Sacked (The New York Nighthawks 1)

I never let anyone else touch my phone, but the lure of having his contact information was too strong. I didn’t hesitate to pull it out of my purse and give it to Prentice. I whispered a quick thank you after he handed the device back to me, grimacing when Nixon’s singing got loud enough that we could hear him with the windows rolled up. “I better get going.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Those three words replayed in my head all night long.

6

Prentice

“Thanks, Mark,” I said to my—now former—social media manager via video chat. “I’ll have my assistant send over the reference, and my accountant will contact you about the year’s severance.”

“Sure. It was a pleasure working for you.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes, and I felt a moment of guilt for letting him go when he hadn’t done anything wrong. We hadn’t ever really clicked as a team, but he’d dealt mostly with my PR people, so I felt he deserved to hear about losing his job straight from me.

The doorbell rang, so I said goodbye and tapped the button on my tablet to disconnect. Then I swiftly walked to the foyer and opened the front door. Naomi was staring up at the house with a look of wonder, making me smile. I hoped she liked this house since it was going to be hers soon.

I’d bought the place when I signed a ten-year deal with the Nighthawks. The owner, Lennox Madison, had built a stadium for his team out on Long Island, and I was tired of living in the city. So I went house hunting.

This one had a big yard—great for having the team over for a barbecue—a home gym, and a bathtub in the master big enough for me to soak in ice whenever I pushed my body too hard. However, the house was bigger than what I’d been searching for. More than I thought I needed. But it had been a steal, so I let the real estate agent talk me into putting an offer. Now, having found Naomi, I was going to send him a big fucking bonus because my home was perfect for a large family.

Ultimately, though, if Naomi didn’t like the property, I would happily sell it and buy her whatever she wanted.

I waited a minute for her to notice me, but she continued to take in her surroundings.

“Hello, gorgeous,” I welcomed her with a grin.

Naomi jumped, making me chuckle. When she met my eyes, she blushed and gave me an adorably sheepish smile. “Hi. Your home is beautiful.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you like it. Come on in. I’ll give you a tour later.”

“I’d love that,” she replied cheerily.

I stood back and ushered her in, enjoying the view of her very fine ass and swaying hips as she went past me. My home office was just to the right of the front door, and I gestured for her to go in ahead of me.

The room was unabashedly masculine with dark wood furniture, including a built-in bookcase that took up one entire wall. There were a lot of blues and greens in the décor, but that had all been the interior designer I hired. My only requirement had been that she use my desk. It was my grandfather’s, and I had fond memories of sitting with him while he taught me about stocks and how to invest.

He was the reason I had an excellent portfolio, a nest egg in case I ever had a career-ending injury.

I followed Naomi inside and walked around to stand behind my chair. “Why don’t you have a seat, and we can go through my accounts and make sure you have full access?”

“Sounds good.”

As she sat down, I reached around her to move my mouse and wake up my laptop. We looked through some of my social media posts on one platform and talked about the current content, including where I wanted to go with it moving forward.

“Your last social media person did a good job. Why did you let them go?” Naomi inquired.

I should have expected her to ask, but like an idiot, I hadn’t prepared an answer. So I mentally scrambled to come up with something.

“He had a very odd dynamic. To be honest”—I mentally winced because while the first part had been true, this last sentence was a bit of a fib—“he seemed overly attached, giving me a bit of a super fan/stalker vibe.”

“Oh my,” Naomi breathed, her eyes round with shock. “I see a lot of room for growth and improvement and thought perhaps he wasn’t staying current with trends and things like that.”

I mentally banged my head against a wall. “Yes, that would have been an excellent, much simpler reason. Anyway, let’s look at the rest.”

We kept moving through them, and she shared new ideas that highly impressed me. One of the apps required a two-factor authentication, so it sent a text message to my tablet. When I swiped the screen, the video chat app was still open. Moving my finger toward the close button, I saw the ending call time displayed in the corner.