Counting the Kisses (Counting the Billions, #3)

by Lexy Timms

  I grimaced. “I just feel like I have to prepare her for anything that could happen,” I said.

  “Has she agreed to take over for now?” Erin asked curiously.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I’m expecting an answer when she gets back from lunch. I think she’s discussing things with her sister-in-law as we speak.”

  Erin nodded sagely. “Well, whoever steps in for you, I think you’ve given them access to the total archives of the business, from the look of things. In paper form, no less.” I gave her a look, and she laughed, holding up both hands. “Relax,” she said. “I’m sure things will be fine. Even without the stacks and stacks of research you’ve compiled.”

  I sighed. “Just be as helpful to Abby as you can. That’s all I ask. She’s probably going to be nervous, and she’ll need a sounding board and someone to hold her hand if necessary. You’ve been with this business for longer than she has, and you know things that no one else in this company does.”

  “Sure thing,” Erin said easily. We’d already had this conversation but I couldn’t help reiterate the thought. It made me feel better to have her assure me again that she’d be there for Abby as needed.

  “I’ll do my best to be there for her,” I said, promising that to Erin as much as myself. And as much as to Abby, although she wasn’t there to hear it. “I just have no clue how messy this thing with Gerrard could get.”

  “I’ll do everything I can to help her,” Erin said again.

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully.

  “Good luck to you,” Erin added. “But I know everything will work out. Gerrard’s just being an ass because he knows you have money and because he knows that the media loves a story like this.” She shrugged. “But we’re all rooting for you.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “Thanks,” I said, watching as she left. Then, I sank back into the seat behind my desk, pressing my fingertips against my eyelids, feeling the start of a migraine brewing behind my eyes.

  She was right, Gerrard was just being an ass. I was still shocked that things had gone so wrong with him. He had been my trusted advisor for years, and he had worked for the company for more than two decades. I never would have suspected that he would start selling stories about me to the media, or that he would start giving them tip-offs as to my location or upcoming business decisions. I was still reeling from that betrayal.

  And now, this. It was like he just couldn’t get enough of tormenting me. It made me wonder what the hell I had done to get on his bad side. But it wasn’t like I could just ask him that.

  Maybe it really was all about the money. I had thought that I was paying him a fair salary, but maybe it just wasn’t enough.

  I shook my head again, trying to forget those thoughts. It didn’t matter if Gerrard was just being an ass; I still had to go through this trial and everything that came with it.

  I couldn’t help feeling a bit worried. Unfortunately, people like Gerrard just seemed to have a way of finding me, and of taking advantage of me. Because although I might think that he was just an ass, I knew that the underdog—Gerrard in this case—usually had the support of the public.

  The trial would be tricky. I had beat up Gerrard; that was a fact. After publically firing him, no less. And I knew that no one really believed that I had hired Abby for her brains and business acumen. No, they were all sure that the media had it right, that I was just looking for someone to fuck. So they would believe Gerrard when he said he had been wrongly fired, that I had only ousted him so I could put a young, leggy blonde in his place.

  My hands clenched into fists. It was all lies, but then again, most of what the press had been publishing about me for years now was lies, or at least heavily embellished truths and speculations. The public always ate it up before; there was no reason to think that things would be any different this time around. My lawyer had already run through the possible outcomes of this trial with me, and I had to admit, it had me worried.

  But what had me most worried was that somehow Abby would decide it was all too much for her and leave me. I didn’t know what I would do if that happened.

  Chapter 4

  Abby

  I SMILED OVER AT LEANNE as our soup and sandwiches were delivered to the table. “Thank you again for meeting me,” I told her, hoping she couldn’t see just how weak my smile really was. There was just so much going on in my head right now that it was hard to really figure out what I was feeling.

  I hated to admit it, but I was feeling worse and worse the closer it got to Thursday and the start of the trial. I knew that Daniel must be having similar feelings, that things weren’t going to be easy for him either. I also knew that part of my gloom had to do with the depressingly dreary weather outside.

  So I was hoping that soup and sandwiches would suit the weather and cheer me up a bit, and that some conversation with my best friend would help me sort out what to do about Daniel’s proposition.

  “All right, what’s going on?” Leanne asked me before I had figured out how to begin.

  I grinned ruefully over at her. Of course she would realize that something was wrong. She’d been my best friend since freshman year of high school, and she knew me better than anyone. She could read my moods like a book.

  “It’s work,” I admitted. “And Daniel.”

  “Uh oh, trouble in paradise?” Leanne asked sympathetically.

  I was still worried that telling her about all of this mess would change her view of Daniel yet again. She and my brother, Matt, definitely hadn’t been Daniel’s number one fan from the start. In fact, Leanne, who read far more of the tabloids than I did, had cautioned me to stay away from him and never date him at all, even though she’d been on board with me going to work for him from the time we saw the advertisement in the paper.

  But when Matt got in an accident and Daniel had proved just how good of a guy he was, driving me to the hospital and bringing us all food, among other things, Leanne and Matt had slowly come around.

