Page 49 of An Inevitable Marriage
Clicking her tongue, she smoothed her hand over the back of her short hair. “I believe you meant to say—” she cleared her throat and deepened her voice. “Lovely day, Tamara. How are you doing this fine morning?”
Not bothering with a response, I sidestepped her and continued my trek to my office. Naturally, her footsteps weren’t far behind mine.
“You do realize you use more muscles to frown than you do to smile.”
“Any messages?” I asked without looking over my shoulder.
She sighed. “Straight to business…okay then. Mr. Maxwell Sr. has called three times in the last thirty minutes. He’d—”
“If he calls again, tell him I’m not here.”
“You’re not here, got it.” Tamara took a breath, and for all her poking, I appreciated she never said a word about the odd relationship I had with my family.
“Anything else?” I asked as we stopped in front of my office door.
“There’s a slight hiccup with your schedule. You are supposed to meet with Mr. Deacon at eleven, but Mrs. Shaw’s assistant phoned ten minutes ago to confirm your meeting with her at eleven fifteen.”
Shit. I’d forgotten to inform Tamara of the second meeting I’d arranged. In my defense, my mind had been a little preoccupied since I’d been on my way to the courthouse at the time said meeting had been scheduled.
“Would you like me to cancel one?”
“No,” I answered immediately. I’d never canceled a meeting before and wasn’t about to start now. “I’ll make it work.”
Curling my fingers around the handle, I prepared to enter my office when Tamara stopped me.
“TheotherMr. Maxwell is waiting for you inside.”
Anger bubbled through my veins. “You just let him in?”
Tamara’s usual smile vanished. “I didn’t really have a choice. He made it very clear he was going in and no one was going to stop him.”
Fury-filled tentacles wrapped around my spine. I didn’t even want to think about what he might’ve said to her.
I hated that I was related to these people. Hated even more that I couldn’t seem to escape them.
“It’s fine, Tamara.”
It wasn’t, but it also wasn’t her fault. Knowing Shane, he’d probably said terrible things to my assistant that would leave most women crying in the bathroom.
I’d wanted to lay hands on him over his behavior more than once, but my father, the asshole he was, had somehow managed to secure the motherfucker’s position at Nouvelle Femme.
Shane Maxwell had an iron-clad contract that prevented me or anyone else from firing him.
It was bullshit.
As was his position at the company. All the bastard did was oversee the public events. Which sounded like a big deal, but it wasn’t. He just sat in an office he didn’t deserve and signed off on the hard work of the PR department.
“You want me to go in there and tell him you’re not coming into the office today?”
Tamara pulled me back to the present with the reminder I still needed to face the asshole.
I shook my head and sucked in a breath. “No.” Taking one last drag of air, I pushed through the door.
“The fuck are you doing?”
Shane was on my side of the desk, trying to open my drawers. Luckily, I’d always known my grandfather and cousin would go digging in things that didn’t belong to them. That was why I always kept those drawers locked and never left anything important on my desk.
“Oh, I was searching for something to wipe my nose.” Slowly taking the seat in front of my desk, he sniffled twice, then ran his forefinger under his nose. “Allergies.”
