I arrive home hours later due to the New York City traffic.
The day ends with me pulling the covers over my head and retreating into despair.
The rest of the weekend I simmer in a state of humiliation and rage.
It boils over when I wake up on Monday morning. I dress with exaggerated care, almost as if I’m as drunk as my father. Not with alcohol. With a sense of righteous indignation. How dare he? The town car doesn’t like starting today. I ignore the protesting sputter and gun it toward the city.
This asshole’s not going to strut around his office thinking he’s won.
He hasn’t won. I’ll win, and he can deal with it.
Adrenaline flows like sparkling wine all the way out of our suburb. All the way into the city. Up three levels of the parking garage until I find a spot. Every heartbeat pumps more angry heat into my veins. More acid humiliation. I’m all out of kindness today. I’m not out of hope.
People bustle through the lobby of the Phoenix Enterprises building, going in and out in the cool of the air-conditioning. Heads turn when I shove my way in through the rotating door, cheap cardboard heels loud on the floor. No, I’m not the most graceful person in the room. Not the most well-dressed. At the counter inside the door, I slam my ID down on the marble top. “I need a visitor pass. Please.”
The security guard presses his lips together like he might laugh, or might scold me. I don’t care what he does. “Who are you meeting?”
“Mason Hill.”
A low whistle. “I feel bad for him, then.”
He pushes a temporary pass across the counter to me. I’m not pinning it to my jacket. I’ll throw it in Mason Hill’s face. I’ll make him understand that he doesn’t need passes like this because he’s a terrible person who does terrible things and all of that will come back to him one day. A man at the elevator steps out of my way and doesn’t follow me in. Good. Good.
It lets me out onto the beautiful thirtieth floor. One wall is taken up with glassed-in offices. I stomp past two desks by the windows on the other side. Mason’s secretary sits at a rounded desk outside the big door to his office. The oversized door is meant to be intimidating, and maybe my stomach does clench at the sight of it. I’ll never let him know that.
His secretary’s eyes get wide, then wider, and she hangs up her phone call.
“I’m going in,” I tell her.
“Ms. Van Kempt, you’re not on Mr. Hill’s schedule—”
“I’m going in.”
She doesn’t have time to stop me because I’m already wrenching open the door to his office and bursting inside.
This might be the only time in my life that I catch Mason Hill by surprise. He stands up behind his desk in a rush, shoving the chair back with the force of his body. The angry motion is nothing compared to the complicated storm in his eyes.
My body reacts to it before my brain can figure out what I’m seeing. A bolt of fear. Dark leaves thrashing under lightning flashes in the sky. Impending doom. Immediate danger. Goose bumps spread like wildfire across my shoulders, pulling the hair on the back of my neck up. The hazy sky outside his huge, pristine office windows has turned from blue to iron gray. The muscles in my legs tense like I might take a step back. Like I might do the very smart thing and get the hell out of this room.
I didn’t come here to run away.
So I go toward him instead.
He won’t let me do it. Mason Hill is such an asshole that he won’t even give me the desk for comfort. He strides around in front of it, and through all my fear and anger and disappointment I see something. Something about the way his clothes move as he walks. It’s not like Leo Morelli’s clothes. Nothing like it. The only thing they have in common is the precise tailoring.
I plant my heels on the rug. God, he’s terrible. He hasn’t so much as touched me but he’s still bending this moment to his will. Blocking my path. I know there’s nowhere for me to go once I reach the desk, except for the windows on the other side. But I wasn’t ready to stop yet, and now he’s here. Keeping me off-balance. Keeping me right where he wants me.
“What the hell is your problem?” I’ve never been this pissed in my entire life. “You didn’t want to sign a deal with me, so you’re going to stalk me all over the city and sabotage everything?” I slice my visitor pass at him. “You are the worst.”
He covers his mouth with his hand, his eyes dark and glittering. “You stopped for a visitor pass.”
I throw it at him. It flutters to the carpet before it can touch his Burberry suit jacket. “You’re a prick, and everyone in the city knows it. Are you going to answer my question or not?”
“Did you ask one? You’re just so cute with your visitor pass and your righteous anger, it’s hard to pay attention.”
“What did I ever do to you?” I take another step toward him. A gust of wind curls against the tall pane of his window. This high up, the wind is stronger. “I came here with a way for you to make money, and you didn’t want me.”
A gorgeous, cutting grin curves the corner of his mouth. “I want you very much, Ms. Van Kempt. In many different ways. I thought you weren’t on the table.”
“I’m not.”
“You didn’t want me,” he mocks. “Are you hurt that I didn’t strongarm you into the contract? Did you dream about me touching you last night? Sometimes our words give us away when we’re not fully in control of ourselves.”
“You’re the one who’s out of control.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. You have followed me around the city and interfered in my meetings. You told people to turn me down. You probably have surveillance cameras on the Cornerstone development. Or you have phone taps on Van Kempt Industries’ phone lines.”
“No, but that’s a good idea.”
“I saw you in Leo Morelli’s office. I know you told him not to make an offer.”
He laughs, and another burst of heat and ice spirals down through my core. It’s a beautiful laugh. He has a beautiful voice. The most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard, and he only uses it to hurt me. “My god, you are precious. You’re quite sheltered, Ms. Van Kempt, so I’ll let you in on a little secret—no one tells Leo Morelli what to do. I simply gave him all the relevant information.”
“What information? If it’s about my dad—his drinking has nothing to do with this.”
Mason’s eyes widen. “You think I spent valuable time making calls and traveling around the city to tell my business associates information they already know?”
“No.” Blood bumps through my veins, thick and hot. “Yes.”
“It’s a well-known fact that Daddy’s a drunk who can’t finish a project to save his life. Or yours.” A smirk that cuts to the bone. “I thought they should know about the meeting I had.”
He’s too happy to tell me about this. Too thrilled. My burning, righteous anger falters under a cold wind. There’s something happening I don’t know about. “What meeting?”
“I met with the commissioner at the Department of Buildings.”
“About what?”
“About your project.” The green of his eyes darkens. A trick of the light. No—not a trick. It’s getting darker outside. A summer thunderstorm, rolling over the city. “Cornerstone isn’t just a half-finished eyesore. It’s a liability. Everyone who walks by is in danger.”