Page 60 of Take Her

“Does Business Lia have a question?” I shrank the screens I was working on and leaned back in my chair.

“Is this busywork?” she said, frowning slightly.

I wanted her full lips inside my office and on me—but a deal was a deal.

“No, although it is a test.”

Her eyes went dark with concern for a moment.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I asked.

She tilted her head, sending her hair cascading over one shoulder. “I don’t know, can you?” she asked, waving her hand around to indicate any possible surveillance.

“If any feds happened to be listening in on us now and act on what I tell you, it’d count as insider trading, which is a felony, so I think we’re safe.”

“Then...yes?” she said, with a soft laugh. “You have no idea how good I am at keeping secrets.”

“Mmm.” After her stint in janitorial, I had an idea. I stood and walked around to the front of my desk to lean back on it. “Your father wants to take Corvo public.”

“Why?” she exclaimed, and then looked at me like I’d hurt her. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

“You know how he is—he barely told me,” I complained with a shrug. “But his mind is made up.”

“He can’t,” she protested, seeming horrified. “Corvo was supposed to be mine. He?—”

I raised a hand to interrupt. “Not that I’m disagreeing with you, but what were you basing that assumption on?” Had Nero promised her the company over a distant Christmas dinner?

Her cheeks flushed a brilliant red. “Nothing,” she admitted. “But I want what I’m owed,” she added fiercely.

“Owed, eh?” I said the words sarcastically. No one had put more blood and sweat into Corvo than me—she had to know it. Hell, it was why she was here.

She lifted her chin and stared me down. “We’ve each paid in our own fashion.”

I inhaled to challenge that, then decided to take a different turn. “Are you seriously arguing with me while we both know you’re not wearing any underwear?”

She went as red as the bag she sometimes carried. “You told me not to be embarrassed!” she snapped and I growled.

“Little girl, I told you about this still highly theoretical IPO so you could help me not drown in paperwork. And maybe the only thing that’s gotten me through today has been the knowledge that your pretty pussy has been twenty feet away from me, behaving, up until about three minutes ago.”

“You do realize it’s attached to the rest of me, right?” she said, then bit her lips, perhaps wishing she could take her words back.

I would have been pissed—but we’d just started this thing. It was only natural for her to test my boundaries. I sat down on one of my leather armchairs and patted my knee. “Ditch your phone and come here.”

She swallowed, her gaze flicking from my hand to my eyes and back again. “Are you going to spank me?” she said, with a tremble in her voice.

“No, little moth,” I said. “What I’m going to do to you will be much, much worse.”

26

LIA

“Look, I—” I began, and then hesitated. There were dark circles under her eyes and she hadn’t put any make-up on in days—weeks?

It didn’t matter.

She was still so beautiful it crushed my soul.

I couldn’t imagine a world where she reciprocated my feelings, wherein I didn’t say what I was thinking without being an asshole.