Page 63 of Reckoning

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

I followed him to the car, keeping a good distance back so that he had to pause and look over his shoulder a couple of times to make sure I was following. “Do I get to eat?”

“I already did. Get a granola bar if you’re hungry. You snooze, you lose.”

I grumbled as I snagged a bar and then joined him in the garage, where he opened my door for me despite my glare. We rode to the office in silence, me doing my best to drop granola crumbs all over his precious car and him sipping his coffee silently while weaving in and out of traffic. If they weren’t moving fast enough for him, he simply pulled onto the shoulder and drove along until he found another place to slip in. At one point, we passed a police car, and I braced, expecting sirens and lights, but there was no movement behind us. When I looked at Meyer, he was smirking.

“Seriously? Even the beat cops?”

“Even the beat cops.” He looked far too proud of himself. It made me sick to my stomach.

At his office, he mostly ignored me. His pretty assistant tried to introduce herself to me, but he barked at her to cancel whatever meetings she could and hold his calls. By lunchtime, I was going out of my mind, only able to amuse myself for so long with random tours around his office.

“I want to go out to lunch,” I announced, hoping I sounded authoritative.

“No.” He didn’t even look up from his computer.

“There’s a restaurant—”

“I said no.” Finally, he looked at me, eyes flitting over my form before coming to my face. “We’ll have something brought in here. That’s what I always do.”

“I’m going mad in here. I need something to do.”

The door opened behind us, and I jumped back. Meyer was out of his chair and around the desk with his arm in front of me before we realized it was a young man and not Conrad stepping through the door.

“Whoa,” he said, seeing Meyer’s wide defensive stance. “Did I interrupt something?”

Meyer relaxed and let his arm drop, stepping back to stand beside me. “You didn’t knock.”

“I never do.” He smiled and waved me. “Hi, Madeline.”

“Who is this?” I whispered to Meyer, but the office wasn’t so large that the man certainly didn’t hear what I was saying.

“I’m Shawn.” He stepped toward me with his hand outstretched. “We met a couple of weeks ago at that charity auction, but you were pretty plastered.” As he turned to Meyer, his smile grew wider. “I heard you ended up with a horse.”

“Much to my dismay,” Meyer affirmed. One of his hands dropped to the small of my back, and I leaned into him slightly before I remembered I was mad at him. I took a step toward Shawn and smiled wide.

“We’re just about to go to lunch. Would you like to join us?”

“Sure!” Shawn exclaimed at the same time Meyer interjected, “The hell we are.”

Meyer continued at the confused look on Shawn’s face, “We’re eating in. Tell Jessica to order some steak.”

Shawn rubbed his hands together with excitement. “Hell, yeah. Friday afternoon steak!”

The food arrived twenty minutes later, and the tension on Meyer’s jaw eased the more he spoke with his friend. By the way that Shawn repeatedly clapped him on the shoulder or leaned toward him suddenly when he got excited, I guessed he wasn’t aware of the dynamic between Meyer and his father. Meyer hid his flinches well, but his fingers twitched into a fist every time Shawn touched him.

I was sitting next to Meyer at a small table Jessica had brought in with the food, and I set down my knife to let my left hand drop out of sight. Meyer put his hand on the arm of his chair, and I linked my fingertips loosely with his. He looked at me briefly before resuming his conversation with Shawn.

“…so you’ll definitely want to be there. We tasted some of the desserts last night. It’s going to be a great party.”

My fingers fell from Meyer’s as I shook myself out of my daydream. “Wait, what party?”

“The one he’s been talking about for the past fifteen minutes,” Meyer said, giving me the side-eye. “Was your steak that good?”

His foot hooked around mine beneath the table and pulled my leg against his. I bit my lip to try to control the flush in my cheeks. “I guess I’m just a little out of it.”

“Well, get it together for tomorrow. Should be a hell of a night.” Shawn looked back at Meyer. “I invited your sister.”

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