Page 36 of Hooking Up With My Dad's Hot Best Friend

I'm not at all thrilled to be here today. But, for the sake of keeping a secret, I have to show up and give her the best promo of a lifetime. If it weren’t for me not wanting to hurt my best friend, I'd tell Heiress to go back to the pits of hell where she came from.

“How are you today?” she asks, looking at me with a smirk.

“I’m fine.” I say, loosening my jacket as I sit down. “We’re here to work. So, let's get this show on the road.”

Felicia senses the attitude in my tone and gently places a hand on my wrist to cool me off. Heiress notices and I quickly pull away, so she doesn’t feel the need to call it out. But it’s too late. She's got that greedy look of confirmation in her eyes.

“A woman who knows how to keep things orderly,” she smiles at Felicia. “My kind of girl. Marc here can be a bit of a stinker sometimes, can’t he?”

“Yes.” Felicia smiles politely. “Things have been pretty tense at the office lately. I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly today and the pressure he feels in New York doesn’t shine through our work here. It's easy to crossfade and taint new ideas with old and stale energy.”

I'm so impressed by Felicia’s ability to control the room that I want to kiss her. I hold back though. Heiress already knows what we’re doing here, and I don’t want to entangle our work with her pleasure to out us any more than it already has.

“Marc,” Heiress says to me while looking straight at Felicia. “I thought business and pleasure wasn’t something you wanted to mix.”

A lump so large grows in my throat I almost choke on my own breath. I didn’t come all the way from New York to Washington to talk about this again. I especially don’t want Heiress to say anything about what she and I had going on before Felicia and me. That will make me look like a womanizer and I'm not that.

“It isn’t,” I say. “We’re here to start this commercial for you. So, what are you getting at?”

“What am I getting at?” she chuckles. “I see you’re still sticking to this story you two have made up, huh? There are two things I really despise, Marc. That's a liar, and someone who thinks I'm blind or stupid. And you seem to be both.”

My jaw clenches with each word she spews. I'm ready to stand up, walk out of here and say fuck her and this commercial. But my hands are tied. I have to wait until she speaks outright instead of in riddles before I make my next move. Otherwise, I'll only be giving her more confirmation.

“I’m sorry, have I missed something here?” Felicia frowns in confusion.

“Are we doing this commercial or not?” I cut her short before Heiress gives her an answer. “I didn’t come all the way to Washington to be badgered about what you think is going on in my personal life. I came here to give you exactly what you wanted. If you don’t want it anymore, I can take my business elsewhere.”

Heiress looks at Felicia with the most envious eyes and smirk. It's clear as day she isn’t happy with either of us, while Felicia seems to be caught in the dark with all of this. Of course, she knows Heiress knows our secret, but she doesn't know why it’s bothering her as much as it is, and I'd like to keep it that way.

“You know what.” Heiress stands and walks over to the middle of her office. “I don’t think this is a good fit for any of us. I don’t like to do business with anyone who can’t be honest about who they are. And I certainly don’t like to do business with a man who sleeps around with every woman he works with. It's not good for my image.”

“Oh, that’s a stretch!” I jump to my feet angrily. “My personal life has nothing to do with my business. Everything I do, I do it with one hundred percent integrity. None of it ever affects my work. You just can’t let go of the past and see past your own nonsense. If my memory serves me correctly, you were the one who broke things off with me!”

“You’re right,” she chuckles calmly and walks over to open her office door. “I did break things off with you. And now, I'm doing it again. Have a nice day you two.”

I march toward the door and Felicia follows after me. I'm sure she has questions of her own right now, but I'm much too floored to answer any of them. Too embarrassed as well. She's more than likely put two and two together by now, considering the way Heiress just kicked us out of her office.

“What the hell was that all about?” she asks, speed walking to catch up with me. “Were you two dating? Did I come in between you two and that’s why she’s upset?”

“No,” I say. “I mean, yes. We were. But it was long before you ever came into my life. I don’t even understand why it’s such a problem to her. We haven't dated for two years, and she was the one who broke up with me.”

It's quiet between us now that we're in the elevator. I can’t believe this is all happening right now. Not only that, but I'm fearful again that Heiress will come clean to Jeppie before Felicia, and I have a chance to.

“This was a complete waste of time,” I say. “We came all this way for nothing. I should have canceled our deal the first time she brought this up.”

I feel anxious. I feel like Felicia will be just as pissed as Heiress is and give me shit about not telling her about my relationship with Heiress beforehand. Surprisingly, she isn't angry at all. Not at me, anyway. She's more thrilled than anything.

“This has been an eventful meeting,” she says. “I never thought I'd be in the middle of some weird ass love triangle. I guess this is something I can write in my diary to leave behind with my legacy.”

She's such a good sport. I shake my head and laugh at how awesome she is at making the best of a shitty situation. She's a lot like her father in a lot of ways. Although I love those traits and qualities about both of them, it makes me feel all the more guilty.

“Are we flying back right away?” she asks, as we get into our truck.

“We can’t,” I sigh. “We have to wait until the air is clear and the pilot has the go ahead to take off. Since we aren’t on schedule anymore, we’ll have to find something to do to kill time while we wait.”

“Cool.” She grins. “There’s a place I'd like to go before we fly back. It's this tiny little aquarium near the bay. I've always wanted to go and just never found the time. Now that we have time., we should go. It might even make you feel better about all of this.”

And just like that, my anger subsides, and I feel lighter.

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