IRL: In Real Life (After Oscar, #1)(15)

As if it was that simple.

I mumbled another thanks. Before heading back to the conference room for another torture session, I ducked into the men’s room. The moment I slid the lock on the stall door, I heaved a sigh of relief. I appreciated Deb taking the time to make me feel at ease and pump up my self-confidence, but I needed a minute to myself.

My phone was like a living thing inside my pocket; I couldn’t help but pull it out and reread the message from my sexy stranger.

He wanted to have food sent to my room? What kind of person did that? And was it even smart to tell him where I was staying?

After stopping and starting typing several times, and hoping he wasn’t noticing those three traitorous dots on his screen, I gave up. The reality was, I didn’t know what to do. I’d agreed to dinner with Wells and his team, but I was already tired and knew that by the end of the day I’d be exhausted.

Everything about this morning had been overwhelming: the gleaming office tower, the fancy conference room, the high-powered executives. Wells Grange himself. He had to be one of the most intense individuals I’d ever met. Power radiated from the man like he was born to it. I wondered if he’d ever had a moment of insecurity. He seemed so confident, so sure of himself, so absolutely aware of the dominance he exuded over everything in his orbit.

Including me. I shivered, thinking about standing up to him for the briefest moment in the conference room. The confusion in his eyes. It had been a heady moment. Terrifying, but exhilarating.

I wondered for a moment what it would be like to take Wells out of his element and put him in mine. To switch our positions. I imagined him upstairs in my shop, in the old loft I’d converted into a massive game room. There were over a half dozen large tables made from reclaimed wood, several of them covered with miniatures for various war games. Three of the walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, the fourth dominated by a row of bookshelves stuffed with every game imaginable, all of them available to be checked out and played.

Saturday nights the loft hummed with energy, every table covered with game pieces and surrounded by people laughing and arguing and debating and storytelling. I rotated among them, answering questions, adjudicating disputes, offering tips and suggestions. That was my world. That was my forty-second-floor conference room equivalent.

But if I had Wells Grange to myself in my shop, I wouldn’t take him to the loft. I’d take him to the back nook where I had an old chessboard set up. It had been handed down through my family, the pieces carved by my great-great-grandfather out of an ancient piece of bogwood he’d dug up from his fields back in Ireland. The pieces were worn smooth from generations of hands sliding over them, moving them from square to square.

Chess was an equalizer. Anyone could learn to play it well. It was also a game of strategy. Planning. Patience.

I imagined Wells Grange would make an excellent chess player.

Good enough to beat me? I smiled to myself. That would be interesting to find out. I was sure Wells probably thought so. He’d probably start with Queen’s Pawn opener, a cocky grin twitching the corner of his lips, assuming he’d already won. Then I’d counter with King’s Indian Defense. That’s when he would know who he was up against.

That’s when he would realize I didn’t intimidate so easily. I may not be as powerful, or arrogant, or polished as Wells, but I had my own strengths. I knew how to read players in order to learn what cards they held in their hand. I knew how to listen to determine their strategies and goals. And I knew how to wait patiently, making my own plans, so that I could ultimately make a play for the win at the end.

Wells Grange would end up with my mother’s printer patents—of that there was no debate. The issue was under what terms and conditions. And the real question was how much he would pay for them.

Essentially, Wells and I were playing a kind of game. My objective was to collect as many resources as possible in the process. Thinking of the negotiations in this way made me feel more confident, like we were in my world now instead of his. Of course, playing his game meant going to dinner with him and his team, I realized. Which meant declining the sexy stranger’s offer of dinner in my room.

With a resigned sigh, I typed up a response to my sexy stranger’s invite. Then I slipped the phone back into my pocket, washed my hands, and started back to the conference room thinking about the next move to make with Wells Grange.

Just because he’d eventually put me in check, didn’t mean I couldn’t make him run the board and lose a few pieces in the process.





6





Wells





I was having trouble concentrating on the business task of acquiring this fucking piece of equipment that could earn my company into the billions of dollars.

All because of a little gamer geek I’d gotten off the night before.

And again this morning.

And hopefully again tonight.

I ground my teeth as my cock stirred, causing my pants to grow uncomfortably tight. I was not the kind of person who put this much thought into the men I had sex with. And I hadn’t even had actual sex with this guy. So what the hell was my problem?

Focus.

“Deb!” I barked. It took her longer than it should have to appear in the conference room door, and I scowled. “Did you make those reservations?”

She crossed her arms, undaunted by my stormy demeanor. “Do you have any idea how impossible it is to get last-minute reservations for eight people at Segreto?” she asked. “They’ve been booked up since before they opened.”