He turned back to me.
“I know you don’t know me, you don’t trust me. That’s fine. But I expect you to respect me—as I respect you.” I kept my voice controlled, kept all the emotion out of the words so the situation wouldn’t escalate. But I needed to hold my own, to demand basic respect if he wouldn’t give it to me.
He held my gaze for a few seconds, his body absolutely still. Then he gave a slight nod in understanding.
That was the most I would get from him—so I took it.
I sat in the office on the ground floor, going through all the emails that constantly piled up anytime I was away from my desk.
Matt came into the office and fell into the padded chair, releasing a breath like he’d been running around all day. He grabbed his iced coffee and took a drink, looking down the hallway between the elevators to the front door. “Need me to do anything?”
“Always. But take a break.”
He relaxed farther into the chair, his fingers interlocking behind his head. “Ooh, yeah.” He crossed his ankles and relaxed. He had short dirty-blond hair, scruff along his jaw, and he was easy on the eyes, which made our clients like him more. “Do you ever wonder if we get paid enough for this?”
“All the time.” I kept reading through emails.
“When I went to deliver groceries to Cougar Cathy, she actually slipped me a couple hundreds and asked me to put away the groceries shirtless.”
I chuckled. “Did you?”
“We never say no to clients, right?” he said as he looked straight ahead.
I gave him a horrified expression. “Matt—”
“Kidding.” He rolled his eyes. “Come on, I know the rules. And I know you’ll find out if I break them.”
Guilt washed over me—hard.
“I don’t mind sleeping with an older lady, but…I’m not really into it.”
“She has no shame, does she?”
He shrugged. “Just used to getting whatever she wants.”
My phone lit up with a text message from Jake. I need tape. Can you bring it to me?
He’d been trying to get me into his residence for a private conversation for a week now. His wife must have left. It was inevitable, because I couldn’t keep sending the rest of the staff all the time. It would be obvious I was avoiding him. But I continued to avoid him. “Jake in 17A needs tape.”
He rolled his eyes and went to the office in the back to grab an extra. “Billionaires can’t buy their own tape now?” He took another sip of his iced coffee before he walked to the elevators and disappeared.
My eyes watched him disappear, and that was when I noticed Deacon Hamilton step out of the back seat of his Mercedes, slip the driver a tip without looking at him, and then enter the building.
He was in a suit—for the first time.
It was charcoal gray, altered to fit his broad shoulders, powerful chest, and long legs perfectly. He looked great in simple jeans, but he looked totally different in designer clothing. He still wore that displeased look on his face, as if he would never crack a smile as long as he lived.
I watched him from my seat, ignoring the email I was supposed to be writing. He was a handsome man, despite his constant anger, and I wondered how someone so good-looking could be so cold, have no zest for life.
He looked down at his phone as he walked past the elevator.
Right toward me.
I quickly looked down at my computer, pretending to be working and not staring.
When he arrived at my desk, he started to bark orders without even greeting me with a hello. “I need clubs for tomorrow, a tee time at 11:15, and I need a membership to the Manhattan Country Club.”
I grabbed my notepad. “What kind of clubs—”
“The best.” He turned around and walked off.
I was still shocked by the way he talked to me, like he had no idea how to speak to another human being.
Anna emerged from the back, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched him walk away. She squinted. “He’s such an ass…but he has such a nice ass.”
“His ass will never be nice enough…”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “A lot of women wouldn’t mind an asshole if he was hot and rich.”
Maybe that was why he got divorced, because there wasn’t enough money and good sex in the world to make her stay. He said he didn’t love her, never did, so she was probably a trophy wife, a prized animal he liked to keep in a cage. I stopped feeling bad for him when I realized these terrible things had happened to him…because he was the one making these terrible things happen.
“The flower arrangements the florist made this week were beautiful.” Barbara stood beside me in the elevator, her little dog cradled in her arm. “Those lilies have held up so well.”