Rebel North by J.B. Salsbury
Seventeen
Kingston
“Well, aren’t you cheery this morning,” the snake says as she swings her hips into my office.
“Am I?” I’m still riding the high of my night with Gabriella.
“You were smiling before you saw me walk in, so I know I can’t take any credit for your good mood.” She circles around my desk and props her hip at my eye level. “Good weekend then?”
My answering grin says it all. I rock back in my chair to gain some distance. “I assume you’re here for a reason?”
“Yes. Did you update yourself on the Randolph job? Because we’re meeting with their team this afternoon, and I’m going to need you up to date on all the changes.”
“I’ll do my best.” Which is to say, I won’t do shit.
Her grin is shrewd, nothing at all like Gabriella’s infectious joy. “I tell you what.” She snags the folder I had pushed to the corner of my desk when she gave it to me days ago and drops it in front of me. She opens to the first page. “Why don’t you start now.”
I stare at the white page covered in inkjet-printed words.
She pushes away from my desk and walks around it, pacing. Slowly. “Go ahead and read it out loud.”
I’m trapped. If I do what she’s asking, she’ll know my most shameful secret. If I don’t? Well, something tells me she’s already figured it out.
I close the folder and push it aside. “What do you want from me?”
She paces the length of the office, hands clasped behind her back. “As a concerned department head, I scheduled a meeting with Hayes to discuss the terms of your transfer.”
Her words cause an icy ball of dread to settle in my gut.
“He thinks you’re lazy.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
“I’m changing up the offer we discussed.” She braces her hands on the opposite side of my desk and leans in. “Give me dirt on August, and I’ll keep your little secret.”
“Are you stupid?” I stand, and she throws her shoulders back, arrogant and confident. “I’m going to ask you to leave now, and if you leave me alone and let me continue collecting my paycheck, I won’t tell August about this little visit.”
“Cute threat, but I’ll only deny it. And who do you think dear old dad is going to believe? Me, a Harvard-educated department head, or his loser son who can’t even read—”
“I can read!” I fist my hands on my thighs.
“Imagine the embarrassment. August North and his illiterate son.”
“Fuck you!”
“The Shaq. Friday night. Seven thirty. You have until then to give me what I want, or I’ll expose you.”
She walks out of the office, leaving a trail of bitch vibes in her wake.
“I quit.”
Alex doesn’t look up from his desk.
So I continue to speak to the top of his head. “I’m not kidding. I’m done. I’ll sell my condo and buy a nice little loft somewhere.”
He grunts, still not looking at me. “Then what?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll get a job.”
“Doing?”
“Stop making everything sound so impossible.” I run my hands through my hair and stare out the window, hoping the view will calm the anxiety.
Coleman’s visit today has been totally screwing with my head. I have no love for August. He’s always treated me as if my existence is a nuisance. He swept me under the rug even after I came to live with him, and he’s never considered me as one of his own. From the outside looking in, I’m sure his financial contribution to my life appears as love, but to August, money is like running water—always available to him to wash his filthy soul.
So why not give Coleman what she wants?
I should enjoy watching the man brought to his knees. If August goes down, I’m freed from the burden of North Industries while keeping my embarrassing secret intact.
What the fuck am I waiting for?
Alex’s desk chair creaks when he rocks back in it to finally look up at me. “You’ll need a job if you’re going to break from North Industries.”
I rub my hands down my face. “I’ll live off the money I make from selling the condo until I figure something out.”
“You can’t sell the condo because it belongs to the company.”
Ugh, that’s right. Dammit! I fall back into the closest chair. “And so, it would seem, do I.” Unless I scrape up some damning dirt on August.
Another grunt.
“I hate it here.”
His expression is blank. I imagine he’s going over a million scenarios in his head. Alex, the practical genius. “August shot down your idea about the design department.”
“He doesn’t pay me for my little ideas,” I repeat August’s words, and a fresh anger wells up inside me.
Alex’s eyebrows drop to a scowl. “Come to dinner tonight.”
