Total pages in book: 211
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1008(@200wpm)___ 806(@250wpm)___ 672(@300wpm)
“How was your trip?” he asks, hitching a broad shoulder on the doorframe, obviously planning to stay longer than I’d like. Well, unless he’s going to give me the answers he’s been avoiding about the recalls.
“It was a much needed long weekend,” I say, hoping to avoid a topic laced with lies. My lies about why I took off of work.
“Who were you with again?”
“Don’t play coy, Isaac,” I say, fighting the urge to cross my arms in front of myself in a defensive move Isaac is too smart not to read. “We both know I didn’t tell you who I was taking a trip with.”
“And yet, I’m your brother,” he reminds me, an undertone of accusation in his words. He’s suspicious about the trip. I’ve questioned the recalls. I’ve tried to see paperwork he won’t let me see.
“My stepbrother,” I say, and then I dare to go to the place I don’t want to go, but he’s headed. “One who doesn’t act like a brother and we both know it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have—”
“I get it,” he snaps, straightening, clearly intending to shut me down before I can go down an awkward rabbit hole of unbrotherly love. “You don’t want to tell me who you’re fucking,” he snaps. “I get it, but I need to know this isn’t a distraction from your job.”
“I live for this place.”
“You haven’t been here,” he replies dryly. “And I have an issue that needed to be dealt with yesterday. You weren’t here to handle it.”
“I had my phone with me at all times. What issue and why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t call because this problem needs your full attention, and obviously, that wasn’t here.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. “The union’s bitching about the women’s bathroom in the plant. I have no clue what the problem is, but it’s a distraction I don’t need right now. I need you to run front line on this issue—deal with them. Get them pink fucking toilet paper if you have to. They want to start negotiations tomorrow. I’ll email you the details.” And with that, he disappears into the hallway.
Pink toilet paper is what he wants me to handle? And he wants me to negotiate with the union, which isn’t my job. We have an employee on staff who’s an expert in this area. Angry now, I round my desk and head down the hallway, following him all the way toward the corner office that he calls his castle, quite literally. He disappears inside and I pass his secretary’s desk, thankful she’s not there right now. Not that it would matter. Belinda is in her fifties, quiet, reserved, and a mouse in a cat’s cave who couldn’t be more submissive to Isaac. That’s how Isaac likes everyone.
Submissive.
He tries to shut his door and I catch it. “Why can’t the union negotiator handle pink toilet paper, Isaac?” I ask, certain this is all about keeping me busy.
His green eyes are as cool as they are calculating. “You really aren’t good at taking orders.” He leaves me in the doorway and enters his fancy office, rounding his mahogany desk, a grand mountain view and expensive artwork on the walls on either side of us because he’s showy. The entire Kingston family is showy, while my father instilled humility and graciousness in my mind. Though he spoiled my mother in ways that seem to have made a showy appeal to her or we wouldn’t be here now.
Isaac presses his hands on the desk. “Just do your job,” he snaps. “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes.”
“Since when does a member of the family, a managing member of the executive team, just do their job without asking questions?” I ask, stepping into the room without closing the door. I don’t do small spaces with Isaac. I learned that lesson the hard way years ago. I stop behind a leather chair and settle my hands on the back. “That’s not what your father taught me. He said—”
“The union is breathing down our throats,” he snaps. “Our product is good. If we have a flaw, it’s human. They don’t like my attitude on this.”
Finally, he’s actually talking about the problem. “How can you be sure our product is good? What have we done to ensure—”
“Everything,” he says. “I have this under control. Just appease the union.”
“Appease the union, or stay busy and out of your hair?”
“Both, Harper,” he bites out. “I have this under control. I have everything under control.”
“From where I’m standing, that’s questionable.”
Shock runs through me at the sound of Eric’s voice. I rotate to face the door to find him standing there, looking like a rebel with a cause, his dark hair a rumpled sexy mess, his jaw shadowed, and apparently, he left his suits in his hotel room, at least today. He’s dressed in faded jeans and a Bennett Enterprises T-shirt that hugs his hard body, his brightly inked arms in full, colorful display, his message clear: The bastard is home. What are you going to do about it? And when his blue eyes meet mine, they burn a path along my nerve endings, and deliver yet another message, one meant for me and me alone—I’m here for you.