Page 4 of Takeover

She makes a fist and takes a step closer. I arch an eyebrow in challenge. I put my weight against the wall and wait for her next move, but the grimace leaves her face when a little boy, probably around the age of seven, comes running down the hallway. He hugs Tara, and she kisses the top of his head.

“Can I play in your office, Ms. Tara? My mom had to bring me here because I have no school,” he pouts. Tara runs a hand through his hair and nods, smiling for the first time since I had the misfortune of laying eyes on her.

“I keep all the good chocolate in the bottom drawer, Drew.” The boy runs inside the office, and when Tara starts to walk away, I grab her elbow.

She stops but pulls away from me with more force than necessary.

“So, you don’t eat little kids for breakfast?” I ask,

“Kids are great,” she says. I’m taken aback, not by her answer but because she gave me a response. “It’s most adults I hate. And by most, I mean one.” She looks at me again, her point clear.

“Tell me, Ms. Taylor, do you think this one person is going to lose a second of sleep tonight knowing that you hate him?”

Her eyes narrow. “I don’t suppose he will. Men like him don’t ever think beyond themselves.”

This time, it’s my eyes that narrow. I take a step closer and look past her shoulders. The young boy is busy eating piece after piece of chocolate. I look down into her eyes, and down at her mouth. Her tongue darts out, and she subconsciously licks her red lips. My pants tighten, and all I can think about is kicking the kid out, pushing her into the office, and having my way with her on her desk.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she whispers.

I move another inch closer, and her perfume hits my nostrils. “Like what?” I ask with a mere whisper, challenging her.

“Like you want to kill me.”

I take another step closer, and she takes one back. I lean close to her ear, lower my voice and say, “I want to do a lot of things to you, Ms. Taylor, but killing isn’t one of them.”

Her eyes widen in shock, and I smile, eager to hear what she says to me next, but before she can give me an answer, her dad returns, and Ms. Taylor bestows a smile on him. He kisses her cheek, and the moment between Tara and me disappears.

“You ready, Ethan?” John Taylor says as he struggles to put on his coat. Without waiting for my answer, he says, “Let’s go. Have fun tonight, Tara.” She smiles adoringly at him, but the minute our eyes catch, her smile drops, and she scowls.

3

I stare at the way the arrogant bastard walks down the hall as if he owns the damn place. He might have bought the business, but the building still belongs to my family. The nerve of that guy, but I’m not going to worry about it. After today, I won’t ever have to interact or deal with him again.

Good riddance to the jerk in a ten thousand dollar designer suit. I watch him walk away until they turn the corner. Relieved to finally have him gone, I release a breath and join Drew in my office. We spend several minutes eating chocolates out of my secret stash of candy before his mom arrives and takes him home.

“If my knees weren’t so bad, I’d run behind him and bite him in that tight ass of his.” I don’t hold back my laugh at Bernie’s absurdity. I ignore her comment about her knees. Bernie is always complaining about an ailment, but the reality is, she’s as healthy as a horse.

“Where the hell did you come from?” I ask, amused by her sudden appearance inside my office.

“I’ve been standing here for almost two minutes watching you. You were too busy watching Mr. So Sexy It Should Be Illegal to notice me. By the way, you two are fire.” She dramatically fans herself with her hand as she walks away.

I ignore Bernice but can’t ignore my stomach as it grumbles. I run toward the kitchen and before I even get there, my nose tells me it’s Mexican. The food is spread out and I pile my plate high, imagining Ethan Bradford’s smug face at the sight of me eating the food he sent, but I don’t care. A meal’s a meal. I quickly run back to my office to eat in peace while I think of what I need to do to get ready to see Michael tonight.

4

Daddy’s spoiled little princess. My first assessment of her was right. I can still see the judgment in her eyes as she looked at me. Hypocrite. All three of the Taylor kids went to the Dalton school. Tara attended New York University and obtained an MBA from Columbia, and yet she looks at me with such disdain while she’s wearing her designer suit and red bottom shoes.

She’s incredibly smart if her transcripts are anything to go by. It looks like the campaigns she’s done for Taylor Toys have probably kept them open the past few years. Her idea to bring back the original Christmas Bear brought thousands of people to the store. She tried to capitalize on the store being a neighborhood place, but unfortunately for her, Harlem has gentrified too much for that to make much of a difference.

I minimize the email with her information. I’ve talked with her father twice in the past two weeks since I was at their headquarters, and he’s made no mention of an upcoming wedding. I know John Taylor well. He’s all about his family. If his oldest child was getting married, I would have heard about it.

I refuse to address the amount of time I’ve spent this week thinking about her getting engaged, and the sense of relief I had each time John didn’t mention his daughter getting married.

Tara Taylor is the most hostile, contemptible, rude, judgmental, and insufferable human I’ve ever met. A day with the devil himself would be preferable. That’s what I tell myself, but that doesn’t stop me from picking up the phone. I talked myself out of this a million times since I got the idea, but I can’t help myself.

Tara is not only beautiful; from what I’ve seen, she’s also loyal. That’s something that can’t be bought. I’m the asshole who came along and bought out the company from under her. She probably had dreams of running it with her father until he retired, then she’d take over, but in her mind, I took those dreams away.

As the phone rings for the third time, I start to recount the message I’m going to leave, but to my surprise, she picks up in the middle of the fourth ring.

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