But Lucy was in no mood to admire the view as she barged into his space, his frantic administrative assistant hot on her heels.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan, I told her you were on a conference call but she—” The poor, frazzled thing stumbled over her words, clearly still in shock that Lucy had barely spared her a glance on her rampage toward Joel’s office. “She just bulldozed right in.”
Joel, who sat at his mahogany desk, back to the view, glanced up at his assistant, then studied Lucy. She was sure her hair was in disarray from her race over here. Her cheeks were flushed with heat and her death glare hadn’t wavered since she’d burst out of the elevator and scared the daylights out of his unsuspecting assistant.
Flicking his gaze to his assistant once more, he dismissed her with a single nod, then he fixed his gaze on Lucy again as he pressed a button on his office phone.
“Serena, my apologies. An emergency has come up.”
A voice filled the room through the phone speaker. “An emergency? Right now?” The tone was demanding.
Joel met it with an irrefutable tone of his own. The onethat compelled even the most hard-headed business people to concede to his will. “Yes, right now. I’ll call you back.” He clicked the button again before a reply could come and rose from his chair. “Lucy?” His inflection softened now, soothed, and as always, it only ignited her rage.
“He’s giving it to fuckingyou!” she shouted, throwing the contract she’d brought with her on his desk.
Joel watched the paper flutter to the surface, then raised his gaze to her again. “I?—”
“My father is giving Barone & Sons to you, Joel.” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her voice below a shout. Her anger was too sharp and tunnel-visioned. “I bet he thinks it’s some kind of wedding present, a gift to his new, beloved,covetedson-in-law.” Her breath caught, backed up with hurt. “You should have heard how he bragged about you today at work. I should have known. I should haveknown.”
Joel took a remote from his desk and pointed it at the floor-to-ceiling glass walls behind her. Instantly the glass shuttered to a foggy white, blocking the sight of the busy office beyond because God forbid anyone should see Joel Morgan’s wife losing her fucking mind in his office.
He was calm. Too calm. And he hadn’t looked at the contract since his initial glance after she threw it at him.
The truth struck like a knife to her soul. “Oh my God. You knew.”
“Lucy.” He raised his palms. “I told him no.”
Her unabated anger trapped all coherent words in her throat.
“Lucy?” Joel asked carefully, as he came slowly around his desk to stand closer to her.
He appeared so austere in his business attire, so handsome and competent. She was all the way in love with him,and pretty sure he was right there with her. This was their fresh start. Their re-do. So why?—
“Why didn’t you tell me?” The words spilled over her numb lips, echoing and reflecting their past as they bounced off the walls. The same mistakes, over and over and over again. “Joel?” she pressed.
“I wanted to protect you,” he blurted.
“From what?” she shouted, throwing her arms in the air. “From my stubbornly, traditional father? From the generational chauvinism that has plagued me since the doctor announced my sex in the delivery room? From the fate I have been trying and failing to change for the last twenty-nine years?”
“From all of it!” Joel’s rarely raised voice silenced her tirade. He took off his glasses and set them on his desk behind him, before pressing his fingers against his closed lids.
Several beats of silence passed before his eyes opened to look at her, weary and dull, like an overcast sky. “All I’m ever trying to do, Lucy, is protect you.” His voice leveled back to its usual composure, but his tone had lost resolve. “Telling you would have served no purpose other than to hurt you. And I had already told your father no, so I assumed the matter was done. I didn’t think the contract was already drawn up.”
“Of course it was drawn up. He’s a presumptuous old bastard. He had no reason to think you’d say no.”
“But,” Joel countered, “he had every reason not to ask me in the first place.”
His cell phone started having conniptions on his desk, but he ignored it.
“Lucy, when he asked me, I was truly shocked. And then scared shitless, because I knew you and I were on tenuousground, and I didn’t want anything to shake that. Not for this.” He gestured to the contract on his desk.
His phone silenced. He looked exhausted. Sympathy snagged at her heart. What he’d said made sense. This was a typical Joel Morgan attempt at protecting her feelings. But it was a failed attempt, and now the hurt that had simmered for so long had come to a boil.
“Thisis important to me! Barone & Sons is important to me.” Heat pricked her eyes. “You could have told me, and I would have known what my father was thinking.” She spun away from her husband’s heartbreaking scrutiny.
“I’m sorry." His voice was hoarse.
“I can’t believe I was so naïve,” she whispered, her words muffled by her tears. “Two fucking weeks was all it took for him to give it all to you. How dumb was I to think he’d consider me?”
