Chapter Two
Thelightsweredisgustingly bright in Micah’s apartment. On the weekends, they worked from his penthouse rather than the office. She had to admit today she was thankful for it. Nursing her third cup of coffee, she let herself in with the key he gave her the week after she started at Corsetti Financial. She had spent her first few years with the firm working as his personal assistant, and it included loads of responsibilities that required her to come and go from his place. Unfortunately, she never knew what she would face when she opened the door. The highlight was whenever she’d caught Micah dressed in nothing but a pair of sleep pants or shorts from the gym. His sleepy morning look was her favorite, but the downside was that one usually accompanied by some blonde bimbo hanging off his body, or climbing out of his bed. On more than one occasion, she needed to usher out an overly clingy guest. It wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but she had it down to a science before long. This morning, it appeared she was lucky. As she stepped into the kitchen, she found sleepy Micah in a pair of thin black sweatpants and sleep-tussled hair. He was leaning against the counter, taking a sip of coffee.
“Did she leave yet?” Isabel asked as quietly as possible. First so she wouldn’t be overheard and second because the sound of her own voice mad her head hurt.
“Who?”
“Whoever you spent the night with.”
“I spent the night with you, remember?” he said with a small smirk.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He shook his head in her direction and gave her a small laugh. “There’s no one here, Iz. Just me and you... so you can lose the shades.”
“I can not. You have this place lit up like the Rockefeller Center in here.”
Micah walked across the room and flipped off the overhead lights. He closed the space between them and reached for her glasses, gently pulling them from her face.
“All better?”
“Yeah... Better.”
He was so close she could feel his body heat radiating off of him. Even with leggings and a cropped hoodie on, she was still cold. A chill ran through her body as they stood there silently, looking at each other. She was close enough to reach for him and everything in her screamed to do just that. But instead, her mind won the battle over her hormones and she took a step back.
“We need to discuss Anton. I’ll set up in the office.”
“Yeah, go ahead. I’m going to jump in the shower real quick and call Dante.”
“Ugh, do you have to? He always makes you so irritable.”
“He does not.”
“Yes, he does. Every time you two talk, you always come storming back in like the world is coming to an end.”
“My cousin has that effect on people.”
“He seemed like a really nice guy when I met him.”
“Isabel, he is the definition of a bad guy. I told you that the day you met him. You were hanging off his every word like he hung the moon in the sky. I told you once before and I’ll tell you again, keep your distance from my cousin Dante. You have no idea the shit he’s into.”
“All I said was that he was a nice guy. It’s not like I’d date him or anything.”
“You better not.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. He gets close to you with that dick of his and I’ll cut it off and feed it to him. Stay away from Dante. I’m not going to say it again.”
“Geez, okay, I’ll stay away from your damn cousin. See what I mean? You get so grumpy every time we talk about him.”
“I’m grumpy because Anton is one of his guys, and I should never have agreed to hire him. Now we need to recoup a 1.3 million dollar loss and if Dante doesn’t pay up, then we are going to spend the entire afternoon strategizing another plan.”
“He has that kind of money?”
“Yeah, he does. I just don’t like how he makes it.”
Isabel watched as Micah took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He stretched his neck to the right and left, then he turned and headed toward his master suite. He and Dante had some kind of bad blood from years ago. It seemed to be the big family secret, so she never pressed it. From what she knew about Dante Corsetti, he was just like any other single rich kid with behaviors that ran pretty similar to Micah. She always assumed they were just too similar to get along.