“Fine,” I lied.
I couldn’t tell her the truth. Hell, I could barely admit the truth to myself. On the one hand, I wasn’t okay because I wanted her something awful. Like, fighting my body like I hadn’t had to fight it in twenty years, awful.
But on the other hand, and much more serious than simply losing control of my cock, was the fact that after last night, after listening to her story and watching the steel melt just enough to show what lived underneath, I couldn’t unsee the soft side of the business prodigy.
The woman I hoped, absurdly, would pass on her intelligence and spine to our future kids—Wait, kids?
I blinked hard.Why am I thinking about kids? What was I thinking about before that again?
Jane tilted her head, those blue-gray eyes slightly amused as they met mine. “You just made a face.”
“Did I?”
She nodded slowly. “It also kind of looked like you were losing an argument with yourself.”
I let out laugh, hoping it didn’t sound as strangled to her as it did to me. “Story of my life.”
She smiled into her mug and I slid a plate across the counter toward her, soft scrambled eggs and buttered toast. I leaned my hip against the island like this was normal. Like we did this every morning.
“There you go,” I said like I was revealing some kind of grand surprise. “The Alex Westwood breakfast masterpiece.”
She chuckled, pulling the plate closer and picking up the cutlery I’d set out for her while she’d been in the shower. “Don’t mock it till you try it. It looks great to me. Speaking of which though, where’s yours? You’re not making me eat alone, are you?”
I shook my head and turned again, quickly sliding some eggs onto my own toast with considerably less care. Then I sat down across from her at the counter. As we started eating, I hated that I had to shatter the weird ease we had going this morning, but I couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Are you aware the Thayer board is meeting Monday morning?” I asked.
She froze for half a second, then glanced back up at me. “No.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. I got word yesterday.”
She let out a slow breath, but it sounded more tired than surprised. “Let me guess. One of them is resigning.”
“Official retirement,” I said. “Effective immediately.”
She took a bite, chewed once, then set her fork down. “No one thought to inform the COO, did they?”
“Nope, it seems not.”
She didn’t look shocked. Annoyed, yes. Angry, absolutely. But not surprised. I watched her shift, her posture straightening and shoulders squaring like her armor was sliding back into place right before my very eyes. Her nails started drumming on my counter, sharp and rhythmic. The business sleep paralysis demon was back and it wasn’t happy.
“As long as Thayer remains a seven-seat quorum,” she said evenly, “you’ll have a majority with your votes and my mother’s.”
“Yes.”
“But I’m not a part of this,” she said, finally looking at me again. “I can’t be.”
“You won’t be. You’ll continue business as usual as COO until we vote out your uncle and put you in his position.”
She nodded, but something flickered behind her eyes, exposed and raw. It was so quick that I wouldn’t have caught it if we hadn’t been emotionally naked on my couch twelve hours ago, but we had been, and again, I couldn’t unsee all that stuff now. I couldn’t just forget about it, either.
“If you’re about to ask me if I’m making you CEO because you’re my wife—” Her glare snapped to me like a whip and I smiled. God, I loved it. “Technically, it was part of the deal, but?—”
“But?” she prompted coolly.
I rounded the island, closing the distance between us until the air felt so charged, I could barely breathe. Again. Even though we weren’t touching, I was just close enough to cage her in if I wanted to, but I didn’t. Instead, I just held her gaze, watching her carefully enough to see the slight dilation of her pupils and the way her nostrils flared just a tiny bit.
“We’ll be putting you in that position because you’re the smartest, most capable person for the job, and it’s yours.”
