by Shain Rose
His shouting knocked me right off my high horse. The man was still my father, still the guy I looked up to, still the one I wanted to make proud even if I wouldn’t admit it. “I’m not saying she’s not a good mother—”
“You better not be saying anything of the sort.”
I sighed. “Can we just back up?”
“I’m not going back. I’m sick of the past where I don’t have her, Jett. I’m done. Start drawing up your crew. Get your goals together. You’re captain. You better not sink my damn ship.”
The phone lit up, signaling he’d ended the call. He might have been done with the conversation, but I sure as hell wasn’t.
I stalked out of my office and yelled to Gloria to hold my calls. I took a side door to the stairwell that led directly to my father’s floor. The rich mahogany doors screamed old school and clashed with my floor’s open concept. Every floor of Stonewood Tower varied in look and feel. The floors we managed represented our individual styles a lot closer than we wanted to admit. Dad's style was always old money and power.
I didn't knock or wait for his assistant to usher me in. She scrambled to buzz a message to him as I opened his door.
He sat behind his large wooden desk, smiling. The expansive piece of wood shined proudly in the middle of the room and a woman with dark hair curled in sleek waves sat on top of it, arms crossed, facing the door. She had a smile on her face to match his.
I groaned and started to swing the door closed as I backed out.
“Oh no, Jett Stonewood,” my mother shook her head and the dark curls swooshed lightly over her shoulder. “You get your workaholic ass in here.”
“Mom,” I sighed and skulked into the room where I slumped into the chair directly in front of her. “I have to get back to work.”
“You want to get back to work, you can start with an apology.” Her voice didn't hide her amusement.
“If you two wanted a conversation, we could have continued it over the phone.”
“I wanted to see my son, not just hear his voice. I shouldn't have to come to the tower to do it.”
“Mom, we're busy.”
She clucked her tongue. “You're about to get busier. That mean you don't have time for your mother?” She leaned forward, arms still crossed like she was daring me to say no.
I shook my head and looked at my father. “You could have told me you had me on speakerphone.”
He chuckled, and I took in his relaxed shoulders, his light laugh, how the lines on his face disappeared when he grinned. Loving my mother always agreed with him; being in her company practically made him a teddy bear.
Without her, he was the most ruthless businessman in the country, one not even the mob would mess with. He'd woven himself into every big business in the city and staked a claim on it. But my mother honed his brilliance, and it showed whenever she came into town.
Dad motioned to her before he spoke. “She wanted to witness for herself how far off the deep end you were.”
She nodded and then slid off the table, pacing the office like her opinion of my work habits mattered. “You need to pull back, Jett. Jax will be with Aubrey. Your dad and I are leaving. You can't take on the burden of managing this company alone. You have the most intelligent people working here. They know their products. Trust them. Trust our teams.”
“Dad, you can tell her that's the worst business advice ever.”
He straightened in his chair. “I don't think you need any advice. Just do as you normally would.”
Mom said from behind me, “No. He needs a vacation, Joe.”
“Honey, he can't take a vacation when I'm about to resign.”
As he said the words, his eyes glazed over and a large grin formed on his face while he looked over my shoulder.
I turned to see my mother with the same damn watery smile on her own. “‘Resign,’ Joe. I love that word.”
“Oh, for fuck's sake,” I grumbled.
My mom's hand connected hard with the back of my head just as the words left my mouth. “Watch it. You're treading on thin ice as it is. I'm so sick of your attitude.”
“My attitude? You two realize I'm a good son, right?”
“‘Good’?” she scoffed. “You're not married, you work fifteen hour days like your father—”
“I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I'm successful. Forbes claimed I'm one of the most successful—”
“Success would be a grandson,” she mumbled while she glanced around the room and moved to straighten my father's shelf. The awards that sat atop it, the photos of him with a president, the gifts from various businessmen. They were a testament to his accolades. Yet here he was throwing it away for love.
“Love and kids aren't in the cards for me. You have Jax for that.”
“I have every single one of my boys for that.” Her voice cut through the office as she strode towards me with purpose. Mom was the most forbidding woman I knew when she wanted to be. Her striking blue eyes and tall willowy frame could come across as severe if she maneuvered herself just right. With a tailored pantsuit and deadly heels, she was a starkly beautiful older woman.
Maybe raising three boys and dealing with my father all these years had taught her something about authority, but I'm pretty sure it came naturally to her. “Each of my boys will give me grandchildren, you understand?”
She whispered, but her cold-blooded-killer stare screamed how serious she was.
“Mom, come on.”
“Don't disappoint me. I'm so, so sick of being disappointed in you not finding the right girl and settling down.”
I stood. “You two have fallen off the sane train. I mean it.” I pointed at my father who was grinning like a fool. “You know I'm right.”
He shrugged.
If it had just been him, I would have stormed out. But I couldn’t leave my mom like that, so I wrapped up that crazy woman in my arms and kissed the top of her head. “Love you, Mom. If you're here after I'm done with work, we can get dinner.”
