Page 15 of A New Year's Toy

“What?”

I rise to my feet. Three sets of eyes look at me. Two are curious, one is worried.

Plastering a forced smile on my face, I place a hand on Nola’s shoulder. “Nola, if you will.”

“Okay.” She sees I’m not backing down, my decision set in stone. “Delphine, Laurent, I’m so sorry about this. We’ll be back in a second.”

“No worries, take your time.” The bitch waves at us, delighted.

Why wouldn’t she wait? She’s got hours to spend on her cash cow.

My blood runs hotter at the idea.

“Alistair, what happened?”

“Come with me, please.” I’m aware of my Southern accent slipping. I can’t fucking help how pissed I am.

I rest a hand on her back, scurrying her away from prying eyes to the direction of the bathroom.

Under no circumstance do I want any of them saying her older boyfriend instructed her on how to run her business. No matter how badly I’m keen to threaten, raise my voice, or burn down this company.

This should be and would be one hundred percent Nola. Whichever way she chooses to use the information I’m handing her, the couple of people who work during the Christmas-New Year’s vacation won’t gossip about Nola being manhandled.

We enter the women’s toilet. The tiles on the walls here are consistent with the brand—pink, like the doors to the stalls, like the rosy scent permeating the air. It’s nauseating, but their design choice isn’t my main concern at the moment.

Nola is.

I close the door to the whole restroom, lock it, and turn to her.

“What are you doing?” she seethes.

Her fists are clenched, red spots burst on her cheeks. Deep down, she must know I’d never embarrass her. She just doesn’t see it yet.

I launch into my explanation, “You shouldn’t be doing business with these people.”

“You promised you wouldn’t intervene,” she blurts the words out fast. “You promised you wouldn’t patronize me.”

Conflicted between the urge to pacify her and the anger at the Rose family, my answer comes out as a harsh, “No.”

“No, what?” Nola advances at me.

She should be pissed. She should be fuming. Instead, she’s furrowing her brow, searching my face with every step she takes forward. I need to give her answers.

“‘No,’ you didn’t promise? ‘No,’ you didn’t mean to intervene?”

She’s so close now, she cranes her neck to look at me. What a wonderful creation of God she is. I marvel at the force she emanates, her gleaming brown eyes, her full set of lips.

As an owner of a large conglomerate, one of the aspects of my job is to put out fires. Every major scale problem finds itself on my desk, and it’s expected of me to fix it. Not in this case—she won’t let me. I won’t let myself.

The helplessness of it all leaves me stumped.

For a moment.

I grab her by the shoulders, spinning her so her back is against the wall.

“No, as in you’re not listening.” My fingers locate her tender neck. “No, as in I’m not patronizing you.”

Her pulse thrums beneath my finger pads. Slow, steady, and so fucking strong. She’s listening to me.

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