Daphne Vs. Daddy

“I’m fine,” I say, shrugging away her concern. She’s in her late 50s, and in many ways, feels like my grandmother.

“If you say so,” she says with a frown, stepping away from me. “I sure wish you’d take some time off, though.”

“What do you think about hang-gliding?” I ask her.

“Hang…” She’s just staring at me, mouth hanging wide open. “I haven’t been hang-gliding before, if that’s what you’re asking. But if you’d like me to research it, I can find out death rates and—”

“No. Don’t worry about it.” Only Gweny would think to research death rates for a hobby. “What happened over the weekend?”

“$52 million dollars.” She flashes me a happy smile. “Those stocks you picked skyrocketed because of what’s happening in the Middle East, and your customers made $52 million dollars just in the last three days.”

“Great.” I’m trying to sound enthusiastic, but let’s be honest here – I’m failing miserably. It is all too easy, too predictable. I need a challenge. I need someone or something to force me to do something difficult. The financial markets stopped being difficult a long time ago.

“If you need something outside of work to do,” Gweny says quietly, “may I suggest golf? There’s a significantly smaller mortality rate with golf than with hang-gliding.”

“How do you know?” I grin at her. “You haven’t actually looked up the mortality rates for hang-gliding yet. Maybe golf is dangerous too. There are other golfers who might hit me with their clubs, and—”

She reaches out and ruffles my hair, laughing. “If anyone is going to get a swing at you, I’m at the front of that line. I’ve had to put up with your shit for so long, I deserve some sort of payback.”

Before I can come up with a sufficiently witty reply, Gweny’s intercom buzzes. “Is Mr. Charles up there?” Jennifer’s voice comes through clearly. She’s our front desk receptionist, tasked with keeping the crazies out who “just need a minute of your time, sir, to tell you about this new opportunity that you can get in on the ground floor” and letting through the visitors I actually want to see.

“Yes, he’s right here,” Gweny calls back.

“Well, Mr. Charles, there’s a lady here who wants to thank you for saving her last Friday night. Says she was part of the windshield breaking that you did?”

The curiosity is so strong in Jennifer’s voice, she’s practically begging me to tell her the “real” story behind my weekend stint in the slammer, but I ignore that.

My mystery girl is here. I didn’t even have to stalk the nightclub to see her again. Excitement buzzes through my veins. “Send her up!” I call out.

I head to my own office casually, as if it’s normal for me to have a girl come up to my office to meet with me…who isn’t also a client of Kaden Charles Associates.

Perfectly normal.

“Golfing is a very fine hobby!” Gweny calls out as I close the office door behind me and head for my desk. I ignore her and instead focus on sitting down and looking casual. Relaxed. As if I couldn’t care less who walked through my door next.

Just breathe, Kaden. Just breathe.

74

Brittney

A severe-looking woman escorts me inside of Kaden’s office, and pointedly says to Kaden, “Don’t forget the meeting at eleven,” before closing the door behind her. I’m thinking she doesn’t approve of me, although I’m not sure why. Does she blame me for Kaden spending the weekend in jail? It wasn’t exactly like I asked him to break the cop’s windshield or something.

Speaking of, I really have no idea why he did that. Turning to Kaden, who is relaxing in his chair behind his desk, I decide I’m going to ask him point blank. There’s no point in me beating around the bush. Right? Right. Before I can start in on my interrogation, though, he preempts me.

“Hi, I’m Kaden Charles,” he says, coming around the corner of the desk, his tall, muscular form towering over me as he reaches out to shake my hand.

“Hi…hi,” I stutter. “Britt…Brittney Bartlett.” I sound like an idiot, but being up close and personal to Kaden, I am pretty much completely incapable of speaking. We clasp hands and jolts run up my arm, setting me on fire.

Holy shit!

I stare, open-mouthed, up at him. I probably resemble some sort of goldfish, my mouth gaping and then closing rhythmically, but hot damn if I can do a thing about it.

He pulls his hand back, tucking them into his slacks as he leans against the desk, and I find that I can breathe a little easier now. Note to self: Don’t touch him and also expect to be able to talk.

“So what brings you to my office?” he asks casually. How can he be so cool? So casual? Is this a one-sided electrical storm that I’m experiencing here?!

“I just wanted to thank you…I just wanted to know…I need to ask – did you break that cop’s windshield to help me out?” I finally sputter out.