by Ryan, Emma
He hummed, then laughed.
“I think you need to consider the fact that you might want this to be a permanent thing and not just a ‘business arrangement’ that gets you controlling interest in your business.”
I pinched my brows together as I walked out the front door and hopped into my town car. “What do you mean?”
“You know, for all the ways that you say I’m a playboy, you’re really obtuse when it comes to women.”
“Only because you go through them faster than I do.”
He laughed again. “Ha. Damn right I do. But I’m serious. Have you thought about making this a permanent thing?”
“Well, I’ve thought about the fact that it wouldn’t bother me if it was…” I remembered the gut-punched feeling that morning Macks had reminded me this wasn’t a forever thing after we’d had sex again for the first time.
“Wouldn’t bother you if it was? Well, shit, man. Maybe that’s part of your problem. You obviously care about Macks a lot, so why are you talking about her like someone might talk about a new shade of paint on the walls.” His voice changed, mimicking mine. “It doesn’t bother me…”
I rolled my eyes. The downside of Grant being a good friend was that he didn’t pull punches when it came to giving advice.
“So, what are you suggesting?”
He chuckled. “I think you need to figure out what the fuck you feel for Mackenzie.”
My chest tightened. I could insist all I wanted that I wasn’t going to turn into my father, but at the end of the day, there were parts of the cold-hearted bastard I couldn’t seem to shake.
“Listen, man,” Grant said, slipping into his role as ‘love guru’ as easily as any part he played on-screen. “When you know it, you know it. When you feel it, it’s there. You see her as a natural part of your space, your life. That’s some deep shit. That’s not just you two being friends. That’s not just you enjoying having sex with her. And if it’s something that’s going between the two of you, you just feel it. You might be confused, but your heart knows it’s there; don’t over-think it.” He hesitated, then added, “And after seeing you two last night, I think Mackenzie feels the same way. How long do you have until you can safely file for divorce?”
“Three weeks.”
Grant whistled. “Shiiit. A little tight, but it should be enough time to get you thinking about what you want to do. If you realize you don’t want to let her go, and if she feels the same, you don’t have to do anything—since you two are already fucking married. And if you find out something else… well, I guess that’s a bridge you’re gonna have to cross when you get there, buddy.”
I chuckled. “Thanks, Doctor Love. You’re right. I gotta figure out what the hell—” My phone buzzed as I held it against my ear. I looked at the screen; it was a message from one of the partners telling me I was late for a meeting. “Shit. Grant, I gotta go. Work calls.”
“Sure, do your thing. I’ll talk to you later, man.”
“Thanks.”
I hung up and drummed my fingers against the armrest as my driver worked his way through the last few blocks of traffic. When he pulled over, I made my way up to the offices as quickly as possible. I hadn’t realized I was quite so late, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t smooth over with a few smiles and well-placed words.
Up on the thirtieth floor, I strode into the large meeting room. As soon as I did, I felt the change in the air, some sort of grim anticipation hovering like a cloud.
Something was up.
Buzzing chatter hummed low in the room as I took my place at the head of the table. Eyes followed me, and I felt like I was on some sort of chopping block I hadn’t even known I’d stepped onto.
Had I done something wrong?
I sat down, making myself comfortable. No one spoke, so after a moment, I did.
“Well, don’t get quiet on my behalf. I heard there were some things that need discussing?”
The question prompted one of the partners, Malcolm, to clear his throat and speak up.
“Yes, Sir. You’ve been a bit… absent the last week, two weeks. It’s let several important matters of infrastructure, management, and planning fall behind. There are also quite a few things you need to look over, sign for, problems that need to be addressed that you haven’t gotten back to us on…”
He went on and on. The initial fight in my spirit to push back the implication that I wasn’t doing enough to run the company slowly dwindled the more he spoke about what had been let to go by the wayside while I’d been preoccupied with Mackenzie.
Suddenly, I felt the weight of my recent time with her pressing down on my shoulders.
What was I doing?
My father had uprooted my life to get me to this place. To keep up the family empire. To make the world know our family name. He’d even made me jump through ridiculous hoops in order to keep my hold on that family legacy, which I’d grudgingly done. And yet, here I was… ruining it.
When all was said and done, there was silence. Then, I spoke.
“I want to first and foremost apologize to you,” I said. “All of you. I’ve been… preoccupied lately. That stops. Today.”
The looks on the people around me ranged from relieved to skeptical. For the most part, everyone seemed to believe I meant what I’d said; which just left me to figure out what I was going to do to fix my mistake.
When everyone else finally filed out of the meeting room, I stayed behind. I kept my place at the head of the table. Alone. My father had always said being the face of a company—one as big as ours, especially—was a lonely one.
Was that what I wanted?
* * *
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want you to keep up the family legacy. You’re my only son. I brought you with me so you would learn your place. Why are you so dead set on rejecting everything I’m offering?”
