by Annie Dyer
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
Engagement Rate
Engagement Rate: An engagement rate is a metric that measures the level of engagement that a piece of created content is receiving from an audience. It shows how much people interact with the content. Factors that influence engagement include users' comments, shares, likes, and more
CHAPTER FOUR
Chapter One
Jackson
Recovering from jetlag by watching the most attractive woman I'd seen in a long time doing pullups hadn't been a cure I'd considered before. She was wearing a sports bra that did nothing to hide the curvy shape of her perfect breasts and exposed a toned stomach; her yoga pants outlining long, long legs that would look fucking amazing wrapped around me as I thrust into her.
But sleep deprived, jetlagged and travel-fresh wasn't the best way to be caught staring at a dark-haired mystery woman currently working out in the gym I'd had installed in the basement of the law firm I was part owner of. I was a professional: a lawyer and a businessman. Or at least I tried to give that impression at first.
I kept a change of gym gear at work: trainers and shorts, but today I hadn't bothered with a vest I didn't think anyone else was likely to be around for an hour or so, unless Seph, my youngest brother turned up to train. Deadlifts, bicep curls, tricep extensions and a chest press too heavy to be doing without a spotter took my focus away from obsessing exactly how her long dark hair would look wrapped around my fist, and I realised how much I'd missed this space in the past three weeks; the luxury of having my own base and place to be, without having to continually be a consummate professional and now head of the company. I focused on the music that was blaring out of the speakers and tried to stop staring at the woman who I should probably know. She was on the other side of the room, my main view of her via a mirror, the perfect place to creep at her, which I had had given up trying not to do.
"Fuck me," she said, as she half collapsed to the ground from the pull-up bar, shaking her arms.
I managed to bite my tongue, stopping myself from offering to do just that and I watched her as she began another set of pull-ups, waiting for her to realize I was there. She was tall, around 5'9, with dark hair, pulled into one of those messy bun things and all lean muscle and the best pair of tits I'd seen for years. She was pretty: large blue eyes and high cheekbones, skin that my hands were dying to touch and an ass that was biteable.
I turned my back to head for the showers, needing to escape. I had no idea who she was – Maxwell tore through secretaries like he did girlfriends only with less pleasure – so she could've been a temp or equally the marketing woman we'd recently hired. Either way, she didn't need to know about the tent she'd caused in my shorts.
"Sorry," I heard her say and I turned back, my neck twisting like an owl's and my brain trying to conjure up images of Granny Callaghan without her teeth in. "I was oblivious to anyone else being in here. Sorry if you heard me swear like an Irish navvy." She massaged her hands and I wasn't sure whether it was a nervous reaction or they were hurting from the grip she had to use to do the pull-ups.
I shrugged, the images of Granny doing their job. "Not like I never use those words. I'm Jackson Callaghan. I don't think we've met before."
She stepped forward, beads of sweat glistening on her skin and I wondered what else would get her that sweaty. "Vanessa Moore. I'm from Cole Henderson. Claire said it was okay to use the gym down here..." She looked a little nervous, although I was pretty sure she knew who I was, though I looked a lot different half-naked than the photos on the website. Shirts and suits went a long way to covering up most of my tattoos and I generally looked more presentable when my hair was not tied up in a shitty man bun and my beard didn't look as if garden birds were nesting in there. She was the marketing consultant, I remembered and I gave myself a mental pat on the back that my brain hadn't actually stopped functioning completely.
"It's absolutely fine while you're working with us. How've you found the first few days?" Vanessa seemed to have managed my grump of a mood even better than the weights. She was close enough now for me to see that she wasn't wearing a scrap of make-up, her cheeks red from the exercise and blue eyes bright. God forbid she was a morning person.
"Good. There's a lot to do to rebrand and get everything ready for your father's retirement ball but the firm's got a clear direction and ethos so it's volume of tasks rather than having to come up with the creative." She tightened the ponytail and I sensed again that she was nervous of me. I didn't mind that – at thirty-four I was young to have this sort of role, managing and directing an extremely profitable and noteworthy law firm so I didn't need anyone to think I was a soft-touch.
"How about staff? I hope Kirsty's been accommodating."
Vanessa's eyes dropped to my chest and I couldn't resist the urge to very slightly flex my muscles. Her cheeks grew redder and I smirked. Also, at thirty-four, I was too much of a child to always be professional, especially when a pretty lady was standing in front of me. "It's different for her. She's not used to someone else directing. But she's got a decent skill set and it's a case of trying to develop her a little more. Hopefully, once we've finished you'll have a good employee."
This confirmed some of my concerns, especially around Kirsty, who was our marketing manager. "Look, Vanessa," I didn't even bother with the formality of calling her Ms. Moore, partly because she could be married, partly because I had enough stuffy clients to be uber-polite to. "Here probably isn't the best place for this conversation and I probably smell of planes as well as sweat. How about we get showers and I'll spot our breakfast. We can discuss your ideas and how they align with the brief so far."
