Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
If Harrington Steel was a kingdom and the home a palace…the real throne was here. The Tower, people tended to call it. The seat of power. And right now that seat was occupied by a pretender prince, its king gone.
He was just keeping the seat warm for his father, he told himself.
That was all.
And he nearly cringed when Forsythe parked the car, let them both out, and led him to the door—only for the doorman to scramble to open it for him, dipping his head and tipping his cap in deference.
“Mr. Harrington,” the doorman said respectfully.
Ash nodded and forced a frozen smile. And managed to keep it, as they moved through the lobby to the elevator surrounded by double-taking stares, scrambled greetings of “Mr. Harrington” repeated over and over again until he wanted to scream I’m not Mr. Harrington. I’m Ash. I’m not ready to be Mr. Harrington.
But Forsythe’s watchful presence, hovering at his shoulder, kept him silent.
The elevator let them off on the top floor, and the vaulted, open spaces of the glass and steel CEO suite. The airy reception area was empty save for Ms. Vernon, settled primly behind her desk and tapping away so rapidly that the few slim, dark braids that slipped loose from their tight bun swayed into her smoothly burnished brown face with the force of her keystrokes. She didn’t even pause, fingers a blur, as she glanced up with a warm, polite smile, her dark brown eyes shrewd but her assessment pleasant.
“Good morning, Ashton,” she said. She’d never called Ashton anything but that for as long as she’d worked for his father, and he felt his shoulders coming down from around his ears even as she transferred her gaze to Forsythe. “Mr. Forsythe. Welcome to your first day on the job.”
“Believe me,” Forsythe said dryly, “my first day started before the ink was even dry on the contract.”
Ash shot him a foul look. Ms. Vernon only chuckled. “Ashton, I’ve held all your calls this morning and promised a return within the next twenty-four hours. If you’d like to get settled, I’ll forward your correspondence.”
“You can forward it to me,” Forsythe interrupted. “I will handle preparing the young Master’s daily diary, and will report his calendar to you for reference in screening correspondence.”
Ms. Vernon blinked. So did Ash, before he scowled at Forsythe. “You don’t even have an email address on the company intranet yet.”
“Yes, I do,” Forsythe corrected smoothly, then turned and walked away, practically sailing down the polished slate floor and through the double doors, into the CEO’s office.
Ash stared after him. So did Ms. Vernon, before she arched both brows, canting her head with a soft whistle through her teeth.
“I know,” Ash groaned, as the door banged closed. “I know.”
Her lips tightened in a clear struggle not to laugh. “I didn’t say a word, Ashton.”
“You didn’t have to.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Wish me luck.”
Ms. Vernon’s soft, gentle laughter chased him through the heavy slate doors, which pulled open with the weight of all the responsibility crushing down on him and closed with the finality of a prison sentence.
Forsythe had already settled himself at the broad desk of weathered, graying, repurposed railway wood bolted together with old rail ties; he’d hauled one of the chairs from the other side of the desk and positioned it next to the high-backed leather chair, and had a laptop flipped open in front of him, the Harrington Steel decal stuck on the corner. It was clearly brand new, probably even a newer model than the one Ash had left closed on the desk last night.
Ash blinked. “Where did you get that?”
“I already requisitioned it from IT,” Forsythe murmured distractedly, large hands moving with speed and dexterity across the keyboard, the sound of typing softened by the white kid gloves. The laptop screen reflected in his glasses.
“When?”
A pointed glance flicked up over the top of the laptop screen. “While you were in bed this morning.”
“And they gave it to you without my approval?”
That pointed look lingered, then dropped back down to the screen. “They appeared relieved that someone else was stepping in.”
Hurt was a hard shot to the center of Ash’s chest, the kind of blow that could stop a heart and then start it again. Fuck. Fuck, what was he even trying to do? He was useless. He wasn’t cut out for this. Everyone knew that. Every last person bobbing and ducking and ass-kissing calling him Mr. Harrington knew he was just a fucking waste of space, and they were just waiting for either his Dad to come back or to just die so the Board of Directors could declare Ash incompetent, remove him, and replace him with someone who could actually do this.
Letting himself dance around in this puppet show was just asking to humiliate himself.