9. Hunter
Hunter
O ur new office set up is identical to the one in our headquarters in Chicago. We have a standard formation of four desks, one on each side of the room and a conference table in the center. Within a week, each desk will develop its own personality to reflect each of the Griffin brothers.
Mace has claimed the work station at the furthest end, and it’s already covered in a spider web of cables attached to units that blink and flicker.
My desk is on one side, and the one Ash will claim is directly opposite.
Reid’s desk is nearest the door, representative of the fact that he was the last of the brothers to join our team.
We hadn’t planned to bring him into the firm, but it turns out he’s as stubborn as the rest of us.
Reid’s currently putting his law degree to good use by helping a contractor fix Connie’s widescreen TV to the wall in her living quarters above the garage block.
She’s a Netflix junkie and keeping Connie happy is in all our best interests.
And now I have another woman I’m going to have to keep happy, or at least occupied .
“We need to talk,” says Mace. He’s sitting at the conference table, his feet up on the tabletop, and an annoying smirk on his face.
“Let me guess, you don’t want me to do it.”
“Got it in one,” Mace says. “I get why you did it, Hunter. And as much as I hate to admit it, I wouldn’t have been happy leaving Maddie there either, but this isn’t what we signed up for.”
“None of it is what we signed up for,” I reply. “But I don’t see how else we can do business with the Corbyns. Hugo is a piece of work, and I’m not walking away from this until we have a solution that protects his family from him.”
“I don’t disagree that it’ll be fun fucking with Hugo. But fucking with Maddie?”
“It’s a temporary arrangement. Just long enough to take control of the mill and do what needs to be done.”
Mace tilts his head as if looking at me from a slightly different perspective will help him see where my head is at. “A wife, however temporary, causes more problems than it solves. It’s why none of us have ever gone down this path. We agreed.”
“We never anticipated something like this. It’s a means to an end, that’s all.”
“But to what end?” Mace demands. “You might get an immediate seat on the board, but she gets rights to your affairs too. And unless we make sure the prenup’s watertight, we could end up losing more than we gain.”
I force my jaw to unclench. There isn’t a muscle in my body that hasn’t been tensed to its limits since I publicly claimed Maddison Corbyn as mine.
“Then we get Reid to work with our lawyers to make it watertight. If Barrett wanted the company dead in the water, it means we have to keep it alive, even if we don’t know why yet.
We don’t have a choice here, Mace. If we have to wait until we’ve persuaded both Hugo and Maddie to sell to us, the paper mill will have gone under by then.
And Hugo’s spiteful and twisted enough to let that happen. He’s thinking with his dick.”
Mace drops his feet to the floor and rests his elbows on the table as he leans in. “He’s not the only one.”
I swallow the curse and control my temper. “I know what I’m doing.”
The sound of his fingers drumming against the table irritates me more than it should. As does his stare. “It’s just business, right?”
Putting my last conversation with Maddie to the back of my mind, I hold his gaze. The pads of my fingers tingle at the memory of playing with her nipple. And that tingle erupts into a burning need as it travels lower through my body. “Yes.”
“OK, then,” Mace says as if he’s in complete agreement.
I know it’s some maneuver to catch me out, I just can’t see the trap yet.
“Let’s say marrying Maddie is a good strategy.
” His fingers stop drumming so he can count off items on his list. “We get inside the company, we go over everything in forensic detail, and we figure out Barrett’s motives.
We neutralize Hugo by whatever means necessary, and we complete the original takeover.
You get divorced, pay off Maddie, and we make the mill viable again before putting in new management and moving on. Correct?”
“That’s the sum of it, yes.”
Mace shrugs. “In which case, it doesn’t really matter which of us marries Maddie.”
The air thickens between us. Fuck my brother, but he’s got me. I can’t argue without confirming that I am thinking with my now softening dick.
Mace’s eyes flicker with delight. He’s enjoying this game.
“I think we can discount Ash given his pathological aversion to women, so my personal choice would be Reid. They get on well, but not too well,” he says with an obvious jab at me.
“The whole point is that we don’t overcomplicate things, or lose sight of the end game.
And they’re the same age. It makes sense. ”
“No,” I say before I’ve even formulated my counter argument.
I play with my cuffs, which gives me time to think.
“You and I know that Reid’s a long way from being able to assert himself in the boardroom.
He’s not going to be the one to put Hugo in his place.
And besides, whoever marries Maddie gets to serve Barrett a second dose of humiliation.
Reid’s the only one of us who doesn’t already have a target on his back. Let’s not put one on him now.”
Mace shrugs. “You’re right, it can’t be Reid,” he says, but the fucker smirks. “I guess that leaves me and you. And given the vein that’s popping out of your temple, I’d say your volatility around Maddie immediately makes you a strong no.”
Rationally, I know this is just Mace testing me.
There’s no way he’d marry Maddie. No matter how much we wrap it up as a business arrangement, there will need to be some element of playacting to sell the idea to key players until we achieve our aims. I could call his bluff, but I’m currently fighting the impulse to leap over the table and wipe that smug expression off his face for simply suggesting he take her from me.
Mace is well aware of the buttons he’s pushing when he adds, “And I don’t mind taking one for the team.”
As I stand up, Mace gets up too, bracing himself for my reaction. We might love each other, but we’re not averse to using our fists to settle arguments. I’m too busy planning how to get over the table without making myself vulnerable that I don’t notice the figure in the doorway.
“If you want to marry me, you’re going to have to ask me first, Mason,” Maddie says as she stalks into the room. She doesn’t acknowledge me. Her piercing gaze is focused solely on Mace.
My brother gives a good performance of looking unfazed, but his hands remain fisted as he slips them into his pockets. “Do I have to get down on bended knee?” he asks. He’s wrongly assumed that he’s the cat and she’s the mouse. I almost feel sorry for him.
