Holy. Shit.
She shifted to damage control. “Look, I’ll talk to Daryl and Chairman Rice. I don’t know where this came from, but I’ll get this back in line. Just stop pulling votes out from under me until I can work on this.”
“You do your job, Tessa,” he told her, “and I’ll do mine.”
And he disconnected.
“Mother—” She kept the curse inside her, but at great expense to her anxiety levels. She was so sick of this. And angry she had to fight so hard for a place where she could make enough money to support herself while still being there to raise Sophia.
“Mommy,” Sophia called from the pool. “Watch.”
She was standing on the end of the diving board, and the sight shot fear through her chest. Sophia hadn’t graduated to the diving board yet. Before she could pull in a breath to tell her daughter to wait, Sophia lifted her arms, tented her hands and bent, then pushed into the water, where Zach waited nearby to scoop her up if needed. But Sophia’s dive had been perfect.
Tessa exhaled in relief, her hand on her heart. She met Zach and Sophia at the edge of the pool. “That was beautiful. I didn’t know you were learning that in lessons.”
“I’m not. Daddy taught me.”
Her gaze skipped from Sophia’s face to Zach’s. His grin was bright and proud.
“I’m fucking crazy about you.”
Sophia disappeared underwater and zipped back and forth along the wall at the shallow end.
“What’s going on?” Zach asked, his smile dimming.
“Just more work fires I need to smother.”
“Oh. Okay.” He glanced toward Sophia. “We’ll dry off and—”
“You don’t have to leave. Stay and have fun. I’m going to head over to the attorney’s office and make some conference calls. Do you want me to come back by and pick you up?”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll have one of the guys take us back to the condo.”
“Thanks. Sorry to leave so soon.”
He used his arms to pull himself halfway out of the water, rested on one elbow and took her chin in his free hand. He pulled her in for a kiss. “It’s fine.” He kissed her again. “Go put out your fires. When you get home, we’ll start a few of our own.”
19
“This is such bullshit,” Tessa told Gordon over the speaker in the rental car as she made her way back to the condo. “Two weeks ago, I was sure I had this bill in the bag.”
“Shit always flies at the last minute.”
It did. And she’d always handled it. But this time…this was bullshit on a whole different level. And this time, the bullshit wasn’t just affecting her. It was going to affect Sophia. Tessa’s whole damn world looked different than it had two weeks ago.
“What was Styles’s bottom line?” Gordon asked. “They all have one.”
The question made her teeth clench. Tessa stopped at a red light and wrung her hands on the steering wheel. “The firm. I had to promise to take him on as a client.”
“You didn’t,” Gordon said with sin
cere dread.
Her stomach swirled with frustration. “I did.”
“Did he accept it? Is he giving us his vote?”
“He is.” But the victory felt hollow.