“Here.” Damien handed Matthew’s phone back, interrupting his thoughts. “The galaxy’s best.”
A few specks of glitter were stuck to the screen of the phone. Matthew brushed them away with his thumb and opened his tabs, expecting to find his photo gallery open and stuffed with all kinds of pictures his father should never, ever see.
His contact list was open instead.
Matthew stole a look at Damien, then pinched his lips and checked the names saved in his phone. A new one had been added.
The Galaxy’s Best
A cartoon rooster was set as the profile picture, and a phone number with a 212 area code had been saved into the mobile field.
The heartbeat Matthew had been trying so hard to get under wraps doubled its pace. He looked from the phone number to Damien, who winked. “So it’s not quite a dick pic, but I figured you wouldn’t turn down a cock shot.”
Matthew almost burst from laughter, not just because of Damien’s lame joke, but because of the meaning behind it. Damien didn’t want to let him go. He’d brought Matthew to bed and still wanted more. Fiji wouldn’t be the end of them. Damien wanted to see him again.
14
Damien
At fifteen minutes to five o’clock the following evening, nose buried in his glitter-flecked phone, Damien sank into one of the white chairs aligned in neat rows on the beach and tried very hard not to scowl. After close to twenty-four hours of shitfuckery—five hours of which he’d spent passed out from exhaustion mid-email—he was no closer to having discovered a solution to the latest dumpster fires currently reeking to high heaven back in New York.
Geller, who’d been dodgy at best about when Stendahl’s tender offer would be fully revised and ready, had gone AWOL.
AWOL.
It was New York City, for Christ’s sake. Where could a lawyer have vanished to? A man like Geller, with his pudgy, pasty cheeks and his sunken eyes, wasn’t likely to flee into the countryside and start living off the grid. Dividing him from his IV line of La Colombe would be tantamount to murder. Or suicide, Damien supposed, if he was doing it to himself.
Still.
AWOL?
It made Damien wish lawyer hunting season was actually a thing.
While Geller’s legal team scrambled to continue without their point of contact, Stendahl had somehow caught word that Geller had pulled a David Copperfield. Stendahl, inspired by Geller’s performance, had decided to throw a shit fit. Five hours after Geller had cut contact, Stendahl had been on the phone with Alan Whitcroft, the managing director under whom Damien served. According to Whitcroft, who’d called Damien directly, Stendahl was threatening to pull the deal from the Goldcorp Group entirely.
It was a fucking shitty thing to do, and with Damien so far from the city, his hands were tied. The phone calls he needed to make often dropped due to spotty reception, and emails were too easily ignored. With a problem this big, he needed to be hounding down people’s necks in person or nothing would get fixed. Which was a problem—a big problem—considering that he was in fucking Fiji.
If he didn’t figure out a way to get his shit together soon, Whitcroft wouldn’t need to fire his ass—the second word got out that Damien had dropped the ball this badly, he’d lose all credibility. No one in their right mind would trust an investment banker who couldn’t get a tender deal off the ground. It didn’t matter that Geller was the one responsible—his shit reflected on Damien, and it was Damien’s career that would suffer.
Halfway through his fifteenth email to Stendahl that day, Damien’s screen darkened, and his phone started to ring. Startled, he stopped what he was doing to see what the hell was going on. With all the notifications he’d received since he’d caught word that there was trouble, he’d been forced to mute his phone to preserve his sanity. It shouldn’t have been making noise at all.
An alarm popped up alongside a reminder:Your friend’s getting married, boss. Turn off your phone.
Nadja.
Not only had she programmed alarms into the phone he’d lost in the lagoon, but she’d taken the time to load them onto the replacement model as well.
Ripped from the trenches of work drama, Damien leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his face with one hand. Stubble prickled his palm. In all the chaos, he’d forgotten to shave. Had he combed his hair? Fuck if he knew. At least he’d remembered to put on his pants.
“Hey, Knot,” came a voice from way too close. Damien leapt back, almost knocking his chair and the one behind it into the sand. Before he could fall, a broad hand wrapped around his wrist and tugged him back into place. It was Harley, who looked dapper in his suit and tie. “Whoa, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s fine. I was distracted, that’s all.” Damien cleared his throat and sat a little straighter. “Where’s Simon?”
“He wanted to check in with Jayne and Shep about something. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Evie peeked around her father and gave Damien her best sunshine smile. “I’m here, though. Hey, Mr. P. How’s it going?”
Damien wrinkled his nose. “Mr. P?”
