Page 49
“Late-night cookie place. Said she wanted to surprise you. Thought it’d be better if I call and check first.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Here I am, tailing a potential traitor into enemy territory, ready to shoot him in the face if he proves my suspicions right. Meanwhile, my fiancée is planning to surprise me with cookies because she thinks I’m working late in my office.
She’s too good for this world. For my world.
“Boss?” Gus asks.
“How far are you from the office?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you call me sooner?”
My outburst draws looks from the surrounding passengers, but fuck them. The train’s squealing to another stop. As I head for the doors, everyone leaps out of my way. Gus says something about Brioni being with him, but I’m barely listening. Up in the first car, Rabbit’s staying on. Headed even deeper into Seven’s territory.
Goddamnit. I make my decision, and I get off the train.
Once I’m out of the stale air and back into the cold, I breathe in some sense.
“Is there any way to stall?” I ask Gus.
“I could shoot someone,” he offers. “Miss Timmons would probably want to take him to the hospital.”
For a moment I actually consider it. It’s my job, after all. To consider all the possible outcomes of any given decision. In this instance, I decide against it.
“Just slash a tire.” I’m fresh out of any better ideas. “Tell her you have to change it right away, and she has to stay with you.”
“Then I drive her to your office on the spare?” Gus sounds skeptical.
“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “And take your damn time about it.”
Chapter 24
Liam
I’m sitting calmly in my office for all of thirty seconds before Brioni knocks on the glass door.
Thanks to Brady, who coordinates our buildings’ renovations, each of our private offices has an attached bathroom and a closet full of suits. I grabbed the first one on the rack. A dark blue slim fit with a crisp white shirt beneath. I didn’t bother with a tie. I’m supposed to be working late, so I didn’t bother with my shirt’s top two buttons either.
Outside my door, Brioni is radiant. Within all the sterile glass and gray carpet of our eighty-third-floor office suite, her soft pink coat is a tiny flower poking up through the concrete. As I stand up to let her in, she beams at me.
My heart’s still racing from my rush to get here, and it speeds up just a little more at the sight of her. She’s carrying the box of cookies in front of her, like an offering. As if I could ever be worthy of receiving an offering from her. I have to remind myself to look surprised.
When I open the door, her vanilla sugar scent wafts all the sweeter because of the box in her hands. In her heels, we’re eye to eye, but she flutters her lashes down toward the floor. She murmurs shyly about interrupting my work. I tell her not to be ridiculous, that of course she’s always welcome in my office.
I wish I could welcome her into all aspects of my life. But to corrupt Brioni like that would be to ruin who she is. I’ve vowed to myself that I’m keeping her, and yet I know in my heart that being with me can only bring her down in the end.
I’m doing it anyway. Selfish fucking bastard that I am.
“I brought you something.” She holds out the box. And because of the sheer joy on her face, I don’t have to fake my excitement as I open it.
“Cookies. You know my second greatest weakness.” It’s sugar, technically. For someone who prides himself on his fitness and control, my sweet tooth is something to despise. But I could never hate any of Brioni’s kind gestures.
I carry the box back to my desk and set it on the long, empty expanse. Everything about this corner office of mine is long and empty. The two walls of exterior windows. The single wall of interior glass with its view of the nearest conference rooms. The wall of bookshelves with hardly any books, just empty vases and other soulless decor.
Even the door to the en suite is just a space of empty wall beside the shelves. It’s one of those hidden, seamless doors that I never saw the point of. I hate disguises. I prefer when people and doors appear as they are.
Brioni, for example. So guileless as she watches me expectantly.
