Boss I Love to Hate: An Office Romance(82)

I squeezed his hand before standing up to grab the dessert in the kitchen. Marco stood also, and on our way in with tiramisu and lemon meringue pie, he bumped his hip against mine.

“I like him.”

I laughed. He never said that about Jeff. “And why is that?”

“He looks at you like you’re his whole world, and he would do anything to keep you in it.”

I stopped and blinked up at my brother. Marco had said the same thing before, but it was how I’d looked at Jeff, about how I’d loved him more than he’d loved me.

That made my heart skip two, three, four beats, and I knew then that I was in trouble.





Chapter 19





Brad





Talk about killing it.

Charles slapped my butt the way football players did as we made our way out of the boardroom. “You nailed it!”

I shrugged before heading to the elevator. “Like there was any doubt.” Because I sure as hell didn’t doubt myself. I had sealed the deal with Titan Press, which would expand our capabilities in the west and would eventually increase our bottom line by twenty percent.

“We’ll need to visit their plant within the next few weeks.”

The buyout and integration of their facilities into our infrastructure would take nine months to a year, and that was being optimistic, but I was determined to get it done.

I raised my fist to fist-bump Charles and walked into the elevator while he proceeded back down the hall to his office.

Boy, did that feel damn good, nailing this deal.

The doors shut but not before Mason slipped in right beside me.

Great.

Mason pressed his floor and moved to the back of the elevator. “Good job in there. You’ve always been good at that.”

“Thanks.”

Our relationship since that day we had our blowup had been awkward. We only spoke to each other during work, and at home, we avoided each other like a married couple in the midst of a bad fight.

“About the other day …” His eyebrows gathered in, and he let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry.”

I’d been waiting for an apology, but I had already forgiven him long before. Even when we were younger, my fights with my brothers hadn’t lasted long. Either we’d box it out, yell it out, or it hadn’t been a big deal to begin with.

This time, I was going to do what I wanted to do anyway, so it wasn’t worth the wasted effort.

“I understand your concern, but I’m not going to jeopardize work and what grandfather built for a quick lay.” Maybe, at one time, I had been that guy, but I wasn’t anymore. What Mason had to understand was what I had with Sonia was different. There was no way I was letting her go. “I’m different with her.”

“I know.” He leaned against the elevator and stuck his hands into his pockets.

I faced him directly, but he stared at the door, waiting for it to open.

“Maybe I was just …” He paused. “Maybe I was just jealous.”

What? I reeled back to study his reaction.

“I saw you and Sonia at lunch. I passed that place on Wells, the one you guys always go to. I saw you through the window.” Mason’s gaze dropped to the ground as though he were thinking deeply. “Janice and I aren’t like that.”

Fucking finally. But I held in the reaction. Don’t be an asshole. Don’t say anything. Bite your tongue.

“I don’t think we ever were.” There was a sadness in his tone, a vulnerability that Mason hardly showed.

Charles and I were on the same page when it came to Janice, but Mason would stick up for her until his face turned blue. Hell, my nieces weren’t very fond of her, and those girls liked everyone.

There were a million things that I wanted to say, tons of reasons Mason and Janice shouldn’t be together. I wanted to list them out and highlight each and every one—the most important being that she was a selfish gold digger who only cared about him because of the status he could give her. But I didn’t.

“You should be happy, bro.” I placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. “You already know how I feel about her, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. It’s your choice to make.”

I understood it all in that second. How everyone could tell me that Sonia and I wouldn’t work and her father could intimidate me and she could still possibly want her ex back. All the forces could be against me, us … but in the end, it was my choice to pursue her.

“We’ve been together for years, and, yeah … she’s put on the pressure of marriage,” he said when the elevator pinged open.

“She’s not too shy about it,” I muttered, stepping onto my floor.

He followed right behind me.

If the bridal magazines and Tiffany and Cartier catalogs were any indication. I bit my tongue before some asshole comment slipped.

“And I realized, she’s right.”

I winced. Please, for the love of God, do not make her my future sister-in-law. My parents would be turning over in their graves.

“That’s the only step now, but when I think of it …” He stopped in the middle of my floor, where I would turn to head down the hall to my office, and stared behind me into the air. —“… I can’t picture myself with her forever. Can you see Janice as a mother?”