Page 40 of Caught in the Axe
Rather than acknowledge my comment, he looked ahead, keeping his eyes on the road. But there was no hiding the smile slowly spreading across his face.
Chapter 13
Owen
The coffee was tepid and bitter. Nothing like the lattes I’d gotten addicted to recently. I sipped it anyway, shuffling the papers in front of me. They were precisely formulated spreadsheets with the last ten years’ worth of sales, harvest, and cost data.
All had been prepared by Lila, and all were perfect in organization and execution. My order-loving perfectionist brain was impressed, but my caveman brain was distracted.
Because I’d almost given in to my baser needs and kissed her in the office. Then, like an idiot, I’d willingly subjected myself to a road trip with her.
We’d spent three hours enclosed in the small space where her scent had wrapped around me and made it hard to focus on anything but what her lips would feel like pressed to mine and how soft her skin might be under my touch. It took some time, but I got myself under control enough to laugh and joke and talk about movies with her. I even indulged when she insisted on getting Munchkins in theDunkin drive-through. Then I spent a solid ten minutes getting powdered sugar out of my tie.
Even so, it was fun.
She was fun. Being with her was making it increasingly harder to stay focused and angry.
Focused and angry were my default. It was how I got shit done. I’d built my life and career on focused and angry. And now this smiling woman with the body of a goddess and the mind of a professor was making me question every aspect of my life.
And she was testing my sanity.
She was interested. In me. She liked what she saw.
I was a goner.
Now it was business time, but my brain was still in the car, mooning over Lila, listening to her talk about her favorite songs and ’80s teen movies while sneaking flirty glances at me and complimenting my beard.
I scratched my chin. The scruff had been driving me crazy, but now that I knew she liked it? I’d never shave again.
I needed to get my head in the game. Instead of locking in and being present in this dark paneled boardroom at my lawyer’s office where it should be, reviewing the offer paperwork and preparing our response, my brain had suddenly drifted even farther. Now I wasn’t just reliving every moment of the drive. No, now I was on a beach, rubbing sunblock into Lila’s shoulders and sneaking peeks down the front of her bikini top while ordering another round of fruity drinks.
I’d traveled a fair amount, usually with a specific goal in mind. To summit a mountain or visit a world-famous museum. I’d even planned trips around running a specific marathon.
I’d never had the desire to lounge on a beach. But every time Lila smiled, all I could think about was bathing in sunshine and looking out at the ocean with her, watching the waves crash and soaking in the salt air.
Spoiling her rotten by renting a cabana at a secluded resort where her every need would be catered to. She deserved that. She worked so damn hard and deserved to be pampered for once. I wanted to take care of her in every possible way.
“Mr. Hebert?”
I blinked back to the present and came face-to-face with a young associate who was frowning at me in concern. Smoothing out my tie, I gave her a nod, and with that, she led us through the offices toward a large conference room. Inside, a wall of windows faced the harbor, and most of the chairs around a mahogany desk were occupied.
We were introduced to a team of three lawyers and a representative of the buyers. Each one was the generic corporate type with expensive haircuts and the kind of confidence gained from charging a thousand dollars an hour to sit here.
The Carson Group was a group of investors with timber interests across North America. We’d done our due diligence and looked into the organization, though there was very little publicly available information. But if their choice of legal representation was any indicator, they clearly had money to burn.
Our attorney, Tad Pierce, had already arrived. He was a middle-aged golf enthusiast with blinding veneers andobvious hair plugs. The law firm my dad had worked with for years was under investigation, quite rightly, so after the life we’d always known had blown up, I’d had to scramble to find someone else.
This firm had come highly recommended and had offices in both Boston and Portland, which made my life infinitely easier. Our GC, Amara, hadn’t liked Tad. According to her, he was “old school.” It was her polite way of saying he was a privileged blowhard. Regardless, we had limited options, and he was the best of them.
As we entered, Tad raked his gaze over Lila’s body in a way that made my hackles rise. As if she were nothing more than a piece of meat, when, in reality, she was brilliant. There was no way I would have been anywhere near prepared for this meeting without her. He gave her a slick smile, flashing teeth that were at least two times too big for his mouth, and pulled out her chair for her.
She looked beautiful today. Hell, she looked beautiful every day, but she was dressed modestly and professionally in a dark skirt suit and sensible heels. Her hair was pulled back and held with a black clip. All morning, I’d itched to reach over and pull it out, run my fingers through the strands, muss it up a little. Until the moment she stepped out of her house this morning, I’d had no idea that I had a skirt suit fetish. But one look at those hips, and a new kink had been unlocked. Lila had been hiding some serious curves under her casual outfits, and it was impossible not to take notice.
I took my glasses off and pulled a microfiber cloth from my pocket to clean them as the assistant sent in another set of papers to review. This was the worst part of dealmaking—thecontractual negotiations. Working line by line through pages and pages until it was done.
When we’d finally made it to the offer stage, I flipped through the portfolio and groaned inwardly. Their offer was far lower than Tad and I had discussed. Where the income related to drugs ended and the actual timber began had been a mystery. The entire Hebert team, including Gus and me, had worked for months to get to a place where we could confidently make projections, and we’d erred on the side of caution and stuck with the low end of those calculations.
I flipped through the pages, annoyed and frustrated, as Tad began to volley with the opposing counsel. William Huxley was a standard-issue New York shark. Ageless, likely because he’d been working one-hundred-hour weeks for a decade and prematurely looked 50ish with a spray on tan. Cocky in an “I went to Harvard and know several senators from my country club” way.
