Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123579 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 618(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 412(@300wpm)
“I didn’t like Baston’s body language when I mentioned keeping indigenous workers,” I say. “Even when it might be more cost effective to use workers from other nations like India or China.”
“He didn’t say it would be a problem, Bishop.” Harold gives me that long-suffering look he reserves for my “gut” reactions.
“You know as well as I do that most of communication is nonverbal.” I lean against the elevator wall while we wait for the elevator car to come. “He isn’t saying what he’s thinking because he knows we’ll walk away.”
He knows I will walk away. There is already a conflict brewing between the inner warriors tucked neatly away behind our suits. He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him, and we both know it. But we’ll just keep grinning until we can put the pretenses aside and bare our teeth at each other.
My guess, based on Baston’s pattern, is that he’s digging around for something he can hold over us to force us into his way of thinking before he shows his hand. I don’t operate that way, and I’d rather get out before he starts tampering with the people and things that mean something to me. That wouldn’t end well.
For him.
The elevator dings, the doors open, and Harold steps in. It takes him a second to realize that I’m still out.
“What are you—” Understanding dawns on his face. “Aw damn, Bishop. Leave that woman alone. She’s not your type.”
“I’ll catch a cab home.” I grin at him and turn to the right, the direction I saw Sofie go this morning. “You take the car.”
“You’ll take a cab all the way to Brooklyn?” Harold says as the doors are closing. “That’ll cost a fortune.”
“Didn’t you hear?” I say over my shoulder. “We’re rich now.”
I can only hope there aren’t many options down this hall. I could end up looking ridiculous poking my head in every door until I find Sofie. It’s a cause I’m willing to look the fool for, though. Even though Harold’s right. She’s not my type. The last woman I dated…hell, I almost married, graduated from Oxford and leads a global clean water campaign. Half Kenyan, half British, she speaks four languages and will probably be an ambassador before she’s forty.
And the whole time we dated, the whole time we were engaged, never did I feel what I felt in the sliver of time I’ve spent with Sofie. Like she’s an impossible table puzzle with a million pieces I could spend all afternoon assembling, and never get quite right. Like I’d get to the end, and still have these tiny empty spaces where pieces hiding under the couch or lost in the attic should be.
I know people instinctively. Call it a curse or a gift, but I see things they try to hide from me. My dad is just in touch enough with his Native American forefathers to believe the Great Spirit guides us in these things. I have no explanation for how or why I can cut through what people present to who they really are, but I always can. I never fall for bullshit.
And though Harold’s right about Sofie not fitting the usual profile of women I’d be interested in, my feet still follow the path I saw her take. That path ends at an open space with a glass reception desk of sorts. No one is seated there, but a clear carry-out container rests on the large, wide marble lip above the desk. It’s a grilled chicken salad, and on the container there’s a note.
“Sorry, Sofie,” I read aloud. “No artichoke hearts today.”
I look around the small, neat lobby. I’m in the right place.
“Stil, food!” a disembodied voice booms from the adjacent room. The door is slightly ajar, and through the crack, I see Sofie’s gilded head bent over a stack of papers on her desk. Without a second thought, I grab the container and walk into the office.
“It’s about damn time.” Sofie doesn’t lift her head, but jots down a note in a Moleskine notebook. “Now I’m hangry.”
“Well, they’re out of artichoke hearts.” I set the container on the desk in front of her. “Hope that doesn’t make it worse.”
Her eyes fly up from her work, meeting mine and widening.
When they say this woman is beautiful, they’re not telling the half of it. Or maybe they just leave out the most important part. It’s not the perfection of her features that captivates me. It’s all the things hidden behind those green eyes. Like water so vibrant and clear you can see all the way down to the ocean floor, but somehow as you dive deeper, there’s all this life teeming beneath the surface that managed to remain undetected until it brushes up against you.
That brief surprised widening of her eyes is the only moment she yields to me, my last advantage. She recovers quickly, leaning back in her seat and crossing one long leg over the other, clearly a move that usually distracts horny men long enough for her to manipulate them. If she were wearing a skirt, I might have even fallen for it.