done.
A wet bar hosts a coffee station, where a pot has just finished brewing what I’m guessing is Cons’s second pot of the morning.
His laptop is open on the table, and contracts are spread out over the table alongside a plate with crumbs. At least he’s eating, which is more than I can say for Atticus at this point.
Con, dressed in a three-piece suit tailored to his body, his cell phone pressed to his ear, is pacing in a tight four-foot circle at the head of the table.
Against the wall across from him is Zeus, laying on his back with his feet up in the air. If his tongue wasn’t rolled out and his little dog snores the sound of a grown man’s, I’d think he was dead instead of passed out.
Maybe it wasn’t Storm who absconded with him after all.
The second I walk in, Con’s eyes shoot to me, slowly roaming up and down my body and sending tingles over my skin.
I ignore them and move to get his coffee cup and refill it, preparing it the way I know he likes.
Black, two sugars.
When I set it down, he mouths the words thank you and goes back to his argument with the laundry service, trying to get a bulk discount for combining the linens from housekeeping with the linens from the restaurants.
I want to help him. I just don’t know how he’ll let me.
There are so many contracts scattered over the desk, each with a different heading and page numbers at the top. I busy myself by stacking them in neat, ordered piles.
When Con gets off the phone, he moves to stand behind me.
“What do you think you are doing, princess?”
Somehow the word doesn’t feel like an endearment. My hands shake a little as I answer, and I will them into firmness.
“Trying to clean up a little. Shouldn’t your father’s secretary be helping with this? She should be able to do–”
“My father let her go. He said that I need to do this on my own, without a nanny looking over my shoulder.”
“So hire your own secretary,” I offer the easiest solution imaginable.
“And what would a secretary do for me?”
There’s something dangerous in his eyes, begging me to engage, to try and tell him what to do. I know I should walk away, give him space when he’s worked up like this, but I give him the answer anyway.
“I’ve never been a secretary, so I wouldn’t know every single thing.
But it would be their job to help you. Take care of your office?
Find you an office if you refuse to use your father’s, so that you’re not just taking space in the business center.
Maybe they’d schedule appointments, or get whatever you need for your next call?
Talk to the managers and see if they know of areas that could be cut or areas for improvement within the resort? ” My mind races with ideas.
“And what would the managers suggest?”
“I don’t know,” I say, then I think about it for a moment. “Maybe combining a few of the other deliveries. Like the kitchen crews, spa, and hotel all need different supplies, but we all order from the same vendor, so maybe if the orders were combined, it would at least save on the delivery fee?”
“Is that so?” He leans on the table, crossing his legs and his arms as he looks down at me. “What else?”
“I don’t know…” I rack my brain, and I come up blank. He’s too close to me, which is making it kind of hard to think. His cologne is playing tricks with my memory, swirling with my synapses, making me think of everything but what he just asked me.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I try to concentrate.
A conversation I overheard while cleaning the spa floats up in my memory, and my eyes pop open.
“I got it! Maybe switch to using the same reservation system? The resort is fine, but the one for the spa crashes a lot. And if they were on the same system, people book spa appointments at the same time they book a room, and it could increase the—”
My words are cut off when he takes my mouth like it owes him interest. It isn’t sweet.
It’s a verdict and judgement that he’s claiming all at once.
He pins my chair with one hand on the armrest and the other caging my jaw, and I feel the second he stops arguing with me and starts arguing with the part of himself that hates needing anyone, let alone me.
When he finally breaks the kiss, I’m breathing his name and forgetting what I said and why.
“Very smart, princess,” he says, voice rough with pride he doesn’t want to own. “But I called those vendors this morning.”
The floor drops a notch under my chair. “Right. Of course you did.”
“You think I need help?” His knuckles skim my cheek like a question he already knows the answer to.
“No,” I tell him, and the word steadies me. “I think you need something. Even if it’s only one small thing that’s within your control. Everything’s been spinning out. I just…want to do whatever I can, any way I can. I want to be the one who helps you.”
Something dark flickers in his eyes. Not anger, not quite. Recognition. He sees me. Sees through everything I’m hoping to hide from him.
His fingers slide from my cheek to my throat, slow, deliberate, a warning bell and a promise in one. But he doesn’t squeeze— not yet—he just owns me.
He leans in until the world is nothing more than his breath and my pulse. “How about,” he murmurs, mouth ghosting mine, “you let me have one small thing that doesn’t spin.”
His grip tightens just enough to make the room sharpen into harsh focus.
“Be that,” he says, kissing me one more time— hard, possessive, final. “Be the thing I can control when the world is spinning out from under me.”