Last night was fun, but fuck if I’m not paying for it today.
I sit in the King Communications boardroom thinking about how when my father finally hands me the reins to this company, I won’t schedule seven o’clock meetings. Ever.
I don’t care if we’re talking to China and they’re thirteen hours ahead of us and we don’t have a choice but to talk now.
And while I’m making promises, I should probably include not drinking gin the night before a seven o’clock meeting. The hooking up with a hot girl portion of the night, though…that can stay.
I feel the start of an awful headache, and I think I might still be a little drunk. I look around the table at the men seated here with me. Not one of them looks hungover. They’re all crisp men in their suits as they listen attentively to our Chinese translator, David, as he interprets for the rest of us.
My father runs the call. He can speak some Mandarin, a result of many business deals in Asia. Members of the executive team fill the other seats at the boardroom table: Gary, VP of Operations; Cal, VP of Marketing; Dennis, VP of International Business Affairs; Paul, our CFO; and Steve, VP of Information Technology. Sometimes our assistants join the meetings, but not today. My administrative assistant, Lauren, is working on a project, and my father’s assistant, Iris, is helping her.
I rub my temples as I try to ward off the hangover, but it’s futile. I sip some black coffee, and it tastes like shit. I don’t drink coffee on a regular basis because I hate the fake energy caffeine gives. I prefer the natural energy I get from cardio activities—like fucking.
Do you have any idea how boring it is to sit in a meeting where you only understand about half of what’s going on? I know the business and I know it well, but I hate sitting in on conference calls, especially international ones. It’s a bunch of old men talking about voice and data services, and I’m bored as fuck with a mountain of paperwork on my desk.
The seemingly interminable phone call finally ends after nearly two hours, and then my father starts with a review of the business we just covered. I’m half-listening.
I don’t need to be here, but my father insists I attend these important meetings so the clients know I care. It’s nearly impossible to pretend I care when I really don’t, though. In fact, my father shouldn’t even be in this meeting. This is Dennis’s area, and when I take over, I plan to trust my men to do their jobs.
Maybe I’ll hire some women, too. There are plenty on our staff, but it seems like most of the execs are men. This room could do with a woman’s perspective—not to mention some T and A for me to look at.
And just as that random thought enters my mind, the door to the boardroom flies open. All our heads swing in that direction as a beauty with dark hair flying everywhere and dark, fuming eyes bursts into the room.
Lauren rushes in behind her. “I’m so sorry, sir. I tried to stop her.” Lauren looks terrified, like she might get fired for whatever’s about to happen. The only time she ever calls me sir is when she’s fucked something up.
I sit up a little straighter in my chair.
The beauty who whirled in from out of nowhere eyes each of us. Her anger is palpable, and her face burns red. She’s clearly pissed about something, and her eyes focus in on me.
She’s gorgeous, though she’s the opposite of what I look for in a woman—she’s not blonde, she doesn’t have blue eyes, and she’s much shorter than I usually go for, but there’s something about her that’s fiercely and savagely beautiful.
My eyes are drawn immediately to her lips. The bottom one is slightly fuller than the top, like a pillow for the top one to rest upon. They aren’t marred by lipstick, yet they’re cherry red. The top lip has a perfect point right in the center, as if her lips are attempting to create a heart with their shape.
My heart unexpectedly races in my chest.
She shoves a shaky finger in my direction. “Are you Carson King?”
Oh shit.
She doesn’t look familiar, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know her. Have I fucked her? I don’t think I have. She may not be my type with her dark hair, but she’s pretty fucking hot barring the anger she’s aiming at me. She wears a tight black skirt that hugs a narrow waist. A white button-down shirt is tucked into her skirt, and the buttons strain over her large tits. A black blazer over her shirt completes her look, along with black heels. She looks professional and put together—almost too put together. The strong urge to take her apart filters through my veins. The urge to pop those buttons right off that shirt hits me hard—and speaking of hard, my dick strains against my pants. Something about this woman turns me on in strange and unexpected ways.
I don’t typically go for businesswomen. They tend to be a little straight-laced for me, and I always get more of a sisterly sense from them—maybe because I was raised in an office around women like that.
But nothing about this woman makes me think of a sister. This woman screams sensuality, exudes sex. I want her immediately and without reservation—maybe on the very table I’m sitting at.
“Yes,” I finally answer. The men at the table all turn their attention to me.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” she hisses.
I break my gaze from the brunette beauty to glance over at my dad. He rolls his eyes. “Gentlemen, let’s reconvene in the conference room next door.”
Lauren eyes me as the company’s most important executives file out.
“You can go,” I say to Lauren. She looks relieved.
The woman smooths her hair down with her shaking hand. She doesn’t seem to care that she interrupted a meeting with whatever grudge she has against me.
“I’m sorry but…who are you?” I ask her once the room is clear and we’re alone.
She huffs out a sound that’s sort of like a laugh, but it’s clear she’s not laughing. “You don’t even know.” She throws up her hands. “That’s just great.”
Shit. I did fuck her, didn’t I?
“Uh…should I?”
