Page 20 of Between the Lines

It should be able to. What’s a snub, after all? So she didn’t want more than just one night. There have been times in my life when I haven’t, either. Nothing personal.

Except, as first times go, the sex had been fucking amazing. I had a feeling that it would only get better if we got to know each other more. Had seen in her eyes that there were secrets to uncover…

Okay. Maybe my pride was stung.

And the effects have continued for weeks since the night in Utah. My thoughts had returned to her regularly, and more than once with a tinge of bitterness. Clearly, I’d played my cards damn wrong if she felt the need to give me a fake number.

And now I’ll have to spend time with her every single week.

It was spiteful of me to tell her I preferred communication via email. But I’d been pissed, sitting there and seeing her looking at me—notebook in hand, eyes serious and wide on mine—like she was fully throwing herself into thisprofessionalconduct.

She wouldn’t give me her number… I wouldn’t give her mine.

Spite. Pride. They are emotions I hate in myself. Emotions that had been my father’s downfall. But here I am, prone to them anyway.

My childhood had been idyllic, by all conventional standards. Privileged. A multimillion-dollar house in Brentwood, and laterin Malibu. Two dogs, private school, plenty of friends, sports. A little sister.

It was almost embarrassing how good it was, looking back.

Even with the cracks that were there. Barely visible to a child, but obvious to an adult in hindsight. Raised voices behind a bedroom door. Arguments that were brushed under the rug. Holidays where Dad showed up late. Where Mom put on a brave face. My grandmother’s harsh words about my father.

I was twenty-nine when the news first hit. Front page. The company my grandparents had built and that my father took over, was in the news. And not in the best of ways.

Under the worst of circumstances, to be honest.

And I was too stupid and too ambition-driven to let it be sold to the highest bidder. I’d stepped in as the CEO two years ago, after the majority of the company’s Board was forcibly changed, and everyone thought I was about to fail.

Including me.

A company with perfect financial books was now in ruins. Parts had to be sold off. People let go. At the same time, my father was in custody and awaiting trial.

The fall of the golden family.

That had been one headline, published in a small magazine read by a cultural elite, but I’d never been able to shake the accuracy of that statement.

It’s been two years since that day, and I don’t want to relive that time. But Charlotte is going to force me to.

There’s a sharp knock on my door. I turn in my chair, but the door opens before I have a chance to speak a single word.

Ah.

A blonde woman comes waltzing in. She has honey highlights in her hair, new since the last time I saw her, and a wide smile on her face.

She practically bounces through the space.

“You look happy,” I tell her. “And you should have called first.”

Mandy waves that away. “Of course not, I’m always welcome. You were the one who told me that.”

“Can I rescind it?”

“No.” She bends to swiftly kiss my cheek, her red bag bumping against some papers on my desk. It just barely misses the coffee mug. “You look like you’re in a mood. What’s happened?”

“What hasn’t happened?” I ask. “Every day, another fire.”

“Yes, yes, being the CEO is very hard,” she says and sinks onto the chair facing my desk. “But this is more than that. Did you get smacked in the head by your surfboard this morning?”

I level my sister with a withering glare. “I don’t have time to surf anymore.”

---