Not that I was with her, with her. I pushed the thought away and focused on Steph.
“I don’t know much about cars, but this one sure is pretty,” she said.
“Pretty?” I scoffed. “That’s like describing the Eiffel Tower as a landmark.”
“It is a landmark.” Steph laughed.
“No, it’s one of the landmarks in Paris.”
She pressed a finger to the side of her mouth, thinking. “So you’re saying this is one of the cars?”
“Exactly,” I said. “She’s not just pretty, she’s magnificent.”
I thought about adding “just like you,” but then I realized how totally cheesy it would sound and decided against it. Instead, I gave her the fast facts on the car supporting why I felt about it the way I did, surprised when she listened with rapt attention and started asking questions about it when I was done.
Finally, we moved away from the topic of cars and onto Paris, where Steph had never visited but was dying to go. Cars were a safe topic. Paris? Not so much.
In my mind’s eye, I could see myself taking Stephanie there. Walking along the Seine and visiting Montmartre, which I was sure she would love. After the sightseeing, we would go back to our hotel, and I would fuck her until the sun rose and it was time to head out again.
“Jeremiah?” Stephanie asked, breaking into my thoughts. “Are you coming?”
I wish.
I blinked, realizing we were at the office. Stephanie was already half-way out of the car, looking at me over her shoulder. I wasn’t ready to let her go yet, but there was always the drive back to her place later. “Sure. Yeah. Just thinking about a project I’d like to take on.”
She smiled, walking across the parking lot to call the elevator while I grabbed my stuff and locked the car. “We’ve only just gotten to the office and already you’re making plans to take on more work. Do me a favor and slow down, okay? You’re doing great on the mall project. No need to add more.”
There was a need to add more, but I didn’t tell her that wasn’t the kind of project I was really thinking about. It was more wondering how I was going to convince her to go to Paris with me than figuring how to increase my capacity to take on more projects right now.
But that would have to wait. When we got up to our floor, my father was waiting in my office. He didn’t have to say a word for me to realize it hadn’t gone unnoticed that Steph and I arrived together. Fuck.
His brown eyes flicked from mine to hers, then he stood up from the couch he’d been waiting on and motioned me into my own fucking office. Steph gave me a sympathetic smile when I went to follow him. I winked at her, determined not to let her see how much it bothered me to see him looking so disapprovingly at her. “See you later.”
“If you survive,” she whispered, her eyes huge and round.
“I’m faster,” I said, my own voice barely above a whisper. “I can run if I have to. I’ll be fine.”
My father didn’t waste any time when I walked in, closing the door firmly behind me. I knew some of his opinions about Stephanie, and I really didn’t want her hearing them.
“Why are you showing up to work at the same time as your secretary, Jeremiah? Did you not learn your lesson after the last one?”
“I’m not sleeping with Stephanie,” I said, rounding my desk to drop into my chair. Even sitting on this side of my desk with my father perched in one of the visitor’s chairs, I felt like I was in the principal’s office at fifteen.
“Care to explain why you’re arriving at the same time as her then? It certainly looks like you two arrived together.” He pressed his palms together in front of him, steepling his fingers.
“We did arrive together.” There was no reason not to tell him the truth. He probably wouldn’t believe it anyway, but I didn’t have either the inclination or the energy to lie to him about this. Steph and I weren’t doing anything wrong, as much as I wanted us to be.
“Stephanie doesn’t have a car at the moment. I have the means to give her a lift to work rather than to make her transit. It shaves about half an hour off her commute each way.” I didn’t tell him why we’d come up with this arrangement.
Jannie was my mess to clean up, not his. Plus, he would almost certainly read something into my wanting to protect Steph from Jannie.
He gave me a long look, his gaze unwavering on mine. It took everything I had, but I didn’t turn away from his eyes. Didn’t fidget.
Fuck him. I had nothing to hide and nothing to confess under his glare of truth, as Jack and I used to refer to it. “In saving her half an hour, are you not adding about that amount of travel time to your own commute?”
“No.” It was close, but not quite a full thirty minutes. I turned my wrist, checking the time on my watch. “We’re both here on time, so what’s the problem?”
“I’m priming you to take over one of the largest oil conglomerate companies in the country. You won’t be successful hosting a driving carpool for your secretary.” He basically spat the words, as acidic and harsh as he could make them sound. “Besides, the walk would probably do a girl like her some good.”
My blood boiled, shooting through my veins so fast I could hear it roaring in my ears. Forming fists at my sides, my hands trembled in anger.
I didn’t know what my father’s obsession with putting Stephanie down was, but I’d just about had enough of it. A thousand scathing retorts jumped to the tip of my tongue. Rage blurred my vision and tinted the edges of it red.
I was standing on the precipice, about to finally go flying off the edge when I looked into my father’s eyes. His weathered skin was so much more wrinkled than just the crow’s-feet that used to be there. Though his shoulders were still broad and his gaze burning with self-righteous anger and determination, I knew what a knock he took when Jack passed away.
His heir, his star pupil, his firstborn son. The fight fled out of me and left me without any wind under my sails. I didn’t have the nerve to stand up to my father, not knowing what he’d been through and still faced every day. A man who had never been the same since his eldest child passed away.
It went against every fiber of my being to walk away from the battle, but I did. Gritting my teeth, I decided to let it go and focus on work instead. I pulled a file containing the latest projections on the mall closer and pushed it across my desk. “Be that as it may, should we talk about the engineering costs projected for the next phase?”