Page 25 of Resist

“Bella.”

“Someone is here—”

“I’m not taking any appointments right now,” I snap.

“Your mother is here wanting to see you.”

Fucking perfect.

I hang my head and close my eyes with a sigh. If Bella’s telling me this, then that means she’s already tried every way imaginable to get rid of her to no avail.

“Fine.”

“I’ll buzz her in.”

With a sigh of resignation, I stand up from behind my desk, more than aware that my shitty day just got crappier.

“Mother,” I say when she walks in bathed in some cream-colored designer ensemble, fur stole hanging over her shoulders, dark sunglasses still on her eyes, and skin with the shine that says it’s been sucked and tucked and Botoxed more than any person’s hide should ever be.

Vivian Lockhart-Stein-Bismark-Whatever-Husband-Number-Four’s-Last-Name-Is always knows how to make an entrance.

“Ryker, dear!” she says as I step to her to kiss her cheek and am handed her Birkin to take care of in return. “How are you?”

“Fine. And you?” I place her purse on one of the chairs in front of my desk before moving to take the fur resting on her shoulders and laying it over the back of the chair.

Just going through the motions.

“That woman out there is simply dreadful. How can you stand letting her be your assistant? She guards you like she owns you. Doesn’t she know I always get a free pass to come back here, regardless of your schedule? She should be fired for how she tried to tell me you were in meetings.”

“I was in meetings, Mother. And Bella does the job I tell her to do. I can handle my own employees, thank you.”

She makes a show of patting down her perfectly styled silver hair before removing her sunglasses and taking a seat.

Three. Two. One.

She sighs.

And there it is like clockwork.

“You haven’t come to see me lately.”

“I’ve been busy. There are a lot of people getting divorced these days—shocking, I know—and so I all but live here.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“I’m fine with it.”

“Well, can’t you take a break to come visit me?”

“We’re visiting now.” My smile is tight as I lean my ass against my desk a few feet in front of her.

“Such a handsome man I made.”

“I do believe my father had something to do with that,” I say wryly.

Her expression goes hard momentarily before she waves a hand in dismissal. “Tell me, where are the women in your life?”

“I keep them hidden so you don’t scare them off.”