I rolled my eyes, pacing my father’s study. It was the first week away from New York. Away from Mackenzie. I had gone with my father with no resistance, wanting to live up to his expectations. But as it turned out, wanting to do that and actually doing it were two very different things. I missed Mackenzie. The ache in my heart at her absence wasn’t dwindling. It was growing, forming a black hole inside my chest.
What the fuck was I doing here? I didn’t even like the family business.
My father watched me from behind his desk. Scrutinizing. Frustrated. He’d always wanted me to take over the family business. He’d always seen me as lacking the same drive that he’d had when he was my age.
I had always fought him. But now that Mom was gone… I didn’t think fighting him was a good thing. Her death had rocked him to his core, and even though I sometimes hated the old man, I was all he had left.
Still, I wasn’t so sure following him was such a good thing, either. My father was always quick to remind me that everything we had was because of the family business. The house, the cars, the financial stability that came with having billions in the bank. I wanted to resent him for pointing those things out to me, but it wasn’t a possibility. Not when he was right.
The ache flared in my heart again.
I missed Mackenzie.
I missed my mother.
But… my father was right. I needed to step up. It’s why I’d agreed to leave with him in the first place.
17
Mackenzie
The high of the first few weeks of my marriage to Walker started to wane after the gallery showing.
Not from the art side of things—that was all going amazingly well. I was making connections, booking commissions, and following up on contacts from the show. I had steady work and potential long-term clients lined up. I was in the studio every day. My website was being built, and I was sharing more and more of my work with less fear of judgment. My confidence in my artistic abilities was growing, and it only spurred on my creativity.
But still, the high was fading.
Walker was growing distant.
It made a mess of conflicting feelings churn in my stomach. What was I doing? My art dreams were taking off, but the victory seemed hollow somehow, like I had no one to share it with. Alex was thrilled for me, and the art show had given him a huge boost too, so we were able to cheer each other on. But it still wasn’t the same as having Walker with me. For a little while, we had felt like a team, and I’d let myself get way too used to that.
I sighed. I was at the studio now, thinking about all of this while trying to work. Needless to say, I wasn’t getting shit done.
“You’re over-working that paint.”
I didn’t look up from the painting in front of me. Alex was right, but I was stubborn. I kept sweeping the brush until he came up beside me, gently pulling my hand away from the canvas.
“Come on. Let’s go grab lunch and you can tell me what’s on your mind, since you’re obviously a little too distracted to be trying to paint dragon scales.”
I huffed. “I can do this—”
“After a nice Italian sub and maybe a midday drink, sure you can. Come on.”
Conceding defeat, I let my best friend drag me to the cute little bistro that was just a few paces away from the studio. We ordered our subs and drinks before taking them outside to the tables that are set up along the exterior wall. Then we ate in silence for a moment before Alex spoke up.
“You should totally tell me what’s up with you instead of keeping it all inside your pretty little head. Just sayin’. If you don’t let it out, your head’s probably gonna explode.”
I peered at him over my sandwich.
“Wow, is that theory backed up by science?”
“You know it, bitch.” He chuckled.
My cheeks puffed out as I blew a tired breath. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“The beginning usually helps.”
So that was where I started. The beginning. The rollercoaster of emotions I’d been on ever since Walker and I had signed the certificate at our strange, too-real and not-quite-real wedding ceremony; the blurred lines that formed between us; and most of all, the feelings that had welled up when he’d put together the gallery showing with Alex, and the disappointment that’d followed when he’d started to pull away.
There had been a real warmth between us… but I couldn’t figure out if it was just the past rearing its ugly head at me or if it was real.
“Sounds like you guys are just in a rut,” Alex said after I finished, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“A rut?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “You know, you’re hitting your stride, you’ve reconnected in a lot of different ways… but there’s this whole unspoken thing that’s underlying all of it. You guys have so much history; I think it’s keeping you from seeing what’s right in front of you. Right now. Not seven years ago. Now.” He smirked, crumpling up the napkin and dropping it on his empty plate. “Honestly, I think what you need to do is bust the seriousness of everything that’s going on right now. Don’t let Walker just escape back into his Mr. Workaholic persona. Do something fun. Spontaneous. Sexy.”
I raised my brow. That definitely wasn’t the advice I’d been expecting.
“Something… spontaneous and sexy? That’s what you think will get things back to normal between us?”
“No, girl!” He shook his head, looking at me like I was a dummy. “Not back to normal. That’s the whole point. ‘Normal’ for both of you is standoffish and awkward, holding onto your damn cards like you’re playing the most cutthroat game of poker in the world. For just a little while there, you both let go, and things were great. You need to get back to that. Not normal.” A mischievous gleam shone in his eyes, and he tapped his finger against his chin. “Hmm. I think I’ve got the perfect idea. Tell you what…”
* * *
Several hours later, I was in an elevator on my way up to Walker’s floor, wearing a knee-length fashionable trench coat.
And nothing else.
Well, okay, not quite nothing, but close enough to it that I’d been beet red the entire cab ride over, certain the cabby somehow knew what I was hiding under my outer layer.
