I take a few moments to get myself together. Angry thoughts explode through my mind and I struggle to think straight.
The absolute nerve of that man.
Ashton Scott can kiss my ass.
2
Ashton
“Jessica!” My voice ricochets around my office, intensifying the headache taking hold of my head as I call out for my assistant. The meeting with Lorelei Winters I’ve just returned from has completely fucked with my mind.
“I see Asshole Monday has returned,” she says as she steps into my office.
Scowling, I reach into the top drawer of my desk and yank out a box of Advil. “What the hell is Asshole Monday?”
Passing me the glass of water she’s holding, she says, “You’re welcome.”
Jessica can read my mind. It’s the reason she’s worked for me for five years. I down the pills before demanding, “Are you going to enligh
ten me?”
She sighs as she takes the empty glass from me. “You had a bad weekend, didn’t you?”
“No.”
She places a hand on her hip. At just over five feet, she’s tiny compared to my six foot two, and yet she’s fierce when she wants to be. I know she’s about to have her say by the way she flicks her dark hair—it’s a mannerism of hers that indicates her annoyance with me. “Ashton, you’ve just barrelled your way in here with that shitty look on your face, barking at everyone along the way and generally being an asshole. It’s become a common occurrence around here over the last few months, but then you went back to being nice Ashton and we had some peace.” She spreads her hands out in front of her and adds, “Like I said, Asshole Monday has returned. And the fact it always happens on a Monday makes me think you must have had a shitty weekend.”
There are only three people in my life who get away with speaking to me this way—Jessica, my sister, Alessandra and my friend, Jack Kingsley.
“For the record, I did not have a bad weekend. But I will tell you what has been bad about my day so far—Lorelei Winters.”
She frowns. “Really? That’s surprising. From all the stuff I dug up on her for you, she sounded like a good person. I didn’t read one bad thing about her. Hell, she dedicates hours every week to women at a local nursing home giving them beauty treatments.”
“She was rude and she lied to me,” I snap, not wanting to hear what an amazing woman she is. The fact I will have to deal with her again irritates me, but I want her building more than I want never to see her again.
Jessica cocks her head to the side. “Tell me what happened, because maybe your Asshole-Monday mood got in the way.”
“Oh, for fuck's sake,” I mutter. “I wasn’t in a bad mood until after I saw her.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she gives me a blank look that says she’s waiting for me to talk.
I walk around the desk and sit on the edge of it, resting my hands either side of me. My chest is so damn tight with annoyance. I can’t recall the last time a woman managed to rile me up to this extreme. Men often, but not women. “She told me her building is not for sale and after I suggested she was playing me in an effort to get more for the sale, she suggested I employed idiots because I had the wrong information.”
Jessica’s eyes narrow at me. “Are you more pissed off that you thought she was lying or that she took a shot at your ego?”
“Are you sure I’m the one being an asshole today?”
“I just call it as I see it.”
“For a start, I don’t hire idiots. If the woman knew anything at all about me, she’d know that—”
She cuts me off. “Ah, see there’s that ego I was talking about. You naturally assume that everyone knows all about you. From what I read about her, Lorelei isn’t your standard businesswoman. She inherited everything she owns from her grandmother a year ago and has been stumbling her way through the business world since then. She probably doesn’t know that much about you at all.”
Jessica has this way of pulling my ass into line and it would appear she’s doing it again this morning. I blow out a long breath as I rake my fingers through my hair. “Well, that may be the case, but she still lied to me.”
She shakes her head. “Ashton, for a smart man, you're obtuse today. Give me one good reason why she’d lie about it? Don’t you think that if she really wanted to squeeze anyone for more cash, she would have let you make an offer and then she would have worked from there to get more for the sale?”
As much as I hate to admit it, she’s right.