Chapter Seventeen

Belle

The next week passed in a blur. I tried not to pay attention to anything Drake McManus did. It was easy when I was at the hospital, but once Mom was released home into round-the-clock professional nursing care, my excuse for staying home and not helping with some of the key points in the merger fell apart, since she had professional care and support long enough for me to get a few hours at the company. I knew the company better than anyone, except maybe Carol, so I needed to make sure everything dovetailed. But after that, I was out of here. I could go back to my life and plans from before the company started to die. I could apply to graduate school and get out of L.A., where I felt so trapped. I could leave the world of false glamor behind and do something real in my life; something that mattered. Instead of handling PR four-alarm fires, I could help save the environment or get an advanced degree in conservation like I’d always planned.

Hell, maybe I’d get it in Oregon, Maine, or England. Who cared? I could get as far away from The City of Angels as possible. I didn’t want to be in the town Drake McManus owned. It was too painful.

He wasn’t set to come into the offices today. He and Dad were working cheek by jowl to rehab the charity so I’d only have to worry about bumping into vice presidents and turning over financial records to help smooth through the transition.

Good.

If I’d had to see him, I’d have fallen apart.

Still, the one thing I didn’t expect as I opened my office up at six a.m. was to find George Peters slipping through my door.

I groaned, figuring the universe was having a field day. Drake seemed to be dating the hottest starlet in L.A. and the human pest was back to hovering over me again like my own personal Steve Urkel.

“George, it’s super early.”

“Like I’m not a VP as well. I knew that his team was coming in to set everything up. I figured you’d need an extra hand,” he said, pulling up the other rolling chair in my office and bringing it closer to me than he had to.

George didn’t seem to think that “personal space” applied to him.

“You haven’t talked to me much since you got back,” he said, placing his hand over mine on my mouse.

I jerked back like I’d been scalded. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he asked. “You didn’t have to go at all. I tried to stop you. Hell, I’d have gone with you. I can see how upset you’ve been since you got back, how depressed. Do you think I’m blind?” His deep hazel eyes peered into mine.

“I think you pay a creepy amount of attention to me,” I snarked back.

“Maybe,” he said, standing and looming over me. He wasn’t as broad as Drake—who was?—but he was wiry and muscular, far stronger than I was. For a crazy moment, I regretted that I wasn’t near my purse where I kept my pepper spray. “But he did something to you. I knew if you left he’d tear you apart, play his mind games, and he did.”

“He didn’t do anything, and you should apologize for that stunt you pulled on the tarmac. You nearly jeopardized all the negotiations before they started. You did that alpha male crap and could have cost us everything!”

George chuckled and placed his hand on my thigh. “I think we know exactly the kind of negotiations you two were up to.” He pushed his hand up further and I grabbed it then, pushing it away.

“George, stop this. We’re not an ‘us.’ We’ve never been an ‘us,’ and even if Drake never existed, we’d still never be a couple. I can’t stand you, and if you don’t get your goddamn hand off my thigh, I’m going to claw your eyes out and then have Dad fire and blacklist your ass. Actually, I’m going to have those second two things happen anyway. Do you want to keep your eyes?”

“That’s cute,” he said. “That’s why I love that spunk of yours.” He leaned down and kissed me, his bulk pinning me for one panic-raging moment.

Fear lanced through me but so did rage. How dare he? I brought my knees up as hard as I could into his stomach. He let out a breath and staggered back as I grabbed the desk phone and slammed it down hard on his head. George groaned and fell to the carpet, giving me time to rush out and to the café across the street.

I couldn’t dial 911 fast enough.