Page 2 of Discord
I put on a smile. Reid was tolerable enough. It was a shame he had a pathological liar for a sister. “Whenever your brother is in town.”
“Milo isn’t in town.” Reid tilted his head, hinting I should be privy to this knowledge.
I was. “Are you kidding me?” I glanced around, irritated. “My P.A. must have read his schedule wrong. I’m going to fire her ass.”
Reid shrugged easily. “No harm. You are already here. Stay for a drink.”
I glanced at my watch contemplatively, careful not to appear overly enthusiastic. “Guess I can stay for one drink. Whiskey if you have it.”
Reid walked to the globe bar to find a bottle and tipped it for a generous pour. “You know, there is a little thing called a calendar to schedule your appointments. Maybe look into this concept instead of firing your PA.”
The ice clinked as we brought our drinks together in cheers. “I don’t condone such witchcraft,” I replied dryly.
Reid laughed. “Then you should talk to my sister.” My ears perked, and I stopped breathing altogether. “Raven put Mia’s entire life on a calendar, then synced it to her phone in case Mia forgot a tutoring session or extracurricular.”
I stood by my assessment from once upon a time—that poor kid. All the same, I wished he’d show me said calendar for Mia’s current whereabouts. Impatience thrummed through me, and I couldn’t keep my mouth from twisting. “Interesting.”
Reid shook his head with a sardonic smile. “It’s a bit intense if you ask me. Raven even lists Mia’s dates with her boyfriend on that calendar.”
My blood ran cold. The smile vanished off my face, whiskey glass swirling in my hand. It took significant effort to feign enough indifference to speak. “Boyfriend? Isn’t Mia a little too young for that?”
“As her brother, I agree. But I once told Milo to fuck off when he banned my teenage hormones from copulating. It’ll be worse if we don’t get on board.”
Forging a smile, I sipped on my drink, saying nothing more. Fire was burning through my blood by the time I returned to the office. Tiny red dots distorted my vision at the idea of another man’s hands on her. And when one of the techs asked me to look into at a router issue, I took a bat to every piece of equipment stored in our office basement.
She ruined my plans. Fucking Mia Sinclair.
No idea why the hell I had gone to her house in the first place. Probably eager to merely surround myself with a warmth that had been ripped away. Instead, I was served a fresh dose of reality.
A few measly weeks after our encounter in Nice shouldn’t have been enough time for Mia to find a boyfriend. The news came as a punch to the gut. Actually, it was a shot to the chest. I had been so forlorn in my anger that I didn’t realize Mia hadn’t given me a second thought. She got away with living out her weird book-based fantasy while forcing me into these goddamn feelings I couldn’t shake.
I ground my teeth to keep the lethal darkness from consuming me, but it didn’t help. With a disgruntled breath, I took it out on her brother instead. “Are you still harping over your precious routers? I’m paying to have them replaced. How about I also write you a check to never bring it up again?”
“That’s the problem with people like you. Entitlement. Money doesn’t buy every—”
Dear fucking God.“If you’re done,” I cut him off sharply, “can we strategize for the California project?”
Milo sighed. “I assume you are calling me because you have suggestions.”
“Yes.”
He waited patiently on the other side of the phone.
“Instead of having two separate West and East Coast locations, I think we should downsize our New York office to only house our equipment.”
“Very different from your original proposal. What changed?”
Your sister got a boyfriend.
I also broke all our routers. Milo hadn’t been back and wasn’t aware of the extent of the damages. Our current bandwidth could no longer support our sizeable staff. Most of them were already working from home.
“West Coast is better for the tech industry. Makes more sense to move our base there rather than paying for two hefty leases. Not to mention, working from home hasn’t affected our team’s performance.” All of it was true.
“Do you think Jaci and Alexa will agree?”
“Yes.” Because I already passed it by them.
“Okay. Let’s figure out the logistics then.”
