Chapter Thirty-Two

Beau

Setting my guilt aside isn’t easy, but it must be done. All the last-minute trips to see Annabel have taken a toll on my attendance at meetings—even the ones I scheduled—and it’s clear that I need to focus on work during the day. If I can do that, scenes from the other night at the Pearl won’t happen anymore. God, I was such a jackass.

Contracts are the first thing on my agenda in the morning, so I turn off my phone and focus on the paperwork. Opening night at the Pearl is in a week and a half. I need everything squared away at Bennett Inc. and for Edgar Sykes so that when the show is over, I can whisk Annabel off to somewhere private and warm and gorgeous. I’ve already set Linda on narrowing down some possibilities. It’s hurricane season; we’ll take that into account, but I have properties or connections to properties all over the globe.

She’ll love it, no matter where I take her. I know it. Annabel will get off on the travel alone. My heart beats faster imagining her eyes lit up with anticipation.

I put the last contract—signed, squared away, done—off to the side and send a quick email to Linda. Make sure the schedule calls for flying at night. That’ll be perfect. I’ll frame it as a surprise. I’ll wake her up in the most pleasant way possible, and then we’ll flee through the night like she wanted.

Around noon I turn my phone on, giving myself fifteen minutes to catch up.

There’s one message from West. Don’t forget about opening night! Do you have it on your calendar? I roll my eyes. Yes, I’ve been fast and loose with scheduling since Annabel came on the scene, but I haven’t given up my old ways entirely. I won’t miss it.

As I’m scrolling through, a new one appears from Annabel. Hey, Mystery Man. Busy day at the office?

Horrible, I send back. But I’ll see you for dinner, and then this will seem like nothing at all.

My place or yours? :P

Which is your favorite?

There’s a long silence. Linda knocks on the door to my office and comes in carrying my lunch on a tray. My stomach growls at the sight of it all plated up and ready to eat. I had a taste for steak when I woke up this morning. There’s no time to waste sitting down at the steakhouse on the corner. This is the next best option.

“You’re an angel,” I tell her.

Linda nods, the hint of a smile crossing her face. “Anything else, Mr. Bennett?”

“Not now.”

“I have more on your vacation for you whenever you’re finished eating,” Linda says. She heads back to her desk without another word. A woman after my own heart. She doesn’t want to waste time, either.

Yours.

That’s Annabel’s entire reply. I smile down at my phone like an idiot. It’s probably meaningless that she prefers the penthouse, but if she can grow to love it, asking her to move in will be an easy sell. Opening night is in ten days. How much longer can she possibly work for the production? Unless they offer her something long-term, that is. Still, if she lives with me, Winston can drop her off every morning. She can focus entirely on her work and on our adventures together. Perhaps I undid some of her enthusiasm for me the other night, but if that’s the case, it didn’t show this morning.

I’ll meet you outside the Pearl at seven.

I can’t wait . . .

Lunch tastes a thousand times better now that I know a night with her is all but guaranteed.

It sharpens my focus. For the rest of the afternoon, I’m all in on work. I hold five separate meetings in the space of two hours. Eventually I call for Linda.

“Is there any other paperwork waiting in the wings?”

She looks at my desk with raised eyebrows. I long since sent out the other folders to her for delivery to my department heads. “Not a scrap,” she answers. “Did you have a chance to look at the options for your trip?”

True to her word, she’d put a slim portfolio on my desk when she’d come back for the tray. “I’ll look at them now.”

“I’ll be at my desk as usual,” she says with an incredulous laugh. “Though I’m sure you’ll have made a decision by the time I get there.”

“We’ll see,” I say and reach for the portfolio.

It’ll be meticulously arranged, as is all of Linda’s work. Sure enough, I open the cover to a first page graced with a gorgeous photograph of one of my properties in the Virgin Islands. It’s a favorite of mine, and Linda knows it. There’s a note on the first page: Travel may be interrupted by weather.

There’s a knock at the door.

Linda stands in the frame, her lips pressed into a thin line. She answers my questioning look with a terse tone. “Mr. Sykes is here to see you.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. What is Edgar doing in New York City? I was in DC not long ago to hash things out. There should be no reason to come here, unless something has gone wrong with the project. Something on my end. I don’t have time to go through my emails and messages. Nothing tipped me off that he was going to be in town.

I stand up behind my desk. “Send him right in, Linda.”

Before she says anything, Edgar is stepping around her into the office. He surveys me standing at the desk. “Good,” he says. “You’re ready to go. Come with me.”