Page 17 of Silas's Sweetheart

Silas kept all the amusement out of his voice as he agreed, just as the door opened and Laken came back in with a miserable-looking Isley and blank faced Ziggy. He didn’t look at Silas as he took the seat Laken directed him to. In the room's corner, Silas had a small table with a corner sofa, and he swallowed a groan of complaint about how close he’d end up being to Ziggy.

“Give me five minutes to call the wife and I’ll ring through on your direct line. Can you give me a ballpark as to how many haulage trucks I’ll need?”

Silas looked at Laken. “Forty.”

Martin sighed heavily. “It couldn’t have been ten, fuck no.” Another sigh, this one weightier. “I’ll ring you back.”

“Do you think he’ll come through for us?” Laken asked, sitting next to Isley, who looked absolutely tiny next to him. Isley was a sugar glider, whom Silas had once seen in his animal form. He barely filled the palm of a hand, even a small one.

Silas kept his gaze away from Ziggy, ignoring the fact that the only remaining seat was next to him. “He will if he can. It’s short notice and I know he does business with several other large companies.”

He didn’t sigh even though he wanted to. Grabbing his laptop, he unplugged it and carried it over to where the others sat, seeing no way to avoid it. After a brief pause, and making sure to breathe through his mouth, he perched on the edge of the sofa. He placed his laptop on his knees, hunching over it to make himself as small as possible.

“Are you up to speed with Hales’ contracts?” Laken asked aloud, clearly aiming the question at Ziggy.

Silas winced internally at how his avoidance with Ziggy meant the answer was…

“Yes, I’ve gone through all the companies that Silas has direct contact with to familiarize myself with clauses and penalties. I’ve listed them in a spreadsheet,”—his fingers flew over his iPad—"putting in the orders, delivery time scales and cross-referenced it with…”

Silas’s mouth dropped open as he listened to the man who, so far, he’d only seen as a sex object because he wasan idiot.

Laken nodded and Isley tapped at his iPad, interjecting, “You could add in the date ends for some of those contracts. There are several due for renewal and Ven’s was one of them.”

Laken’s eyes narrowed to slits, just the hint of a glint as he shifted his attention to Isley. “You never mentioned that to me.” His voice was as hard as granite.

Isley blushed bright pink as he cast his gaze down toward the floor. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Stop being an asshole,” Silas muttered to his brother. “Great, thank you Isley, that makes good sense.”

The phone rang once more, pulling Silas to his feet and back to his desk, having left his laptop on the seat.

“What’s the news?” he asked, his attention not fully on the call but on Ziggy, who gave him a look that suggested he’d done something to piss him off, his lip curling into an unpleasant sneer.

“Best I can manage is thirty-five trucks, but they can go wherever you want, starting tonight, to collect the stock. Does that work?”

“You’re a lifesaver and a damn miracle worker.”

“You haven’t heard what it’s gonna cost yet!”

“We’ll suck it up.” The words brought a wicked heat to his groin as they left his mouth, recalling Ziggy’s demand that he ‘suck it up’. The reference had been to his own cum that he’d sprayed all over Ziggy’s chest and neck.

Christ, was he ever gonna catch a break? Could the others smell the scent of his lust?

“Silas? Silas, you still there?” Martin snapped. “I ain’t got all night, so if you could give me the information this century, that would be great.”

Laken barked out a laugh. “You’re blushing. What’s this?”

Silas lifted his middle finger at Laken, glad to have a distraction. “Send me the contract and costs. I’ll get my PA to email over all the details.”

Chapter Six

Ziggy

Ziggy twisted his head side to side to release the tension that came from sitting next to Silas who, for the most part, did his best to put as much distance between them. After the initial shock of Laken coming to ask him to go to Silas’s office, Ziggy had blocked most, if not all, of his concerns about being in the office with Silas while the others were present.

Ziggy could act professional, and he’d damn well proved it over the last three hours while they’d worked to fix the issue. Coordinating the drivers to the places they needed to go to ensure that by Monday, at the latest, Hales would have the stock promised to them was like a jigsaw puzzle. They needed to ensure the best usage of the trucks to minimize cost and travel time.

All the while, Ziggy pretended Silas hadn’t shut him out after snakegate.It was how Ziggy now referred to what had happened, with how Silas made sure they were never alone together. Endless lists of tasks emailed to him had kept Ziggyglued to his own desk, working long into the night. The avoiding game that had abruptly come to an end just as Ziggy was preparing to finish for the day gave him an opportunity to address what was going on between him and Silas. Because in no universe was it the adult thing to hide from the disaster.

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