“How are you?” he asked, taking the game from her and signing on to the cash register kiosk. His movements were casual and unhurried.
“Good, thanks. You?”
He nodded. “Good, thanks for asking. You play Overwatch, or is this for someone else?”
“It’s for me,” she answered, her eyebrow lifted. “Why?”
He chuckled. “Just asking. I can give you my gamer tag if you want to team up,” he offered.
She pondered it for a moment. “Okay,” she agreed.
“Have you tried Players Unknown BattleGround yet?” he asked, pointing to a shelf behind him. He bagged her game and waited for her receipt to print.
“No, I’ve been a little preoccupied these past couple months. Is it good?”
She took her bag from him and waited on the receipt.
“I’ll write my gamer tag for Overwatch for you.” He grabbed a pen, and as he wrote, he asked, “Are you going to the gaming convention tomorrow over at the Convention Center?”
“I didn’t even know. But… I think I’ll be going out of town tomorrow.”
She shrugged.
“I see. Well, if your plans change or anything, hit me up. It’ll be fun.”
He handed her the receipt with his gamer tag, his name – Raphe – and his phone number.
“Thanks, Raphe.” She nodded and turned to leave.
“Can I at least get your name?” he called out to her.
“It’s Farren,” she called back over her shoulder, then disappeared out into the crowd in the hallway. She stuffed the receipt down into her bag with the game.
She headed back down toward the food court. As she approached, she saw Shea and Harley seeming to have a nice time together as Shea held him up and blew on his little belly, causing him to smile, flail his little arms about, and squeal in delight.
Farren looked over to the window of Victoria’s Secret. Maybe she should try a little harder, she thought. She couldn’t just stand back while Edith moved in on her man.
She walked into the store, and ten minutes later walked out with a bag of her own that she stuffed inside her GameStop bag. She made her way over to Shea and Harley, and when they parted ways again, Farren left for home to have a conversation with Rogan.
NINE
“Rogan, can I talk to you?” Farren asked that evening as he lay on the couch in the living room with Harley lying across his chest.
“Sure, baby, what’s on your mind?”
She knelt down on the floor in front of him and caressed the back of Harley’s head, then let her hand move down to rest on his bicep.
He shifted to sit up, rousing Harley in the process, but quickly got him settled back in across his lap. He looked to Farren and gave her his mostly undivided attention.
He could see the tiny shifts her eyes made, which was her tell that she was thinking hard about something, whatever it was. He remained quiet, giving her a chance to talk when she was ready.
“It’s about… my father,” she said.
“Okay?”
She sucked in a deep breath and released it.
“I don’t know what to do. I mean, he’s been gone, you know? For years. I should hate him for that.”
Rogan thought for a moment and nodded.
“But…?”
“But… I’m curious. What if he’s changed? What if he had a good reason that he’s been gone all this time?”
Rogan could see the conflicting emotions in her face, compounded by the way she scratched her fingernails against one another in her lap.
He didn’t know what to tell her, though. On one hand, if the guy was that much of a deadbeat that he left his own flesh and blood when she was just a child, it told him everything he needed to know about the guy.
Then again, he thought about his own sins and the redemption he would never have the opportunity to gain. Was he deserving of it if that were even possible?
After a moment or two of deliberation, he leaned forward to take her hands into his, stopping her unintentional fidgeting and bringing her focus on what he was about to say.
“If you want to meet with him, I’ll go with you. I’d feel better being there anyway.”
Just in case, he thought.
“You will?” she asked, with no small amount of gratitude.
He brushed his fingers through her hair, tucking a strand behind her ear.
“Of course.”
“So what about tomorrow?” she asked, hesitant.
His scarred eyebrow rose with skepticism.
“You know I can’t go tomorrow. I’ll be in New York working on the Donaghue account,” he reminded her, though he got the feeling the reminder was unnecessary.
Her shoulders sank and her eyes trailed to the floor in front of her.
“Are you sure you have to go? I figured Edith would have it in the bag, all on her own.”
Yes, he was very sure, and for reasons he didn’t want her knowing about.
“You know I have to go, Farren.”
His voice was deep and stern. He didn’t want to fight with her the night before he left, and he knew that’s where this was headed if she kept going.
Her face fell again. Without looking up at him, she said, “I don’t feel good about you going with Edith. I don’t trust her,” she admitted as she resumed scratching her thumbnails against the nails of her middle fingers in her lap.
“Do you trust me?”
She looked back up at him. “I do… but I still don’t feel good about Edith. I overheard her talking the other day at work, and-”
“Farren, you of all people know why I need to be there.” He cut her off. “I’ll be back before you know it. You have nothing to worry about,” he assured her.
“But I-”
He interrupted her again. “Farren, baby, please, let’s not do this tonight. I want to enjoy my evening with you and Harley before I have to get up and leave early tomorrow morning.”
His eyes bore into hers, imploring her to drop this. She stared back at him, and he could see her jaw begin to tick and her nostrils flare ever so slightly.
