Page 41 of Owen North

Fuck, I like this with her too much.

We’re interrupted when Jill joins us and snaps, “I need a minute of your precious time, Owen. In my office.” She doesn’t wait for my response; she simply turns and stalks from the break room toward her office.

Christ, it looks like Jill’s mood has not improved since yesterday.

I meet Charlize’s gaze again. “We need to talk. Later.”

“I’m sure you’ll email when you’re ready to start bossing me around.”

She has no idea just how much I want to boss her around.

I throw all good judgment out the window and bend my mouth to her ear again. “I only boss people around when I want something as much as I want you.”

I’m rewarded with her hand to my chest as she steadies herself. And a flash of heat in her eyes that will keep me going for hours until I can find a way to see her again.

With that, I take my coffee and head to Jill’s office, my mind in overdrive about Charlize the entire way there.

I struggled to stop thinking about her yesterday and last night. Hell, I’ve barely stopped thinking about her since I met her. I need to find a way to focus today. Jill and I have an interview with a journalist fromThe New York Timeslater today. It’s an interview that will help me with the Bluestone Award if it goes well. The fact Jill will be sitting in on it means I need to give it all my concentration. Thinking about Charlize will be a distraction I can’t afford.

“What’s up?” I ask after I step into Jill’s office.

She stops scrolling her phone and looks at me. “I had to shift some meetings around today, so I’ve moved our interview to ten this morning. I hope that works for you.”

That doesn’t work for me and she’s more than aware of that fact. I never schedule anything before eleven. All my time before then is dedicated to monitoring the markets and working with my leadership team.

“It doesn’t,” I say. “You’ll have to reschedule it.”

She presses her lips together. “I’m not rescheduling it, Owen. My time is just as important as yours, and I don’t have a spare minute this week.”

“I never said your time isn’t as important.” Fuck, she likes to try and put words in my mouth that were never anywhere near it.

“You didn’t need to. Your actions convey it.”

I exhale a long breath. “Is this how we’re going to play every day now?”

“I was not the one who started this. Just remember that every time you want to throw blame my way.”

“Jesus, Jill. You’re talking like we’re in the middle of a war.”

She gives me a long, pointed look. “Possibly because we are.”

Jill was not happy with the conversation I forced her to have during our meeting with Julian yesterday. The conversation about whether she’s sleeping with the staff. She neither confirmed nor denied the rumors Julian has heard. Instead, she fumed over the fact I’d dared to ask her about it. We didn’t resolve anything, but I made it clear that if her actions come back to bite us in the ass, I won’t hesitate to make changes to the way we run the company together.

For the first time, I wonder if my mother and brother were right when they encouraged me to find a way to pay Jill out and remove her from the company.

A text comes through on my phone and I quickly check it.

Julian: Where are you? The shit has hit the fan.

I look at Jill. “I can’t make that time. If you can’t reschedule to sometime after lunch today, shift it to next week.”

I stalk to my office as my temper flares.

It’ll be a fucking miracle if Jill and I don’t end up in outright battle soon. My patience with her has never been as low.

* * *

I spendhours with Julian and some other members of our leadership team in an emergency meeting to strategize a change we need to make to a Manhattan property investment we’ve been working on for six months. The entire investment turned bad this morning after an announcement from the New York governor that she’s no longer proceeding with a planned project in Manhattan that was the reason we pursued our initial strategy.

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