8
AIDEN
My father comes into my office, catching me eye the new girl while I’m still on the phone.
“Mornin’, Aid.” He slaps me on the back. He’s got a smile on his face.
“Gotta go. Get that email to me by lunchtime,” I say into my phone and end my call.
My father undoes his blazer and sits in one of the two guest chairs in my office. I hate this office. I use it when I’m here at headquarters and it’s a fucking fishbowl with glass walls. There are blinds, but none of the other leadership team members use their blinds with my father’s preference for an ‘open door policy’.
In the New York branch, I have an office with walls, not bullshit windows. Granted, I didn’t have much of a view, other than other office buildings and the view here via the exterior window is nothing to scoff at. I have views at home.
At the office, I prefer privacy.
I don’t only have a nice view out the window looking at San Diego, I also have a nice internal view, too. Seeing that girl bent over in her cubicle in front of me with her tight skirt, her hair over one shoulder, her peach blouse giving me a peek of back cleavage; it made my dick twitch before my father strolled in. She’s a tiny thing but she’s got a great round ass with plenty to grab onto. Tiny waist. Luscious big tits. Wonder if they’re real. If they are, they’re fucking perfect. Perky. Big. If they’re not natural, her surgeon is an artist. If they’re hers, proof there’s a benevolent God.
Yep, round ass like a perfect peach. Keep seein’ her wear that orange-peach color.
My cock twitches at the idea of getting rammed between those tits or at sliding between those ass cheeks.
The look on her face when she spotted me and realized who I am? She was surprised, obviously having no clue who I was until then. Wonder if she’ll keep up with the sass she showed me over the weekend or if she’ll fall in line now that she knows I’m her VP and the CEO’s son. I’m fully expecting her to start kissing my ass.
I don’t ponder it for more than a beat, since my father is now blocking my view of her in her cubicle right outside my office.
“Dinner was nice yesterday.” He’s got his eyes on me.
“It was what it was,” I mutter.
My father purses his lips. “Aiden.”
Our eyes meet, and I see pain in his eyes. Does he not have a fucking clue how messed up his family is? The bullshit his wife has put on all of us?
Is he ready to address it? Ten times that first month after I walked in on that, I tried to talk to him about it and he shut me down, like he knew what I was gonna say, and didn’t wanna hear it. As a result, it’s been a couple years since I even tried to have a conversation with him about anything that wasn’t work-related.
I hold his gaze, mine hard.
I’ve had enough of her shit to last a lifetime. As much as my father wasn’t a great Dad, he is a decent man. And he doesn’t deserve to have his heart crushed under the feet of his son. But, fuck. This game? This not talking about the elephant in the room?
Audra Carmichael isn’t just a cheater. She’s also a shitty human being. And I have more than a strong suspicion that my and my younger brother’s paternity are big fat ugly question marks. And it has been a monkey on my back for more than a year.
An early memory hit me like a truck after catching her being spit roasted by the two fucking landscaping guys, so I hired a PI to see what else she’d been up to. If suspicions are correct, my brother and maybe also me are both Carmichaels, but not fathered by the same Carmichael as we grew up calling Dad.
“As nice as it was having all my children at the table for dinner, your attitude upset your mother yesterday,” he says to me.
He doesn’t elaborate. He never does.
“Doesn’t it always?” I finally return, giving him an arched brow.
He stares a long moment until I break it by rising.
“We have a meeting in five. No time for this now. And let’s leave family shit out of the office.”
It wasn’t a true Carmichael dinner. We’ve never had one of those where Audra allows her whole family at the table since her grandson was born. She doesn’t want Braeden at the formal dinner table until he’s got manners. He’s fucking two.
“You’re right. It was my rule to leave work at work, so we should leave home at home. Trouble is, I rarely see you. How about you and I go for dinner tonight. Just us two.”
I shake my head, thinking too fucking little and way too fucking late. “Got plans.” I open the door and motion for him to leave.