Page 12 of Reluctantly Yours

“I know, but I figured why leave it lying around when I can take it out myself?Now, it’s one less thing for her to do.”She stood with one hand gripping the other elbow, looking awkward, unsure of herself.“Did everything go well with your call?”

“Fine.Full steam ahead.I hope you’re ready to visit Manhattan in a couple of weeks.”It only made sense to take Sofia with me.I hated the idea of being away without her for five days, and with Spencer’s cousin, Colton Black, reaching out to invite us to a family dinner while we were in town, it would be a nice excuse to carve out time outside of boardrooms and offices.

“I’m still a little overwhelmed,” she admitted, standing on the other side of the room.

No shit.Rather than say it out loud, I pulled a second wine glass from the cabinet.“Have a drink with me.You’ve officially worked for me one month, and you’re still here.”

She eyed the bottle and the glass I provided.“Are you sure it’s appropriate?”

“A glass of wine, not a cask.I promise I won’t tell anyone you had a drink after Sofia was in bed.”It wasn’t like I poured the entire glass, either, before sliding it across the counter.“Go ahead.Drink with me to the expansion of Knight Shipping.By the time this expansion is complete, we’ll have ships sailing the entire globe.No one will touch us.”

Especially not my father.I left that to myself, raising my glass when she picked up hers.They clinked together softly before she took a sip of the crisp wine.“That’s nice,” she announced, going back for more.

“It should be.It cost five hundred dollars.”

“For a bottle?”Her mouth fell open but quickly snapped shut when she caught herself.“Sorry.This is an entirely different world for me, but I guess you already know that.”

“I got the idea,” I settled for replying.

“I mean, we can’t all have ships sailing the entire globe,” she continued with a twinkle in her eye.That was one thing I could appreciate about her.She had a sense of humor aided by her intelligence.

Would I have been able to stand here and have a glass of wine with any of the other girls who came parading through these doors, determined to take care of my daughter?It was unthinkable.To tell the truth, I had normally avoided them as much as possible.

So why was I standing here now, watching her sip from her glass, studying every move she made?

“Can I ask you something?And if I do, will you be honest?”There was a challenge in her question.

Instead of turning me off, it intrigued me.“That depends,” I replied, making her snicker.She had to be curious.The fact that she hadn’t yet voiced any questions spoke to her discretion and maturity—something sadly lacking in the other girls I’d hired who were roughly her age.Chronically online, sleuthing, thinking they could crack the code when one of my assistant’s daily tasks involved keeping my Wikipedia page free of personal information and checking all Google alerts for mentions of my name.I had a child’s privacy to consider, not to mention my own.

“I’m not asking for your ATM pin,” she said, rolling her eyes.This was a rare glimpse of the woman behind the ever-present sunny attitude.I was interested in finding out more, glad our paths had crossed the way they did tonight.

“Go ahead,” I allowed, pouring myself more wine.Something told me I would need it.

“Why do you have to be the biggest and best?I know it sounds dumb to you,” she clarified with a sigh when I chuckled.“But I mean, look around.You already have so much.Five-hundred-dollar bottles of wine, a housekeeper, a guy who takes care of the grounds and the pool.A live-in nanny.A private jet, which we’re going to take to Manhattan in a couple of weeks.What happens when you’re the biggest, and there’s no one left to beat?”

It was the last question that gave me pause.An uncomfortable uncertainty wrapped itself around me like a cloak.Or a shroud.

“I said too much,” she decided, setting down the glass and backing away from the counter with her hands raised.“Sorry.Forget I asked.”

“Stop right where you are.”The sharpness of my tone froze her in place and even surprised me, but I went on, “I’ll tell you what you want to know if you don’t run away like a scared rabbit.”

She arched an eyebrow but didn’t say a word as she returned, this time taking a seat at the counter, wearing an inquisitive expression.

Fuck, she couldn’t look at me that way.It wasn’t fair.That frank, honest gaze, the blue eyes that reminded me of the Pacific at sunrise.It made me want to tell her everything, to let her see me, and that was unacceptable.No matter how good it felt at that moment.

“You want honesty?I’ll give you honesty.”Setting the glass down, I looked her straight in the eye.She didn’t blink, either to prove a point or because she was truly enraptured.“When I was twenty-one, fresh out of college, my father decided it was time for me to get serious about my future.I needed to learn the ropes of the business.An internship, if you will.He sent me to work in China,” I continued with a wry smirk.“Out of sight, out of mind.That was where I met my best friend, Spencer Collins.It was his father’s company I was working for.That should have been the first red flag.”

To her credit, she listened intently, almost frowning as she absorbed my words.“Why not your dad’s company?”she asked.

“Exactly.Why not his company?”I agreed, chuckling.“I found out soon enough.Turns out, Hayworth Knight Partners did a lot of work with Spencer’s father.They had been friends for years, since prep school.They had a long shared history of deals in the beginning.They had considered merging, practically creating a monopoly on the industry.They had the resources, they had the balls.”

Staring down into the glass, I experienced the same twinge of confusion I’d felt the day I found the memos.“Back in their time…” I murmured, “… everything was done on paper.Duplicate, triplicate.A lot of the more important papers and contracts were digitized, but the rest was left in boxes, stashed in storage.One of the shit jobs my supervisor gave me was to go through those boxes and make sure nothing had been overlooked that we would need to scan or enter into the database.”

“You found something, didn’t you?”When I lifted an eyebrow, she shrugged.“I do a lot of reading.Mysteries, that kind of thing.This is textbook.”

Something about her response—complete with that shrug—made me chuckle.“You’ve learned a lot from those books.Yeah, that’s exactly what happened.I discovered a lot of things.Nothing I can get into detail over,” I was quick to add.“I’m sure the statute of limitations has run out on a lot of it.But the things in those memos… what they alluded to.Cutting corners, employees who raised concerns over safety.Regulations they flat-out ignored.I mean, they were risking people’s lives, and for what?More profit?I mean, I enjoy making money as much as anyone, but I prefer mine not to have blood on it.”

“So you decided to break off on your own.”

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