The Dom Who Loved Me (Masters and Mercenaries #1)(49)

Damn it. She was going there again.

Matt’s head popped out of his office. Grace noted that his eyes were bloodshot again. She would have sworn that he was wearing the same suit he’d worn the day before. Unlike Adam, Matt looked far older than his years. “Could I see you in here for a minute?”

Grace picked up a notepad and followed her boss into the office. Her heart hurt as she remembered the last time she was in here. Sean had ordered her to lean over the desk, and he’d had his way with her. Of course, he’d pretty much had his way with her any way he’d wanted. She could still feel his hands on her hips as he pushed that big dick of his into her *. He’d filled her up until she couldn’t remember that she’d felt lonely before. It had been so much more than sex for her. That was what hurt. It hadn’t meant the same thing to him. Not even close. She would remember him forever, and he’d probably already moved on to the next woman.

“Are you working on the party? I’d like to see the plans.” Matt’s voice brought her out of her memories.

She tried to shake off the vision of Sean’s big body taking hers. She had a job to do. She needed to concentrate on that. “I called a caterer.”

“And the venue?”

“I thought we’d use the Ashton.” It was a gorgeous Art Deco hotel in the heart of downtown. The ballroom was the perfect place for corporate parties. Grace had thrown the Christmas party there two years before.

Matt was quiet for a moment, his eyes still as he seemed to consider her plans. “All right. That’s a nice place. Close to the freeway. That will work.”

Grace wasn’t sure why he cared, but the street the hotel was on was close to I-35. “Yes. I got a good rate. I’m using their kitchens. Luckily they had a cancellation, so they could fit us in. I thought it would be nice to do an Asian buffet.”

His nose crinkled up in distaste, but he shook it off. “I don’t care about the food, just make sure everyone comes. Send out invites to everyone and their significant others. And invite the other tenants in the building. This is a big deal, Grace. This is going to take us to a whole different level.”

“I understand.” The Bryson Building deal was big. It made sense that Matt wanted to celebrate. It was just that he said all the right things, but Grace could see he was unmoved on an emotional level. He seemed so very disconnected.

“Good.” He sat back down at his desk and started to go through the papers there. Grace waited for a moment. He didn’t look up at her when he spoke again. “I got a call from Kelvin. They decided to go another way.”

Sean wouldn’t be coming back. He was gone. “I’ll cancel your meetings with Mr. Johansson.” The words tasted like ash in her mouth, but she managed to get them out.

His eyes came up to search hers. “And what about your meetings with him?”

“I didn’t have anything scheduled with him.” She hadn’t thought she needed to. He was living at her place.

“All right. It’s for the best, Grace. You’ll see. We don’t need that contract. We’ll be rolling in money, now.”

She was happy he was sure of it. She still hadn’t seen the contract and wouldn’t hold her breath. He hadn’t put it on her desk this morning. He was holding it close to his vest for some strange reason. A couple of questions started to play at the back of Grace’s brain.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t get serious about that playboy, isn’t it?” Matt had a superior little smirk on his face.

A flush stole across Grace’s skin. It was a damn good thing she hadn’t run around the office proclaiming her conquest. Only Adam, Jake, and Kayla knew she’d been seeing him away from work. At least she thought that was all. God, she couldn’t handle it if everyone knew she’d played around with a younger man and got dumped after only a few nights. It was a good thing he wasn’t coming back. She didn’t think she could handle seeing him back in the office, potentially hitting on someone new.

“Yeah. It was just casual.”

He pinned her with a glare that made her wonder how much he knew. “I’m glad. Maybe now you can concentrate on work. Let me know how the party planning comes. I want this to be perfect, Grace.”

Grace nodded and was relieved to find herself dismissed. She slunk out of Matt’s office. It wasn’t surprising that he would call her out. He’d been against her relationship with Sean from the beginning. He’d been the one to tell her she should be cautious. Cautious? He’d told her flat out Sean wouldn’t stay, and he hadn’t.

The rest of the afternoon centered around calls to caterers and plans for the big party. At three, Evan Parnell strode into Matt’s office after giving Grace a smirk. He’d never actually looked her straight in the eyes before. The contact unsettled her. It also made her remember that slip of paper he’d dropped the day before. Following her instincts, Grace looked up the address on the Internet. It was to a mail facility that offered safety deposit boxes as well as mail collection services. She thought about that long list of numbers. Some of them she recognized now. She’d checked them against bank accounts that Wright Temps used and matched three of the numbers. One of them, though, was too short to be an account number. Grace wondered if it was a box number or a locker code.

When Evan Parnell left Matt’s office, Grace was a minute behind him.