“I don’t think dinner is going to fix—”
“Six o’clock.” He stands and moves to his drafting table. He gives me his back, dismissing me.
“Why? Who all is going to be there?”
He ignores me.
“Please don’t invite Hayes. I can’t handle the smug bastard’s face when he sees how miserable I am.”
He doesn’t seem to even hear me.
“Can you at least tell me what the dinner is for?”
Nothing.
“Fine, be weird about it.” I get up to leave when it’s clear I’ll get no further with him. “I’m bringing a date.”
He grunts. “Good. Bring Gabriella.”
“Oh, so you can hear me?”
“Jordan likes her.”
The guy has a one-track mind, so I cut my losses and head back to my office.
I pull my phone out and send a text to Gabriella.
SOS
Gabriella
I stand at Kingston’s front door and read the last text he sent me one more time before I let myself inside.
Come on in when you get here.
Walking in without knocking feels wrong, mostly because I fear I’ll walk in on him naked. I’m not afraid of seeing him naked as much as terrified he’ll see my reaction to seeing him naked. And all this thinking is so pointless because what happened the other night was a fluke. Two consenting adults, half asleep and willing. What we did doesn’t mean anything.
I’ve been telling myself that what we did meant nothing since the night it happened, and while I’m able to convince my brain, I can’t seem to convince my heart.
“Hello?” I call into the open door in warning before I walk through it. “Kingston?”
“Back here!”
His voice comes from down the hallway. I assume he’s in his bedroom. I walk slowly down the hall, my hands balled at my stomach as butterflies feast on my nerves.
I peer into his room. “Are you decent?”
“In the closet!”
I step into the bedroom, and the moment I spot his bed, I’m thrown viciously into memories of his mouth on mine, his powerful body above mine as he moved against me. The taste of his tongue—
“You lost?”
I jump at the nearness of his voice.
He leans a shoulder against the doorway to his closet, looking pleased with himself.
I ball my hands tighter and straighten my spine. “You look nice,” I croak out through my embarrassment at being caught staring at his bed.
His knowing smirk makes me want to dissolve into the floor. “I haven’t decided what I’m wearing yet.”
“You’re not wearing that?” He’s in a faded pair of jeans and a white Henley, with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. “Come help me pick something.” He motions for me to follow him and turns back into the closet.
I shake out my hands, try to look relaxed, and follow him into the space that is big enough to be a bedroom.
“Have a seat.” He motions to a pale brown leather chaise that sits in the corner.
I sit and watch him walk the walls with built-in racks that display more clothes than a department store. He grabs hangers with shirts and slacks, moves to the wall of shoes and pulls out a couple of pairs, belts next, and then hangs them on hooks against a bare wall for display. He steps away, tilts his head, then turns to look at me over his shoulder. “Which one speaks to you?” He goes back to studying, walks along them, stops, studies some more, then turns as if waiting for my answer.
“Do you do this every time you get dressed?”
“Yes.” He goes back to looking. “What’s the point if there’s no effort involved?” He turns to me again. “Which one?”
“Hmm…” Honestly, he’d look fantastic in any of the three options he’s set out. “I vote the one with all the dicks on it. The orange will look great with your hazel eyes.”
He turns his entire body toward me. “Dicks? Those are paisleys.”
“Looks like a bunch of dicks to me.”
He chuckles and shakes his head but grabs the outfit with the dickleys. “You have a dirty mind.”
“You’re the one who bought the shirt.”
He reaches for the button of his jeans.
I jump to my feet as quickly as I can. “I’ll wait in the kitchen while you change.” In my hurry to leave the closet, I trip over my own feet and practically pull a muscle to catch myself before I hit the ground.
“You okay?”
I don’t look at him, but I can hear the humor in his voice. He knows being around him like this, the thought of him undressing with me in the room, makes me uncomfortable, and I pray he doesn’t know the reason.
“You sure you don’t want to wait in my room? On the bed, maybe?”
Shit. He totally knows the reason.
“I’ll be in the kitchen.” I scurry out of the room to the low hum of his laughter.
Jerk.