Page 13 of Sensual Games

6

IVY

In the history of Mondays, this had to be the Mondayest Monday of them all. It wasn’t bad enough I had a huge meeting scheduled for nine o’clock on the dot or that my stomach was in knots at the idea of Lucian being there with me, hovering, reminding me simply by breathing how good we were together under different circumstances.

My mother had to fall while insisting on getting out of bed on her own. She couldn’t bother waiting for one of the aides to assist her, God forbid. Now she was having x-rays taken, and I could only cross my fingers and pray she hadn’t broken anything.

“Please, keep me posted on her progress,” I urged the nurse who I’d called for an update before heading into work, where I might not be so easy to reach right away.

I had woken up to multiple messages from the nurses’ station asking me to call them back. Usually, they didn’t call so many times in a row, and if there wasn’t a problem, they would make a point of saying that so nobody freaked out.

When I realized they hadn’t, my blood pressure immediately skyrocketed, and I had been on the phone most of the morning by the time I rushed into the spacious lobby, praying I could pull it together in time for the meeting to start in a few minutes. Dammit, I wanted to be early today too.

There hadn’t been enough time to be careful with my hair and makeup as I’d wanted to. I looked professional but not well put together. My reflection in the elevator’s mirrored doors revealed a wide-eyed woman whose hair looked limp, whose normally fair skin was flushed like a tomato. I ran my fingers through my light blonde locks before searching for a clip in my bag, cursing the cruelty of fate. Today of all days.

For some reason, presenting a solid image meant everything today. Who was I kidding? I knew exactly why, and his name was Lucian Diamond. It was bad enough that I’d thought about him all weekend after he pinned me against the desk Friday night. He always found a way to throw me off with his little quips and reminders of how we first met. I couldn’t let him think it was that easy to knock me off balance, even if it totally was.

The list of things I wanted to do before the meeting started was running through my head as I quickstepped my way out of the elevator and down the hall. That list came to a stop when I approached the conference room and found it already full of people. I immediately recognized them as members of my team. Considering they were already chatting and reading something off the screen against the far wall, I could only conclude they started without me. Were we a team, after all?

Instead of going straight to my desk as I had planned, I opened the conference room door and did everything I could not to demand answers. “Hi,” I offered, looking around the room. “Did I miss something? I thought we were supposed to get together at nine.”

Lucian sat at the head of the table, every inch the imposing businessman in his charcoal suit and crisp white shirt. At any other time, I might have considered eating him up with a spoon, looking as delicious as he did.

This was not any other time. I would gladly have used that spoon to carve his eyeballs from his skull because the bastard had obviously sabotaged me. Was he that much of a bitch? Getting back at me for turning him down on Friday night?

“I’m so sorry. Did you not get the memo?” he asked. The son of a bitch had the nerve to tip his head to the side and frown like he was genuinely sorry, which something told me he wasn’t. Maybe it was the way he was trying not to grin while everybody else had their eyes on me. “We had to roll the meeting back half an hour thanks to a conflict with my schedule. Last-minute drama,” he added, shrugging like it was just one of those things and hadn’t deliberately changed the time without telling me.

Even though my insides were boiling, I couldn’t show it. And he knew that. “These things happen,” I said with a sigh as I rounded the table, coming to a stop beside Lucian’s chair. There was no empty chair for me. Another power play. That was all he had to go on.

Tricks and games.

“Here.” Brad, always a gentleman, got up and gave me his chair. I set it down next to Lucian’s at the head of the table while Brad grabbed a chair from the corner for himself. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the way Lucian glared at him.

Did he know he was doing it? Did he know everybody could see?

“So,” I said with a smile, looking around the table. “What did I miss?”

Laney cleared her throat, and the guilty look she wore got me thinking she felt bad for the way things were going. Granted, it’s not like she could have made a difference by texting me. I wouldn’t have gotten here any sooner. No doubt she figured I’d gotten the same alert she had and knew about the change in schedule. “We were discussing various markets and where we should focus on strengthening our presence.”

“I see.” I grabbed a copy of the meeting agenda left on the table and skimmed it quickly. Somebody was a busy boy this weekend. As much as it irked me to know how important it was to him to make me look like an asshole, I did get a little rush of satisfaction when I imagined him burning the midnight oil, trying to make himself seem like a legitimate leader.

Looking away from the notes, I asked him, “And you managed to handle everything in my absence?”

The blank shock that passed over his face quickly vanished, replaced by something harder. “We proceeded with the meeting as planned.”

“But this must be the first meeting you’ve ever led,” I offered with the wide, insincere smile that so clearly set his teeth on edge. It was wrong of me to get such a charge from pissing him off, but it felt too good. So much so, I couldn’t stop, especially considering he tried to sabotage me this morning. “That’s a big deal. I remember the first meeting I ever had to take charge of.”

Before he could respond, I turned my attention to the rest of the room. “Thank you so much for your patience, and I’m sorry for the miscommunication. Let’s pick up where we left off. I would like to hear more about these underserved markets. I’ve already identified a couple on my own, and it would be nice to see what others have identified.”

“Let me bring you up to speed here. We already know that the Midwest and Southwest are the two we’re most interested in expanding deeper into, ideally through our digital platform.” Lucian tapped his pen against his copy of the agenda, quirking an eyebrow at me. “Do you approve?”

Games.

“Of course,” I insisted. If I kept smiling like this, my face would cramp up. “I was thinking along exactly those lines. I pieced together a short presentation, in fact.”

“I’m sure we would all love to see it. Maybe you can send it to us to view at our desks later on.” He made a big deal of checking his watch before grimacing. “I’m afraid we don’t have enough time to set things up now. This was only slated to be a forty-five-minute meeting, and there are still other items we need to address on the agenda.”

I was pretty sure I heard Laney sucking in a breath through her teeth. Good. I wasn’t the only one who saw straight through his bullshit. It was obvious he was doing everything he could to push me aside. “I would be happy to email it to the team,” I offered.

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