Page 31 of Not Safe For Work

Chapter 8

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—

“Hey.” Teagan elbowed me as we continued down the hall. “You’re zoning out again, McNeill.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Clearly I need more coffee.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Just stay focused in the meeting, okay?”

“Of course.”

I’ll try, anyway.

Yeah right.

The meeting turned out to be hell, but not for the usual reasons. Oh, there was the usual death by PowerPoint, endless yammering about shit I didn’t care about, and terse, unreasonable demands from my boss. There was also the restlessness that comes with needing to get something done to meet a deadline but being unable to go do it.

That wasn’t what did me in this time.

Rick was hot. It was that simple. Especially now that I knew what he was hiding beneath that tailored suit. I was a captive audience too, sitting around a broad table with nothing to do but look right at him and listen.