“No,” she spits out. “No, you shouldn’t know me, but you should know my father. Does the name Rob Baker ring any bells?”
I feel a sense of relief that she’s not here because of a personal entanglement I may have forgotten. “From Baker Media?”
What the fuck is Rob Baker’s daughter doing barging into my meeting?
She crosses her arms over her chest, and the motion seemingly calms her. “Yeah. You’re not going to get away with what you’re trying to pull.” Her voice is no longer shaking, and she’s a lot more intimidating this way—not that I’m intimidated by her, exactly, but I could see how others might be.
I rise from my chair and face off against her. “What am I trying to pull, exactly?”
“You think you can roll in with your big money and take over my family’s company, but that. Won’t. Happen.”
“Oh, sweetheart, it’s gonna happen.” I shoot her my lazy grin—the same one I use when I’m about to fuck. In a sense, I’m going to fuck this woman, too, just not in the way she would want me to.
“You can’t just buy off the board. Half of them are family.”
“And the other half aren’t. Money talks.”
“You’re a real asshole.”
“What a nasty mouth for such a pretty lady.”
She looks momentarily thrown by my words, and I know she’s attracted to me. I can see it in the angry eyes, in the fire she’s throwing at me. She has to hate me because of what my company is going to do to hers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a nice hate fuck along the way.
“Why do you even want Baker Media?” she asks with a challenging tone.
I shrug. “Why don’t we discuss it over dinner?”
Her arms come uncrossed and she straightens up a bit. “No. Now. Answer me. Why?”
“To be honest, I don’t. My father does. I’m fighting for his company the same way you’re fighting for your father’s.”
“Leave us alone.”
“Did you fly all the way across the country to tell me to leave you alone?”
I see a flash of sheepishness before she hides it. I speak again before she can.
“You could’ve just sent an email. It would’ve yielded the same result.”
“And what result is that?”
“People in the business call it a hostile takeover. You can call it whatever you want.” I sit back down in my chair and lean back, crossing one leg over the other so my ankle rests near my other knee. It’s a casual pose, like I can’t be bothered with anything.
“I call it a real dick move.”
“There’s that nasty mouth again. I have to admit, I kind of like it.”
Red creeps into her cheeks. I can tell I’m riling her up even more than she already is, and there’s something incredibly fun about pushing her buttons.
“Tell me, Ms. Baker—I assume it’s Ms. Baker?”
She narrows her eyes at me.
“Tell me, Ms. Baker,” I begin again. “How long are you in town?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I want nothing more than to take you to dinner.”
“That’s never going to happen.”
“You’re not even giving me a chance, cupcake.”
“Cupcake?”
I shrug. “Thought I’d give it a try. You seem sweet.”
“Fuc—”
I hold up my hands and interrupt her. “Whoa there, Ms. Baker. Just calm yourself.”
She raises her shaking hand in my direction and points her finger at me. “Don’t you tell me how to feel.”
“Why are you denying my dinner offer? You flew all this way just to see me, after all.”
“You’re impossible. I want a meeting with your father.”
“He’s a busy man, cupcake, as am I. Are we done here?”
“No, we’re not done here.” She’s hissing her words again, and it’s a little scary. Any other day, I’d have been prepared to face her, but today, with this God-awful headache and all the gin still filtering its way through my kidneys, I’m not feeling like myself. Instead, I’m finding myself attracted to her, and while I’ve fucked plenty of business associates, I suddenly get the sense that it would be wrong to fuck this one. She’s mad enough at me for what I’m doing to her company; I don’t need to add physically fucking her over to that list.
“It seems as though neither of us is willing to give in.” I glance at my watch. “I’ve got a meeting I need to get to in ten minutes, so unless you have a really good sales pitch and fewer glares to shoot in my direction, I’ve given you my offer.”
“Dinner? That’s your offer?”
“I said I’d discuss it over dinner.” I pull out my phone and glance at my appointments. “I’m free for dinner tonight after eight.” It’s a lie. I have a dinner meeting, but it’s nothing Lauren can’t reschedule.
She sighs, and my eyes are drawn to her chest as she heaves in a breath. I force my gaze back to her face, which is an equal mistake when they land on those lips. “A business dinner, nothing else.”
I feign shock. “Of course, a business dinner—what else would it be?”
“Nothing. It won’t be anything else.” She says it with firm conviction as she nods her head. I briefly wonder if she’s being so firm because she’s trying to convince herself.
“Fine. Text me where you want to go.”
“I don’t have your number and I’m not from New York.”
“Then I’ll text you where I want to go.”
“You don’t have my number.”
“You’ll give it to my assistant—you know, the blonde woman you barged past to interrupt my meeting?”
She has the grace to look a little sheepish again, and my dick aches in my slacks. I fight the feeling.
I stand and walk toward the door. “I have to get to my next meeting. I’ll see you tonight.” I turn to walk out of the room.
Her voice is small when she responds, but I still hear it. “Please just think about what you’re doing to my family.”
I pretend I don’t hear her, but her words send the smallest pang right through my ribs and up into my heart.