Page 31 of Merciless Heir
Sadie looks at my hand and then at me. “You don’t know him.”
“I might.”
“You don’t. Move.”
“I’m driving.”
“This isn’t my car,” she says, scowling at me as the cold air makes her shiver. I know because I feel its bite, too.
“Steal it?”
She tilts her head to one side. “Would it matter?”
“If I get a criminal record, it might.”
Sadie shoves me, but I refuse to move. “You’re a billionaire, you can make that stuff disappear.”
She’s probably got a point, but I’ve never had to try. “I don’t think you know how the law works.”
“Move.”
I’m ready to argue when my work phone rings. I pull it out and sigh. So much for things operating without me. I glance at her. “You’re lucky I have to take this.”
“Yeah, I’m quaking.”
And with that, I go around to the passenger seat and slide in. The car is small, the space overwhelmingly full of Sadie, and I’m too aware of her so the call, cowardly as it is, is the perfect excuse.
I pull out my personal phone and open notes. The drive here set my senses alight. Her scent teased and flirted. A lot of questions swirl, but they can wait until we’re in a space with room. A space I’m not locked up so close, where a small movement could result in touching her. Letting the frisson of energy from her to leap along my senses.
Why she has this effect on me is a mystery. I don’t like her; she’s hostile and a criminal and secretive and the kind of person who fascinates me. There are depths and I don’t like her because if I let myself, I would and I don’t know what that means except a world of trouble.
I shift my attention to my phone and my executive assistant. “Okay, Holly. Lay it on me.”
My call contained a lot of small things with big consequences and it took me the entire forty-five minute drive back to Manhattan to deal with everything.
We pull up near my building and I shift in my seat, fighting the urge to touch Sadie. “As disappointed as you’re going to be, I need to take care of this.”
She taps her fingers on the steering wheel and studies me for a long moment. “You don’t have an NDA or something up your sleeve.”
“For what?” I tuck the phones away in my jacket on the seat.
“All the juicy tidbits I overheard.”
I start laughing. “If you find all that juicy, you might need to get out more, Sadie.”
“I was fascinated.” She offers me a small smile.
We both know she wasn’t. It was nothing but tiny dry things that need to be done.
“Do you work all the time?”
“I’m on sabbatical. Taking a break.”
She frowns. “That’s you taking a break? You’re doing it wrong.”
I sigh. “If I want things to run the way I do, then I need to keep my hand in, even when I’m not doing the day-to-day stuff.”
“Isn’t there a saying about work smart and not hard?”