Her blue eyes connected with mine and all I saw was love, no disappointment. “Sure, sweetie. Tell Brey I said hi.”
I nodded and walked out.
When I rounded the corner, the damn weight of a whole industry came down on my shoulders. Stonewood Enterprises was mine, and I knew better than anyone that one misstep could fuck it all up.
15
Vick
After three weeks of being on Jett’s team, we'd fallen into a routine. I’d learned the names of everyone in our space, knew that Josie in marketing got coffees in the morning, that Bob could whip up a legal contract faster than I could boot up my laptop, and that Gloria handled every one of Jett's needs.
Perfectly. With ease.
Much to my annoyance.
I also knew Brey showed up at about 9 a.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We decided if we got a lunch break, we would take it together.
We hadn't gotten one yet.
Steven and I barely had time to peek at each other across our desks or discuss the weather. I'd wanted to discuss a lot more than the weather with him too. The man had finally gotten up the courage to ask me on a date now that he wasn't my boss.
Or so he'd said. Yet, with the hours we were working, we hadn't gotten around to figuring out when that date would happen.
In our first week, Jett Stonewood announced his team was about to step in for Senior Stonewood. He was stepping down, and we were stepping up.
I nearly lost my lunch. He handed me and the rest of the legal team about a million files and said he would be e-mailing more over. Contract after contract had to be rewritten or reworked. His father had solidified loyalties with a lot of companies through handshakes and backroom conversations over the years. Now that he was stepping down, nothing could be off the books anymore. Jett wanted everything in writing. He’d said as much to our team before he disappeared.
Over the past couple of weeks, he’d pop up in his office sporadically and then be gone again. Gloria would report that
he had flown to New York or LA or some other place. His schedule was booked out for weeks at a time. And then he'd waltz in and nod to us all, stopping at certain desks to discuss anything of importance.
Bob would receive visit after visit about certain wording in an e-mail. Josie would perk up when he had a question about financials.
Steven and I would grind away in our corner, knowing that Jett would never stop by.
Misfits. Outsiders. The ones no one believed truly belonged.
I tried to look on the bright side day after day. Thousands of people were gunning for our seats. We were at one of the top-grossing businesses in the country where innovation met sophistication and thrived.
Yet, the feeling of being left out, of feeling inadequate, of someone passing you by time and time again was like sanding an open wound. If I tried to help Bob with a contract, he would scrunch his nose at me. I attempted to help Gloria rework an approach to a company about an investment, and she let me know she worked better alone. The woman cut right to the chase.
I even asked Josie if I could help her get coffees one day. Her doe eyes went wide, and she backed away like I was poaching her only job. Which maybe I was, but I wanted to do something that would make me feel part of the team.
I sipped my coffee and got back to the contract I was working on. There was a loophole, and I didn't know how to change it without making the other company extremely uncomfortable.
I rubbed my eyes and then took one tiny second to look at my manicured nails. I needed a reset, a moment's break so I could revise this.
The blue on them sort of matched the color of Tiffany & Co. And my manicurist had painted a little bow on the ring fingers. My dress was the same Tiffany blue with a ribbon around the waist, and I wore white stilettos to match it. The ensemble felt airy and fun.
“Victory.”
I jumped, slamming down the hand I was examining. The voice vibrated through me and sent shivers skittering down my spine.
“Where's Bob?”
I cleared my throat, embarrassed. “He's at lunch.”
Jett surveyed the room and ran his tongue over his teeth. Then he clicked his tongue as if he was shit out of luck. “Let him know I need to see him when he's back.”
This was why I looked at my nails. The team handed grunt work to me, but no one trusted me with the real work. It made my eyes bleed and my hands itch for something more.
“Something I can answer for you, Mr. Stonewood?”
His lip curled when I referred to him. “Mister ...? You know what, never mind. Yes, pull up the Benson file if you can.”
I already had it up on my computer. I repositioned in my chair and motioned to the contract I had open.
“Ah. So, you see the loophole too.” He eyed me with a little more attention this time.
Those deep blues crinkled at the corners, and I felt his assessment of me shifting.
“The wording allows for it. Legally, you could argue they intentionally worded it that way, but it probably wouldn't hold up in court.”
He leaned over my shoulder, his chest brushing my hair, and I caught his scent, masculine and fresh. Intoxicating. A distinct reminder of some of the best orgasms I’d ever had.
I wiggled in my seat for reasons I didn't want to acknowledge and shook my head a little to clear it.
“I see your point. How do we fix it?” His voice rumbled in my ear, so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek.
I started to respond, but he lifted his hand to point to a sentence on my screen. “Could we remove that sentence?”
“That leaves you liable if something goes wrong.”
A growl rolled from him all the way to my core. “Let me know when Bob gets back. I need him to figure this out by the end of the day.”
“I’m working on it.” I shouldn’t have pushed, but I knew I had this, the answer was right there on the tip of my tongue.
