Counting the Kisses (Counting the Billions, #3)

by Lexy Timms

  “Are you saying that my refusing to stand in as interim CEO might ruin our relationship?” I asked, aghast.

  Leanne snorted. “No, but if you quit your job at McGregor Enterprises and move to Alaska or somewhere, that just might,” she joked. She gave me another serious look. “Abby, I think you’ll do an amazing job at this, and if I were you, I’d probably be jumping up and down at the opportunity. But you know I’ll support you, whatever you decide. And I’m sure Daniel will as well.”

  I nodded slowly at her, knowing she was absolutely right. This was an opportunity, no matter how scary it was. It was a chance for me to really prove myself. And I wanted to step up to the challenge, I had to admit. I wanted to prove to myself, as well as to the media, that I wasn’t just an attractive woman Daniel had hired.

  Maybe that would even help his case with Gerrard, by proving that the former advisor had been slandering me and thus giving Daniel a reason to try to shut him up.

  Okay, maybe nothing that extreme, but I could always hope, right?

  “Thanks,” I said to Leanne.

  “You’re going to take the job, aren’t you?” Leanne asked, grinning at me.

  I nodded at her. “I’ve already taken the job as advisor,” I pointed out. “It’s not like this will really be all that much different.”

  Chapter 5

  Daniel

  I WASN’T SURPRISED when Abby returned from lunch and came directly into my office to see me. She paused in the doorway, though, looking around in surprise. “Damn, boss, it looks like a hurricane went through here,” she said.

  I sighed, not sure what to say in response to that.

  Abby frowned at me, shutting the door carefully behind herself and coming over to my desk, perching precarious on the edge of it. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “You look worried.”

  I grimaced. “I just have a lot on my plate right now, as you well know,” I told her, trying not to react to the close proximity to her. We were rarely this close around the office; we had both decided that the wisest course of action was to maintain a good distance between us at work, to act strictly professional. Indeed, to the casual observer, it probably seemed like we were barely friends outside of the office. We walked into work holding hands, but that was about it.

  I just wanted to pull her into my arms, to hold her close, to reassure both her and myself that things were going to be all right. I couldn’t do that, though, and I knew it. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Well, here’s one thing off your plate,” Abby told me. “I accept the position of interim CEO while you sort things out with Gerrard.” She paused, looking around again, and I could see the trepidation in her eyes. “Now, please tell me I don’t have to read all of this before tomorrow’s meetings!”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Nah, not before tomorrow,” I told her. “It’s really just here in case you need it. I tried to get together all the information I have about all of our different clients, and the shareholders, and anyone else that you might have to deal with.” I paused. “It’s a bit tricky because I don’t have any idea how long this trial is going to last for.”

  “That’s fair,” Abby said, nodding. She chewed at her lower lip. “To be honest, I’m pretty nervous about this whole thing, and all of this isn’t making me feel any better.” She swept an arm around the room and then shrugged. “I feel like I’m woefully unprepared for this position.”

  I snorted. “If you really want to know, that’s about how I felt when I took the company over from my father,” I confessed.

  “Bullshit,” Abby said, shaking her head. “I bet you’d been going to meetings with him for years by that point. Getting to know the shareholders and the other employees and all of that. Learning to understand how the business operates and its values and everything.”

  I grimaced and shook my head. “I know you don’t believe everything the tabloids say about me, but I have to admit, they were pretty right about me back at the start of things,” I told her. “I wasn’t always as focused as I am now.”

  Abby stared at me quizzically for a moment and then nodded slowly. “All right, I’ll grant you that,” she said. “But at least it was your family’s business you were taking over.” She made a face. “I just don’t want to make some stupid mistake and cost you or the company money. I don’t want to screw up.”

  I stared at her for a moment and then stood abruptly, pulling her into my arms because I just couldn’t help it anymore. “Abby, that’s ridiculous,” I told her.

  “No, it isn’t,” Abby protested, but her arms came around my back as well, her cheek pressing close above my heart. “Mistakes happen.”

  “Of course they do,” I said soothingly. “But I trust you. And I know that mistakes happen. I’m not asking you to be perfect. You don’t need to worry about that. I’m not going to be mad at you if you drop the ball on something.” I sighed, nuzzling her hair. “I mean, let’s be real here, I’m the one who has really dropped the ball. That’s exactly why I need you to help me out. If you’re willing to.”

  “I want to,” Abby said. “But I’m probably going to have a zillion stupid questions for you to answer. After the first day even.”

  “And I’ll do my best to answer them,” I promised her. “Erin’s another great resource, believe it or not. She’s been with this company for a while now, and she knows things about it that none of the rest of the do, purely because she’s the one scheduling all of my meetings and working behind the scenes. She’ll be here to help you as well.”

  “I’d expect you to be more bothered by the idea of giving up your company. Even temporarily,” Abby said.

  I pulled back to grin down at her. “Is that your way of threatening that I’m never going to get it back?” I asked her.

