Chapter 22
JEREMIAH
“Come in,” I called out when I heard a tentative knock on my inner office door. Stephanie. It had to be her since that was the door that led to her office.
She walked in, looking hot as hell in a tight black skirt and a top that showed all her curves. It was light blue with a paisley print and hugged the curve between her chest and her hip in a way that made me want to rest my hand there.
Although it didn’t show any cleavage, it did offer a hint of what was underneath for how it fit her. Damn, I really shouldn’t have been noticing these details about her. Not anymore. I kept waiting to be immune to her, but it hadn’t happened yet.
“I have your messages from yesterday.” She was holding a tablet in front of her. “Want me to walk you through them?”
“Just give me a sec.” I finished responding to a couple of emails and then tented my fingers, placing my elbows on my desk and nodded for her to continue. “Make it quick.”
Her head jerked back a fraction of an inch at my harsh tone, her eyes narrowing as if she was trying not to flinch, squared her shoulders and started firing off messages. As she scrolled through them, mercifully summarizing most, I rolled my head and tried to loosen the tension in my shoulders.
I ducked out early with my father yesterday. Our meeting didn’t go as well as I was expecting it to, and so I wasn’t in the best mood.
In fact, I was in a terrible mood. The sky outside was dark and gray, which suited me fine. It was perfect, actually. A literal representation of the thundercloud I felt following me around all day.
I should’ve known the second my father just showed up at my office in the middle of the day to brace for storm Jance, but it caught me off-guard this time. Partially because the only person I was focused on and completely aware of in this building these days was the girl standing in front of me now, her soft dark hair pulled back into a ponytail that swayed gently as she scrolled and made notes.
If I was as keenly aware of my father as I usually was, I might’ve seen the tongue lashing I got coming from a mile away. Dearest dad had high expectations of me, and even though I was doing my best, he came by to tell me it wasn’t good enough.
Among other things, he called me lazy, unmotivated and told me to work harder. Apparently, the mall project wasn’t moving as fast as it could’ve been—fuck the fact that we were actually ahead of schedule—and then he proceeded to ream me for employing Stephanie.
He didn’t know her at all, but he had only bad things to say about her. She didn’t look the part for the image I wanted to portray for my office, she was rude, she was too curt on the phone, she’d made him wait. On and on.
When I defended her, he waved me off and told me point blank he wanted me to replace her. I pointed out that would make the project even slower, at which point he shrugged and told me it wouldn’t make much of a difference for the pace we were working at anyway.
I wasn’t planning on replacing Stephanie at all, despite my dad’s insistence. I didn’t give a fuck what he thought if I was being honest. Stephanie was doing a good job, that was all that mattered to me.
There also wasn’t much more I could do project-wise. The negotiations were progressing faster than I expected them to. At the moment, no one involved was dragging their feet on anything.
My dad was insane if he thought anyone could’ve made it happen faster, and I knew it. It didn’t improve my mood though, knowing he was full of shit.
Stephanie cleared her throat to get my attention, blinking as she waited for me to say something. I hadn’t heard half of the damn messages I missed while out with my father. I nodded curtly to her.
“You can go now. I don’t need anything else.” I dismissed her, not even trying not to be rude about it. I wasn’t in the mood to humor anyone, as fucked up as that might make me. I just wanted to get the hell out of the damn office.
It felt like I was suffocating in here today. Shooting a wistful glance out the window over my shoulder, I wished I could be out there. I used to spend so much time outside. Nowadays, I was lucky if I got out in the sun once a week for the dreaded golf game.
A very big part of me, a part I thought was silenced for the uselessness of that line of thinking, wanted nothing more than to walk the fuck out. For good. Very few people knew I had more going for me than just this godforsaken place. Back when I thought this would be Jack’s kingdom, I started carving out a life for myself elsewhere.
A life I missed more than I ever let myself think about. I could walk out of this building and never look back. I probably wouldn’t, but I could. And it was fucking tempting right now.
“What’s crawled up your ass and died?” Stephanie asked. I hadn’t even realized she hadn’t left. Her eyes were blazing, her hands on her hips as she glared at me.
I felt my brows jump. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re being an ass,” she said, scowling at me.
I rose from my chair. “I am, am I?”
“You are,” she insisted firmly, her fingers digging into her voluptuous hips like it was taking everything she had to keep them on her instead of wrapping them around my neck and strangling the life out of me. “You’re acting like that typical alpha, bad boy, jerky mold the tabloids cast you in.”
My nostrils flared. I took a step closer to her. Two. “You can’t speak to me that way.”
“You can’t speak to me the way you just did either. Where does that leave us?” Her chest was heaving in anger.