Resisting Mr. Kane (London Mister #2)(48)

And more importantly, I need to figure out how to convince Elly Andric to put both of us out of our misery and give me a chance.

***

“How much do you want, Gemina?” I sigh heavily into the phone.

After the disaster of trying to get across London in traffic jams I don’t need this shit. I stare at the view of St. Pauls from my office and try to steady my breathing.

“Twenty should be fine,” she says quietly. Like she’s doing me a favour asking for only twenty thousand pounds.

My knuckles grip the side of the desk as I feel my temperature rise.

“You know he’s going through a hard time. Please, Tristan.”

I don’t know that. What I know is that Danny said he rented a private box at the Formula1 last week. My hands fly to my hair. I don’t want to talk about him.

God knows what they are doing with all this money. She’s had her healthy divorce settlement and receives excessive child maintenance for Daniel. The woman seems to haemorrhage money and has nothing to show for it. However, money is the only language we speak these days, so that's how we communicate.

“The car will pick Daniel up at 9 a.m., Saturday.” I strain to keep my voice level. “Agreed?”

“Fine, Tristan. See you then.”

I hang up the phone, staring out at the London skyline. I spent years working to get this view. It means nothing now. If I lost it, I would recover eventually. But I won’t recover if I lose my son. That, I can be sure of.

I breathe through the tightness in my chest, suppressing the ball of stress rising from my stomach. I need to soothe my temper before Elly arrives. My stress ball. She doesn’t know how much I need this.

I knew she wouldn’t decline my meeting request for two reasons: one, rejecting a meeting with the CEO is career suicide and two, as much as she protests, Elly Andric can’t bring herself to stay away from me. Now, I’ve found a solution that she can’t refuse. It’s the only option I have other than selling the damn company so I’m no longer her boss.

I’ll talk in a language Elly is comfortable with. Not money talk. Law talk.

There’s a knock on the door that kicks my heart rate up a notch. I knew she would be punctual even if she wanted to play hard to get.

“Elly.” I smile at the intoxicating brunette closing the door. “Take a seat.” I resist the urge to surge towards her and kiss her.

She sits down, clutching her laptop bag to her chest like a shield.

“Drink?” I offer, walking to my cabinet.

“No.” She scowls. “It’s 4:30.”

I pour two Scotches and set one down in front of her.

She glares at me and pushes it away. “Sophie wants me to be back at my desk in twenty minutes to finish something.”

She’s guarded again. It was only hours ago that we were dry humping each other in a lift and she was opening her thighs so I could eat her out.

Instead of taking a seat behind my desk, I lean on the desk directly in front of her, spreading my feet wide.

She squirms, crossing and uncrossing her legs. It makes her dress ride up, revealing more of the shapely thighs underneath. My hands tighten around the edge of the desk.

She looks at me, aghast.

“What?” I frown.

“There’s a stain on your shirt.”

I look down at my collarbone. There’s a small patch of evidence from when I was on my knees. It’s barely visible. “I don’t think anyone will be able to figure out you caused that.” I smile but she looks dismayed.

Her forehead creases and I sense she is fretting about earlier.

“It’s okay,” I assure her. “What happens between us stays between us.”

“I didn’t mean for things to go so far. I got carried away.”

“I can't say I regret what happened, far from it but I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

When she stays silent, I hand her the white paperwork on the desk. “I’m hoping this will allow you to rethink your decision.”

She frowns. “What is it?”

“It’s a non-disclosure agreement,” I state simply. “Between us, me and you.”

She stares up at me in disbelief. “Why am I signing an NDA?”

“It’s a mutual NDA. We’ll both sign,” I explain. “I already have. You’ve made it clear your objection to dating me is based on my position in the company and the threat to your reputation.”

Her eyes narrow. “And the fact I’m not sure I trust you.”

“We can work on the trust issue.”

She anchors her gaze on the paperwork, skim-reading the pages.

“This will give you the protection you need,” I say confidently. “Page ten has my obligations. You’ll want to ingest the details yourself, but I’ll summarise for you. In the scenario that an employee of Madison Legal obtains information about our relationship causing your reputation to come into question, I’m liable to pay damages to you of a sum of up to 150 thousand pounds.”

Her jaw hits the floor.

“To cover professional reputation damage,” I add. “That’s your trainee contract salary covered and a bit more if you choose to leave. Does that appease you, Elly?”

“Let me get this straight,” she starts slowly, looking at me like I've grown an extra head. “If I go on a date with you and someone from Madison finds out, you will give me 150k in compensation?”