“I think it’s going to do well,” I say cautiously. “It’s going to help a lot of people.” He read an article on Hearktech? That’s a first.
“Did you design it?”
“Me, Seb, and Harry together.”
He nods. Then he clears his throat. “I’m proud of you, son.”
I stare at him. He couldn’t have shocked me more if he’d slapped me in the face with a wet fish. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me.”
My father looks at the floor for a moment, then lifts his gaze to mine. “I know I’ve been hard on you. I thought you needed it. When you said you wanted to work with technology, I thought you wanted to play video games for a living. I didn’t realize you’d be doing things like this.”
“You could have asked,” I say softly, unwilling to let years of angst and resentment go with one throwaway sentence.
“I know. This may come as a surprise to you, son, but I do make mistakes.” His lips twitch, and I give him a wry look. “The thing is,” he continues, “there’s no rule book for being a parent. You have to make it up as you go along. You’ll understand this, now that you’re a father.”
He’s talking about James. I meet his gaze, speechless at the knowledge that he’s accepted the fact that I want to be a father to the boy. He gives a small nod. “I’d like to do something for your young lady. I’d like to offer her a place at our law firm in the city.”
My eyes widen. “Seriously?”
“A junior role, to begin with, until she completes her studies. But we can train her, and provide her with the experience she needs.”
I’m speechless, and can only stare at him.
“I want to help,” he adds. “She’ll want to provide for the boy, and this will make her feel as if she’s doing her part. Do you think she’ll take it?”
“I can’t answer for her, but I hope so.” I think she probably will. It’s easy to say that you want to get a position on your own merits, but jobs aren’t easy to come by in the city, and it will still be up to her to complete her studies and work hard—Dad wouldn’t expect any less from one of his employees.
“It does mean working for you,” I say as we walk over to the window and look out at the women walking up the garden path. “Perhaps I should warn her off.”
He gives a short laugh. “Perhaps.” He nods at Roxie. “Are you going to ask her to marry you?”
“Already have. We’re thinking in the spring.”
He nods again. “Good. Make an honest woman of her.”
I laugh. Roxie looks up at that moment, and her lips curve in a big smile. She’s pleased that I’m getting on with my father, because she knows what a long journey it’s been.
They come into the living room, and Dad tells her what he’s just told me—that he wants to offer her a job. I wait for her to say she couldn’t possibly, but after a few moments of her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, she says, “Thank you. I’d love to accept.”
She turns to me and throws her arms around me, and my parents smile. I close my eyes and hold her tightly. I feel a warm glow inside I never expected to feel. I realize I felt this way the moment I laid eyes on Roxie, when she first came into the boardroom to collect a parcel. I should have guessed then I was in trouble.
Maybe love at first sight isn’t as bullshit as I thought.
Taking Time
Like a Boss: 4
by Serenity Woods
Chapter One
Elen
I’m so fucking miserable.
I sit on a stool in the corner of the room, leaning on the bar, and stare into my glass, carefully avoiding the eyes of people coming up to order drinks. I don’t want to talk to anyone tonight. Part of me doesn’t want to talk to anyone ever again. I’m tempted to get into my car and drive--through the russet and gold leaves falling from the beech trees lining the streets, out of the city, and just keep driving until I hit the sea.
And I wouldn’t stop there. I’d drive right into the cool depths and let the ocean fill the car, until I was surrounded by darkness, and all the pain went away.
Jeez, I sound pathetic. I’m even irritating myself now. But the thing is, I used to believe my life was blessed. When I was younger, everything I touched seemed to turn to gold. My grandmother died when I was five, and I’ve always felt that she’s been looking after me, like a fairy godmother, making all my dreams come true. Well, where is she now? Has she gone on vacation? Are you on strike, Nan? What have I done to make you desert me?
This isn’t like me. I’m a silver-lining, glass-half-full kind of girl. And, come to think of it, I’m usually better at holding my drink than this.
I pick up my glass and frown at it. This is only my second, isn’t it? I massage my forehead, conscious of the ever-present ache, and remind myself of the migraine medication I took a few hours ago. It did say on the packet to avoid alcohol--it must be increasing the effect of the vodka, and contributing to the depression.
Oh well. Fuck it. I finish off the glass. Even a positive person like me can’t avoid the fact that, this time, my relationship with Dan is over. We’ve not had a ‘spat’. We’re not on a break. We’re done. And it doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself it’s a good thing because I’m free and I don’t have to answer to anyone and there won’t be any more arguments, I’m devastated. He’s not just broken my heart, he’s shattered it into smithereens, and there isn’t enough Super Glue in the world to stick it back together again.
I gesture to the bartender. “Can I have another, please?” He takes my glass and makes me a third Black Russian.
As I pass him my credit card, a man takes the bar stool next to me, and I feel a sudden flicker of unease and vulnerability at the thought that I’m on my own. Nobody knows I’m here tonight. Not my brother, or Harry and Caleb, the other guys I work with. None of my friends know where I am. It’s not even a familiar bar. I deliberately took a taxi to the other side of the city so I wouldn’t bump into anyone I knew.
