Gripping my hips to twirl me around, Baron laughs heartily before setting me on my feet. He can’t make words, but I can’t make a sound in the face of his unbound happiness. Pressing his palm to my abdomen, he kneels down to press his cheek there.
“Wow. Wow . . . I don’t know what to say.” Baron marvels and my cheeks ache from smiling so much.
“I don’t want you to say anything,” I answer as he stands up straight, running his hands through his hair to pull the strands taut. “I-I had a hard enough time saying something myself.”
“Why? I wouldn’t bail on you, love,” Baron assures me, and I nod with a hum.
“I know, but it’s just . . . you’re my boss, so I was worried about telling you at work, but I also—I didn’t want to wait and lose my nerve. And I wasn’t sure,” I trail off before shaking my head under his bright, quizzical gaze. “We’ll talk about it more later, okay? There’s . . . some stuff I need to tell you, Baron. Important things.”
“That’s fine with me,” he answers sincerely. “Why don’t we stay in my suite tonight and eat in? We can lay it all out.”
“M-maybe, you can come . . . to my flat?” I offer, and surprise raises his brows. Licking my lips heavily, my mouth dries. “You don’t have to, of course.”
“No, I do. You’ve never invited me over. I was just surprised. Delaney . . . this doesn’t have to be a forced thing, love.” He holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender, and I feel a ton of weight lift from my shoulders. “Don’t feel like you have to do something you don’t want to.”
“I want you to,” I declare firmly, and Baron nods and slowly lowers his hands again. Looking down the hallway at the ballroom, I quickly meet his eyes. “I’ll go get myself acquainted with Jessica. Tom gave her a good talk-up. I want to see her for myself. And this luncheon and the wedding reception later downstairs will be a good test of what she can do the day of. Keeping an eye on her didn’t set you too far back in your own duties, right?”
“Oh, no, she was Tom’s problem, mostly,” Baron states with a sly grin before checking his watch. “I have to go to this meeting, anyway. I’m not looking forward to it. WW Construction is going to give me an update.”
“At least they’re getting the job done. Three weeks, right?” I say, and Baron nods as he rubs his palms together. A pinched look overcomes his expression. “Then, we can really get the ball rolling. We’re events only right now. There’s plenty of room to get in the green once we open fully.”
Baron leans his head to the side and smiles at me one more time as he backsteps toward the elevator. “Go! You have to work.” I play with him, shooing him away. I always knew he was a great man but seeing him like this, excepting all of me like this, prove he’s worth way more than I could’ve ever thought.
CHAPTER11
BARON
“O-okay, prenatal are vitamins that have iron and calcium and stuff,” I mutter to myself, squinting at the computer screen. “Delaney must’ve had them in her purse, and the receipt fell out? Well, whatever.”
I close the tab and lean back in my chair to exhale a hot, dense breath. Delaney’s pregnant. Wow. There’s simply nothing else to say but ‘wow’. Grinning up at the ceiling, I brace my head on my arms leisurely. This is fantastic!
“A dad . . . I’m going to be a dad,” I groan as this tingling sensation threatens to crack my chest wide open. My voice echoes, chasing itself in circles around me. “I’m going to be a dad.”
Sitting up sharply, I check the time on my watch and nod to myself. My meeting with the foreman of WW Construction is about on me, and I lock my computer before standing up on stiff legs. My office phone trills suddenly, but I don’t think twice before snatching it to answer. “Hello?”
“Sir, your mother’s back, and she’s demanding to see you,” Kelly, the receptionist, grumbles lowly, and goosebumps blanket my body.
“Tell her I’m in a meeting,” I reply. It’s basically the truth anyway. The last thing I want is my mom raining on my parade. Kelly chuffs quietly.
“I did. She said that she basically owns this place and will fire me if I don’t call you.” Alarm bells ring in my head. What the fuck? “So here I am, calling you.”
“I’ll be right down, but Kelly . . . no one can fire you but Tom, Tom’s boss when he gets one, and me,” I reassure her with a clipped tone before hanging up, and I cup my chin in troubled thought. Shit. My mom’s really delusional. Threatening my employees because she ‘basically owns this place’? Who the fuck does she think she is? Irritation floods my veins and heats my face as I leave my office in a huff. “I’ll be damned if I let her bulldoze over me, goddammit.”
And the worst part was this wasn’t surprising, just maddening. Over the years, I’d amassed a bit of a fortune and sunk every cent I had into this hotel. I’d rather go bankrupt than ask my mother for a fucking loan. I’d rather cut off my finger than ask her for a dollar. I was right to worry that she’d try to steamroll over me with her ‘mother knows best’ attitude.
“That must be why she sent me to Seattle over a deal that never got off the ground,” I mutter to myself as realization sneaks up on me. “Mother wants me to be her lackey. She must’ve noticed I was clawing my way out of the red and wanted to absorb me into her wretched, back-breaking machine. Fuck that.”
My mom’s behavior is unacceptable on any given day, but today . . . today, I’m particularly fired up. Delaney is pregnant, and I now know the truth about what happened to my brother. Those words that haunt me across the ocean cling to the backs of my eyes.
Ruining a woman’s life isn’t serious. That’s what the prick, Eamon Gallagher, had so nonchalantly said . . . about his own sister. Stepping onto the elevator, I resist the urge to gag in disgust. Like fuck. My brother’s dead, and Liam Mackenzie’s not some withering flower. He has plenty of money for a proper prosthetic, state-of-the-art—as if he had his real hand.
But Delaney . . . will never sleep well again. She’ll always have this defining line in her life and be hyper-aware of it. The person she was before the rape, and the person she is afterward. And she’ll never be able to fix herself the way Liam can fix his hand. How fucking dare Eamon try to lessen her anguish just to suit his needs?
I slam my fist against the wall in frustration. Fuck! What a cruel twist of fate that Delaney’s the love of my life. If only . . . I’d been the one to go to Seattle. Guilt closes my throat tightly. I should’ve been the one, but I was too busy trying to flounder through the opening of this hotel here in London. I was looking too far in the future and ignoring the opportunity that would’ve been at my feet had Hans never set foot in the place.
“But I can only hope Delaney forgives me for it,” I mutter to myself before the elevator jostles to a stop. I don’t remember pressing the button. Stepping off on the ground floor, I glance around the lobby. It’s empty but for my mother and Ulla, and my face grows hot. My eyes sting, and I storm over to my mother as red clouds my vision. “Who the fuck do you think you are threatening my employees!”
Mother jumps, holding a hand to her chest in shock as she stares at me with wide eyes. I resist the urge to grab her by her stupid fur and shake her. Instead, I point an accusatory finger at my mother as my lip curls in a snarl. “Let’s get one thing straight here, Mother. I own this hotel. These employees aremyemployees, and you have absolutely no power here. You do not go around throwing your weight! You will apologize to Kelly right this fucking instant, or so help me God, I’ll call Liam Mackenzie and give him everything I’ve got on you!”