  I didn’t want to undo all of that progress. I wanted Leanne and Matt to like Daniel; he was important to me, and if I had my way, I would keep him in my life for a long time to come. If they didn’t support my relationship with him, I just didn’t know what I would do.

  But I needed her opinion on the question of my taking over temporarily as CEO of McGregor Enterprises. I wasn’t expecting her to make the decision for me—nothing like that. But she had always been my sounding board, the person to make me understand my own thoughts and feelings even better than I could on my own.

  I couldn’t ask her opinion on any of that without telling her why Daniel wouldn’t be able to be CEO for the time being. I had to tell her about the trial.

  “It’s not trouble in paradise, per se,” I finally said with a sigh. “But Daniel is going to have to go to court tomorrow.”

  “Shit, that escalated rather quickly.” Leanne said, her eyebrows flying up toward her hair. “What did he do?”

  “It’s Gerrard—the guy who was Daniel’s advisor before me. He’s taking Daniel to court for assault, for the night we ran into him at the bar and Daniel punched him.” Those were the facts, and I tried to relate them as emotionlessly as possible.

  But I could see from the way Leanne’s lips tightened that she had strong feelings of her own about the news. “All right,” she said evenly. “He’ll plead guilty to it, of course. There were photos of the incident. Plus witnesses, plenty of them.” Suddenly, she looked even more worried. “He’s not asking you to lie as a witness, is he?”

  “Of course not!” I said, shocked that she would even suggest that. I thought that she had come around to him, but now, I had to wonder.

  Leanne held up both hands. “Sorry, I don’t mean to make it sound that way. I’m just trying to get a feel for why you’re so upset.” She paused. “I mean, I know that you aren’t thrilled that he beat this guy up, and I can’t blame you for that. But you knew about that already and you still wanted to be with him. So I’m trying to understa
nd what’s changed.”

  “I guess it’s not totally about him punching Gerrard. Like you said, I’ve come to terms with that. But a big trial could really shake things up between the two of us, just when things were getting good. Like, there’s no way to keep this out of the press.”

  “Gerrard won’t settle outside of court?” Leanne asked shrewdly.

  I shook my head. “Honestly, I didn’t even ask Daniel. I assume he already thought of that. He doesn’t want to go to trial any more than I want him to.” My lips quirked upward briefly. “I actually think he’s more frustrated on the amount of time he’s going to have to spend in court and not in the office. You know he’s a workaholic; he sees this as an affront to the way he lives his whole life.”

  Leanne grinned and shook her head. “You know, I can see that about him, from everything you’ve told me,” she said. She paused, frowning suddenly. “What is he going to do about that? You said he has to go to trial tomorrow? Have you met whoever his stand-in is going to be? Or is he thinking that it’ll be over with quickly enough that you’ll be able to cover for him in the interim?”

  I grimaced. “Well, yes and no,” I said.

  “What does that mean?” Leanne asked, looking confused.

  “He wants me to take over as CEO while he’s tied up in the legal proceedings,” I explained.

  Leanne whistled under her breath. “Wow,” she said. “That’s big.”

  “It is,” I agreed grimly.

  “You don’t sound very happy about it,” Leanne said slowly.

  “It’s not that I’m not happy about it,” I said, carefully considering my words. “It’s just that I’m not so sure about it. I’m nervous.”

  “Talk to me,” Leanne said simply.

  I smiled at her and then took a deep breath. “You know that I want to be CEO someday,” I said. “And that’s still true. And I do feel that since I’ve started working for Daniel, I’m closer to that goal. I’m learning valuable knowledge from him, and I do feel like I’m gaining confidence in my ability to make business decisions. He and I are on the same page for a lot of things. And when we’re not, either he makes it easy for me to see his point of view or vice versa.”

  Leanne frowned at me. “So you’re just nervous about this?” she asked. “Sounds like you think you could take the job with no problem.”

  “It’s not just nervousness,” I said, shaking my head. “Honestly, I just feel like there’s so much that I still have to learn. I don’t think I’m ready for this—not yet anyway.” A wave of unhappiness spread through me as I admitted that to her. I wanted to believe that I was ready for it, that was the thing. After all, hadn’t I worked all through school for a position like this? And I had been chomping at the bit for the years since graduation, sure that I deserved something more.

  Something just like this. A job that came with a certain amount of responsibility attached. Yet, here it was, and I was shying away from it, sure that I wasn’t ready for it yet.

  Leanne looked amused. “Daniel doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to try to give you a task he doesn’t think you’re ready for,” she said.

  I frowned. “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  Leanne shrugged. “Well, from what I’ve seen of him, he’s not only crazy about you, but he also appreciates every one of your strengths. I don’t think he’s trying to recklessly tear you down, and I also think he cares a great deal about your happiness and your mental state.”

  I blushed, but I couldn’t keep the grin from my face. “Yeah, maybe,” I hedged.

  Leanne shrugged expansively. “I can’t tell you what to do,” she said, as though I didn’t already realize that. “But I can tell you, I don’t think you need to worry so much about this. Maybe you’re not 100 percent ready for it yet. But what better learning experience than hands-on trying to run the company? Especially since you haven’t been with them forever and you can’t just do exactly what you think Daniel would do?”

