I look up slowly. Karen is still talking, people are still nodding, and no one, thankfully, has noticed the slight tenseness of my body. I’ve made an art of controlling my demeanor in a stoic manner, and I’m more thankful for it now than ever.
“Excuse me,” I say, smoothing out my suit as I stand. “I need a moment.”
No one questions me. They never do.
I leave the boardroom and walk the length of the glass hallway and my footsteps echo off the sleek marble floor. The skyline stretches to the Hudson and Manhattan sprawls beneath me. It's glittering and oblivious, as if it were built to mirror my untouchable, cold, and strategic detachment.
Back in my office, I close the door behind me and grab the coffee waiting for me on my desk, finally letting the tension out just a little. I loosen my tie, sit down, and pull my phone back out to reread the email. Not because I didn’t understand it the first time, because I absolutely did. I just need tobelieveit.
My fingers drum once against the edge of the keyboard before curling into a fist.
Achild.
I’ve built an empire. I’ve launched collections that reshaped men’s fashion. I’ve steered this company through scandal and recession, survived a wife’s betrayal, and a board full ofvultures, but this?Thisis what could take it all away?
I lean back in my chair, my head tipping back onto the leather, staring at the slick, black ceiling. It’s not the absurdity of the requirement that bothers me; it’s that I didn’t know about it. My lawyers didn’t catch it until now. Life is fragile and unpredictable which can’t be outmaneuvered with strategy and spreadsheets.
A child. An heir.
Not just a name on paper, but a living, breathing person. I’ve never seriously considered having a child, not sinceher. I never wanted to consider it.
A soft rustle from the open doorway of our adjoining offices snags my attention. I glance over, half expecting her to be out of sight, but she’s right there.
April Swan.
She’s standing by the copier on her side of the door with arms full of folders. She’s fighting a losing battle with gravity and flimsy paperclips that let papers slip right out onto the floor. Her black-rimmed glasses slip down her nose, and her blonde hair is twisted up into a messy bun that she favors. Her lips move in silent curses as a stack of pages drop to the floor and scatter across the marble.
I don’t move.
I justwatch.
She bends down to retrieve the mess, her skirt stretching over curves I’ve spent far too many months trying not to look at. Her blouse pulls from where it’s tucked in, showing just a touch more of the back of her neck and the middle of her upper back. I drag my gaze away. It takes far more effort than I care to admit. There’s something about her, always has been.
Witty, sharp-tongued, brilliant when she’s angry and unshakable when challenged with an important task. Most employees respect me, but April talks back with fire behind her teeth and sarcasm dripping from her tongue.
She drives memad.
What’s worse is she sees too much of me. Not just the suit or the title or the legacy, but the realme.
She snaps at me while staring straight into my eyes, and it feels like she’s peeling back layer after layer until she finds something worthwhile. She’s probably the only one around me who manages it. That makes her both dangerous and stupidly tempting.
I push up from my chair just as she straightens with an armful of loose papers, rounding my desk to cross the space.
“You know, wedohave assistants for that,” I deadpan.
She flinches, then looks at me over her shoulder, her eyes wide before they turn into a glare like I’m the one who made her drop the papers.
“Unlike you, I don’t particularly enjoy making assistants do jobs that I’m perfectly capable of,” she clips back. Taking the few steps back toward her desk, she sets the armful down in a cluttered heap. “You monitoring my every move now?”
“I’m monitoring inefficiency,” I say, leaning on the doorframe as I use my shoe to nudge a missed paper toward her, one that had slid over the threshold into my office. “Hard not to when you’re littering across my floor.”
She huffs a breath out of her nose, clearly resisting the urge to throw something at me, and crosses back toward my outstretched foot, her heels clacking on the marble. “Right. I’ll make sure my next mistake isn’t in front of yourvoyeuristiceyes,” she drawls, leaning down to rip the paper out from under my shoe before standing-up straight.
As if that alone isn’t enough to get my blood pumping between my hips. Her little retorts shouldn’t amuse me, but they do. More than they should.
I hold her gaze for a second longer than I need to, watching the way her green eyes flick between mine like they’re searching for something. I swear I can see the faintest hue of pink in her cheeks, but with her makeup, it’s hard to tell.
“Try not to injure yourself bending over like that,” I say, andthereit is—a little red tinge on the tips of her ears. It’s probably irritation, but I’d be a liar if I tried to tell myself I wasn’t wishing it was something else. “It would delay the press release…again.”
