Page 99 of Games We Play
It took Leah a moment to remember Maxine’s name. She definitely didn’t recognize the man in a sharp suit behind her, but by the way they conversed, Leah understood that they had a professional history.That’s the man who’s going to change Sloan’s life. I hope.Technically, they were all going to change her life today. They only had to keep Aaron from knowing it until the right moment.
Leah went up the elevator by herself. A woman – the executive receptionist, if Leah remembered correctly – glanced up from her desk as soon as the doors opened again. The way her eyes rolled could’ve been for the disturbance during a board meeting, or it could’ve been because Leah was dressed like the kind of woman “Aaron would love to bend over his knee and spank into oblivion,” as Sloan so lightly put it.
To be fair, Leah wasn’t conventionally dressed, but Sloan had done a bang-up job providing Leah with her uniform today. What man could say no to admitting a lady with feisty makeup and a mini-skirt that screamed she was open to other activities, for the right price?
Nobody but Aaron would recognize the necklace around Leah’s throat. Not even the receptionist, who had seen the original ring on Ms. Sloan’s finger for half of her marriage.
“Mr. Giles?” the receptionist said, knocking on the door to a conference room and poking her head inside. “The donuts you ordered are here.”
“Donuts?” Leah shuddered to hear that man’s voice. One of the recent phone calls with Sloan revealed his real role in the fall of their marriage much too long ago.Men like that are a cancer on women everywhere.Even if Leah got it in her head to start dating men again, it was guys like Aaron who made sure she never tried it. “I didn’t order any…” He stopped before the doorway, taking in the sight of the made-over Leah, who hardly looked like the woman he first encountered in Rose City Bakery. “Never mind. Send them in.”
Had he recognized her? Sloan insisted that he wouldn’t, because he forgot the faces of women as soon as they no longer had anything to do with his life. As far as he knew, Sloan and Leah were permanently broken up. He didn’t know about the investments around Portland, because that was done under Sloan’s own company.
Still, that did not make his leering any easier to bear. Not even when Leah noticed that most of the other businesspeople in the conference room were a smattering of well-dressed women and their male cohorts. Leah made eye contact with one of them, but the woman looked away as if she had never seen Leah before. To be fair, the only other time they had spoken was via teleconference with Sloan here in Chicago.
“Seems someone has ordered us some morning refreshments,” Aaron said, eyes never leaving Leah’s legs poking out from her skirt.Sloan called it. He hasn’t noticed my necklace yet.“Anyone care for some donuts?”
“They’re actually cupcakes, sir.” Freshly baked the night before in a rented kitchen. “They’re delivered on behalf of Ms. Sloan.”
Aaron stiffened. It was that moment he recognized Leah, and his face couldn’t possibly pale more than it did in that ghostly moment.
“What the hell is this?” he snapped, those true colors showing through when the white left his face. He flipped open the lid on the box. Leah stood to the side, hands clasped before her and chest prominently stuck out. Not to show off her cleavage in her skin-tight blouse, but to make sure he got a great view of the repurposed wedding ring strung tightly around her neck. It had been easy, Sloan swore, to transform the bracelet into a choker.“He’ll get the message.”The choker was more like a collar, after all. Aaron understood whatcollarsmeant.
A series of pink, frilly cupcakes looked up at him. Leah had painstakingly decorated each one, using her best calligraphy to spell out“FUCK YOU, I’M TAKING EVERYTHING.”
Aaron closed the box in a huff. No man’s cheeks had ever been so red. “You need to get out,” he growled, as if no one else could hear him. “I don’t know how you got in here, but…”
“Well?” Someone’s voice overpowered Aaron’s from the other side of the room. “Do we get a cupcake?”
Leah glanced at Erica Mann, who appeared ready to have a super-serious business meeting as soon as Aaron settled down again. Too bad she was in on this as well. According to Sloan, it was half of Ms. Mann’s plan they currently enacted.
“There’s been a mistake,” Aaron said, already perspiring. To the receptionist still lingering in the doorway, he said, “Get my lawyer on the phone. Now.” He stopped her before she left. “The divorce lawyer.”
The receptionist glanced at Leah before rushing to her desk. Security was no doubt also on its way.
“You need to leave,” Aaron said, attention returned to Leah. “Take your cute little cupcakes and get the hell out of here. Now.”
“Is there a problem?” A large man in sunglasses and a dark suit approached them. The only reason Leah didn’t shudder at his presence was because she knew he was one of Erica’s men.Part of the plan, girl. Cool it.
“No problem!” Aaron’s tone did not imply that no problem was found. In fact, there was abigproblem, and that problem was Leah’s presence tainting this ill-fated business meeting. “This woman seems to have found the wrong conference room, that’s all. I believe you want two floors below us, hon.”
Erica’s bodyguard flipped open the lid. “Looks like somebody’s in trouble.” He shot Leah a look. She may not see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but she struggled to hold in a smile, anyway. “I don’t wanna be this guy.” He turned to his boss, who now stood at the end of the conference table with her arms crossed and head cocked in amusement. Somehow, Erica Mann conveyed a more masculine energy than Aaron, who was already rattled enough to stick his head out the conference room door and demand to know if his divorce lawyer was on the line yet.
“Marital troubles, Giles?”
“Nothing that will affect our meeting, I assure you!”
Erica fixed one of the buttons on her suit jacket. Bulky rings and onyx cufflinks made her hardened edge more intimidating as she narrowed her eyes and shot a heated glare at the back of Aaron’s head. “I should hope not. I need to be back on the west coast by this afternoon. By the way! Speaking of your lovely wife…” She pushed herself off the oval conference table. “Where is Ms. Sloan? You know she’s the one I brokered this deal with. I should like to have her here.”
“Unfortunately,” Aaron bit behind his teeth, “she’s taken ill this morning.” He caught sight of Leah again and said, “What are you still doing here? Get out!”
“There’s no need for performative male aggression,” Erica said. “This poor woman simply took a wrong turn. By the way,” a grin of anticipation crossed her face, “Wheredidyou get that lovely necklace? What is that? Vintage? I swear I once saw a ring exactly like it.”
Aaron did a double-take at Leah’s necklace. “That’s…get out!”
“I’ll be happy to leave in a moment,” Leah said, shaking off his anger, “but there’s one last thing Ms. Sloan wished me to give to you.”
“Oh my God,what?”
