And they especially shouldn’t expect my father.

In the comfort of what was now my office, I opened my laptop and got right back to work, only occasionally trying to stalk Bri between emails and phone calls. That final conversation we’d had didn’t sit well, and I had a feeling this woman and I shared more in common than she’d readily admit. I may be twenty-two and she may be thirty-five, but she was right, we both had shit going on and we both obviously opted to deal with it in a certain way that night we met—together. She may have been completely off base with some of the things she’d said, things surrounding December and me. We were just friends, and though some of those old wounds from the past were still there, I’d accepted that long ago and the relationship we had now—just friends. Bri hadn’t been entirely wrong about maybe a few walls I had up, but I wasn’t unavailable and had a feeling we both may deal with sudden conflicts that arose in our lives in similar ways. Brielle seemed like a runner, just like me, and conversations definitely should probably be had between us.

I probably should address these things with her in person, not stalk her on the internet like well, a stalker, but at this point, I felt like a man obsessed. It was like I needed to know about her, everything I could find out, but as I clicked around on the net behind the close doors of my office, I, again, came up empty.

Who wasn’t on social media?

She had that one profile freaking under lock and key, and I wasn’t bold enough to try to friend or follower her, not with me being her student now and all that. Frustrated, I slammed my laptop shut right as I got a call from up front.

“Mr. Salsbury wants to speak to you, Ramses,” my secretary, Leann, said on the other line.

Fucking perfect.

“Send him in,” I told her, noticing he made all staff call him Mr. Salsbury when he had known all these people for years. I didn’t even do that shit, and I was his boss, and what would I look like doing that anyway? These people had known me since I was in diapers.

My eyes were on my laptop when Duncan came in.

I admit I p

retended to be at work, but fuck me, if I didn’t still have Brielle’s Facebook page up. She had a profile picture of her in a football jersey, a New York team with black grease paint under her eyes and a sexy as all hell grin on her lips. I’d basically been pathetically salivating over the thing for the better part of an hour but I forced my gaze up to the world’s most well-dressed stick in the mud. Good ole Duncan loved to spend his money and had pretty much been me for all intents and purposes while I’d been away at school and my father had been in prison. Mallick Enterprises wasn’t just a family company, others had shares such as himself, but I held the majority. This effectively made me this man’s boss, but he was still basically family since I’d known him all my life.

“Ramses,” he said, his smile a firm but respectful one. He pocketed his hands. “How are you holding up, my boy? Adjusting well?”

Had been, but could do a little less with the my boy and sons. I smiled. “Can I help you with something, Duncan?”

I admit I was still a little annoyed over him calling me out before and wondered if I needed to make him call me sir or mister just to take me a bit more seriously. I just worried it might be a slippery slope, and I did want to do things differently around here. People may have respected my father, but they had also feared him. He was the law and I’d feared him, too, in the end.

I guess he’d given us all a reason to.

My jaw working in thought, Duncan decided to take it upon himself to appropriate a seat in front of my father’s desk. I had no serious problems with the guy, that annoying uncle type, but he did hover. He was supposed to be showing me the ropes because he did used to be me, and unfortunately, I did have to put up with it at the present. He knew more than me about all this, my dad’s company, so I did have to listen to him. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think that I knew everything, but I could do without the training wheels and what seemed to be constant check-ins. That first week the man had been in my office every hour on the hour, a buzzing bee and me without my goddamn repellent.

He crossed his leg at the knee. “I suppose I just wanted to chat with you about the boardroom incident. I really meant no offense. I merely noticed your attention had drifted off and wanted to make sure everything was clear for you that we were discussing. Make sure you were comfortable and still with us.”

Subtlety had never been this man’s strong suit in all the years I’d known him. Even still, how he’d gone about it had been inappropriate and definitely hadn’t been necessary. I followed along just fine. I leaned forward. “Your only job when it comes to me, Duncan, is to advise—as needed. I don’t need you calling me out, and I don’t need you babysitting.”

Both of which he’d done since I’d gotten here. I was about to change the locks on the goddamn door, this office his after my father’s, and I’d allowed him to keep a key as a courtesy.

A nod in understanding on Duncan’s end. “I apologize, truly. I didn’t mean to overstep.”

“So don’t.”

He frowned, sighing. “But I do want to make sure you’re comfortable.”

He kept saying that, comfortable, and lounging back, I laced my fingers across my chest. “Are you getting at something, Duncan? Because if you are, you’re going to have to break it down for me.”

He was going to have to say what was obviously on his mind, his fingers pulling through snow white hair. He placed a hand on his knee. “We’re so very happy to have you here, Ramses. Been waiting for you, to have a Mallick at the helm again.”

“But?”

His head tilted. “But we understand if you’re not quite ready. If you need time to finish school or even take a break if that’s what you want. We’d completely understand that, expect it.”

Expect it.

And so my age was an issue again, my hands opened. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel I was ready. And I assure you, neither my age nor my commitments to my education will affect my ability to run this company. So if that’s your, and I’m assuming the rest of the board’s, issue as well—”

“We know you’re brilliant, Ramses.” His sigh was incredibly heavy this time. “We’ve seen how you’ve come up and grown. We know you’ve got what it takes, but you are young, and after that incident at Brown…”

Which had nothing to do with this or this conversation. I put a finger down. “Careful, Duncan. You might be crossing a line.”

Tags: Eden O'Neill Court University Romance
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