Damnit, he thought, with her persistent determination. If ever there were a time he needed her to not be her typical self, this was it.
Her eyes softened before she spoke again. “What if I went with you? Shea offered to keep Harley-”
“No!” he barked.
He realized he’d raised his voice a little too late when Harley startled and began to cry. He picked him up and rested him in his arms, trying to soothe him and smooth over his gruff response.
Farren continued to kneel in front of him, her eyes wide with confusion and disbelief. Shit, he thought. He had to save this. He could not have her coming along on this trip, not with what he wanted to do while he was there.
“Baby, I need you to be here to run things at work while I’m gone. I have a lot of projects in critical phases right now that someone has to be here to handle while I’m out of town. You’re the only one I trust to know how I want everything. You can do that for me, can’t you?”
He waited for her to respond as he tried to tend to Harley’s fussiness that was becoming more agitated by the second now.
She reached out to take Harley from his arms and pulled him into her chest, rising off the floor with him.
“Farren? Can you do that for me?” Rogan asked again.
She nodded but said nothing and turned to walk away toward the nursery.
*
Farren tried to hold back her tears as she bounced Harley in her arms to calm him and get him back to sleep. Once he was peacefully snoozing, she laid him in the crib and walked across the hall to their bedroom.
Rogan was still in the living room, she guessed, so she went to the dresser, pulled out a normal set of underwear to replace the Victoria’s Secret lingerie she’d been wearing beneath her fitted tee and pajama pants, and went into the restroom to change.
She came back out and headed to the game room to try out her new g
ame. She wasn’t sure if she was angry or upset, probably both, and in no small amount disappointed. At least with Overwatch, shooting stuff would help get some frustration out.
She put on her headset and pulled the game out of the GameStop bag. When she did, a slip of paper went gliding to the floor. She reached down to pick it up. It was the receipt, the one with Raphe’s number and gamer tag on it.
She looked at it for several seconds. Then she wadded it up and shoved it back into the plastic bag to be thrown away later. She put her headset on, lowering the volume so she could still hear Harley through the baby monitor on the table next to her if he started crying.
She started the game up, set up her own gamer tag, and when it asked for her team player account names, she hesitated. Before she knew it, she had entered in Raphe’s gamer tag, and they eliminated foes together well into the night.
She knew she’d have to face her real issues soon enough, but she needed time to sort them out to know how she really felt about everything, and she was too close to it all at the moment to reach any kind of productive conclusion when all she could picture was Edith in a black, lacy negligee in a ritzy hotel room with Rogan.
She wasn’t ready to admit to herself that she knew he was hiding something, but she knew, and he was already asleep when she came to bed that night.
TEN
“Great work, Edith. If all goes well, Rayner Technologies might just be looking at opening a new branch in New York City in the next few years,” Rogan commended, walking out of the glass, high-rise building into the crowded sidewalks of New York City.
“Thanks, boss, but I can’t take all the credit. The way you handled those execs,” she whistled, “I’m impressed.”
“Yes, well, you laid the foundation on this one. Great marketing pulls in great clients.”
They climbed into a cab, and Rogan gave the driver the address to their hotel.
“Don’t you want to go to dinner?” she asked.
It was getting late into the evening, and neither of them had eaten since lunch.
Rogan gave her a sideways glance.
“I’ll order in. I have some catching up to do on some other projects.”
A sly smile crossed Edith’s face.
“Okay. Ordering in, it is.”
When they got checked into their hotel rooms, Rogan set up his laptop and logged in remotely to the company database to get some work done he had been in the middle of before they’d left. He didn’t want to lose any momentum on them. Before he knew it, a couple of hours had gone by when his cell rang.
“Rayner,” he answered in a clipped tone.
“I thought you might be interested in a bite. I’ve got food if you want to come join me. I also wanted to get your opinion on a new campaign I’m thinking of starting up when we get back.”
He glanced at his watch.
“All right,” he agreed. “Give me five minutes.”
When he knocked on her grand hotel room door ten minutes later, she opened it up with a flourish to wave him inside.
He stood in place.
“Edith, what are you wearing?”
She looked down at her light-pink, low-cut, silk camisole baring ample cleavage and matching shorts that showed off her toned, muscular thighs. She looked back up at him and smiled.
“Oh, this? I didn’t think we’d be getting out again tonight. You don’t mind, do you?”
She reached a hand out, grabbing his shoulder and pulled him inside.
“Come on, you know I don’t bite,” she teased.
He moved inside, and the door closed noisily behind him.
Edith walked around him, and his eyes went to the high trim of the back of her silk shorts. The roundness of her ass was just so, that the slightest glimpse of the crease where it turned into legs was peeking out, and he groaned internally at the sight.
What was she playing at, he wondered and snapped his eyes back up to the table by the window that she had her laptop set up on with a notepad next to it.
He straightened his black-rimmed glasses and sat in a chair across from hers, crossing an ankle over his knee and leaning back with both hands comfortably on the arm rests.
