Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 105850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“I wasn’t harassing her,” the duke huffed. “Theo was, though.”
“How was I harassing her?” Theo argued. “You’re the one who wouldn’t let her go.”
“Your existence is harassment in my eyes.”
Alastair leant in towards me, resting his hand gently on my shoulder. “Take a good look, dear. This is your life now. I won’t blame you if you run.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle my laughter. “It’s all right. They mean well.”
The office door swung open, and Cassidy walked in, a water bottle in one hand and a rolled-up newspaper in the other. She crossed over to hand me the water with a smile, then spun on her heel and approached both Theo and the duke on the sofa.
Then she bonked them both on the head with her newspaper.
“Your Grace, if you continue, I shall call your wife,” Cassidy said stoically. “And you, young Mr Black, I will call your mother.”
I raised my eyebrows at her simple threat.
“Neither of them will be pleased to be dragged away from their business,” she continued. “One more word of harassment out of either of you to my sweet Chloe will get you in a world of trouble, do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Theo mumbled.
“Why am I always in trouble? This is my company!” Charles banged his fist against the arm of the sofa. “I need to come back. My authority is waning.”
Cassidy narrowed her eyes at him. “I see you’ve chosen darkness. Very well.”
“No. Wait! Cassidy!” He hauled himself off the sofa and shuffled after her as she headed out of the office. “Don’t call my wife. I won’t be able to play golf this afternoon if you do that!”
The door clicked shut after him, but the echoes of his pleas to save his afternoon of golf still rang clear.
“That was exhausting,” I said, staring at the door. “If I didn’t know you actually loved each other, I’d be very confused.”
Theo grunted. “He’s a pain in the arse. How did you get Cassidy on your side like that, anyway?”
I smiled. “That’s a secret.”
“She remembered her birthday four years ago and baked her a chocolate cake as a thank you for helping her out with something. Cassidy is weak to chocolate and cake, so Chloe hit her in her weakest spot,” Alastair explained. “Ever since then, Cassidy has acted like her mother.”
That was about it. “I never knew cake was such an effective weapon.”
Theo frowned. “And here we thought Gramps would be the one to smite anyone who said anything negative about our relationship. They may have to get through Cassidy first.”
Alastair looked between us. “Are you going to make it known that you’re together?”
“That’s why I came with her,” Theo said, pushing away from his perch at the window. “We wanted to ask your advice.”
Alastair raised his eyebrows. “You? You’re asking for my advice?”
“You’ve worked with your wife. Weren’t you worried about what people would say when Gramps gave her a position at the company?”
“Of course.” Alastair rubbed his hand over his jaw. “We were both young—younger than you two are now. It didn’t matter to many people that your mother had the necessary qualifications for the position she was given, and she did have to fight hard to be respected at first. She didn’t have too much experience, and that was her greatest struggle, but she was determined to see it through.”
Theo glanced at me. “She only moved here after you got married, right?”
He nodded. “She also took a lower position than she was necessarily qualified for. It was her choice, because she thought it would balance out her lack of experience.”
“Did it?”
“Theoretically. Many people thought she only got the job because she married me, but the reality was that she’d taken a slight demotion from her previous position.” Alastair looked at me. “Just like you did when Pa retired. You went from the President’s office to the Vice-President’s, even though you’re arguably skilled enough to hold an office of your own at this point.”
“It’s nice of you to say that, but I don’t think that’s true,” I said quietly.
“Isn’t it? You’ve been managing the secretarial teams for over three years now, and you had a team switch halfway through when you moved down to Theo. You’re already technically in a management role,” he explained. “You have a degree in business management, and you’ve assisted in numerous projects throughout the years, including the relaunch of Adair Travel.”
He… was right.
I was so used to thinking of myself as ‘just’ a secretary that I rarely focused on how wide-ranging my skills actually were. What I did was so much more than answering phones and arranging schedules—I put together reports, gathered data, managed staff, co-ordinated projects. And that didn’t even scratch the surface of everything I’d spent the last few years doing.
“To be honest, Chloe, when Pa said he would help you find another job after you resigned, what he meant was that he would offer you one.” Alastair perched on the corner of his desk and looked down at me with a smile. “One of the reasons you were sent on that business trip was because Pa wanted to offer you the position at the top of the Adair Travel team.”