"I can do that," she said. "I'll leave a note for Kirsty to let her know I might be running a few minutes late to meet her." There was a smile that turned into a grin, with, God forbid, a dimple. "I have a huge appetite, by the way, and I don't do prissy food."
"Noted," I said, shooting a smile back. "I don't do prissy anything. See you at reception in – 30 minutes?" I wondered how much time she needed to shower and dress. I'd had two longish relationships in the past, both ran their natural course and we grew apart, no fault of either party, and both women took forever to get ready.
"Sure," she said and nodded, her eyes drifting down to my chest again and I struggled not to preen. She headed to the female changing rooms and I tried to casually walk away, my mind totally conjuring up images of her naked in the shower with water pouring over those tits and all the ways I could help get her clean.
And then dirty again.
I showered quickly, turning the temperature onto Baltic cold to get rid of any lingering hardness in my cock. I needed to foc
us on work and getting involved with a contractor was not good business practice. Yes, she was beautiful and probably intelligent given she ran her own business but I'd need to find my relief elsewhere. Vanessa Moore was off-limits. So why the fuck was I taking her to breakfast?
I fucking hated mornings. It wasn't that I struggled to wake up: I just didn't like other people first thing unless they were female and in my bed. Other people irritated me, like little insects creeping over skin; never biting or stinging, just there. Mornings for me were like ugly, gaping wounds that really should've been covered. Before I'd drank my body weight in coffee or had the early morning company of a good woman, I was a nasty fuckwit of a human. I didn't believe in having to try to be polite to other people before nine in the morning unless I was dealing with an especially important client. It was an area my siblings were trying to get me to improve on, along with about fifty other things. That was the benefit of working with family: you always knew your areas for improvement.
It was three weeks since I'd seen any of my family and I wasn't sure if I'd ever gone longer without one of them pestering me in person. It didn't mean I hadn't heard from them: I could've been in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean in a dinghy with no Wi-Fi and one of them would've found a carrier pigeon with the stamina of a camel to get in touch somehow. I had no chance in New York, not that it was a vacation. I'd landed two hours ago and rather than go home to my apartment like a normal person would, I had headed to the offices instead, hoping that the building, and possibly the law firm that we shared, would be still standing.
I finished in the showers and headed up to the first floor. "Morning favorite brother," I heard my sister, Claire, call from her office. I paused, firstly because my intent was to log in to my emails, given that this could take what felt like hours, so it may as well boot up while I was waiting for Vanessa. Secondly, and most importantly, because Claire being here at this time on a Thursday morning meant that something, somewhere, had been well and truly fucked up, or her personal life was on one of its habitual downward spirals.
"You want to tell me now or after I've had coffee?' I hollered, inhaling deeply and wondering which of my wonderful siblings – Max excluded because he'd been perfect since the day he came out of the womb – might need digging out of a deep, shit-filled hole.
"After coffee is fine," she said back, her voice tuneful and far too fresh for this time of day. That worried me
"What time did you get here? Or haven't you been home?" Claire was like me in that way, she had no formal body clock, working completely to her own time, but the fact she was coherent, polite and present before six am was odd.
"Bad date," she said and I heard the sounds of keys being hit with gusto. "And a new case I need to speak with you about, but after you're caffeinated."
"Anyone you need me to hit?"
"No. Not quite. Although he could do with a referral to your tattoo artist. He has a shit tattoo that badly needs correcting."
"My tattoo artist is too busy for someone you're not going to see again," I said, opening the door into her office. Her head was down, she was focused, reading, and she reminded me of what I could remember of our mother: studious, involved. "You okay, sis? Everything ticked along alright while I was gone?"
She looked up, smiled, although the ends of her mouth didn't reach the side of her glasses. "Jacks, you worry too much. Everything is under control. Have more faith. Max has been great." Maxwell was our big brother, mine by ten months and hers by another twelve. He was a huge beast of a man-bear who was obsessed with law, more so than I had ever been. He was our resident encyclopedic law-geek who looked more like a heavyweight boxer. With a ridiculous beard.
"So why are you here at this time in the morning?" I could see she looked tired but there weren't any lines around her eyes so I was less concerned. Claire had always marched to the beat of a very unique drum that no one else could hear, except whichever minion she knocked the beats in to.
"I had a date which was let's say – uninspiring – and coming here and working was less hassle than walking home." Claire looked up from her keyboard and gave me a tired but genuine grin. "It's fine, Jackson. Tell me about New York. Any wild, romantic encounters?"
