Page 32 of Take Me Slowly, Part 1 (Aurora Hollow duet #1)

RILEY

"Bookings are up." I looked from my laptop, over to Connor.

He was looking through invoices on his own laptop, a frown on his face.

"Good. We're going to need it to pay all of these." He tapped on the keyboard, putting the invoice details into the accounting app.

"That bad?" I finished answering a potential customer enquiry and pressed send.

He shrugged. "It's the price of expansion. It will be worth it; we just need to get past the teething phase. We've got this."

"Do we?" I scrolled down to the next query, opened it and started to respond.

"Ri." He sounded frustrated. "Ri, look at me. We've worked too long and hard not to succeed. When we took this over from Dave, we knew it was going to be a challenge. You and me, we don't back down from a challenge. Right?"

"Right. Failure is not an option." He was hot when he got all blunt and bossy like this. Sometimes I provoked him just to see it. Today, though, this was something different. I needed to know he was still on board with me.

"Exactly." He pointed a finger gun at me. "In fact, I was thinking about hiring more staff. We could expand faster if we don't have to deal with shit like this. And we could run more tours."

I nodded slowly. "I'd prefer to be out there than sitting in your kitchen doing this."

But my stomach dropped. I couldn't help reading more into it. If we had more staff, he'd have more time for the pub. And less for me.

"Yeah, sorting invoices sucks." He rolled his shoulders. "If I can hand this off to someone, I'm there for it."

"I don't mind answering questions, but it's not as much fun as rafting. Or zip lining. Or skiing." I want to remind him why we were doing this in the first place. We both liked the freedom of running our own business, and loved the one we chose. He'd go crazy in the pub all day long. And all night.

"Nothing is as much fun as those, except fucking," he said. "Speaking of fucking, we could ask Leah if she wants to work for us doing some of this." He scrubbed his chin with his hand, looking thoughtful.

"Good idea," I said slowly. "Do you want her work for us so we can fuck her when we want to?"

I deleted a couple of spam emails from our inbox. Then a couple more. Did they really think we'd believe a billionaire wanted to send us money for no reason? Neither of us was born yesterday.

"That too, but not just that," he said easily. "I'm pretty sure she needs the money and she can do this sitting down. Or lying down if she has to."

"Now I want to see if she can answer emails while I fuck her from behind," I said.

"I want to see that too," he agreed. "Her and you. We could see who can answer more emails while I fuck you."

"I'd like to see how many invoices you can record while I fuck you," I said. This conversation was becoming very distracting.

"None. You fuck too well for me to focus on invoices." He adjusted the front of his jeans.

"I think that's the right answer." I adjusted my own, dark grey, track pants. "We should definitely ask her. We'll have to train her."

"Absolutely," he agreed. "She's a smart girl. She'll figure out exactly what we want pretty quickly."

"Not too quickly," I said. "Otherwise she won't need us around for too long, giving her pointers."

"I'll give her a pointer all right."

"I can't wait to see that." We'd taken it slow so far, but I wanted to go further, and soon. I'd never been known for my patience, and this was becoming painful. I had to bring the conversation back down to earth for now though.

I propped my elbows on the table and rested my face on my hands. "If she comes to work for us, what does that mean?"

He glanced up, his head at an angle. "It means she takes the tedious, but necessary, administration work off our hands?" He clearly couldn't see what I was getting at.

"I mean, what are you going to do with the extra time you have if you're not doing that?" I asked. "Will you be spending more hours at the pub?" That was only a small part of what I really wanted to know.

He straightened his head. "I hadn't given it any thought. We've only been having this conversation for ten minutes."

"Okay, now I've brought it up, what do you think?" My pulse raced a little faster, an edge of anxiety creeping in where it wasn't wanted.

"I might. I don't know. I guess I'll be wherever I'm needed. Why? What are you getting at?" He seemed irritated now.

"What's going to happen to our business when you take over from your father?" I blurted out. "You can't be in two places at once."

He sat back and stared at me. "How long has this been bothering you?"

