It’s been two hours since she was last in my office. Two long hours. I can’t stand another minute of wondering what she’s doing out there. Wondering what would happen if I beckoned her into the office and succumbed to the endless desire coursing through me. Why can’t I get this girl out of my freaking head? She’s a drug. A dangerous poison to me. She’s young and fresh, not yet tainted by the nasty things life has to offer. I want to bask in her warmth. Lose myself in her naivety. What would it be like to not see the world the way I do? To live an illusion, if only for a moment. I need to get out of here. Leave the office.
These thoughts are dangerous. I can’t think like this. There’s no way out of the situation I’m in. Especially not now. Not with the hotel’s grand opening looming in the distance. Everything rides on this. All my money hangs in the balance. Chelsea’s greedy stupidity has fucked me. By bidding on properties, I’m leveraged to the max. If The L isn’t successful, I could lose everything. But in the end, none of that matters. The part that matters is Isabella. If I lose everything, I could lose her, too. And without her, I’m nothing. I just have to work hard, keep my dick in my pants, and stop daydreaming about Bridget Miller.
Shit.
Even thinking her name has me angry. Picking up the phone, I call HR.
“Mr. Lancaster,” the head of my human resources department answers.
“Paige. Any luck finding me another assistant?” I bark.
“Um, but you said there wasn’t a prob—”
“I don’t care what I said. There has got to be someone in this damn hotel who wants to work for me.” I know full well I’m being an ass. It’s not her fault I’m having a hard time not imagining fucking my assistant and that it’s driving me insane. It’s not her fault no one wants to work for me.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Lancaster. Th-There are currently no candidates,” she stutters.
Word has spread fast that I’m a ticking time bomb in the office. No one wants to transfer departments. Finding a suitable replacement is seeming impossible. Before Bridget, I had three girls quit on me. That doesn’t include the completely incompetent people I fired in the last month. Ever since I figured out what Chelsea did, how she continued to go after my brother’s company even when I asked her—no, ordered her to stop, it’s been war in the office. Lucky for me, Chelsea works three floors beneath me, so I can stay away from her. But that doesn’t mean the tension isn’t insane.
And everyone from the mailroom to the VP of Marketing is feeling it.
Hanging up, I dial Bridget.
“Connect me to Chelsea,” I order.
I sit on hold. The music playing in the background grates on my last nerve. Tension courses through me.
“I’m sorry, she’s not in the office. Would you like me to transfer you to her cell?”
“Yes.”
The phone rings and rings. Where the fuck is she? Probably fucking lover boy, that’s where.
“Sir, she’s working from home today.”
“Connect me to my house.”
“Hold one minute, sir.” Her voice is firm and unwavering, completely professional.
I’m asking her to connect me to my wife, and she acts like I don’t know what she tastes like. As if I’ve never had my hand inside her. As if I haven’t almost fucked her in an alley. The strength of this girl impresses me more by the minute. Bridget is an anomaly to me.
The phone keeps ringing and ringing. No one answers in my house, which is strange as Isabella’s nanny should at least be answering. I bash the phone on my desk, put my coat back on, and rush out the door.
“Have all calls sent to my voicemail.” I jet out the door and into the garage, pulling out at a speed that can’t be safe for New York City streets. Thankfully, there’s no traffic at this time of day in Tribeca, but I have to slow down or I’ll never get there in one piece.
Forty-five minutes later, I pull up to my house in Connecticut. Living this far out is not conducive to opening a hotel, but when I married Chelsea, she insisted. She insisted on a lot of things, all of which were a bad idea now that the curtain has been lifted from my eyes.
The car is barely in park before I’m barreling out and heading inside. I’m only a few steps within the house when I start to search each room. Not only can I not find my wife, but where the hell is Margret? Heading up the stairs, I see my four-year-old playing in the playroom by herself.
“Where’s your mother?” I snap.
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s Margret?”
“I don’t know, Daddy,” she whispers.
“Why are you all by yourself?”
Her lip quivers and I realize my voice must be scaring her. I’m so used to reacting a certain way, sometimes I can’t stop the anger that pours out of my body. I’m snapping, but it’s not her fault the adults in her life are irresponsible. That they are too busy for her, including myself. I’m no better. I’ve been so wrapped up in opening the hotel that my own time with her has been few and far between.
A small tear falls from her face.
“How long have you been alone, baby?”
“I don’t know.” Her nose scrunches, and I kneel on the floor next to her. Now at eye level, I can see her eyes are welled with tears.
“Come here, baby.” I pull her into my arms. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. Daddy is so sorry. Can you forgive me?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
I hold her tighter. “Do you remember when you last saw Margret?”
“She put Bubble Guppies on.”
Fuck. I don’t pay this woman to put a TV show on for my kid and then leave. “Okay, baby. Do you want to come with me to find her?”
“No, Daddy, I want to watch.”
“Okay.” I place a kiss on her forehead and move to find her nanny. I’m not even halfway down the stairs when I spot Margret entering the house through the back door.
“Where were you?”
“I-I . . .”
“Yes,” I say as I tap my foot rhythmically.
“I had to take a phone call.”
I eye her suspiciously. “And you couldn’t take this call in the house?”
“It . . . I . . .” she stammers, obviously trying to come up with an excuse why she’s been caught.
“Yes,” I spit out.
Her face goes pale. “I just wanted air.”
“You wanted air, so you left my kid alone in the house?”
“I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again,” she says and rushes past. Something isn’t right. When she moves past me, a smell lingers in the air. I’m about to ask her if she was getting high when the front door swings open and Chelsea saunters into the place as if she not only owns this house but also owns the world. Margret scurries up the stairs, and I hear the door to her room shut.
I turn my attention back to my wife. “Where have you been?” I fire off.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I had an appointment.”
“You were supposed to be working from home.”
She rolls her eyes. “Since when do you micromanage me?”
“Since you proved to me that I needed to. The L is mine and moving behind my back to acquire properties in the name of my company proves you need to be watched at all times.”
She steps up to me, reaches out, and then her nails press against my shirt, digging in through the material against my skin. “Oh, dear husband, that’s where you’re wrong. The L belongs to us. Or did you forget? As your wife, I’m entitled to fifty percent of everything.” Her words slither out like poison from a snake.
“No, Chelsea. I didn’t forget.” There it is, my life’s work hanging over me. If I make trouble, she’ll take half. I really am a fucking idiot. How I didn’t see her for the money hungry bitch she is, is beyond me. But the wool was pulled real fast once I signed the papers binding her to me for life. We weren’t even married a year before her true colors began to show. When my father threw me out of Lancaster Holdings, every last semblance of her façade came crashing down.
Chelsea and I met at Lancaster Holdings, where she was a secretary who’d worked her way up over the years. She was cutthroat, dedicated, and one of the smartest women I’d ever met. On top of being gorgeous, she was exotic. Sinfully beautiful. I had to have her and have her I did. We kept our relationship secret at first, but then she made it clear she wouldn’t stay with me if I didn’t take it to the next level. And that was when everything went to shit. Dad knew. He saw what I was too blind to notice.
But I was too goddamn blind to see past anything back then. Now I’m not. Now I see everything, and I hate how right he was.
I turn to watch Chelsea walking toward her room. She moved out of my room years ago. As the door closes, anger swirls within me. Never once did she even bother to check on Isabella. Isabella is just a means to an end for her. She isn’t a mother. She only uses our daughter as leverage to get everything she wants from me, and I don’t object. I can’t. I can’t risk losing her, and Chelsea is enough of a bitch to take her from me.
My life is spinning out of control around me, and I can’t do a fucking thing to stop it.