Page 29 of Secret Babies For My Brother's Best Friend

“No, the other Miranda West,” I barked in irritation. “What other Miranda West do you know? Of course, the one from the Prior account.”

I killed the call and spun my desk chair around so I could go back to facing the slowly waking city below me. There was no reason Scarlett’s words should plague me the way they had been. No other reason than the obvious.

That what I felt for her went beyond the physical. I cared what she thought of me. And if it was hate in this moment, then I was determined to do whatever it took to turn that around.

***

“With all due respect, Mr. Moretti, I think we need Accounts in on this.” Hank nervously fidgeted with his badly worn iPad cover. The leather was fraying at the corners, and he’d been picking at one of them since sitting down.

“Accounts answer to me, Hank. I’m the account, I’m where the money comes from, and I say we move ahead.” I leaned back in my armchair and brought my ankle up to rest on my opposite knee.

Hank and Miranda were seated on the sofa opposite me, the same one where Scarlett had laid into me just a few hours before. They’d listened to my proposal in silence from start to finish, and only then had Hank chosen to speak up. My annoyance went up a few levels at his decision to begin by questioning my decision.

“According to this article, twenty-seven people were let go,” Hank said then, turning his iPad screen toward me.

I didn’t bother to look. Numbers didn’t matter to me. Not where this was concerned.

“Miranda, how fast can you shuffle your team?” I asked, hoping that my indifference would shut Hank up once and for all.

Miranda took a breath and scrolled through her own device. After a moment, she looked up at me, nudging her black-rimmed glasses up her nose.

“It’s my recommendation that we keep the team in place on Prior,” she began. When I opened my mouth to argue, she quickly added, “I would much rather place the new intake on Chord’s Genesis launch.”

My incoming argument broke down as I considered her words, and I shifted gears. “Now that’s input I can work with.” I made eye contact with Hank, and he shrunk under my gaze. “Genesis has room for all twenty-seven?”

Miranda nodded, going back to her screen. Without looking up, she said, “We’re in storming phase, so it’ll help to get them in from the ground up. Developers, designers, marketing… all of them.”

“Genesis will be Chord’s first new product launch in two years,” Hank said, his uncertainty very clear in his tone and also the absolute tension of his shoulders. “All eyes will be on Chord for the duration of our—”

“Stop sniveling and draw up the contracts,” I cut him off. “I want every single staff member of Daze employed by the end of today. Miranda, you’ll get them on board the new project?”

She nodded stiffly and stood up. “Will that be all?”

I smiled my first real smile of the day. “Thank you,” I said as she left.

If I managed to pull off the biggest hire of my career, then surely Scarlett would see that I’m not the monster she made me out to be.

“Due process calls for your seat with Legal before I can sign off on—”

“Hank.” I glared at him, and he jumped to his feet, a little mouse of a man shivering in his cheap loafers.

“Sir, I just mean—”

“Do you think I don’t know how to run my own company?” I asked. “Legal is outside my door as we speak. Now please, I’m this close to seeing how well you float.”

He frowned at me, but when I glanced at the huge window behind my desk, his expression fell into one of utter horror.

“I hired you as a favor to Romanski,” I said then, deciding to remind Hank about his place on the totem pole at Chord. “I’ve never had a problem with your work, but if you continue to question my decisions there will no longer be a place for you here.”

He dropped his head. “Of course, sir. It won’t happen again. I’ll have the contracts drawn up immediately.”

I refilled my glass of Scotch as he left, and not a moment too soon, because Alfred, my head lawyer, pushed his way into my office and slammed the door behind him.

“No team today?” I asked, saluting him with my glass before taking a swig. The amber liquid burned my throat as it went down, and I savored every second of it.

I was ready for whatever anyone wanted to throw at me.

“Just me,” Alfred said, bending over the coffee table to pour himself a glass.

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