She shrugged. "Pretty much."
"Whether right or wrong, it was like the rug was pulled out from under me when I walked in this afternoon. I was flat on my ass." I squeezed her hands. "I'm not good at handing over the reins. I want to trust you. I want to let you work your magic. Give me another chance to get it right, Zelda. Let me do better."
"All you need to do is less," she said with a laugh. "You're doing too much. That's why I'm trying to get some extra hands to pick up the excess from your dad's office."
"Walk me through the proposal," I said, still holding her hands like they were my only lifeline. "While I was having my tantrum, you mentioned something about a few candidates who could be based in New Bedford, right? Or did I fuck up my recollection of the conversation too?"
"No, you heard that through your asshole earmuffs just fine," Zelda replied. "The way I see it, you and your father are looking at this from an either-or perspective when it should be both-and. Not Boston or New Bedford but Boston and New Bedford, remote and New Bedford, and any other combination. People are open to these flexible arrangements, more than you might assume. That's the part I want to capitalize on because it eliminates your father's issue of his clients seeing their accounts shipped out of town. I have to imagine there's some big city resentment, even if it's misplaced. Right?" I nodded while I pressed my lips to her palm. "Right, okay. So, instead of leaning into thebig city accountant who doesn't care about your smaller city meat marketdrama, we embed staff in New Bedford and train them to use your systems."
"I've attempted that move," I said gently. "It was interpreted as a criticism of his methods and management."
"Then adapt the move, don't abandon it."
I kissed her palm again as I considered this. All I knew was my father and I couldn't get on the same page. I didn't see how I'd be able to change that with the same dance set to a different song.
"I hear you though I've tried all the adaptations I can think up. I have actually tried to solve this on my own, Zelda. I haven't been ramming it through."
"That's right because you reserve ramming for the evenings I visit bridal boutiques."
I groaned into her hand. "Don't bring that up. Not unless you're asking for a repeat."
Pleasure danced in her eyes as she asked, "Would you like that, Ashville?"
More than anything in the world.
The waitress returned at that moment with our plates, forcing me to release Zelda's hands and withhold the response burning on my tongue. But I didn't take my eyes off her.
When we were left with pancakes, eggs, bacon, and everything else she'd ordered, I said, "I am not accepting your resignation."
She lifted both hands as if weighing my words. "Is it up to you?"
I inclined my head. "I'd like to think so."
"What about me? Don't I get a say?"
I snagged a piece of bacon from her plate, chewed it thoughtfully. "Of course you do. I'd send you on your way with a glowing recommendation if you actually wanted to go but you don't. You want me to be better. You want me to get my shit together and you want to stay."
She doused her pancakes in syrup and licked a drop off her finger, effectively converting my blood to lava. "There you go, Ash. That's how you fight fair."
21
Zelda
I was halfwaythrough folding the load of laundry I'd abandoned earlier when I felt Ash watching me from the guest room doorway. He'd changed into a t-shirt and gym shorts when we'd arrived home from the diner though in the past hour—or his way down the hall—he'd lost the shirt. Not that I was complaining.
His stare was constant and thorough, as if he could see through my clothes, through my skin, all the way down to the aggregate pieces of me. He saw it all and if he'd noticed I was in disarray, he didn't care.
Part of the fun came from ignoring him. Shaking out shirts and snapping towels, pressing them into precisely folded piles, pretending a bossy, growly man wasn't watching the whole thing.
The other part of the fun was waiting for the moment he'd push away from the threshold, saunter across the room, and tell me what he wanted. It didn't matter whether I'd laid into him this afternoon or issued a very real threat about leaving his employ. He was still going to fuck me like he owned me tonight and I was still going to ask for more because being ownedjust like thiswas the best, most liberating experience of my life.
I was preoccupied with a fraying t-shirt hem when Ash brought his hands to my hips, an undercurrent of urgent insistence in his touch.
"You're so hot when you're mad. So fucking hot," he said, flipping open my jeans. "Stay right here and let me watch you work it out of your system."
In direct defiance of his request, I swished my backside over his cock and dropped my head back against his chest as he dipped his fingers inside my panties.
"Just for that," he rumbled, "it's going to be so much worse."
