Page 51 of The Secret

“God, I love her. I need a PA like that,” groaned Penn, as he reached for his coffee, ignoring her order to get his feet off the furniture and remaining prostrate. He did compromise by kicking off his fifteen hundred dollar, Italian leather shoes though.

I got up and sat in the chair opposite them. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I’m hiding from my mother and Pennington is bored, as per.” Rafe reached for his coffee at the same time I did.

“Bored from my board meeting, more like. Fuck knows what’s going on,” he grumbled before shooting to sit upright. “I have a year left before I take control, and my grandfather announced he’s changing the terms of the trust. I don’t know why they don’t give it to Nancy, as she clearly wants the job.”

As the only son in the family, with four older sisters, including Nancy, Penn had been primed to take over his grandfather’s conglomerate – a sprawling global entity combined of some of the world’s largest businesses across real estate, healthcare, casinos, multi-media, and tech - since he was seven years old. You name it, they owned it. To say he didn’t want the job would be an understatement. Because by rule, the job belonged to his beloved father, the rightful heir, but it had passed to Penn by default following his father’s death when Penn had been little.

“Yeah, you’ll clearly run it into the ground,” offered Rafe supportively.

Except we all knew that was blatantly untrue because Penn was genius-level smart. The mid-term he’d failed had been down to him being so hungover he’d forgotten to turn up. This was mostly because it was too easy and he knew that he’d get one hundred percent, so he’d figured why bother getting up early to prove it. The fact that he was right did not appease any of his professors.

But, his moral compass was cemented in place, pointing directly to his strong sense of duty, and he would run the company better than well.

“Right.” He raised his coffee cup to Rafe. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I tipped my chin up at him. “And why are you hiding from your mother?”

“She wants me to help her with a divorce or something?”

My mouth dropped open. “She’s divorcing Chip?”

Rafe’s parents collected divorces like Tom Brady collected Superbowl rings. They had gotten divorced when he was a young teenager, for the second time. They’d divorced for the first time after his sister was born, then remarried, had him and his younger brother, Rory, then divorced again. They’d subsequently both been through another three marriages and divorces. Chip was his mother’s latest husband and we were all of the opinion he was a sticker, because while he was the most boring and sensible man we’d ever met, he absolutely adored her and treated her like a queen, which we all appreciated.

He shook his head. “No, it’s her friend getting divorced and she wants me to represent her.”

“Why don’t you want to?”

“Because of all the above. It’s a divorce case. Anyone could do it, and it’s cut and dry. She doesn’t need me to do it.” He rested back with a shrug. “Anyway, why are you in the office?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you here and not at home with Kit?”

I frowned at him. “You came here. I work here. If you didn’t think I’d be here, why did you come here?”

“Hunch,” he smirked and waved his phone, which actually meant he’d tracked me.

I sighed. “I can’t work at home.”

A slow, insolent grin started forming on his lips. “Why can't you work at home?”

“Because Kit’s there. She made croissants from scratch this morning.”

Penn put his cup down dramatically. “Fuck playing, let’s go back to yours. I want croissants.”

“Nooo,” I groaned.

Rafe’s eyes opened wide and concentrated directly on me. It was a gaze that had many of his courtroom opponents breaking into a cold sweat, but I used to see him practice it in the mirror, so its intimidating qualities were lost on me. “Oh fucking hell. You’ve had sex with her.”

I coughed through my inhale. “What? No, I mean…”

“Fuck. I owe Penn a hundred grand now.”

I almost jumped out of my chair. “WHAT?! A hundred fucking grand?! You bet a hundred grand on me having sex with Kit?”

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