“Mace, calm down. You’re terrible in a crisis. Go away and let me deal with this. I don’t have time to cater to your hysterics,” Garrett said.
“I fucked up,” I said. “I know. Just help me fix it. I can’t have anything happen to Sadie.”
“Sadie,” Hunter scoffed. “What about our little brothers?”
“Just because you can’t get it together with Meghan doesn’t mean the rest of us want our girlfriends to get carted off to a cult in the desert,” I snarled at him, clenching my fists. I was so furious—mainly at myself, but I needed an outlet.
“What do you want to do?” Hunter asked Garrett. The rage had settled to a sheet of ice over his eyes.
“We’re going to set a trap,” he said.
“How?”
“Sadie.”
“No,” I said and slammed my hand down on the desk “That’s unacceptable. We can’t use her as bait; I care about her.”
“You should have thought of that before you invited our father here,” Garrett said in a clipped tone, plugging my phone into his computer. “I’m copying over all your data. Then I’ll have Blade run tracers on the numbers.”
“Stay away from Sadie. Maybe we can lure Leif out,” Hunter said.
“Fuck you. I’m not letting her leave my sight.”
52
Sadie
Parker was intense in the office the next morning. I was early for once, even though I had stayed late at Jasmine’s, planning. I always grew antsy before a big event. I would always worry that I was going to forget some critical detail especially if there was funding on the line.
Parker kissed me when he saw me, crushing his mouth to mine. “I missed you,” he murmured against my lips. “I would fuck you right here. You’re all I could think about.”
“I can’t just neglect my job and have sex with you all day,” I told him. “We have deadlines. Your brothers need a decision on where they’re going to put their offices. After the dildo incident yesterday, Meg probably thinks I’m crazy and is going to fight us. And I have to plan the gala. One of the farmers just called me and wants to bring in live chickens. Chickens! He says they’re designer chickens, but still.”
“This is small-town America. It will be an authentic touch.”
“It can’t be that authentic. We’re going to have a lot of rich, snotty people running around.”
Parker flipped through the guest list I had on my desk. “How did you convince all these people to come?”
“I begged favors. A bunch of the girls I went to school with either married wealthy guys and are now happy moms and wives, or they’re working in the nonprofit world and rubbing shoulders, or they’re the assistants to powerful people. They were able to help me fill up the guest list. I put a lot on the line,” I warned, “so this has to not just go off without a hitch, it has to be spectacular! That means no daytime sexcapades.”
Parker smirked. “Except you really want to.”
“I have a will of iron.”
The rest of my day consisted of meetings with my gala volunteer team and calls to confirm that people were still coming. All through it, Parker was in his office silently working. I would drift off staring at him.
Sadie:I need to find Parker a costume.
Jasmine:Tight pants. White silk shirt. Dark blue jacket. Shiny, knee-high leather boots.
Erika:Are you sure you’re not straight???
Jasmine:Swear on my mother’s pecan pie. But I appreciate a good work of art.
As much as I wanted to plan Parker’s outfit, I needed to concentrate on the event. The emails were flying in. If this kept going on, I might need to ask Remy and Parker to hire some assistants. Parker’s little brothers, Billy and Ellis, were supposed to be helping, but they were thirteen, and I didn’t want them sending some dank meme off to a state senator, for example.
It was dark outside when I finally mostly cleared out my inbox. The latest email had been from Meghan, wanting to meet about the shirtwaist factory renovation. I stood up and stretched then noticed Parker still at his desk. It was late, way past the time he usually left.