"You need to stay out of my love life," I said, avoiding eye contact. My sister was the devil when it came to me and Maxwell and our bachelor statuses. She was obsessed by the idea of family and tradition, to the extent where she had become the role of family archivist and exploring, extracting our DNA and sending it off to various companies to find out where we originate from. Agreeing to have our mouths swabbed was by far the less painful option than listening to Claire discussing family trees and heritage and other shit I'd deposited to my mind's dustbin. "Everything's fine. How's the marketing consultant been? I've just met her downstairs." Given that my father was officially leaving the company in a working capacity in a few weeks we wanted a fresh, modern look across the board, one that would appeal to more modern clients as well as the older established ones.
Claire stretched then poked her glasses further up her nose. "She will be. Vanessa is nothing but a perfectionist. You know she's already got Dad's ball pretty much organized." Dad's retirement ball was planned for around six weeks' time.
I flinched, not wanting a reminder of something I'd been trying to avoid for several months already. "She'd better be a fucking genius, Claire, with the amount her company's charging." Vanessa was a contact of Claire's, and along with her portfolio, Claire's word had got her the job.
"She came in on Monday. Kirsty's face looked like a slapped baboon's backside by the end of the day."
"Hopefully Kirsty will learn a few things so we don't need to hire a fucking outside company again," the words sounded harsh even to me, mainly because Vanessa had already frustrated me in one way. "This Vanessa had better know how to be fucking professional."
My sister stood up and eyeballed me. "Have you been home yet?"
I shook my head.
"Have you had a decent coffee?"
"No. I came straight here from the airport."
"So, you're jetlagged, decaffeinated and highly irritable. There's no way you're going anywhere near my marketing lady again anytime soon. Can I suggest, Mr. Managing Partner Lawyer-Businessman extraordinaire, that you go home now you've exercised? Sleep. Jack-off to some porn or motorbike pictures and then meet Vanessa later. When you're human. And not before."
"I don't jack-off to motorbike pictures!" I shouted after her, listening to the clip of her heels followed by the click of the door. "And I'm taking her for breakfast." Which was not the best idea, given that it would involve pretending to be nice to people who were also pretending to be nice, because it was shitting early and no one could possibly be in a genuinely good mood unless they've been woken up by better means than an alarm clock.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chapter Two
Vanessa
Sweet baby Jesus. What in holy hotness was that?
I rummaged through my wash bag for my razor as shaving my legs and potentially a bit further up had now hit the top ten of things to urgently do today. I leaned back against the surprisingly clean shower tiles and pulled myself together because thinking about Jackson Callaghan in shorts and covered in sweat was not where my mind needed to be right now. Besides any relationship, other than the one I had with my vibrator, was not on any agenda. I was focused on work, on building my portfolio, on developing client relationships, on getting away from owning a business with my shitty ex, all as fast as possible, without giving in to the ex's ridiculous ideas on how much I could be bought out for, or how much he could try to screw me out of.
Richard, the ex, managed to cause me pain without being there as I put a little too much pressure on the razor shaving over my knee, blood dripping down my leg. There was no pain, there never was at first with a shaving cut, that would come later, but I was thankful for the distraction from the tight muscles and tattoos of my current employer. I didn't generally go fo
r tattoos; only one of my past lovers had been inked and it was something I could've taken or left. Since being at the university, my type had always been the suited, power and money driven manipulators and I had gotten off on my manipulation of them as much as anything else. From what I knew of Jackson Callaghan he was driven, but not necessarily by wealth. That had never been a problem for the Callaghan Greene's: wealth had been theirs from birth.
I'd met Claire Callaghan through a networking event a year and a half ago. We'd found ourselves sitting next to each other, both nursing hangovers and large, strong cups of coffee. Rather than exchanging business details, we'd swapped background information on manicurists and arranged to meet for more coffee – the mention of wine was still banned at that point – when we were less hungover. She'd then talked me into pitching for the rebrand of her family's law firm. Grant Callaghan, the soon to be retired patriarch of the firm, also Claire's father, was notorious for upholding tradition and Callaghan Greene had plenty of that. There had been at least one lawyer in every generation going back around a hundred years and working from the same premises, although as the soon-to-be-old website explained, they took over several of the adjoining buildings as the business expanded. However, I knew it wouldn't be Grant that I dealt with, but his second eldest son, Jackson, who had been gradually phased in to manage the company, having been a qualified lawyer for a decade and an MBA graduate.
This was intended to be a swift four-week rebrand to encompass a modern, forward thinking firm steeped in success, tradition, and class. Part of the brief was to ensure potential clients were aware of all the areas of law that were covered as well as the in-depth specialism held by the partners, mainly but not exclusively, the Callaghan siblings. It should be my bread and butter, an easy job that showed off my skills and would enable me leverage to lose the albatross known as Richard from my neck and the rest of my life, along with his current blonde in need of a good meal. Not that I was bitter. Much.