Chapter 3

Nash

I ran my fingers across the row of crisp white shirts hanging in my walk-in closet. Honestly, they all looked the same, but they were an essential part of my wardrobe. My father had insisted that I hire a stylist initially when I took over the company chair, but I was confident from the start that white shirts couldn’t go wrong. I reserved them only for work though.

I had recently gotten into the habit of waking up at six in the morning so I could hit the gym. My days were now usually very long, and the weekdays merged into my weekends with very little time to spare. Now I knew why my father was always in a bad mood when I was growing up. But this had to be done. It was my family legacy, my inheritance. I had to keep the company going even after my father retired. That was what was expected of me, and I couldn’t disappoint.

I could feel the sweat from my workout trickling down my abs as I walked around the closet. I needed the workout. Two solid hours in the gym made up for all the hours I now spent sitting behind a desk. I didn’t usually spend this much time thinking about my clothes or what to wear. But the prospect of seeing Bonnie Calhoun again had changed everything. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was a little bit excited.

Before yesterday, it had to have been at least five or six years since I’d last seen her. Just the sight of her, after all this time, had knocked the breath out of me, and I hadn’t been able to stop myself from walking into her apartment. She’d worn a silk robe, but I could picture that body underneath. Those perfect breasts, those long silky smooth legs, her shining blond hair still damp. She must have just come out of the shower. She’d looked delicious, ready to be eaten. I’d always been attracted to those flared nostrils and that spark in her eye when she got mad. And Bonnie was always mad. Short tempered. A great believer in sticking to her rigid beliefs.

In college, she hadn’t approved of my lifestyle, my fraternity ways. And I always got the feeling that she judged me for my family money. Even though I didn’t care about it back then. Maybe I still didn’t. But she always looked at me, down her long sharp nose like she thought she was better than me. That somehow, I belonged outside her moral compass, that she was too good a person to be associated with me.

I smiled as I pulled out a navy tie with aquamarine stripes. Those would match her eyes.

I still couldn’t get the image of her in that robe out of my head. And was she turned on? She had to be, given the state of her nipples. I’d always known she wanted me. With most girls, it was easy for me to tell that they wanted me inside them, that they wanted me to give them toe-curling orgasms. But Bonnie always held back. She judged me too hard and probably convinced herself that I wasn’t worth her time. Because we were so different and we came from such different places.

But that didn’t mean that her body could resist me. I could always tell that her muscles stiffened and her cheeks flushed when she was around me. An internal struggle to deny the physical attraction she was obviously feeling.

I picked out the textured cufflinks for the day from their velvet box and snapped them on my shirt cuffs. Honestly, I couldn’t wait to see her.

She had kicked me out of her apartment as though I had done something horrendously wrong. But I still wanted to see her again. See those blue eyes shoot daggers at me, her perfect white teeth biting those luscious pink lips. I wanted her to acknowledge that I had won in the long run. I was buying her company.

A nerve twitched on the side of my eye as I started buttoning my shirt. In any other case, this victory would have been sweeter. Our company was successfully acquiring a threat. A small business threat, but a threat nonetheless. Father was proud of me. I was doing my job right. But it was Bonnie Calhoun. I was doing this to a friend. To her, of all people.

Granted, she was quick tempered and always pissed at me. But I had noticed the fiery dismay in her eyes. This was really affecting her. I had seen what the company meant to her. How disappointed she was because she had failed on her own.

I sighed and looked at myself in the mirror. Tailored black pants, ivory white shirt in broadcloth, perfect navy blue tie, cufflinks, Rolex on my wrist. I was as good as ready for the meeting.

“Sir?” I was still thinking about the look in Bonnie’s eyes, when a different female voice interrupted my thoughts. I saw Sera’s reflection behind me in the mirror. Sera, in her professional-sleek bun, her tight skirt suit, her razor-sharp nose.

“Get Leo to bring the car around,” I said, tucking my shirt into my pants.

“Of course. And a woman called, four times actually since this morning. You were in the gym.” She was leaning slightly into the closet, her hand gripping the doorframe.

“A woman? Bonnie Calhoun?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. That was very unlike her, but she might be desperate now.

Sera shook her head and smiled at me through the mirror. She had been my secretary for no more than seven months, ever since I took over. But I knew her well enough by now to know that she had something interesting to tell me. Her lips curled in a way that told me that she was trying to suppress an even wider smile.

“Marjorie. Marjorie Otis,” she said flatly, waiting for my reaction.

I had to think for a second, before my eyebrows rose in recognition of that name. The woman I’d banged last Saturday. I had made the mistake of bringing her back to my place. I had a strict policy of fucking women anywhere but at my own home. It was always difficult to get rid of them in the morning otherwise. And that turned out to be true in Marjorie’s case. She refused to get out of bed, demanded breakfast, I had to skip the gym and was late to work. She didn’t believe me when I insisted that I worked on Sundays.

“What did she want?” I asked, smoothing the front of my shirt.

Sera’s smile widened, and she stepped fully into the closet, closer to me. “She wants to speak to you, but I told her you’re busy, of course,” she said in a whisper. I couldn’t help but laugh. There was nobody else around us; there was no need to whisper!

“Thank you, Sera. You’re a star. Keep that going until she stops calling,” I said, stepping away from her to make my way to the shoes.

I thought she had left, but I felt her lingering presence behind me.

“Do you need help? With picking the shoes, I mean, sir,” she asked, as I bent down to pull out a shiny pair of black Oxfords.

“No, thank you, Sera. Just get Leo to bring the car around. That’s all,” I said, sitting down on the ottoman to put my shoes on.

“Of course. I’ll see to it right now,” she said and turned on her heels to walk away.

I caught a brief glance of her swaying ass in the tight pencil skirt, but I was quick to look away. As efficient and attractive as Sera was, she was my secretary. That was another policy I wasn’t about to break. Moreover, I had more pressing matters at the moment. Bonnie Calhoun and her long legs.