Page 27 of Beautiful Liar

7

ACTION

Iput my tweaked plans into motion first thing on Tuesday morning. Axel, my business partner, and the guy who strays within a whisker of what I term a friend, doesn’t blink when I make the request. This is why our dynamic works. We’ve made such requests of each other in the past. He will need this favor reciprocated in the near future, and I’ll step up, no questions asked.

We make sure to keep our sheets balanced. Imbalance doesn’t suit either of us.

Once I’m sure the obstacles I need removed are on their way to being dismantled, I email my executive assistant with my second request. I watch her through the glass partition of my corner office.

She looks up, nods, and picks up her phone.

Satisfied, I frost the glass and stare at the email sitting in my inbox.

Maxwell.

I click on it without disabling the notification button. The summons is pretty much the same as it’s been all week. Dinner at the Upper West Side mansion I grew up in.

I reply with my agreement. He opens it immediately and I can almost see the smug look on his face as he reads it.

It takes me a minute to work through the need to succumb to the void inside me. That is what he does to me. For as long as I’ve known him, my father has had this effect on me. Even long before Mama died. Even before I knew where and when my end would be, I knew he was partly responsible for the blackness of my soul.

The passage of time has merely confirmed and cemented that belief. Sure, I could’ve stopped myself from feeding it. The head shrinking and pills would’ve possibly stood a chance if I’d allowed it. If I hadn’t let Adriana Nathanson offer me her version of extra credit therapy by getting on her knees and sucking my cock when she should’ve been tending my mental health.

But I am Quinn Blackwood. Rich. Entitled. Unapologetic asshole with a death wish. I accepted that a long time ago. I don’t intend to change. For myself. For anyone.

I exhale and pick up the first file on my desk—a condominium deal on a revamped Miami beachfront that’s almost at completion. Once it’s done, it’s going to sell for at least three and a half mil apiece. More money to add to the overflowing Blackwood pile.

I pick up the phone and hit ten on my speed dial.

“Quinn, I was just about to head up.”

“I need to cancel lunch, Ash,” I say to the head of my contracts and planning team.

“Oh, okay. But we need to get the Denver deal done. The consortium is getting antsy that we keep postponing.”

“Blackwood is backing the project seventy-thirty. Let them wait.”

He sighs. “You pay me to give you advice so here it is: if there’s no legitimate reason for stalling on this deal, let’s just get it done. Fostering bad blood just for the hell of it may give you a momentary high, but it’s not worth the aggravation we’ll garner down the line. If your father were here, he’d say the same thing.”

I hit the speaker button and set the phone back in its cradle. I don’t answer until I hear him fidget. “Ash?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re fired.” I kill the connection.

The knock comes ten minutes later. Five minutes later than anticipated. Perhaps he made a detour to the bathroom to change his soiled pants.

“Come in,” I say without raising my voice.

A pale-looking Ash Langston enters, palms already outstretched. “Look, Quinn, I know you don’t make idle threats or…” he takes a deep breath, “or fire people just for laughs. I was just trying to smooth things along, do what you hired me to do.”

“And you think I’m being irrational for stalling on the Denver deal.” I eye him as he paces the front of my desk.

“Not irrational, no. Just…look, I’m sorry. You want to wait, we wait. You’re the boss.”

I don’t reply. My gaze drifts to the silver antique clock on my desk, silently willing the time away.

I want to see her again. I want to confirm if that spark is real.

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