When Maddie reaches him, she keeps moving forward. He towers over her and could easily stand his ground, but that would mean letting her press her body against his, which is what she intends. For my own sanity, I’m relieved he has the good sense to move back a step.
Maddie smiles. “My preferred position is naked in the shower. How does that sound?” she purrs.
Her voice is like a knife twisting in my gut. I can only imagine what effect it has on Mace, but it’s enough to have him stepping back some more until Maddie has him backed against a desk. It would be my desk.
“I was thinking it would be in our lawyer’s office,” Mace says as he attempts to assert some control.
“That’s a shame. I was hoping for something more intimate,” Maddie suggests as she traces a finger down the lapel of his suit jacket.
I’m not sure who she’s making more uncomfortable, the brother she’s taunting or… the other brother she’s taunting. There’s only so long I can contain my anger as her hand travels downwards.
Mace swallows hard when she hooks a finger in his belt.
“Tell me, are you as big as your brother?”
“Not when I’m as unaroused as I am now,” Mace says, almost choking out his reply.
“Are you sure about–”
A red mist has descended, catapulting me across the room. I grab Maddie’s hand, snatching it away from Mace’s belt. “Enough of the fucking games!” I bark. “Mace, you’ve made your point, now get the fuck out!”
My brother holds his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, Hunter,” he says, heading for the exit. “I just wanted you to see what I’m seeing. Get a handle on things before you fuck us all over.”
When he closes the door behind him, I spin Maddie to face me. Her eyes are blazing and she speaks before I get a chance.
“Don’t you dare get angry with me,” she hisses.
“I heard your little matchmaking conversation, and in case it escaped your attention, my days of being treated like chattel are over. I didn’t exactly have a choice when it came to accepting Barrett’s proposal, but I chose you, Hunter. Not your fucking weirdo brother!”
“I’m not a weirdo!” Mace shouts from the other side of the door.
“I think you’ve just proven my point, asshole!” she yells back, her face crimson and her body thrumming with fury.
“Mace, go find somewhere else to lurk,” I call out, my eyes never leaving Maddie.
She’s changed into a soft jersey dress with long sleeves and a high neck, but the way it hugs her body is far from modest. But if anything is going to knock me into submission, it’s her scent.
I’d listened to her shower running earlier, which I’m now going to be subjected to because she switched rooms and our bathrooms share a wall.
I bring her wrist to my nose, and savor the next breath.
Maddie’s damp skin smells of wild mint and lemon.
She brought her own bath products from home.
My tension begins to ease as I kiss her pulse point, but I’m not letting her off the hook completely.
“Let me make one thing clear, Maddie. I may have to accept that another man will take you as his prize one day, but until then, you belong to me. And if you go near another man’s dick again, you will face consequences. ”
Maddie’s eyes dilate. “You mean you’ll punish me like you did this morning?”
I was thinking more like bending her over my desk and turning her beautiful ass pink, but given Maddie’s history with violence, I can’t do that, nor can I do what else I’d like to do with her bent over my desk.
I focus instead on the lesson Mace has just delivered in his usual crass way. I release my grip and step away.
If I’m going to convince Ash that marrying Maddie is simply a means to an end, I have to stop all our conversations turning into a sexual sparring match. I just wish my cock would deflate as quickly as my body when I sigh.
“Just don’t test me. OK?” I ask. It’s sounds too much like a plea, but it’s all I’ve got. “Maddie, we need to talk.”
She notices the shift in tension and steps away. “I’m listening.”
“I can get our lawyers to work overtime on a prenup, but you’ll need representation too. I can arrange that. Unless you have someone else in mind?”
“Not someone who could act independently from Hugo,” she says as she begins to circle the room.
“But I can read a contract, Hunter.” Her hand trails across the empty bookcases that line two walls.
“Which is more than I can say for you and your brothers. Please tell me there are boxes of books hidden away somewhere. Do any of you read? ”
“Not your kind of books, no,” I answer. We’re moving off the subject, but I can’t help myself. “Those shelves are never going to be filled with stories about… What was it? A brother’s best friend?”
Maddie scowls over her shoulder. “You really shouldn’t have been listening in on a private conversation.”
“Firstly, you let a random guy listen in on your little chat with your server friend for the price of a whiskey, so it was hardly private,” I remind her. “And secondly, you’ve just been listening in on one of my conversations, so I’d say we’re even.”
Maddie goes back to pacing. “Speaking of which, there’s something I want as part of our divorce settlement.”
I lean back against my desk, arms folded as I watch her. “And what would that be?”
“If you’re putting in new management once the mill is viable, I want to be a part of it,” she says as she reaches the end of the bookshelves. She turns to look at me. “A big part.”
“Exactly how involved have you been in running the company?”
She gives me a look that does something to my insides. “You mean, am I qualified to run the mill given the dire state it’s in now?”
I treat it as a rhetorical question because I’m not stupid enough to let her put those words in my mouth.
“For the last five years,” she continues, “I’ve been in charge of putting out the fires my brother created.
If it wasn’t for me, the mill would have folded long ago.
I know where the investment’s needed, I know the contracts we should have been pursuing, and the ones that we desperately need to offload.
I could reel off all the opportunities we missed because no one listened to me, and I know what’s coming down the road, and what our research and development program should be focused on. ”
Maddie turns again. She’s prowling like a caged animal – one who hasn’t realized the bars aren’t there anymore.
“You know the business inside and out?”
“I do.” She stops to face me. “And I might be the one who can help you figure out why Barrett wanted to destroy it.”
A smile tugs at my mouth and just keeps growing.
“What?” Maddie demands with a scowl. She’s assuming I’m mocking her but it couldn’t be further from the truth.
“There you go again, little bird. Making me change my opinion of you.”