“All right, let’s hear it.”
She smiled, then pulled her tablet over toward him and moved her own chair in closer as well. She went into her spiel about her new ideas, pressing her fingertips lightly to his knee with each new point.
“Edith, this all sounds great, but you know you don’t need my approval for every little project you’re working on. You know the goals I have for my company and its growth. You’ve seen the projection reports. I hired you because you’re fully capable. As long as you’re performing and getting your job done adequately, you don’t require my oversight at every turn.”
She peered at him through long eyelashes, then quirked a half-smile. She turned to shut off her tablet.
“All right, then, how about a drink?”
Before he could respond, she had stood and fluttered over to the small wet-bar in the lavish room to grab a bottle of wine.
He stood and followed her.
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
While the drink may have been necessary, the fraternizing was not, but before he knew it, she placed a stemmed glass in his hand.
She took a long sip from her own glass, tipping her head back and allowing the burgundy liquid to pass her lips and wash down her throat. Rogan looked down at his own glass.
What the hell, he thought, and threw back a generous sip. He only had one thing left to do on this trip, and he couldn’t do that until the following morning.
*
Farren paced around the kitchen as Harley slept in the crib in his nursery. He’d been extra fussy that day, but she figured it was just that she was extra sensitive and letting it get to her more than usual. She was relieved when he’d finally gone down for a peaceful nap.
Now, though, she was alone in this large condo apartment, and she felt restless. None of the things she could have been doing at the moment appealed to her, so instead, she paced around and her thoughts were getting the best of her.
Surely by now, Rogan’s meeting would have been over. New York was two hours ahead of Houston, but with the argument they’d had the previous night, she didn’t feel comfortable calling to ask.
He had been pretty angry with her that she had questioned his fidelity to her, which only served to rile her up more than she had already been at the time. Now that she’d had time to calm down, she wished the night before he left had gone differently. What had she been thinking?
Now, it was even worse, because she worried that he’d be angry with her and let that cloud his judgment if Edith made a move. Who was she kidding? Of course, Edith would make a move. Between the overheard conversation, the new lingerie she’d just bought the day before, and free, uninhibited access to Rogan spelled out one enormous, red flag for Farren.
Oh, God, she had to get out of here. She was going to drive herself crazy if she kept this up, and she needed a distraction.
She remembered the gaming convention that Raphe had mentioned. That would be a nice little diversion for a couple of hours. Yes! That’s what she would do, she thought.
She grabbed her cell from the kitchen island and went to dial Shea. After all, Shea had offered to babysit for her tonight if Farren had been able to go on the trip with Rogan…
After several rings, the call went to Shea’s voice mail. Crap! She thought, but her hopes sprang back to life when she saw Shea was calling her right back.
“Hello?”
“Farren?” Shea called out through the phone connection.
Farren could hear a loud beat of music and a crowd of people in the background.
“Shea? Hey, are you busy, I take it?”
Farren bit her lip, realizing this wasn’t going to be an option if Shea was already out for the night.
“Devin and I are just here at the Techno Lounge. What’s up?”
Farren’s hopes fell.
“Oh, that’s okay. I didn’t need anything important. You go have fun, and I’ll talk to you later,” Farren said, raising her own voice a bit so that Shea could hear her from her end of the line.
“Are you sure?” Shea double checked.
Farren hesitated for a moment.
“Yes, I’m sure. Have fun,” she said, trying to force a smile.
“Okay, talk to you later, Farr.”
Farren hung up the call. It looked like she was back at square one. Unless…
She dialed her phone again, and this time, it rang twice before she got an answer.
“Farren? Hi, honey,” Gramma greeted her.
“Hi Gramma, what are you doing tonight?”
“I’m just here watching this TV and working my puzzle. How are you? How’s Rogan and the baby?”
Farren smiled. Gramma was one of the few people who still acknowledged her instead of just as an afterthought to Baby Harley. She had to admit, he was a cutie pie, but it wasn’t like she was invisible. Actually, it was like she was invisible, now that she thought about it, but she couldn’t blame them at all since he was so adorable and lovable.
“We’re doing fine. Rogan is out of town tonight on business… That’s actually why I’m calling. I wonder if you might watch Harley for a couple of hours while I go to a convention.”
“Sure, bring him on by. You know I don’t mind,” Gramma assured her.
Farren thanked Gramma and hung up. She rushed to get ready and was able to get Harley out of the crib, into the carrier, and driven over to Gramma’s without consequence. Then she set off to the Convention Center.
ELEVEN
Edith set down a plate of tapas on the coffee table in front of the couch Rogan sat on in the sitting area of her hotel room. He watched her as she sat down beside him, tucking one leg beneath her and leaning in toward him, being careful not to spill her wine.
“So Rogan, tell me what got you into the technology business.”
Boss Unavowed: A Love On the Rocks Romance (The Boss Series Book 2) Page 4