I scratched the skin under my eye. "A while. I know it's what he wants to happen. Then when he had his heart attack… If you take over from him soon, he can retire."

"Is that what you want?" Connor asked. "You think I should kick his ass out and take over from him now?" His expression was unreadable.

"It's not what I want," I said, my voice low. "Like you said, we worked hard to build this business. It's always been you and me. I don't want anything to happen to him, but he needs you."

"What do you need?" His expression softened. "If we close the business, you can, I don't know, live your own dreams. The adventure tours were my idea. I never asked if it was what you wanted."

"It is what I want," I said quickly. "I don't want to close the business." The idea made my blood boil and my chest ache. It would be like cutting off a limb. Aurora Adventure Tours was my life. It and Connor. If I was honest, Leah was quickly creeping into that same net.

"I don't either," Connor said. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "I see why you've been quiet lately. You think that at some point I have to choose."

"Don't you?" I asked. "What option would you have? Work twenty-five hours a day eight days a week?"

He barked a laugh. "You know that's not humanly possible, right?"

"Who said you were human?" I said, content to lighten the conversation. "You might be some kind of mutant."

He tipped his head back and laughed. "That's not the first time I've been accused of being a mutant, but I'm not superhuman."

He chuckled for a while before blinking and bringing himself back to the present. "You're right, I can't do both," he admitted. "Not when I think the pub needs its own restaurant and hotel. Both businesses need to expand and that's a fuck ton of work. That doesn't mean our business has to close."

"What does it mean then?" I asked. My mouth was suddenly dry. "You're not going to close the pub, or sell it?"

The surprise on his face told me he hadn't considered either of those options. Of course not; it was his father's legacy we were talking about. Not to mention, the heart of the town. Closing the place would devastate Aurora Hollow.

"I was thinking of hiring a manager," he said. "Someone to run the pub. If Leah can come on board, I'll have more time to look at expanding both, while you and I run the tours."

My jaw dropped open like it was on a hinge that suddenly failed.

"Oh."

He grinned. "Yeah, oh . Unless you'd prefer to take over the tours and be the boss?"

Now it was my turn to admit I hadn't thought about something so big. Did I want that? To make all the calls? To be in charge of the staff? To be able to make the decisions about any expansion?

I sat back and scrubbed a hand over my face. "I think I like your plan better."

He grinned. "Me too."

"Prick," I said teasingly. "You like getting your way."

"No, I fucking love getting my way." His adorable grin made my heart flip. It beat even harder when he added, "But you have to be happy with it too. Otherwise, what's the point?" He raised one shoulder and dropped it slowly. "We're a team. Teams work together."

"You're not going to say ‘there's no I in team,’ are you?" I grimaced.

"Have I ever been that cringey?" he asked. He looked as disgusted by the suggestion as I was.

"Not yet." I tried to hold back a smile, but failed. I failed even harder when he picked up a pencil and threw it at me.

"Fuck off," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I'll never be that cringey."

"Never say never." I picked up the pencil and threw it back in his direction. It landed on the table, slid across the surface and clattered onto the floor.

"I'll absolutely say never." He leaned and put it back where it belonged. "Dumbass catchphrases like that should be beheaded and set on fire."

"Like teamwork makes the dream work?" I deleted a couple more spam emails before glancing back at him.

"Now who's been cringey?" he asked. "How many of those do you have, exactly?"

"I think the correct answer is too many," I said. "But I'm happy to be a thought leader in my chosen field."

"Next time we go rafting, I'm taking away your lifejacket." He reached over to pick up his water bottle, open it and take a sip.

"You wouldn't do that," I said. "You love me too much."

His gaze lingered on mine, saying more than words could.

"Not if you use phrases like thought leader ," he said. "Or teamwork makes the fucking dream work."

"That is accurate though," I pointed out. "We're a team and we're over here making our dream work."

"I guess so, but don't put it that way." He put his water bottle back down on the table. "Let's get this finished. Then we can head over to Leah's and ask her if she wants a job."

"Work, hand or blow?" I asked.

"Yes, yes, and yes." He flashed me a grin before focusing back on his laptop screen.