Page 27

I’d have thought that ten years would have helped me leave the past in the past, but I wanted her. I saw her, and I wanted her. She knewme. She knew what lived inside me—the good, the bad, the ugly. She’d seen me at my worst. She’d seen me at my best. She’d seen the monster within. She’d seen the scared boy. She’d loved all of me.
“Duke, we’re looking at a tight timeline,” Tom Haywood warned. He was one of our strategic partners who had his head so far up his ass that I couldn’t see his fucking face.
I settled into my father’s leather chair, fingers tapping against the desk as I listened to the man on screen try to bullshit me.
“If we push this through now, we can break ground by the end of the quarter.” Tom adjusted his tie like it might help him sound more convincing.
I let the silence stretch, watching him squirm.
Never be the first to speak.It was a rule I’d learned early, one that separated the desperate from the powerful. I wasn’t desperate.
Except when it came to Elena!
Fiona sat across from me, her red nails gliding over the tablet in front of her as she jotted down notes. She was damn good at what she did—just ruthless enough to keep up with me, just hungry enough to push for more.
But she still didn’t see all the angles the way I did.
The man on screen who thought he was playing at my level awaited my response. I already had the numbers in my head: the cost-benefit analysis, the profit margin, and the exact percentage I could squeeze out of him if I let him think he was walking away with a win.
I glanced at Fiona. “What’s the valuation on the Lakemont property?”
She scanned her notes. “Last appraisal came in at forty-eight million, but the developers?—”
“Thirty-two.”
She blinked. “What?”
“It was thirty-two million.” I turned back to the screen. “And that’s my offer.”
Haywood laughed, forced and uneasy. “That’s not gonna happen.”
“Then we’re done here.” I reached for the laptop to end the call.
“Wait.” Tom’s face tightened. “Let’s be reasonable, Duke.”
I let him sweat a few more seconds before leaning forward, elbows on the desk. “Thirty-two, or I walk. And if I walk, I take my other investors with me. You’ll be sitting on a project with no funding, no permits, and no way to move forward.” I tilted my head. “So, tell me, Tom, how reasonable do you want me to feel?”
His jaw twitched. He knew I had him. He could fight, but he’d lose.
Fiona smirked, already seeing the victory, like she’d won, which she hadn’t. How often did I carry her? I wasn’t sure, but I wondered about that now. Was Fiona just good at handling dinners with senators and congressmen who got distracted by her blonde hair, her pretty face, and her tits, or did she know the business?
She’d just given me an evaluation that was inflated. Had she not known? I hadn’t doubted her in the two years I’d worked with her, one of which we’d been fucking for, and one whiff of Elena Rivera, and I was looking at her more clearly.
Did I just need to fuck Elena and work her out of my system?
Even as I thought that, I knew it wouldn’t work that way. I’d fuck her once, and then I’d want her again and again and again.
Fiona looked at me and smiled uneasily. “Maybe we can?—”
I raised my hand to shut her the fuck up. Seriously?Right when I had Tom on his knees, ready to suck my dick, she was going to speak?
“Fiona?” Tom took the reprieve.
“I was just checking…ah, it’s nothing…ah…we have dinner reservations,” she mumbled, and we all knew that she was fibbing. She was ready to cave, and I wasn’t. This was my company, and what I said went.
“As Fiona said, we have reservations in twenty minutes, and it takes about twenty minutes to get there. So, Tom, say what you gotta say, ‘cause I’m starvin’.”
Fiona gave me an apologetic smile. I ignored her.