“Did you reorganize my spice rack too?” I asked.
She didn’t even flinch before she retorted, “You alphabetized it wrong.”
I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a water bottle, and leaned against the counter across from her. The lights caught in her hair, the red strands practically glowing against the dark shirt she wore. She’d twisted her ponytail over one shoulder and it exposed the long, elegant line of her neck.
I looked away before my brain surrendered to my dick and I started making poor decisions. “You’re really still here?”
“You came back.”
“It’s my apartment. I live here.”
She swirled the wine slowly, studying it like she was evaluating a stock portfolio before lifting her gaze back to mine. “Hinds likes a Bordeaux.”
“You raided my cabinets and now you’re just casually sharing the preferences of the man who owns the company we’re trying to acquire?”
Her hazel eyes tracked me as I moved around the island to stand directly across from her. “I’m just making conversation.”
“You’re trespassing.”
Unsurprisingly, she completely ignored me. “I’ve known Abram since I was a little girl. He’s a family friend. My dad helped build his financial foundation from the ground up. He trusts us. If we present a bid with my family’s name on it, backed by your support, it’s a foolproof plan.”
I took a sip of water, considering her before I finally realized she was actually serious about all this. She wasn’t going to leave until we’d talked, and grudgingly, I had to respect that. She’d come here to do a job, and evidently, she was jumping right in.
“I beg to differ,” I finally offered. “Nothing is foolproof. Especially not if you go in thinking that it is.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t shoot me down right away. “It sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
“I am. Blood is thicker than water, but money talks. That’s thicker than both. Hinds is going to look for the best deal. If we don’t deliver, he’ll choose someone else regardless of how many of your childhood birthdays he attended.”
She tilted her head, looking at me like she was seriously thinking about stabbing me with her wineglass. “Are you always so cynical?”
“I’m realistic.”
“Abram values loyalty above all.”
“I’m willing to bet that when it comes right down to it, he’s going to value retirement security more.”
Her lips pressed together, but there was a flicker of something thoughtful in her expression that told me she wasn’t dismissing my point. That alone surprised me. Kate Vanderhaul didn’t seem like the type to consider opposing viewpoints without setting them on fire first, and yet, this was the second time she was doing it in less than two minutes.
Finally, she looked back up at me. “Do you really think he’ll walk away from us?”
I shrugged. “What I think is that he’ll walk toward whoever makes him feel safest. It’s an intimidating position to be in, facing down being retired for the rest of your life while knowing there’s no one out there with a biological obligation to step in if the shit hits the fan.”
She nodded slowly, quietly absorbing what I’d said for a long moment. I never would have guessed it, but Kate and I spoke the same language—risk assessment and human behavior when it was dictated by dollar amounts.
It was disturbingly easy to fall into this rhythm with her. She held up her glass slightly and I grabbed the bottle without a word, pouring her another.
“Thank you,” she said, not sounding remotely grateful.
“Don’t mention it.”
She sipped and watched me over the rim of her glass like she couldn’t quite decide whether or not to argue about the point I’d just made. I didn’t back down or say anything to soften it, instead finding myself just watching her right back, neither of us making a secret of what we were doing.
She was confident as hell, this woman. An absolute bulldog, but it took grit to survive the stock exchange floor. That kind of environment chewed people up and spit out their skeletons.
Just when I thought she’d finally decided to move on to whatever her next argument was going to be, she suddenlyslid off the stool, her wineglass still in her hand. “Oh, I forgot something.”
The abruptness of her movement caught me off guard, but I nodded, already turning toward the living room where my paused game waited like a loyal dog. Kate left without saying anything elseorgiving my glass back, the door clicking shut behind her.
