“I’ll give him as much time as he needs.”
“Look, I get the whole family ties thing, but ties only work if you’re not bringing each other down. Max bailed out of this meeting for a reason. He dropped you in it instead. That wasn’t fair either. He’s not good at his job, and you both know it.”
Despite his abdominal muscles bunching, and the knowledge that, yet again, Agathe was right, Luke shrugged. “And as I said, Max is worth having around. I have to give him a chance.”
She held out a hand. “No. Stop the excuses right there. He’s had plenty of chances and has failed almost every time.”
Inescapable heat seared through his chest, and for the first time since meeting the woman, he fought the urge to stand and walk away. “Are you telling me to fire him?”
“Nooooo.” She stared to the side, her dragged-out reply conveying an intentionally bad attempt to hide sarcasm. “At the very least, get Max some extensive training. He might be an ideas man, but he shouldn’t run your entire tech department. That job should go to Daniel. In the meantime, Max needs a complete attitude shift.” Her voice dropped to a near inaudible mumble. “And a major demotion…”
He leveled a scowl her way, fingers curling and opening, while he worked through her snarky list of demands. In truth, he’d considered all of that before; he’d just always been too busy to organize training or too protective to demote his brother. He’d also thought it a low and impersonal act to let any staff member handle this issue.
So here he sat now, the fruits of his inaction hanging before him in the form of Agathe’s burrowing stare. “You don’t ask for much, do you?”
Her gaze did a gentle dip to her plate. “I’m not the one asking for this. Your employees are.”
Her gentle tone hinted at harsh honesty that she was the bearer of his employees’ bad news.
He reached for his fork, the action intended to look casual, though his grip tightened around the handle, leaving it unclear which would snap first, the fork or his fingers. “Tiluma is Max’s company too. We started this together. You don’t understand my predicament.”
“Oh, I do. But I’m not the one asking for the change, your staff are. It’s my job to tell you that; it’s your job to keep this ship and its crew together. On that front, Max isn’t the only one failing at his job description.” She pushed some noodles into her mouth and chewed, all the while shooting him a direct stare, daring him to contradict her. Unfortunately, he couldn’t.
“Fine. I’ll get Max some management training. I’m still not sold on demoting him, though.”
“He also needs a stiff talking-to.” Agathe delivered the suggestion in a flat tone, a clue that his offer for Max’s training didn’t appease her in the slightest. “I could—”
“No.” He got in before she latched onto any more ideas. “I’ll do that too.”
She dipped her chin and eyed him from under her lashes, the challenge in that stare reminding him how much he actually liked her attitude and daring personality, even though it always seemed directed at him. “Okay, but if you don’t talk to Max, I will. It might be your job to keep this ship together, but right now, it’s mine to steer it in the right direction. I don’t intend to fall short on my end of this bargain.”
He gave her a flat stare, one that said, I hear you. Can you cool it with the warnings now?
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know. I’ll hold back for now.” She ripped out a page from her clipboard. “Here’s a list of suggested training programs Max should start immediately.”
He took the paper but decided to save looking over it for later. Right now, he had something, or someone else he preferred to focus on. “Are you always so hard-nosed about your work?”
She tipped her head to one side, eyes squinted in a not-so-serious scowl. “Always and without fail. And you’re paying me to be hard-nosed, so don’t be such a cry baby.” Her eyes glinted ever so slightly, a woman in her element, and she pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Besides, Max’s antics won’t help your chances with Ernest Schneider. I take those high stakes seriously.”
Luke took a bite of food, somehow impressed she had the guts to call him a cry baby, something no one within these walls would do.
Was it even possible to be turned on by an insult? The pulsating heat through his groin seemed to suggest so. Perhaps being CEO and getting way too used to calling the shots affected him. Maybe having people always tread lightly, meant an insult-infused dose of reality was exactly what his overly-pampered ego craved. In addition to this, Agathe had also managed to learn about the Schneider meeting. The woman had guts and initiative. What wasn’t to like?
“What high stakes, exactly?”
“You need Schneider.” She peered down, her lashes fluttering as though she’d lost the ability to look at him directly. “And I’m passionate about my work. I want Tiluma to do well, since I’m also angling for a promotion at Slate and King.” Her gaze lifted, the skin over her cheekbones taut in a beseeching, strained smile. “Luke, you have a fine staff with great potential. I need your help as much as you need mine. Maybe more. I need you to trust my advice and work with me here.”
He sat silent, weighing up her plea, wishing she’d shown as much spirit and fight the night he’d held her in his arms. Then again, maybe he should have been thankful she needed him in one area at least, even if it wasn’t at all in the way he wanted. “I’ll do my best, though I’d prefer it if you didn’t speak to Max for the time being.”
She gave a small nod and more silence.
They watched each other for an inordinately long time, and he tensed with a need to avoid any sudden movement. “Is the heavy stuff over now?”
Her throat bobbed with an obvious hint at nerves, but she nodded again, though her continued silence suggested she too didn’t know how the peace pact changed things between them.
