I’d managed to put off the Napa trip a few weeks and skipped work get-togethers, but I couldn’t avoid Thalia forever.
I leaned over and kissed Elise’s cheek. “Thalia can’t take what’s already been given away, and my girlfriend has me in the palm of her hand.”
Elise stopped chewing. Then she dropped her forked chicken into the dish and climbed on top of my lap. “Who would have thought Max’s commitment-phobe friend would give up his singlehood?”
I tossed my food in the casserole dish too and grabbed her sexy hips. “I seem to recall your skittishness with relationships.”
“It takes one to know one,” she said, then reached back and grabbed my dick. She shook her head slowly. “Still no refractory period, I see.”
“There was one, but once the sheet fell below your breasts, my libido roared back to life.”
She leaned over and kissed me, giving me the best view of her breasts in the house.
* * *
I metThalia on the helipad the next morning, and she remained professional, going over preparations for the meeting and dinner party later that night. She’d memorized every family member and pertinent event for the attendees, as she’d been going to meetings in my absence and getting to know everyone. But I learned at the dinner party why giving her that much freedom had been shortsighted on my part.
Thalia looped her arm through mine as soon as I entered the dinner party, which was set in an underground wine cellar, with wine barrels lining the walls and blankets for the laps of the attendees because the place was kept at a cool sixty-four degrees Fahrenheit.
I tried to remove Thalia’s arm, but she tightened her grip and smiled at the owner of the vineyard, a billionaire who ran dozens of companies worldwide—the vineyard being a hobby and a convenient meeting place.
“Gregory,” Thalia said, getting the man’s attention, “my better half just arrived.”
The fuck?
She grinned up at me. “Jack has a bit of mad scientist in him and can be a little scattered. I told you,” she said to me, “the party was at six o’clock.”
I peeled her off my arm and reached across the space to shake the man’s hand. “I was told seven. My apologies.” I glared at Thalia, who was ignoring my look.
“Not at all,” Gregory Walton said. “I understand how these things go. My wife does the same thing to me. Tells me one time and forgets when it’s been changed.”
“That’s not—” I started, but Thalia cut me off.
“Our partners can be such a pain, can they not?” she said, laughing.
And I did not think she was referring to me as a business partner. Mostly because she wasn’t my business partner; she worked for me.
Before I could correct her, everyone in the room started sitting around a large mahogany table with crystal glassware.
I was irritated, but I’d deal with Thalia after the party.
I sat at the end of the table, next to Gregory, and we immediately began talking about the future of Environ. “This technology is on the cutting edge of climate readiness and would allow businesses like yours to grow with preparedness, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in loss prevention.”
He moved his hand off the table so the server could set down a salad. “It’s fascinating technology. Not sure how we’ve managed without it.”
I chuckled. “With expensive insurance premiums that continue to go up. Our technology won’t eliminate the need for insurance, but it can be used to plan better, preventing climate hazards from affecting businesses and communities the way they have been.”
“That’s what we like to hear,” he said and grinned at his wife beside him. She was attractive, wearing a sparkly black dress and gazing at him warmly. “My wife here wants more accountability. Wants us to leave more of a positive mark.”
I grinned and nodded. “That’s what I want too, and my girlfriend would agree as well.”
Gregory glanced at Thalia a few seats down. “She’s a go-getter, that one.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Thalia isn’t my girlfriend.”
Gregory turned to his wife, and they both looked over in confusion. “My apologies. We assumed by the way she spoke of you over the last few weeks, and then again tonight, that you were a couple.”
My chest tightened, and my head grew so hot I thought it might explode. First Thalia insulted Elise, and now she’d been plotting and convincing my business associates we were a couple?