  She looked horrified that I had even suggested that. “No, not at all!” she said. “You’d better come back. It’s your family’s business, after all.”

  I sighed and glanced away from her. “I know it is,” I said, surprising even myself with the level of bitterness in my tone. “To be honest,” I told her carefully, having a hard time getting the words out, “I’m almost excited to have a reason to take a break from it. Not that this is the kind of break I would have chosen for myself.”

  Abby stared at me as though I had two heads. “I never would have thought I would hear that coming from you,” she said, and I could hear a faint tone of bewilderment in her voice.

  I winced, realizing how it must sound to her. Given that she thought of me as such a workaholic, she was probably wondering, now, if she even knew me at all. If I’d just been lying to her or putting up a facade all along. If maybe I was exactly the man that the tabloids made me out to be.

  “I love this company,” I hurried to clarify. “It’ll just be nice to step away from the meetings sometimes. I’ve known for a while now that I need to delegate more. Erin’s been hounding me on that one. And honestly, Gerrard was before that.” I frowned pensively. “I wonder if that’s what got him so frustrated at me.” It seemed like such a minor thing, but I supposed it would kind of make sense.

  He must have realized that his career with McGregor Enterprises had gone as far as it could, and he had decided to seek out alternatives. I honestly couldn’t really blame him for that. At least, not until I considered the way in which he had ultimately sold out.

  I shook those thoughts out of my head and bent lower to give Abby a soft kiss on the lips. “I’m going to be around, whatever you need,” I promised her. “I just won’t be here for meetings and that sort of thing. But it’s going to work, and you’re still going to see plenty of me.”

  “Plenty of you?” Abby asked hopefully, her fingers brushing along the bare skin beneath the hem of my shirt.

  I laughed and pushed her hands away. “Plenty of me,” I promised her, and she grinned up at me, clearly realizing just how flustered that simple touch had gotten me. When this was all over, I was going to show her just how much I reall
y cared about her, I vowed. We’d had one romantic weekend interrupted before, when her brother was in a car accident. Maybe it was time to plan another one.

  Not for right now, of course. There was nothing we could do as long as I was tied up in court. But as soon as that was over, we’d see.

  “So you’re off to court in the morning?” Abby asked quietly.

  I nodded at her. “Yeah.” I sighed. “I won’t have time to swing by the office or anything; I’m supposed to be there pretty early. But like I said, this should be everything that you need, and then you’ve got Erin. And the rest of the employees as well. But I think you’ll do fine.”

  “How long do you think the trial is going to take?” Abby asked, and I could hear the note of worry in her voice. “And what’s going to happen? Do you know what kind of sentence you’ll end up with?”

  “My lawyer and I have discussed things,” I admitted, inclining my head toward her. On the one hand, I didn’t want there to be any secrets between the two of us. But on the other hand, I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily. And telling her about all the myriad of punishments I might end up with certainly seemed to be worrying her for no reason. I doubted anything too terrible was going to happen. Sure, it would have been nice to settle outside of court, strictly for privacy reasons. And I was worried about what the jury would think of me.

  But at the end of the day, justice would prevail. I was sure of that.

  “I have a great lawyer,” I finally told Abby. “To be honest, I’m not expecting much to come of this. Gerrard was the one who betrayed me. He sold out my information to the press. I have a good case, a good argument, and at the end of the day, I’m sure we’ll come to some agreement. It’s more annoying than anything else.”

  I felt kind of bad telling her that, since there was no way for me to know how things were going to turn out. But on the other hand, if I didn’t keep telling myself that things were going to be fine, I was really going to start to panic myself. I couldn’t imagine doing jail time. Or even therapy, if those anger management classes were going to keep me away from my business, which they surely would. If nothing else than for the reputation of the business.

  But Abby seemed to understand, nodding at me. She leaned against my chest again, her fingers tangled with mine, her thumb stroking over my skin. “I wish you didn’t have to deal with this,” she said softly. She gave a short laugh. “I honestly wish that we could just get away from all of this madness and drama. Go off somewhere, just the two of us. Really explore our relationship and forget about all of the stress.”

  My heart ached to hear her say that. Because I knew she deserved much better than this. I reached out to stroke her cheek lightly. “I wish I could take you somewhere now,” I told her. “When this is all over, I will.”

  “Where?” Abby asked, cracking a half-smile.

  “Anywhere you want to go,” I promised her.

  Chapter 6

  Abby

  I YAWNED AS I SLIPPED into my dress on Thursday morning. I hadn’t slept well the night before, tossing and turning, so worried about my new temporary position and all the things that could go wrong. “I didn’t keep you up all night, did I?” I asked Daniel, feeling guilty. I should probably have just gone home, but it had been nice to be there with him, to have his silent comfort next to me.

  It might not help me sleep, but it did mean a lot to me that he had so much confidence in me.

  Daniel glanced over as he buttoned up his shirt and shook his head, making a face. “I had a difficult time sleeping, too,” he said, reminding me that he had to be at least as nervous as I was.