Then I roll my eyes at my own arrogance. I’m only just on the right side of thirty. I’m wearing sweatpants, a faded tee, and the oldest jacket I own. I’ve scraped my hair into a scruffy bun, and I haven’t applied any makeup. It doesn’t mean I can be flippant about my safety, but I don’t think I’m going to be fighting off the opposite sex tonight.
I glance at the guy who’s just taken the seat next to me. He’s looking at his phone, and it gives me a moment to survey him. Tall, dark-brown hair, long stubble that’s verging on a short beard. He’s wearing jeans and a black jacket over a khaki-colored tee. He has a nice face--not all angles and planes like a model, but good-looking boy-next-door handsome, the kind of guy your mother would love you to bring home.
There’s a russet leaf sitting on his hair that he obviously hasn’t noticed. I study it for a moment, then lower my gaze back to his face to discover him watching me.
“Evening,” he says.
I blink, trying to gather my wits. “Sorry. It’s just… your hair… you have a leaf on the top.” I gesture vaguely at his head. I sound drunk--I know I do.
He raises a hand, finds the leaf, looks at it with a smile, and places it on the bar by his glass. “Thanks.”
“I’m not drunk,” I say. “I’ve taken medication and I think it’s interacting with the vodka.” It takes me three tries to say ‘interacting’.
He looks amused. “Okay.”
I rub my nose. “I don’t know why I felt a need to tell you that.” I wait for him to reply. Dan would say, If the box said to avoid alcohol, why did you start drinking in the first place? I never have to listen to him lecture me again.
And now I want to cry.
The guy next to me takes a mouthful of his drink and twirls the dead leaf in his fingers. “The process that causes leaves to change color is called abscission.”
I stare at him. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”
He shrugs and sips his drink again. Then he picks up his phone and begins to f
lick across the screen with his thumb.
“Koala bears eat only eucalyptus leaves,” I tell him.
He puts down his phone and turns his attention back to me. His eyes are blue, a dark blue, the color of the sky outside now that the sun has nearly set. “When they leave a cave, bats always turn left.”
That makes me laugh. “I have no way of knowing if that’s true.”
He grins. His front teeth, while being white and straight, have a slight gap in the middle. “I’m not a chiropterologist, so neither do I.”
“Is that what they call someone who studies bats?”
“Yep.”
I sip my drink, secretly impressed. “Are you a trivia buff?”
“Yeah. Kind of a nerdy hobby of mine,” he confesses. “I collect facts like other people collect stamps.”
“Me too.” I wish I didn’t feel quite so woozy. When I’m at my best, I can beat any person they put up against me on quiz night at our local bar. Tonight… maybe not so much. But I can remember a few unusual facts. “A golf ball has three-hundred-and-thirty-six dimples,” I tell him.
He laughs. “In World War Two, metal was so scarce that Oscars were made of wood.”
“I knew that. Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors.”
“The first bomb dropped by the allies in the Second World War killed Berlin’s only elephant.”
“You can’t have two facts about the war straight after each other,” I tell him.
“Says who?”
“I just made it up.”
He smiles. “Okay, dogs can get toupees in Tokyo.”
“They cannot!” I scoff.
“Cross my heart.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “I never thought I’d meet someone who was as obscure as I am.”
“I’m not obscure,” he clarifies. “I’m perfectly normal. Two arms, two legs and everything.”
“If you say so. I don’t know anyone else who would know that bats tend to turn left.”
“Okay, maybe not so normal.” As he smiles, his gaze brushes down me, soft and light as a feather, from my face to my feet and back up again, where his blue eyes stare into mine, showing a glimmer of interest in spite of my obvious drunken incoherence.
Because it’s so unexpected, it makes me catch my breath. What am I doing? How can I be smiling and flirting with another man? I’m here because I’ve broken up with Dan, the man with whom I was supposed to spend the rest of my life. He was my Mr. Right, and I was his Mrs. Wright, we always joked about it, and I fucked it up. Emotion rolls over me like one of those machines that flattens tarmac, and I tighten my hand on my glass and knock back the rest of the drink in an attempt to control it.
I don’t care about the medication or the migraine. Maybe if I drink enough I’ll pass out, and then I won’t have to deal with this pain anymore. Because I can’t bear it. I loved Dan with all my heart, and now he’s gone.
What the hell am I going to do?
Chapter Two
Kane
I stare into the eyes of the girl by my side, and I watch them fill up as surely as if someone has turned on a tap in her brain.
“Oh shit.” I watch with alarm as her bottom lip trembles. “What did I say?”
“Nothing. It’s not you. I’m sorry.” She fumbles in her purse for a tissue, and blows her nose. “I broke up with my boyfriend this evening, that’s all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” It’s a half truth. I’m sorry she’s upset. But I can’t deny that my heart’s doing a tap dance at the knowledge that she’s single.
She gestures at the barman, who pours her another drink. Vodka and coffee liqueur--what’s that called? A Black Russian? She’s even getting drunk elegantly.
She takes a sip, then gives me a small smile. “I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sure you didn’t come here tonight to have a pathetic woman wailing on your shoulder.”
“A pathetic beautiful woman.” I watch her eyes widen. “Too obvious?”