He looked down at his plate and considered this subtle softening in her. “Can I ask a personal question?”
“We promised not to get personal.”
The quick reply gave the room a sense of sudden panic.
He lifted his head and offered a big smile, as though smiles alone could tame her. “It’s not that kind of personal.”
She wrinkled her nose as if to say, Really? but all she verbalized was, “Okay.”
He stood and leaned far across the table. She gave a small jolt, her gaze widening as his fingers caught a loose lock framing her face. He rubbed his thumb over the silken end. “Is this a convincing dye job, or is your hair naturally streaked with blonde?”
A slow grin crumpled up her cheeks and a relieved kind of laughter cracked out of her. “My mother’s Irish-Australian and my dad’s Afro-Argentinean. The color’s natural. The result of having some truly eclectic genetics. Oh, and the blonde gets stronger after a few hours in the sun.”
The corners of her lips lifted even higher, her dark eyes twinkling with a previously unseen lightness. Her seductive joy stirred his blood and made the strain in his chest disappear. So much so, his words got away from him, despite a need to keep the conversation simple. “Your genetics aren’t eclectic; they’re perfect.”
She rolled those sultry eyes but then jutted her chin forward, still throwing herself into the exchange. “How about you? What’s with the posh accent?”
He laughed, never having thought of himself or his accent as posh before.
“York, England. I’m Scarborough-born.” He kept his voice bright and settled back into his seat, never once having expected he’d be able to share easy banter with Agathe, even though this alone now made his heart beat a little heavier for the distance and the table between them.
If they’d been anywhere else, he would have shuffled closer, anything to gain access to even a little more of her space. “Max and I arrived in Melbourne three years ago, but my mother and sister still live in the U.K.”
She lifted her chin, and her gaze on him held a length of comfortable silence.
A d
istinctive need grew within him, a need for something more, a need her quiet appraisal carved deeper and deeper, until he was forced to focus on keeping his hands from reaching out to stroke a thumb over her high cheekbones—to caress her burnished-bronze skin or maybe taste her delicate pink lips again.
He wanted to reveal the ways in which she’d upended his life, and how he didn’t even mind because he felt more alive than he had in years. That she was a question, to which an answer didn’t matter so much since she’d already somehow added value to his life just by merely stepping into it.
And then he wanted to share the dumb and clichéd fact of just how beautiful she was. In every moment, especially this one. That she made him wish things could be different, and she would let him in. Even just a little.
Her face twisted, and clear tension drew at her shoulders. “Don’t.” She shook her head, as though she’d read each of his desires and rejected every one. “This job is all I have, Mr. Tindall, and there’s nothing else in this world that I want.” The weak whisper fell from her, and he winced in return at the formal use of his name.
He got it. She wanted to put him in his place, and as the person in the power position here, he had a duty to respect her decision.
She blinked down, loose bits of hair shrouding him out. Her next breath was a thin rattle. “I never thanked you for stopping what almost happened between us in Roseford. I was wrong to think I could indulge in something more, and you were right, I would have regretted us sleeping together.”
The word regret reverberated through his skull. His stomach hollowed at her expression of gratitude, where he had felt little more than a sense of unfinished business.
The sad glow to her eyes twisted his heart, as though something was fundamentally broken within her, and there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it. Though that wasn’t true. He’d seen people pick themselves up and dust themselves off. He’d been one of those people.
Either way, someone or something had hurt her so deeply and critically, she’d shut her heart inside a cage and hastily thrown away the key. Perhaps it wasn’t his job to fix that, but by God, he sure did want to.
His ribcage squeezed at the thought of her pain being insurmountable. It made his next breaths difficult and urged him to not let her go so easy.
“Let me help you.” His lips pressed together, the words sounding as short-sighted and arrogant as they probably were; his offer lingered like the clear mistake it was.
She stood and swiped her clipboard from the table. “Thank you, but you can’t, and I need to go.”
She marched toward the door and paused before opening it.
“You wanted to know what I meant when I said it was time.” She peered down at the floor, her cheeks dull and her shoulders slumped. “The truth is, there can never be a time for someone like me. So, let’s focus on fixing Max and forget everything else, okay?”
8
That night, Agathe huddled deeper into her couch, the brown leather stretching and cracking beneath her. She tugged the hood of her over-sized, white, cable-knit sweater over her head, creating a mild barrier between her and her television, then hugged a multi-colored patchwork cushion to her chest. But no amount of extra warmth or comfort could soften the glare she aimed at the love scene to her favorite romantic comedy.
Her insides coiled, and her eyes stung. She tried to blink a bunch, but that didn’t help. This movie was her go-to movie, her small slice of calm and romantic escapism on a bad day. But not tonight. Tonight, the quick shots of semi-naked bodies and hungry kisses made her want to scream.
Her lunch with Luke today meant she no longer saw her own potential redemption in the movie’s uptight heroine. The heroine’s icy defensiveness and hers weren’t anywhere the same. And just to be clear, Agathe’s level of frost most definitely won out.
