Not Safe for Work(23)

As if these thoughts could be collected. In a couple of hours, I had to be in the same room with Rick, but not in the same bed. Not until tonight. And I was losing my f*cking mind.

In the supply room, I riffled through three drawers before I remembered that the tubes of cement were in the drawer clearly marked Cements & Adhesives. After staring blankly at a shelf for a good thirty seconds, I found the piece of foam-core I’d been looking for right in front of my face. It was probably just as well I didn’t find the spare X-ACTO blades—which were in a drawer under my modeling table back in the NSFW Zone—because I did not need to be handling anything sharp right then.

I rubbed my eyes. Fuck. If I couldn’t get my head together now, I was going to be a wreck when it came time for the meeting.

The door opened behind me, and I turned around as Teagan stepped into the room.

She eyed me. “You get lost in here?”

“No. I…” I looked down at the supplies I’d gathered and tucked the foam-core board under my arm. “Just making sure I found everything.”

“Mmhmm. You’ve been out of it since you got here. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

She cocked her head. “Cal’s mom really ran you into the ground, didn’t she?”

“Yes, Teagan. That’s what happened.”

She snickered and brushed past me. As she pulled open the drawer where we kept paint, she said, “So who is she really?”

I actually felt a little guilty that Teagan still thought I was straight. I was closer to her than anyone else in this building, but even after almost ten years in the same office, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that the woman I was dating was actually a man.

She turned around, eyebrows up. “Jon?”

I shook myself. “Sorry. And her name is none of your business.”

Teagan huffed. She pulled a couple of bottles from the drawer and closed it. “Well, even if you won’t share the fun details, I’m glad you’re getting laid.” She elbowed me playfully as we headed for the door. “It’s good to see you smiling like this.”

“Smiling like what?”

Teagan held the door as she rolled her eyes. “Like a man who got something this weekend that he’s been needing for a long, long time.”

I couldn’t argue with that, could I?





Chapter Eight


No client had warranted as many meetings as Rick’s company did on a weekly basis. It made sense, though—they were aggressively revitalizing the city, especially the downtown area. During the real estate crash, they’d swooped in and bought millions of dollars in property, mostly from companies that had gone bankrupt. It had been a smorgasbord of foreclosures, and they’d bought acres and acres of land. For some of it, they worked hard to keep businesses open. They lowered leases for struggling companies to help them recover from the economic downturn, which ultimately forced other landlords to do the same. According to a report released a few months ago, that alone had saved about twenty percent of businesses that had been otherwise doomed to fail during the worst of the recession.

Other properties had old, decrepit structures on them, or obsolete ones for businesses that had failed. Those were, one by one, being torn down and replaced with new state-of-the-art structures—a low-rent office building where a decrepit factory used to be, museums and such to attract tourists, a series of hotels ranging from inexpensive to five-star luxury to house those tourists. He and his business partners were giving the city the facelift it desperately needed, and they were pouring money into Mitchell & Forsythe to help make it happen. With that many projects going, and with Rick and Dion as heavily involved as they were in every step of the process, it was no wonder they were in our building so often. And our bosses insisted on Teagan and me being present more often than not.

So at eleven o’clock sharp, I put aside the windows I’d been trying to install in my current model and stood up. “Ready, Teagan?”

“Fuck. Is it that time already?”

“Yep.”

Teagan groaned. “And Marie is on the warpath today.”

“Great.” I took a long swallow of cool coffee. “Well, wish us luck, guys.”

“Should we all gather round and lay hands on you?” Cal asked. “For, you know, protection or something?”

“Cal, damn it, we’ve been through this,” I said. “You are not touching me.”

He showed his palms. “Hey, I’m just trying to keep you from getting eaten alive.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I muttered.

“Ungrateful bastard,” Scott said around the pen in his mouth. “We’ll light some candles and sacrifice a virgin for you, though.”

“Thanks, man, you’re a real pal.”

Teagan brandished an X-ACTO knife. “You heard him, Cal. We need a virgin sacrifice for our safety, so—”

“Shut up.”

As we headed out the door, Bianca called out, “Ogle Pierce for me!”

I almost stumbled, but Teagan answered, “Always do, baby. Always do.”

Jesus. I’d forgotten those two had a thing for him. Couldn’t blame them. Who could? Cal was convinced they were just in love with Rick’s money, but Dion, Horizon’s CFO, was just as loaded as Rick, and they barely gave him a second look. I didn’t bother debunking Cal’s theories or backing up the women because I didn’t want to tip my own hand. There was so much more to Rick than money. So much more. Holy—