She might only be wearing scruffy sweatpants and a shapeless jacket, and her dark hair is scraped off her face in a bun, and her face is pale and devoid of makeup, but that doesn’t take away the fact that she’s beautiful. It radiates through her unhappiness and sorrow. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I used to cut out shapes on a piece of card and place it over a torch, throwing the shapes onto the wall--light always finds a way.
Looking confused, she turns her gaze back to her drink. The poor girl. She’s just broken up with her boyfriend and now some stranger in a bar is hitting on her.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, “do you want me to go?”
She sucks her bottom lip for a moment. Then, with a side glance at me, she gives a little shake of her head.
I blow out a breath, finish my whisky, and gesture to the barman for another. After he’s passed me the glass with the half inch of pale Ardbeg Islay malt whisky coating several blocks of ice, I turn to face the woman at my side.
“Would you like to talk about it? Or would you rather me distract you with inane facts?”
Her lips curve up. She’s gathered herself together a bit, and her eyes are no longer watery, although she’s still having trouble focusing. I wonder whether she’s telling the truth about having taken medication. If that is the case, she probably shouldn’t be drinking, but a) it’s none of my business, and b) she’s obviously miserable and doesn’t care at the moment, and I can understand that.
“Not much to say,” she advises. “We broke up. There. Done.”
“No chance it’ll all blow over in the morning?”
She takes a big swallow of her drink. “Not this time.”
“So you’ve broken up before?”
“Yeah, a few times.”
“So what makes you think it’s final now?”
She’s sitting right up against the wall, and she leans back on it, looking suddenly tired. She surveys me thoughtfully. “Are you in a relationship?”
“Not at the moment.”
“You’ve lived with someone, though?”
“Yes. I was married for five years.”
“Did you argue a lot?”
“No. I’m a pretty placid sort of guy.”
Her lips twist. “That must be nice. Dan and I bickered all the time, and then occasionally things would get out of hand and we’d have a scream-the-house-down, throwing-all-the-dinner-plates kind of argument. We’d shout and rant and rail, and then we’d make up. My parents were the same, and so I just assumed it was what you did, you know?”
“Lots of relationships are like that. People let off steam in an argument, right?”
“Yeah. We broke up a while ago, lots of door slamming and yelling and walking out, but eventually we got back together. I thought it might clear the air.”
“What happened?”
“I got tired of all the drama. He was so prickly--I was constantly having to watch what I said in case I provoked him. It was exhausting. He just wore me out.”
“You broke up with him,” I observe, hiding my surprise. I’d assumed from the fact that she was in a bar that he’d dumped her.
“I guess I prompted it, but it was kind of a joint decision. He certainly didn’t argue. I’d just had enough. He used to nag me a lot about my work. I’m one of the directors of a telecommunications company. I work late most nights and I go to functions--it’s the nature of the job. We deal with a lot of investors and clients. He hated it when I wasn’t home. He was constantly nagging me to leave early, and when I said I was busy, he’d say he had an important job too but he was always able to make time for me…”
She leans her elbow on the bar and rests her head on her hand. “It’s just too hard. It shouldn’t be this hard, should it?” Tears glisten in her eyes.
“I don’t think so, but then I’m hardly a guru when it comes to relationships.” I stifle a sigh. Even though she broke up with him, it sounds like she still loves him. “Can you talk to him about it? Explain that you want to stay with him, but that
he’ll have to accept your working hours?”
Her eyes harden, and she sits back up and finishes off her drink. “No. I’m upset it’s over, but he said some pretty cruel things to me. He made me feel cold and selfish, and I know I’m not either of those things. Or at least, if I was, it was him who made me that way. Does that make sense?”
“I think so. I think life is about finding someone who makes you feel like the best version of you it’s possible to be.”
She studies my face, then, and her expression softens. “‘The best version of you it’s possible to be.’ That’s a beautiful way to put it.”
“I have a way with words. I think I wrote that for a greeting card.”
She laughs and gestures to the barman. “Another?”
I hesitate. She’s slurring her words, and I don’t want her to come to harm. “It’s none of my business, I know, but you said you were taking medication…”
“Just one more. I’m not quite numb enough yet. It still hurts.” Her smile fades.
“Sounds as if you’re well shot of him,” I advise, gesturing to the barman for another whisky, and sliding him my credit card.
“Yeah. I should be happy, shouldn’t I? I should be dancing and singing la la la, I’m young, free, and single…” She stares into her drink.
“Your relationship has ended. It’s okay to grieve. To be sad. It takes a while to get over any loss. And then one day it’ll feel better, and you’ll be able to move on.”
“I want it to go away,” she whispers, laying a hand over her heart. “It hurts so much.”
“I know. It will. Just go with it. It’ll pass.”
She closes her eyes for a moment. Then she opens them and turns her head to look at me. She smiles slowly. “You’re very kind.”
“My fatal flaw.”
“You’re sweet.”
“Kind and sweet. Two words every guy wants to be called by the most beautiful woman in the bar.”
She gives a short laugh and props her head on a hand again. “So why are you single? Why did your five-year marriage come to an end?”
Like a Boss Box Set: Like a Boss Series Books 1-4 Page 27