Page 7 of Vicious Arrangement
Which means her disappearing was probably for the best. I don’t need connections and I avoid them when looking for a hookup.
Connections bring complications, girls thinking there’s more there than just sex.
“Fuck, Noah, leave it. She’s another missed spark, that’s it.”
It’s not until I get up to get a coffee, sans whiskey, that my phone buzzes.
Fuck.
It’s from Leonard, Leonard and Bore. Aka the company’s head lawyer, and my grandfather’s old friend, one of the more genuine people who was at the funeral.
I look at the text.
Peter:Time is money, Noah. We have a meeting and you’re late. Be here in five minutes. At my firm.
“Well, who knew the old fart knew how to text?”
Screw that. He answers to me now, not the other way around. I’m not even fucking late, I will be when I get there, but as of now, I’d be ten minutes early.
Bitterness fills my mouth as my throat closes. How like my fucking grandfather to insist anything other than fifteen minutes early is late.
I take my time getting there, and when I do rock up at Leonard, Barkley and Rose, his receptionist flutters her eyelashes at me while looking embarrassed and apologetic.
“If you’ll wait, Mr. Templeton, I’ll let him know.”
She gets up, her auburn hair pinned up, and a pencil skirt showing off her assets, just like her white, button-down shirt does at the front. For a moment I wonder if they’re doing thenasty, but I dismiss it. He’s gotta be sixty, and she’s about thirty and wearing an engagement ring.
I enjoy that view, though, and then follow her in because I’m not waiting.
His office is wood-paneled and has a hint of art deco about it. Perfectly staid for a corporate lawyer who mostly deals with us and our holdings. But honestly, I don’t care about Peter and his office. He’s nice enough, I guess, but we’re not buddies.
Peter sits back in his leather chair, and frowns at me from behind his thick-rimmed glasses and smooths a hand down his tie.
If displeasure could be handed down as a gift, I’d almost believe Grandfather handed his to Peter.
“Pete,” I say, and offer him my most charming smile.
His eyes form narrower slits. “Insubordination is a little juvenile, don’t you think? You’re CEO, not a wild teen.”
“Maybe I don’t like being dragged in first thing in the morning.”
“You’re usually at the office by seven, when you bother to show. Which needs to stop.”
“Showing up or being there by seven?”
He slams his hand on his neat desk. “Enough, Noah. You need to act like CEO, not a rich… what’s the word? Fuck boy?”
“That sounds so wrong coming from your mouth,” I say, pulling up a chair and sitting in it. “I was late because?—”
“You got drunk, again.” He tosses me his phone, and I don’t pick it up. I don’t need to. It’s a gossip site, and I’m there, drunk, wetcrotch, looking like I pissed myself when all I’m doing is getting an Uber home.
“I buried my grandfather.”
“In a bar?” He looks spectacularly unimpressed. “Listen to me, and this is me and not words from beyond the grave, though, I do have them, if you’re interested. Oscar had a lot of things to say to me in the days before his death. Many of them about you.”
It doesn’t hurt. Not at all. Not one bit.
Because who else would Grandfather speak to? Me?