Beneath the coat, I wore some extremely skimpy lingerie I’d bought a few months ago when I’d been considering getting back in the saddle and trying to date again for the first time in a while. Unfortunately, the whole ‘dating’ thing hadn’t gone very well, and I hadn’t even taken the tags off the lingerie until today.
A nervous jitter made my heart slam against my ribs. This wasn’t something I was used to doing. At all. I mean, sure, a scenario like this was the stuff fantasies were made of, but wasn’t that the whole point of fantasies? They were about things you’d never do in real life.
And yet, thanks to two tequila shots—courtesy of Alex—and a promise from my best friend that this would definitely shake things up in our ‘marriage’, here I was.
Calm down, Mackenzie. It’s almost 9 p.m. Definitely after hours. There’s no one there but Walker.
Crossing the coat’s belt in a slipknot for easy access, I forced myself to take deep, soothing breaths. I was so nervous, I was about to start flop sweating—and that would completely ruin the sexy effect I was going for.
When the elevator dinged on the thirty-first floor, I straightened my spine, put one hand on my hip, and affected a sexy swagger. I stepped out of the elevator in my four-inch stilettos—
And promptly got my pointy heel stuck in the small gap between the elevator and the main floor.
My momentum kept moving forward, and I toppled like a tree falling in the woods.
I caught myself as I landed, cursing as I did.
“Titty-twisting mother-loving son of a goat!”
Slipping my foot out of the trapped shoe, I yanked on the heel, but it was wedged tight.
“Dick bags!”
I crouched on my knees beside the elevator, tugging with all my might on the shoe while the doors banged against it, trying to close. I shoved them open again, grabbing on to the arch of the shoe with both hands and twisting.
Finally—a little worse for the wear—the heel popped loose, and I raised it up triumphantly as the elevator doors slid all the way closed. There was a hydraulic hiss, and then a strange tug on my coat.
“Oh motherfucking shitballs!”
While I’d been crouched down beside the elevator, my coat had taken the opportunity to betray me entirely by getting caught in the closing doors. As the elevator rose, the edge of my coat was pulled up, yanking the entire thing over my head. I scrabbled at it with both hands, bent nearly double as I tugged at the fabric, stopping it from pulling me up toward the ceiling. But it was flipped nearly inside out, the fabric draped over my head with my arms still stuck in the sleeves, and it was still caught tight in the doors.
I’d seen a bully in my high school do something like this once. He’d pulled the guy’s shirt halfway over his head, trapping him in his own clothes while everyone laughed.
Only at least that poor kid had been wearing pants.
“Mother… cocksucking… who designed this coat? What’s it made out of, titanium?” I muttered, tugging with all my might. Why wouldn’t the fabric just rip, for the love of everything holy?
“Who’s there—?” The deep voice behind me cut off with a strangled sound. “Macks?”
Oh, dear fucking Jesus. What god of fate did I piss off?
“Um, no,” I squeaked, trying—and failing—to shimmy myself back into my coat. My ass was all the way out, and given the angle I was bent at, Walker was getting one hell of a show.
Then a horrifying thought occurred to me.
Please, please, please let him be alone.
“What… on earth are you doing?” His bemused voice still sounded a little choked, and he walked around beside me, dipping his head to peer up at my face underneath the tent of the coat.
“You know, just some light elevator maintenance,” I answered as breezily as I could. I was so embarrassed I was sure both sets of cheeks were flushed red.
His face contorted, and I could tell he was trying his hardest not to laugh.
“Go ahead,” I sighed.
Almost before I’d finished the words, a chuckle burst from his lips.
I grimaced. “There’s nobody else on this floor right now, right?”
The humor faded from Walker’s face.
“No,” he growled, as he quickly reached over and pressed the elevator call button on the wall a few feet away. “But let’s get you out of here, just in case.” His voice roughened again as he added, “No one gets to see you like that but me.”
The possessiveness in his voice made my pussy pulse, as if his words had strummed a nerve directly in my clit—or my heart.
A second later, the elevator began to move. The tension on my coat slackened, and when the doors opened, I pulled myself free, settling my coat back in place and tying the belt at the waist.
But not before Walker got a peek at all the goods I was packing.
Only a few feet separated us as he gazed at me, and realization flickering in his eyes. It was the first flash of life I’d seen in them in a while, the first hint of the Walker I’d gotten to experience in the early days of our ‘marriage’. His cobalt eyes were tired, with faint gray circles under them from the exhaustion of pushing himself to the limit, but there was an interest in them too.
“My, my… Mrs. Prince, did you come here to seduce me?” He dipped his finger into the collar of the jacket, peeking in again. I playfully slapped his hand away.
“And what if I was?”
The look that spread across his face made a flash of heat flare inside me, and the thin, lacy fabric of my panties became instantly soaked. I felt like a prey animal that’d wandered into an open plain, only to find myself face to face with a predator.