  I grinned crookedly at him. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” Daniel snorted. “Would you mind helping me zip up my dress?”

  Daniel stepped over behind me, sliding his hands up my bare skin from my waist and then kissing my neck. I groaned, watching our reflection in the full-length mirror.

  He looked very handsome in his suit. Strong and important. Smart. Of course, he usually looked good around the office, but today, it was clear that he had taken extra care for his appearance, obviously wanting to project a certain image to the court.

  “You look nice,” I said, leaning back into him for a moment, drawing strength from his solid warmth.

  “Just trying to impress the judge,” Daniel responded, winking at me. He pulled away all too soon, but I knew it was for the best. This morning, more than any other morning, we both needed to be on time. I hated the thought of showing up to work without him, though.

  We had decided that I would drive myself to work that morning rather than take a cab or private car. Hopefully, any reporters that were there would be expecting me to arrive in Daniel’s car at the front of the building as usual. So if I parked in the garage and went up into the building that way, they wouldn’t suspect it and I’d be able to slip around them.

  I could only hope so. We weren’t sure if they had already found out about the trial, but I imagined that some of them must have. Especially since Daniel had explained to me that Gerrard had been leaking information about him to the press for years, getting paid for top-quality information on the CEO’s whereabouts. No, this trial probably wasn’t a secret, and I wasn’t ready to try and answer any questions about anything just yet. Especially not without Daniel there at my side.

  Especially not on my first day as CEO. It might only be a temporary change, but it still felt pretty monumental.

  Surprisingly, everything went according to plan. I was nervous on the drive in, but I just kept reminding myself to take deep breaths and let them out slowly. It didn’t help much, but what could you do?

  There were definitely members of the press crowded outside the front of the building, but I barely glimpsed them as I turned left into the parking garage, bringing the car around into Daniel’s CEO spot.

  CEO. Is this really happening?

  I sat in the car for a solid five minutes trying to compose myself. I was sure that the easy smile on my face as I breezed into the office was clearly fake, but again, what could you do?

  “Good morning!” Erin chirped when she saw me. “Why don’t I give you the rundown for the day?” She led me into Daniel’s office and started listing off everything that I should be working on for the day. I was immediately overwhelmed.

  Of course, I knew that Daniel did other things than just attend meetings next to me. But I had never quite realized the scope of what he did in his day-to-day work. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, I might have laughed about how terrible he was about delegating work. Surely he didn’t have to do all of this himself. And it was no wonder that he ended up staying late nearly every evening!

  But I knew that without a doubt that wasn’t Daniel. He wanted to be firmly involved in his family’s business. In every part of it, if he could help it. Still, it made my job pretty difficult now, especially as I looked around the office again, wary of all the stacks of paper he had laid out. Mountains, really. I swallowed hard.

  “Hey, you know you’re not alone in this,” Erin said, clearly reading my dismay.

  I looked back over at her in surprise, then remembered what Daniel had said the previous day about her. She had been with this company for a while now, and she knew the ins and outs of it better than almost anyone else.

  Sure enough: “Any questions you might have, just let me know,” Erin told me. “If I don’t know the answer, I may be able to point you in the right direction, either in these files or, if we can’t find the answer there—which I doubt since Daniel basically acted like he was preparing for the apocalypse and I can’t possibly imagine there being another situation that he didn’t prepare notes for—but on the off chance that there is one, I can probably find you someone who can answer the question for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said gratefully. “Seriously, I don’t think I could do this without your help.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Erin said, grinning at me. “I’m Daniel’s assistant, remember. Now I gue
ss I’m yours temporarily. So whatever you need, you just have to ask.” She paused. “And if I do a good enough job, maybe you’ll give me a raise, boss?” she joked.

  I had to laugh at that. “I don’t think I’m ready to start navigating those waters anytime soon,” I told her.

  “Fair enough,” Erin said, winking at me. “So the schedule for today, then. You’ve got these two conference calls and then that marketing meeting. Then you’ll have time for a quick lunch before that sales pitch from some of the company’s clients, the ones you were supposed to meet with Daniel.”

  I nodded. There were a lot of decisions I would need to make today. I didn’t even know what the conference calls would be about, although Erin promised me that there were files relating to each one, and I had a little time to brush up on the background information before I sat in on them. And marketing? I didn’t know the first thing about marketing, so I really hoped that Daniel didn’t expect me to make any decisions on that one.

  I was really starting to feel like I was in over my head. I only hoped that Erin couldn’t see my panic. Or rather, that no one except Erin would see my panic.

  “Have you thought about what you’re going to say when they ask you where Daniel is?” Erin asked suddenly. “Because you know, some of them are probably going to want to know.”

  I blinked at her. How had I not thought about that? I should have asked Daniel what he wanted me to say. I glanced around at all the stacks of papers. “He thought of all of this, but he didn’t think of that?” I asked, but the joke fell flat. I sighed. “I suppose I can’t tell them that he’s sick, because I don’t want to lie to them, and they’re sure to find out about the trial at some point once the media gets involved.”