Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
He sighed. She wouldn’t like what he was about to do. What he was about to do would make him seem like the entitled asshole she thought he was. Still, he had to make sure she didn’t kick him off the op. He pulled his cell phone out and hit number four on his speed dial. Despite the lateness of the hour, it picked up immediately.
“Hey, did you get in okay?” Lydia sounded like she’d been sitting there waiting for him to call. “How is the vacation going? I’m going to need you to send me proof that you’re actually relaxing.”
He would have to handle this carefully. “It’s great. I checked into the hotel and it’s as nice as you promised. Everything is going well but something crept up, and I have one last thing I need to take care of.”
Lydia groaned over the line. “I knew this was about work. Why not just tell me? I can be out there in the morning. What’s the op?”
There was a reason he’d left Lydia out of this. “It’s a loose end I need to clean up but a big one. After this I’m hopping on a yacht for a couple of days, and I promise I’ll send you some pics to prove I’m relaxing.” Lydia had been his tech for years, but he wasn’t her only operative. She didn’t have clearance for this, and he would rather keep the circle tight. Still, she’d taken a liking to him a long time ago, probably because she was a smart girl and knew he would carry her with him as he made his way through the ranks. And he had. “I need you to call some of your contacts and have the big guy call me in the morning.”
“The director? I can get him on the line tonight,” Lydia promised.
“Not the director. The really big guy,” Drake corrected.
There was a pause on the line. “All right. I can get him on the line, too. I’ve heard he’s a night owl. Are you sure you’re okay?”
He tried to sound as positive as possible. “I’m fine. Just one problem I need to cut off at the pass and then I can relax.”
“All right, give me a minute. You know I would only ever do this for you.” She hung up, and Drake sat back.
“Who’s bigger than the director?” Kyle’s brow had risen.
“No one, according to him.”
If Kyle cared that he hadn’t answered his question, he didn’t show it. “Well, the big guy in my life should be here in roughly twelve hours, and you better be able to explain why the op has already gone south.”
“It hasn’t.”
“If we lose Taylor it has.”
“She won’t be going anywhere.” Now that he thought about it, he could call her bluff. He simply needed an ironclad place in this operation and she would fold. She’d loved her father. She wanted revenge. She would have to decide if her need for revenge was greater than her need to fuck him over. He was betting his career on the outcome of that small but significant battle.
And then the bigger battle could begin because this op was more important than ever. He’d thought this op was about cleaning up the past.
Now he knew it was about securing his future with her.
“How do you know that?” Kyle asked.
His cell trilled and he picked it up, a feminine voice coming over the line and asking him to hold. Which he did. Then a deep voice.
“Radcliffe?”
“Hello, Mr. President. Thank you for taking my call.”
Kyle’s eyes rolled. “Show off.”
He started his call and accepted that the battle had begun.
Chapter Seven
“What do you mean he’s untouchable?” Taylor stared at Kim over coffee in the private dining room. Not that they had a chef or anything. She’d been told this room served as an informal meeting space for members of Sandra Croft’s club.
When she’d heard she was going to be staying in a BDSM club, she’d kind of been excited. She’d studied up, and the one thing she’d allowed herself to do in the last year and a half was go to clubs in the areas she’d been in. She’d claimed she needed them because many of the high-powered CEOs who might be in The Consortium also attended the clubs. It would be good, she’d explained, to have a practical knowledge of clubs. But she’d been lying. She’d wanted to escape.
You wanted to see if it would be the same with someone else. Except then you refused to sleep with someone else because someone else wasn’t Drake.
She took a long sip of coffee, banishing that damn voice in her head. She’d shut it up the night before, too, when it had told her to go find him and have the fight they’d needed for almost two years.
They didn’t need anything because there was no they. There was her and him, and never shall they meet again.