And the laid-back hero? Man, he was equally lame. Tonight, he did nothing to spark her interest. Not his Hollywood smile nor those glittering blue eyes, both of which underachieved compared to the attractive green sparklers she now encountered on a daily freaking basis.
She tossed her head back and closed her eyes, releasing a low growl. Would she ever know peace again? Or even just the hellish sort of peace she’d endured before Luke had come swaggering, or in her case, shooting, his way into. She shouldn’t have revealed so much to him today. Shouldn’t have let his charm get to her. Even though he always got to her, her unexplainable habit of over-sharing in his presence, case in point.
She opened her eyes and, despite her lack of general care for the movie tonight, grinned at the television hero in the throes of declaring his love. At least the romantic film’s sappy ending made a pleasant contrast to the overall tragedy of life… or perhaps just her life.
How in Hades would she face Luke again? As if nearly sleeping together in Roseford hadn’t already done her in, today’s moment of shared admiration, followed by mutual googly eyes and tender sentiments, would make working at Tiluma awkward as hell. So hellish, she genuinely predicted she might burst into flames every time she got within ten meters of her hot-as-jalapenos boss.
The movie credits rolled, and she leaned toward her glass coffee table and hit the “off” button on the remote. Of course, some buried corner of her heart wanted a happily ever after ending, just like her sappy rom-com movie. Whether she deserved it was another issue. But even just a short period of things being less gray and bleak would maybe work.
Her mind paused on Roseford, on her moment of desperation, as though that night had opened a window to what she wanted but seriously couldn’t have. Well, if that night had opened a window, maybe it was time she found a way to close it. Right now. Tonight. And maybe she could do that by owning up to the one yearning she couldn’t seem to outrun. Luke.
Maybe she didn’t know herself quite as well as she thought, and this man had a hold on her for reasons she couldn’t quite understand just now. And perhaps her constant denial of that hold only made her desire for him burrow deeper and deeper into her subconscious.
That had to be it.
So, maybe an admission of her feelings would set her free.
Maybe?
A decorative china teacup sat on her coffee table and she wrapped a hand around the baroque-style lovers painted on the side. Though the romantic scene on her crockery made her scowl, her proceeding sip of warm tea still managed to soothe.
So, the first step in breaking Luke’s spell—and by goddess, she wanted to break that damn spell—would be to speak aloud what she’d avoided up until now.
She closed her eyes and chanted her deepest thoughts, all the while wanting to vomit a little in her mouth. Mostly because she could imagine just how incredibly flakey she looked, not because she’d decided an attraction to Luke was downright disgusting.
“I want Luke Tindall.”
The admission rang through her empty living room, and her ribcage tightened. Despite her private surroundings, the echo of her verbalized thoughts left her feeling raw and exposed.
Still, for once, being alone was something she could wholeheartedly celebrate here, so she continued.
“I want him so bad my loins are about to burst into a clichéd, lust-fueled bonfire.”
She tried hard not to chuckle. Okay, maybe this whole confession thing didn’t have to be total wretchedness. Besides, she most certainly did look like a sad-as-fuck flake, which only made the whole thing even funnier.
“I want to get laid, and I want Luke to be the one I get laid with.”
A wild heat swept over her face. That particular admission cut a little deep, but she couldn’t stop just yet.
“I want just a moment of release from this never-ending misery. I want to forget…”
Her body now ached, like her nerves shredded and her heart hollowed.
What have I done?
She flung her eyes open and vowed not to cry. Not over this. Not over him. Not over her damn inability to get over anything. Ever.
Sure, today’s
events came as a steep reminder of how empty her life was, of how little hope remained, but at least there’d been strength in her truthful words just now.
She’d attempted to take back a portion of her wasted existence, and for that, at least, she could be proud.
Because she could never jeopardize the one thing she held most dear. Not for anything. Not for anyone. Certainly not for lust or love. Not when each moment of unintended happiness took her further and further away from her past, and further and further away from Elsie.
So perhaps now her feelings for Luke would subside and cool.
Because they simply had to.
Feelings meant danger. Feelings meant taking risks. Feelings meant spontaneity and sex. And maybe all of that would lead to genuine adoration, which she couldn’t afford.
Too much relied on her staying just as she was.
Alone.
Detached.
Unloved.
9
“Hard at work, I see.”
Agathe jolted and stopped scratching her pen over her notebook. Daniel plunked himself down in the seat beside her at the large, and otherwise empty, conference room table. He nodded at her notebook riddled in black ink, or more precisely, her saccharine etching of a dolphin leaping through the air.
She shrugged. Clearly the boredom of waiting had gotten to her. “Got to get my creative fill somehow.”
More people filtered into the room; their expressions neutral despite the intense quiet adding tension to the air.
Daniel flipped his laptop open and focused on a miscellaneous document. “Have you run out of people to grill already?”
She laughed and continued scanning the faces around her. “No grilling today, I’m just here to observe group dynamics.” Most seats were filled now, all except two noticeable empty chairs designated for Max and Luke. “What’s on the agenda for this meeting, anyway? Why so many people?”
The Last Heartbeat Page 7