Page 46 of Inevitable Inheritance

“I just need a minute,” he said. Taylor noticed his body was shaking a little. To her it felt like the quake of unfulfillment she had raging through her. Guilt flooded her.

Derrick slid his body across Taylor and plastered himself to an empty space of the pool wall just to her right. Putting his elbows on the pool edge, Derrick dropped his head into his hands. He looked awful.

“Derrick, should I—”

“Go get dried off, Tay. I’m fine,” he groaned. “I just need a minute.”

The heavy weight Taylor had on her shoulders was even worse now than before. “I’m sorry Derrick, I just don’t—”

“Taylor, go,” he barked at her.

“Okay,” Taylor whispered and made her way from the pool as quickly as she could. She worried about leaving him in the pool as she grabbed a towel brought by one of the Fletcher ninja staff. But as she walked away, she remembered that the giant blue balls she left him with would keep him afloat.

* * *

Derrick torturedhimself a little more as he watched Taylor walk away. He groaned in sweet agony as his balls twitched, waiting for the release they had been promised but not received. The cold water he was currently submerged in was doing nothing to settle them.

“What the fuck?” he muttered as he rewound what had just happened. He’d made sure she was on board this time, he freakingaskedher specifically! As he went over it again and again, he made no headway in getting to the root of the problem, but he did make his balls increasingly sore from replaying it all.

Pushing away from the wall with a grunt, Derrick slogged up the pool steps and walked over to the pool house. Apparently the hand job he had given himself this morning wasn’t his last one for the day.

Chapter Ten

Taylor had somany decisions to make ahead of her, but the thing that was weighing the heaviest on her mind was what the hell she was doing with Derrick. Their situation was complicated, and she wasn’t sure how to begin to make it more clear-cut. The whole fake engagement thing really blurred the lines. She was making her way down the long corridor, trying not to remember what she had just walked away from—because she wasn’t sure if she was happy, sad, or angry to leave it behind—when Marty came from out of nowhere and grabbed her.

“Come with me!” she said excitedly, jumping up and down while holding Taylor’s arms, and then pulled her down the hall to Marty’s room. Taylor noticed two house staff members were making their way up the stairs, weighed down with multiple designer labeled bags. Taylor looked at Marty, mouth hanging open.

“I just couldn’t help myself,” Marty answered.

“Maybe I should dry off first,” Taylor said, trying to pull away.

“You can do that in my room!” Marty squealed.

About two hours and a zillion power outfits later, Taylor was inthesuit. They had tried on light and dark, pants, skirts and dresses, and finally they found one. It fit Taylor perfectly, and when she turned to see herself in the mirror, she literally had to blink to realize it was her. They had gone through tons of different styles along the way. The skirt they settled on was tightly fitted, the shirt was a sleeveless blouse that was encased within the high waist of the skirt, and it had simple ruffling around the center buttons. The skirt was gray, the shirt was plum, and the whole thing made Taylor feel powerful. At first Taylor had said she was worried wearing a skirt would be a bad idea, that pants would be a more powerful choice, but this skirt communicated power and commanded attention. Or maybe it was the way Taylor wore it and how she felt in it, because she certainly felt powerful.

Marty flitted around, picking up this jacket and that bag, and finally came over with a large black-handled bag and a gray tufted-waist blazer. “Okay, so I know you aren’t really comfy in heels, so these flats …”

“No, I need heels,” Taylor cut Marty off with her words but never took her eyes off herself in the mirror. She had never in her life worn anything that made her feel so grown up, powerful, and, well, sexy.

Marty looked up at Taylor’s quick reaction, and her eyes widened. “Whoa,” she said softly, her eyes also glued to the mirror. “Oh yeah, you need the Louboutins,” she said, turning and throwing herself back into the bag mountain until she came up victorious with yet another bag.

“Lou who?” Taylor asked.

Marty let out an exasperated sigh for the umpteenth time since she and Taylor had been together. Taylor’s lack of fashion knowledge was both upsetting and irritating to Marty, and she made sure that was all very clear to Taylor. “Damn it, Taylor, where the hell were you? They haven’t heard of Louboutin on the East Coast? Only one of the most fabulous shoe designers ever to exist!”

The shoes that came out of the bag looked like just ordinary black heels with a pointed toe. The sole of the shoe was a brilliant red, but Taylor was thinking they didn’t look very amazing. They just looked like they were going to hurt.

And then she put them on.

The shoes were like pillows on her feet, and Taylor was certain angels sang around her as her feet thanked her for giving them such a wonderful gift. Taylor was feeling pretty awesome before, but the shoes completed the whole thing, making her feel outrageously fantastically supercalifragilistically awesome.

Marty stood up from Taylor’s feet and smooth and primped her way to standing and then looked in the mirror again beside Taylor. “Oh fuck yeah,” she said and then broke out into a grin and clapped her hands. “You not only show power, you command it in this outfit,” she said, confirming Taylor’s own thoughts. “Crazy how you were so set on pants and flats, and the complete opposite is what was perfect,” she said, laughing.

Taylor was nodding along but was still transfixed by her reflection because the person looking back at her was not the girl she felt herself to be. The person staring back wasn’t a girl at all but a woman, a woman who possessed power and was confident to use it. A woman who knew that she held Preston Corp. and its future in her hands and was able to handle it with just her pinky.

“You are going to slide into that new whole president of Preston with no issue looking like this,” Marty said. “Now jewelry …”

Suddenly the door to the room sprang open and Derrick sauntered in, eyes glued to his phone. “Are you guys almost done? I am frigging starving—” Derrick stopped mid-sentence, dropped his phone to the antique Persian beneath his feet, and allowed his eyes to shamelessly trace their way up Taylor.

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