  I shook my head. “If this was some kind of classroom exercise, that would be one thing,” I told her. “But as it is, this is a real company. An important one. The decisions I would make as interim CEO could really change people’s lives. For the worse, if I’m not careful.”

  “It has nothing to do with being careful, and you know that,” Leanne said, shaking her head. “You’ve got good instincts. We all know that. Daniel definitely knows that. He’s trusting you to make the right decisions on his behalf. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

  “It does.” I sighed. “I just don’t know if that’s enough.” I frowned, trying to think of how to explain it to her. But really, what it came down to was that I was scared. I didn’t want to mess things up.

  “It’s only temporary,” Leanne reminded me, as though I had spoken out loud. “Whatever you do wrong, Daniel will still be right there to counsel you through it. Or to fix things once his trial is over.”

  “I don’t want to mess things up, though,” I said, hating that it sounded like I was whining. But to be honest, hearing how supportive Leanne was of this opportunity, I wondered why I had been so worried in the first place. She had come around to the idea of me dating Daniel, upon my insistence that he was a good guy. Maybe it was time for me to try my hand at being temporary CEO of the company, against my insistence that it might not work out well for anyone.

  “I don’t know,” Leanne said finally. “It just seems to me that this is the perfect chance for you to see what being a CEO is all about, without the real high stakes. Like, if you were going to really become CEO of a company, it wouldn’t be with McGregor Enterprises; you’ve told me that. Because you couldn’t just take Daniel’s family company away from him for good. So if it were any other company, you’d be walking in there blind. But at least here, you not only know something about the company ahead of time, but you also have Daniel there at your back in the worst-case scenario.”

  “I guess,” I said, starting to see her point of view.

  “And besides, if you really screw something up, all you have to do is tell Daniel and he’ll find someone else to put in charge in the interim,” Leanne added. “What’s the worst you can do?”

  I cracked a smile at that. “I don’t even want to think about it,” I told her, but to be honest, her words gave me only relief.

  Because the truth was, I really did want to take Daniel up on his offer. For the same reasons that Leanne had said, basically: because this was a low-risk way to really try out being a CEO. And I had never backed down from a challenge before. Daniel’s faith in me was flattering, and I trusted him to know what he was talking about.

  Not only that, but if I was going to end up in the tabloids either way, I would rather shut them up, give them something other than my relationship with Daniel to talk about. Wouldn’t it be nice to read about my business prowess for once, rather than read about what I was wearing out to dinner?

  I wasn’t so naive as to think that every magazine would print the story with that spin on it. Plenty of them were probably going to write that I was a scheming whore, that I had orchestrated the whole incident with Gerrard, that this was all something we cooked up between us to get money from Daniel.

  Maybe that was far-fetched, but I could see it happening.

  What I’d like, though, was to see just one article that pointed out that I was making the most of a bad situation, and doing a damned good job of it, too. Maybe that was too much to ask. It would have been easier if I hadn’t been there when Daniel first assaulted Gerrard. It would have been easier if we hadn’t just come out to the press with our relationship.

  But I could dream, anyway.

  “Daniel can’t possibly expect you to be perfect,” Leanne said suddenly. She held up a hand before I could get offended at that. “Come on, we both know that you’re not going to do things exactly the way that he would, and he can’t expect that of you. What’s more, I think from what I’ve seen, he doesn’t expect that of you. He likes that you challenge h
im, just the same way that you like that working for him challenges you.” She was grinning at me, and I had to grin in response.

  “If this wasn’t what he wanted, would he be offering it to you?” Leanne said firmly. “Enough said.”

  “There’s other things as well,” I finally sighed.

  “Such as?”

  “The media,” I said disdainfully.

  Leanne shook her head. “I hate to say it, but if you wanted to stay out of the tabloids, you shouldn’t have started dating him in the first place. That ship has sailed.”

  “And you don’t think they’re going to be even worse about it now that Daniel’s on trial for punching a guy who insulted me?” I said wryly.

  “There’s only so many negative things they can write,” Leanne said somewhat dismissively. She paused, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. “Abby, you’re smart. You know just what they’re going to say about you. Just don’t worry about all of that. You’ve told me before that the guys you do business with don’t seem to care. So why let it bother you? Just don’t look at it.”

  “But what about Zach and Layla?” I couldn’t help asking.

  Leanne smiled at me. “I’m flattered that you’re worried about what they would think if they were to read about it,” she said. “But Zach is only nine, and Layla is even younger. By the time they’re of age to read that kind of crap, it’ll be buried underneath the next five hundred scandals.” She paused and then shook her head. “Don’t you think the media would be harsher on you if they found out you had been offered this position and turned it down?”

  “I already thought about that,” I admitted. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  Leanne shrugged. “And I can’t tell you,” she said, stirring her soup for a moment with her spoon. “But what I can tell you is that Daniel was willing to not only sit with you at the hospital for practically the whole weekend when Matt had his accident, but he also came to dinner with us. You’ve got something good with him, I think what you need to do is figure out how to keep that going.”