Chapter Seven

Carrie

I enter Reid’s office and pull the door shut to find him, once again, sitting behind the heavy wide desk that somehow fits him, like this entire office fits him a little too well. This isn’t his place and yet it is, and I still haven’t had time to digest this, to accept it. He arches a brow and looks too damn good doing it. He’s so damn good looking that it makes every arrogant action ten times more arrogant. “Did I hear a knock?” he asks.

“You did not,” I say, and I offer no apology. I walk toward the small round conference table to the left and just in front of the sitting area, and claim one of the four seats, choosing the one that allows a view of Reid and the door. “Which email do you want the reports sent to?”

He stands up, towering over the desk. He is just as big as he is good looking. Tall and broad with the kind of body that comes from hard work and good genetics. His brother looks just like him. He’s probably just as arrogant.

Reid grabs his own MacBook and crosses to claim the seat immediately to my left, no doubt to allow him a view of the door as well. Close. So damn close that his knee brushes mine and I quickly yank it away. Heat radiates up my leg, and my God, my sex clenches. Those full, harsh, beautiful lips of his quirk with my reaction. He now knows that outside of me intentionally seducing him, he affects me, and I hate him and me for it, too.

I want to get up and change seats, but I can’t without handing him power that I won’t give him. Not when he already has too much. “You can’t reach your father,” he says, “but you rushed in here to prove to me that you don’t need to speak to your father to do your job.”

“I didn’t try to reach my father,” I say, leaving out the part where I’ve tried plenty and failed. “Which email do you want these reports to go to?”

“Reid underscore Maxwell at Maxwell dot com. Tell me exactly what your father told you about the takeover.”

“That’s irrelevant,” I say, keying in his address and attaching my document before hitting send. “The file’s in your inbox.”

“What did your father tell you?” he repeats.

My lips tighten. He won’t let this go. “On a professional level, he told me nothing we haven’t talked about.”

“I want more than that.”

“I’ve gathered that to be your way in all things.”

His lips quirk. “Have you now?”

“Yes,” I say, and of course, we’re once again talking about him between my legs. “I noticed.”

“That was the idea,” he replies, his voice now a silky taunt. “I do want more. Are you going to give it to me?”

I’m spared this verbal sparring when his phone rings and he pulls it from his pocket, grimacing as he does. “I said no,” he says, without preamble. “No means no.” He hangs up and sets his phone down next to him.

“Was that a client?”

“That was my pain-in-the-ass brother, who you’d probably like a whole lot more than me, and perhaps more than your own brother. He’s in Japan, correct?”

“You had me investigated,” I say flatly.

“Weeks ago,” he says. “When I was being asked my opinion on the next CEO of this company. I even had a photo, but you were blonde, and—different. I like you better brunette.”

“I’m brunette because I like me better brunette and that photo is ten years old. Back to you investigating me. Obviously, something in that investigation led you to believe that I need you as a babysitter.”

“No,” he says. “I’d decided to leave you in place without me taking over, right up until the night I met you at that charity event. And no. That has nothing to do with you cuffing me and forgetting to fuck me properly.”

“I thought I did it quite properly. I assume that’s the problem.”

“Fucked properly would have been a) me naked, you naked, lots of moans and pleasure, or b) what I was about to do to you before that night. I’d all but finalized a deal to have Smith Mitchell Investments swallow you whole.”

I blanch. “You what? Is that what this is? You’re selling us off?”

“Not anymore,” he says. “I told you. I convinced those I had to convince that we could come out ahead, going another direction. We get a big payout, you get your father’s stock back and my position on the board, while everyone ends up with a winning investment.”

“You changed your mind because I cuffed you to a bed? I’m expected to believe that?”

“Because all this company is missing is a good driver.”

“And that’s you.”

“That’s you,” he says, “but thanks to your father, you need assistance to get back up the hill or perhaps to the top on your own for the first time. Back to your brother.”

“What about Anthony?”

“When was the last time you spoke to him?”

My brow furrows. “Why does my brother in Japan matter? What game is this?”

He stands up and walks to his desk, grabbing a folder and then returning before he sits down, and slides it in my direction. “The week your father made that final kiss-of-death deal that put us in this room together, he spoke to your brother every day, at least three times. How many times did he talk to you?”

He didn’t, I think. He shut me out. I open the folder, finding proof of the conversations between my father and brother. My call logs are included. I spoke to my father twice, and they were each sixty seconds. Of course, my call logs mean nothing. I was right here with my father, and he was behind a closed door, with me on the other side. I shut the folder and glance up at him. “My brother must have needed advice,” I say, but deep down I know that’s not what happened.

Reid fixes me in an ice blue stare. “Make sure your brother doesn’t need advice from you.”

“I like you slightly better than I like him,” I say. “We don’t speak. Since you know everything there is to know about me, I’m certain you know that, too.”

“Why don’t you speak?”

“There’s really nothing complex about this,” I say. “We don’t like each other.”

“Why?” he presses. “Answer, Carrie.”

“You already know the answer.”

“Tell me yourself.”

“He wanted us to invest in a shopping development in Japan. I was against it, and he said I thought I knew it all because I was an Ivy League attorney fresh out of school and he’s not an attorney at all.”

“Why isn’t he Ivy League?”

“He didn’t do the work. I did, but it didn’t matter in this case. In the end, I convinced my father to pull out.”

“And?”

“And it turned into a great investment,” I admit. “I was wrong.”

“No,” he says. “The only wrong move is one where you lose money.”

“We could have made a lot of money. We lost money.”

“If you beat yourself up for every time you missed out on money,” he says, “then you will be afraid to say no to anything. Were you afraid after that? Are you still?”

“That was seven years ago,” I say. “I was twenty-five, fresh out of law school.”