Jett tilted his head just enough that his five-o’clock shadow grazed my ear. “Are you now?”
I turned to look at him, and he was a breath away, so damn close I could have kissed him. I licked my lips, and his eyes tracked my movement. “I’ll get it to you by the end of the day.”
“See that you do, Victory.” He pushed away from my desk and straightened.
Everyone had continued to work. No one stopped to witness him visiting my corner. Only Steven and I were shaken by it.
He leaned over his desk to whisper, “I think he just got back from New York.”
“Didn’t come back in the best mood either.”
Steven chuckled. “Let’s do dinner after you finish that today, huh?” I waited for my heart to gallop the way it did when Jett whispered in my ear, but it stayed steady.
I nodded toward him anyway. “That would be great. I’ll have it by then. It’s right there.”
It wasn’t right there. It was so far from there I wanted to scream.
Bob waltzed back in after lunch and asked if I needed help. I told him I had it.
I didn’t have anything, and I damn well knew it.
Just past seven, Steven clapped me on the shoulder to announce we could do dinner another day because he had to get home. I had to get home too, but I couldn’t leave without ironing out this contract.
Gloria was the last to shut down her computer other than me. She glanced at Jett’s office, but he didn’t seem to pay her any mind because she spun on a heel and left. I expected that from her now. She didn’t waste niceties on anyone. Everything she did was calculated. Effective. Almost robotic.
Another hour passed. The glow from Jett’s office beckoned to me while I sat at my desk, letting my screen be the only sign of life in the office space. I reworked the whole clause in the contract. I sighed. If Bob could do this, I could do this too. Except I didn’t have his expertise or all those years of experience.
Why had I said I could do this?
A notification sounded on my laptop, and I looked to the corner of my screen.
* * *
Jett: Go home.
Me: I’m still working.
Jett: On something Bob can finish for me in .2 seconds tomorrow. You’re wasting company time and company time is money.
Me: I’m salaried.
Jett: Go home.
Me: Look, I’m working on a few things. If I can’t iron it out in the next hour, I’ll talk with Bob tomorrow.
* * *
The light from his desk clicked off. His entire office in the glass fortress went dark and the city lights flooded in. My body hummed, my heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings, and the part of my mind where I told myself Jett was never an option turned off.
One of the glass doors opened and Jett walked out, navy suit jacket over his shoulder and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up. He glided down the stairs like a man so comfortable in his environment it had become part of him.
He’d married himself to the job and it showed. Every person respected his drive, his accomplishments, his unrelenting determination to work harder than every other businessman out there. His employees sat up taller when they encountered him, his clients’ jaws dropped when he reported quarterly numbers, his competitors bowed down when he went up against them. His presence alone mirrored that of a stallion in the wild, rare and magnificent.
“Victory.” My name rolled off his lips like a command. “I’m tired. Turn off your computer.”
“As you should be after flying around the country. I’m finishing up here, but Gloria showed us how to leave with our FOBs. So, no worries. I won’t be here too much later.” I scanned him. His forearms flexed, and my thighs clenched in response. I wanted to feel them around me again, near me again, even a brush of skin would probably hold me over until Steven and I went on a date.
And I had to go on a date with Steven because Steven was serious. He wanted more than just sex.
I did too. I squeezed my eyes shut to ward off the temptation in front of me and then glared back at my computer screen. I intende
d to conquer this godforsaken sentence. He must have finally given in because I heard his footsteps retreat, and I smiled to myself.
Without him in his office looking down on me and no one waiting on me to finish, I had all night to figure it out. The lack of pressure instantly motivated me. I’d approach the contract from fresh angles, rework the structure of it, form something new and better. All parties would benefit and walk away happy.
I started typing away with more targeted strokes, hit every key with pizzazz. All I had needed was some space.
A loud pop sounded. I yelped as my screen and all the lighting went dark. I glanced around, but my eyes didn’t adjust that quickly to the shadows.
I tried to restart my computer, but nothing happened when I pressed the button.
I reached for my desk lamp and knocked something over. I gasped at the clatter, and then I heard a rustling from behind me.
I whipped around and grabbed the first thing within my reach. My stapler would make a decent weapon, right?
“Hello?” I said, my voice strong. Whoever stood in the darkness couldn’t possibly see my hand shaking, I told myself. I inched away from my desk, navigating slowly to the door in order to put distance between myself and that noise.
“Pix,” Jett sounded amused as he stepped into the light that cascaded in from the window.
“Are you afraid of the dark?”
“What the heck is wrong with you?” I slammed my stapler down and stalked toward him. I shoved his chest enough that he took a step back. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“Oh, please.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “What are you? Twenty-four? Everyone needs a kick of adrenaline now and then.”
“Twenty-five and I get my adrenaline rush doing things I want to do, not having someone frighten me in the dark.”
His lips curved up like a joker and he rocked back on his feet as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “What things normally get your adrenaline going?”