The Marriage Rival

I say goodbye to Clint before walking past the small interview room. There’s only one glass panel which gives me visibility. Peeking my head down the side, I see only legs—long, lean, tanned legs—with high black pumps and a red skirt that sits so short I am this close to seeing whether she has a landing strip, bush, or is completely bare.

Asshole.

I can’t see Haden, but I know him well enough to know he’s probably sitting there hard as anything wishing he could stick his dick inside her, especially because he isn’t getting any from me.

It’s enough for me to leave the office and go home without him.

If he thought he was going through a dry spell, he needs to get ready for the drought.

Haden Cooper isn’t the only one who knows how to play the game.

Three

Haden

I park my car in front of our garage, turning the engine off and taking a moment to sit in silence.

It has been the day from hell.

Aside from my comical argument with Presley, one of our top IT managers decided to resign as his wife wants to move back to N

ew Zealand to be closer to her family. This guy, Carl, is a rare find. Works like a dog and never asks for a pay raise. He’s been employed with Lantern Publishing for over fifteen years. Now, we need to throw more money into looking for his replacement.

The day quickly turned into one giant headache until the migraine hit at three o’clock on the dot. A call came through from Henderson Marshall, one of our key shareholders and beloved family friend of my stepfather, David, who retired and left me with the reins.

Marshall has been in this industry for decades, and despite his enormous wealth, he is a risk-taker and quite often shakes up the market with his radical ideas. Today is one of those days. He wants our bestselling authors to team up and co-write. Nothing that hasn’t been done before, but then he upped the ante—cross-genre—two authors, two different genres, and one story.

There are so many things I want to say to him, but my past experience with Marshall is to let him get it out, sit quietly, and if he is dead serious, he will be at me again in a week. I don’t need the additional workload. We are under-resourced and when it comes to hiring, the employment pool is short of talent.

Like today, for instance. I don’t know what the fuck Noah was thinking by wanting to interview this girl. Noah knows better. He was our Operations Manager until he took on another role. To help me out, he still comes into the office now and then because replacing him has been difficult. His temporary replacement, Phil, is nowhere near as qualified as Noah. The guy has college degrees coming out of his fucking ass. His problem is that he has the most complicated personal life known to man. Separated from his wife to only knock up some air hostess on a one-night stand, to then come home to a wife wanting to get back together. That was a year ago. Now, he’s finally settled down with one of Presley’s best friends, Kate.

And no surprises with today. Again, he is thinking with his dick. I swear I lost brain cells sitting across from her while she explained her current role as personal assistant to some old dude who runs a used car lot in the valley.

Somewhere during her uneducated explanation of what she does in her current role, I cut her off because it was obvious, she’s giving her boss head or fucks him after hours. That shit does not happen under my watch. The last thing I need is for the men in the office to be distracted by some girl wearing a short-ass skirt and pussy screaming bare at them.

Yeah, she fucking thought that would work with me.

My phone lights up, interrupting my moment of peace, with Noah’s name flashing. He hadn’t responded to my previous three missed calls during my ride home.

“What’s up?” he greets.

“You tell me?” I bark from exhaustion, “C’mon, man. She’s all tits and pussy. At what point did you think she is right for your team? Aside from sucking your dick.”

He laughs, letting out a frustrated sigh. “I didn’t shortlist her, the recruiter did. Granted, she also wants some dick and told me last week, but that’s another story. Kate was less than pleased when I told her.”

“Honestly, man. Why did you even say anything? Presley would kill me. Did you sort out all the custody arrangements?”

“I’m trying to be mature and work something out where everyone is happy.” Noah softens his voice, remaining unusually quiet for a man who often challenges me. “I’d rather not go into it, women are complicated creatures. Morgan sure goes out of her way to make things difficult.”

I don’t envy him one bit. Timing was poor on his behalf. I genuinely feel sorry for him. The night Morgan handed him divorce papers, he sought comfort in someone else. I probably would have done the same in that situation. Bottom line is, he should have been more careful, though, he claims he used a condom. In the end, it all worked out but he still has his challenges. He is lucky he has Kate, end of story.

“Glad to be married to the old ball and chain right now,” I say, faintly.

“Speaking of ball and chain, how is Presley?”

“I don’t know, ask me in an hour. She left work without a goodbye and things are just… tense.”

“You mean she’s not sucking your dick, therefore… you’re tense, not her?”