Chapter 2
JEREMIAH
And that was why fucking at work was always a shitty idea.
Jannie’s long legs stretched out for miles as she perched on my desk, leaning forward to give me a peek of the deep valley between her fake tits, framed as they were with locks of golden hair. “Is there anything else I can get for you before I go, Mr. Williams?”
“Mr. Williams is my father,” I snapped, instantly feeling like a prick when her face fell at my harsh tone. Clicking out of the presentation I was working on, I powered down my computer and clasped the back of my neck. “Thank you, Jannie, but I’m wrapping it up for the day. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Are you sure?” she practically purred, running the fingers on her left hand over the silver chain around her neck and right down to dip between those creamy globes. “Perhaps a massage?”
I shook my head, but Jannie kept coming toward me. My secretary was nothing if not determined. She lay one of her hands on my shoulder as she rounded my big wingback chair. I could feel her fingernails through the fabric of my suit.
“It’s been such a long week for you, and it’s only Thursday. Let me loosen you up.” It would be so damn easy to say yes. To be weak just this one time. Okay, second time with her.
But I knew better now. Sleeping with someone you had to work with was shit, especially if that person was literally one of the only three people on the planet who had unlimited access to you anytime, night or day.
Jannie had keys to my office and my apartment. She had my personal number and knew the emergency code I used with my family to know when I really needed to take a call. I stood up abruptly when I felt her palms close on my shoulders, her fingers digging into my muscles.
“You can leave, Jannie. I don’t need to loosen up.” Bullshit.
I’d never needed to loosen up more. My shoulder blades ached, and my spine felt like it’d been fused straight. I wasn’t made for this suit-wearing shit.
Jack grew up groomed for this life, not me. I was the younger brother. The corner office was never meant to be mine.
Meant to be or not, it was mine now.
I strode to the corner of Jack’s, no, my office, where two massive panels of glass met to create a nearly unobstructed view of the city that never slept. Thousands of people swarmed the streets and sidewalk below, so damn tiny from up here on the fortieth floor of Williams Towers.
I felt rather than heard Jannie come up behind me. The telltale crack of her heels muted by the lush carpet beneath our feet. “Come on, Jer. We had so much fun together. We were good together. We can be again.”
Shit. She wasn’t going to give up. She was more aggressive than usual today. Maybe the smell of fresh coffee wafting down the hall turned her on. I had to shut her down, pronto. “We hooked up one night three years ago at a retreat. Let’s not pretend it was more than it was.”
In the reflection of the window, I saw Jannie pout before putting one of her hands on my bicep. “It was more than that. I felt it. Didn’t you?”
“No.” Fuck, even I knew I was pulling a dick move by being so blunt with her. I didn’t feel too bad about it though. I had tried to let her down easy.
The retreat we got together at was before I was working for my father’s company full time. Before Jack’s accident. Before everything changed.
Now, I had to be careful. I’d been lectured about sexual harassment in the workplace time and time again. The press would have a fucking field day if I got charged. The headlines practically wrote themselves.
Jer Williams: New York’s favorite player now Playing in a Boardroom near you.
Billionaire bad boy Jeremiah W. still the worst.
Jeremiah’s no Jack, the party’s only changed its venue.
Hell no. I’d had enough of that shit to last a lifetime. I didn’t mind the media so much back in the day. It was an inescapable consequence of being born a Williams in New York City, but since Jack’s death… I was done with it.
I was going to have to let Jannie go. That was the only way.
She walked her fingers up my arm from my bicep, watching my jaw tighten in the window. “Somebody’s a tense boy. You’re only saying you didn’t feel it now because you’re stressed, baby. Let me help you relax. I can—”
The door to my office hit the wall behind it. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. There was only one person in this building who would make an entrance like that.
Dad’s in the building.
“The only thing you can do, young lady, is to pack your shit and get out. You’re fired,” he said to Jannie. His tone was measured, controlled and almost lazy, yet laced with quiet venom. Like a spitting cobra. “You have until eleven to get out of the building. Pick up your final check from human resources in the morning.”