“How hard did you push your father to say no to the duet of failures that got us here?”

He’s hit ten nerves and I swallow hard. “Not hard enough, obviously.”

“Is that what you believe?”

Anger comes at me from a deep, overflowing pit that has nothing to do with Reid. “I pushed. He shut me out.”

“Because your brother convinced him he was right again and you were wrong.”

“My brother works for a tech giant in Japan. He’s been out of this for years. I don’t know why he’d be advising my father about anything.”

“But he is. He’s still at your father’s ear.”

“Maybe.”

“He is. And for the record, your distance from your brother was one of the only reasons I said yes to you staying on board. Keep that distance.”

“That won’t be a problem,” I say, my words acid on my tongue. “I told you—”

“You like me better than him. I heard you. I have to be in court at two. What time is our staff meeting?”

“Six.”

“I’ll be back by five. Go through the data with me between now and then.”

“How can you run this place and still manage a caseload?”

“I have me and you. We’re an army. Go through the data with me.”

“You’ve already been through it. That’s obvious.”

His eyes meet mine, his penetrating in a way that is wholly personal, and yet, his words are seemingly all business. “I’ve seen the reports, but they only tell me the end result, not how you got there. Tell me your story.”

This place is my story, it’s all I’ve ever let be my story, which means this man already owns all of me, he controls my future, my life, my everything, but I won’t say that to him. I don’t trust him not to use it against me. I cut my gaze and plan to start reading the data. His phone rings again and he glances at the number. His jaw sets hard and he answers. “A call from the district attorney himself,” he answers. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

The district attorney, I think. Of course. This man is all about power.

“Let me be clear,” he says, his tone harder than steel. “People not only died, but you let it happen. You went after an innocent man, and then let his conviction stand in the public eye. Not only was another woman killed while the real killer ran loose, the brother of one of the victims attacked one of my clients.”

My eyes go wide. My God.

“I’m aware that this is not my normal territory,” Reid says, “but I made an exception and we both know that’s not to your benefit.” He laughs. “You’re kidding, right? Try three times that much. And for the record, my fee is being donated to the families of the victims, right along with my client’s settlement. It would look pretty low for you to be cheap since you already look like scum.” He gives a brutal laugh this time. “You’d better make this worth my time.” He disconnects and looks at me. “We’ll continue later.” He stands up and shuts his computer. “I’ll be back in time for the meeting.”

With that, he walks to his desk and grabs his briefcase. I stand and pick up my things. Right when I would exit, his hand is back on the door, his big body behind mine. “Turn around.”

I do it. I don’t know why, but I just do it, and suddenly I’m suffocating in this man, in the scent of him, the size of him. The power of him. “I know your story better than you do and that’s a problem,” he says. “You weren’t wrong. The Japan deal wasn’t, and isn’t, something you want on your books. Figure out why and you might be ready to run this place.”

“What does that mean?”

“Open the door, go to your office, and figure it out, because you’re only as good as that answer.”

“Or the private eye you hired.”

“I hired,” he says. “I hired. Think about that. I got answers.”

“Then you want me to hire yet another private eye?”

“The answers you need aren’t hard to find. Find it. While I’m gone, what are you going to say to the staff?”

“Nothing until the meeting.”

“That won’t work. What are you going to say? What will you say if someone asks why I’m in your father’s office?”

“I’ll tell them we’ll explain in the meeting.” He stares at me, waiting for another answer. “My father retired,” I say. “You’re here to offer valuable counsel in his absence that will be discussed in the meeting tonight.”

“Good. What else?”

“You’re the new CEO.”

“Acting CEO and don’t say that until we talk to them together.”

“Why? Isn’t that what you want? Power?”

“I have it,” he says. “I don’t need to flaunt a title that will ultimately be yours.”

“They’ll know. You said that.”

“And we’ll handle that tonight, in the meeting, in an appropriate way. What else are you going to say when I’m gone?”

This man is confusing. So very confusing. “Nothing. I will say nothing. I’ll talk around everything else.”

“Wrong answer. What else?” he demands, his gaze lowering to my mouth and lifting. “What do I want to hear?”

I’m not sure where or how our conversations slid between personal and professional, but I say what I know he wants me to say. “I’m with you, Reid.”

“That’s right, Carrie. You’re with me. Don’t forget it. And in case that conversation you heard with the DA makes you think that I’m a good guy deep down inside, I’m not. Do not let me find out that you’re plotting against me. You will fail and force me to hurt you and hurt you badly. Now turn and leave before I don’t let you.” And with that loaded comment, he pushes off the door.

I don’t even think about leaving. I fight back. “It never crossed my mind that you were a good guy, Reid. You’re the kind of man a woman gets naked with and then if she’s smart, she walks away before she gets burned. I can’t walk away, and just to be clear, as you like to be clear, professionally, I’m with you, but I don’t intend to fuck you or get fucked, in any sense of the word.”

I turn away from him, and his hand comes back down on the door. He leans close, and this time, his hand settles on my waist, branding me, flooding my body and mind with memories of all the places he’s touched me and kissed me. “But you’ll want to,” he says, his breath a warm fan on my neck, “and that could become a problem for both of us. And we both know where that leads.” With that double entendre, he releases me and this time, I exit his office, walking rapidly toward my own with him watching my every step. I feel like a prey and he’s the hunter, and it’s eternal hours that are mere seconds before I am finally over the threshold of my own personal space, and shutting the door. I fall against the wooden surface, trying to catch my breath, and damn Reid Maxwell, I’m wet and hot, and I can still feel his hands on my body. Which is exactly what he wanted.

If I’m not careful I’m going to end up naked with that man and this time, I have no doubt, I’m the one who’ll end up at his mercy. Who am I kidding? I’m already at his mercy.