I start packing up my things while Rita watches me with a delicate frown.
“Alex…”
“Mmm?”
“Forgive me for saying so, but of late, you’re acting… strangely.”
“I don’t see a problem. We just closed the Summit Ridge deal and it’ll take days before the team gets going on Greenstone. I’m even considering taking some time off.”
She stares at me like I’ve grown another head. “Time off?”
“You have everything in hand here.” I close my laptop and shove it into my bag.
Rita leans back in her chair, deliberately uncrossing and recrossing her long legs, stocking-clad beneath today’s short skirt. “Is everything all right between you and that private investigator of yours?”
I give her my full attention. “Why do you ask?”
She airily waves a hand. “You missed her birthday, you froze when Mr. DeLuca mentioned her—”
“I didn’tfreeze.” Damn it. Ianswered too fast.
Rita’s lips curl smugly at the corners. “That girl doesn’t appreciate you.”
I pause in the act of buckling my bag, considering that. Rita may have a point. “She is my fiancée.”
“Which means what, exactly? You can break it off just like any other relationship, only in this one, you get the ring back.”
Box already ticked. “The company prefers married men. More… stability.”
Why thehelldid I tell her that? This career business is messing with my head.DeLucais messing with my head.
Rita nods sagely. “I know what you need. Why don’t we both take some time off this afternoon. Take an early dinner. Have a bottle of wine.”
She doesn’t let that invitation run to its natural conclusion, but it hangs in the air.
I regard her for the time it takes to draw a breath and let it out. “Did you deliberately omit Vicky’s birthday from my calendar?”
“Yes.” There’s not a flicker of hesitation, no attempt to deny her sabotage. She throws the word at me like it’s a challenge.
And I admire her for that.
For all her blatantness, Rita is indispensable to me, and she knows it. She knows I won’t fire her, she knows replacing her would be a monumental pain in the ass.
But this is more than our working relationship.
“Why?”
“You’re high-functioning despite an IQ in excessof 140. You can remember your own fiancée’s birthday… if you choose.” She lets one hand fall casually to the buttons of her blouse, toying with the top one. The top fastened one, anyway. The third one. “I was curious how much she meant to you. I have my answer.”
“Don’t ever mess with my personal life again.”
Rita laughs. I know it’s forced, but it sounds like it isn’t. “Alex, Iamyour personal life. You spend more time with me than with anyone else on this planet. You know damn well you could bend me over your desk right now, and I’d grip the edge and brace myself. Instead, you go for that vapid girl.”
Vicky is neither vapid nor significantly younger than Rita. But her words create a visual that’s hard to ignore. “Vicky loves me,” I say, as much as a test as for any other reason.
This time, Rita’s amusement is genuine. “Who gives a fuck? How does love compare to what we do here?” She gestures, taking in my expansive corner office and the view over Manhattan. “We makeobsceneamounts of money screwing people over, and we do it for a thrill that has no comparison. Add in some truly dirty sex, and there’s no better match for you than me; no better for me than you.”
And as usual, Rita is right. Everything she’s describing is what I’ve spent ten years building toward—the money, the power, someone who operates at the same level and doesn’t flinch when I bend the rules. No sentiment, no complication. Pure alignment.
