Page 12 of Overnight Inheritance

He indicated the chaise, and she perched on the edge, not wanting to get too comfortable. He took a seat at the other end and ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair.

“I’ve cleared as much of this morning as I could, but since we only made this plan on the weekend, I haven’t had a chance to move a meeting with some lawyers. It’s starting—” he checked his watch “—well, about now, but it will be boring as all hell, so Rosario will show you around and introduce you to the staff while I’m there. After that, I have some clear time to take you through a few things.”

Mae narrowed her eyes. Was he trying to have a meeting in secret within minutes of her arrival? “This deal is for shadowing you. I’ll come to the meeting.”

Sebastian regarded her for a minute, then shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Within minutes, Sebastian was ushering her into a large meeting room on another floor. The size of this business and the number of people working at it was impressive. They sat around a long table among a bunch of young, smug and hungry-looking men and women in matching suits—some on the same side as them and some opposite. After jovial handshakes, the meeting was suddenly underway, with all in attendance puffing up as they argued about a subclause in a contract. It was tedious. But worse was the manner in which they were arguing—if this had been her first graders, she would have stopped the meeting and spoken to them about manners, beginning with “Don’t speak over the top of other people, and if you’re going to ask a question, at least wait for the other person to answer.”

After an eternity of listening to them, with an occasional comment from Sebastian, Mae opened her notebook and wrote:They all need to learn constructive listening. And how to compromise.

She slid the notebook to Sebastian, who was sitting beside her. Other people in the room were passing notes, so no one even noticed.

Sebastian read the note and smothered a smile before jumping into the conversation again by asking one of the lawyers a pointed question. A minute later, he scrawled something below her comment with his left hand and slid the notebook back, their hands brushing as he did. The light contact set off butterflies in her stomach.

They don’t get paid to compromise. They get paid to win.

She watched the arguing back and forth for a few more minutes before adding another line.

This is going around and around in circles. Never been so bored.

With barely a reaction, and while seeming to not lose a moment of the lawyers’ conversation, he wrote a reply and then pushed the notebook back to her.

Told you so.

This time it was her turn to squash a smile. And then she sat up straight and made more of an effort to follow the conversation. And not get too distracted by the man beside her.

By lunchtime, Seb was desperate to find his equilibrium. After the meeting with the lawyers, he’d shown Mae an empty office that she could use as her base for the week. It was only a few doors down from his, but it would have given her some territory of her own. She could have taken files in there and had some peace and quiet to read, or had privacy to meet with members of his staff. Instead, she’d banded together with Rosario—when had they become friends?—to find a small, wooden desk and move it into his office.

He stared at it, blinking. Mae had moved the chaise from under the window and put her desk there. In the middle sat a laptop, and neatly aligned to the side was an in tray, and three pens. She and Rosario had talked for a full ten minutes about pens and stationery before she’d made her selections.

From her new swivel office chair, all she had to do was turn her head sideways and she’d see the Manhattan view, but if she looked straight ahead, as she was doing now, she looked at him.

“What’s next?” she asked.

His plan had been to order some lunch in and spend time running through his week with Mae. But having her at that desk, so close, making his breath catch every time he caught sight of her... He swallowed hard and tried to ignore the shiver skittering across his skin. The office was too small, too intimate and he suddenly wanted to be someplace busy, where they weren’t the only two people in the room.

“Lunch,” he said, standing and gathering some pages he needed to show Mae. “There’s a place down the street we can go.”

“Great. I’m still in sightseeing mode, so any chance to see somewhere new is good with me.”

They walked to a nearby upscale restaurant, and Seb firmly told himself that he wasn’t choosing it to impress her, since he occasionally had business meetings there. But he knew he was lying to himself. It had nothing to do with the business they—and their families—had together; it was just him showing off for a woman.

“Here it is,” he said as they reached the tall doors, which were being opened by a man in full uniform.

Mae’s gaze darted around, and then she spied a hippy place over the road. “Can we go there?”

It was a hole-in-the-wall joint that had signs out the front saying “vegetarian” and “half-price Mondays.” Not somewhere he’d ever consider going. But Mae’s eyes were bright with hope and his heart swelled to see it, so he said, “Sure,” before he’d even thought it through.

“This is adorable,” she said once they were seated.

He wasn’t sure he’d call any place that served food adorable, but what he did know was that the air was stuffy, the chairs were hard, and the tables were small. Mae’s dimples were showing, though, and he decided that the hard chairs were worth the sight.

After they’d ordered, he reached into a satchel he’d brought with him and laid five pieces of printed paper on the Formica tabletop.

Mae ran a finger across the top page. “What’s this?”

“I had Rosario print out my schedule for the week. It will help as we discuss our plans.”

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