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Chapter One
SPENCER
I tilted my seat back and shut my eyes to enjoy my first minute of peace since I’d boarded the jet in London. I had nine more minutes of silence to indulge in before I went back to my computer and continued going through the background checks I’d requested for the companies I’d gone on this latest trip to investigate.
All in all, the week had gone as predictably well as every other trip I took to London these days, but for some reason, I was more drained than usual as I took the transatlantic flight back home on the luxurious company jet. I’d started frequenting the Beaufort Bar at the Savoy back when I’d graduated from Oxford, and it had been in that very bar where Jim Mitchell had given me the job offer that had changed everything for me. I would be the first to admit that it was a change for the better, but these trips to the UK had become more draining whenever I went. If I hadn’t seen her text the week before, I would’ve assumed that Heidi had died without letting me know and was now haunting the city where she’d grown up.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
I opened one eye and glared down at the phone vibrating on the polished mahogany table where all my work was spread out in the usual a bomb just went off pattern that my friends always gave me shit for. I had to admit that they might have a point, but my way of working had gotten me to the top of my class at Oxford University, an honor also held by the one and only Jim Mitchell, who’d graduated two years ahead of me.
The very same son of a bitch who was calling me now.
I picked up the phone with a sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose as I sighed. “This had better be an emergency.”
A throaty chuckle that sounded like a mix between thunder and a jungle cat rumbled down the line. “I’m sorry, have I interrupted one of your sweet naps, little Monroe?”
“Actually, yes, you twat, and they’re more precious than sweet. Get it straight.”
“Twat? Why is it that whenever you go to the UK, you come back sounding more and more like Gordon fucking Ramsey?”
“First off, leave my man out of this. Ramsey comes correct, whether anyone likes it or not. Second, I have no idea where that word came from. Who knows, call it the class factor, something you’ve never managed to grasp, despite your massively impressive education and even more massive ego.” I knew nothing I said made any sense. I needed sleep, but there was no rest for the wicked. “Ignore my rambling. I’m too exhausted for this shit.”
I heard Jim laugh; he knew my ass was fried. I never explained myself to anyone. I was a man who was steady on his course, and I didn’t care what the next mother fucker thought of me. I handled shit and lit fucks on fire as I walked away. It’s just who I was.
“What’s up?” I finally questioned, irritated I had shown some weakness to Jim.
“I got the files on the Liedenhaus acquisition,” Jim said, his voice becoming far more serious and subdued. “They came with an interesting email from Wendy herself, with some fascinating new demands for the expansion of the galleries. I just forwarded it to you.”
As usual, I could be dead ass tired, but once shit started getting real, I woke the fuck up and was ready to handle it like I’d just had twenty hours of sleep.
“I’m curious as to why I wasn’t CC’d on that email, but fuck me, right?” I answered, opening my laptop in annoyance. As I pulled up my email, I heard a door open on the other end of the phone and a sweet little voice say, “Daddy, can we go to the movies today?”
“What did Mommy say?” Jim answered the voice.
“She said to ask you. She said there’s a problem at the center that she’s working on, but Izzy and I want to see the new Minions movie.”
“Let me finish talking to Uncle Spence, honey, because I’m having a problem with work. Do you want to call Auntie Ash? Maybe you could go with her, John, and Kaley?”
“Throwing Ash under the bus, huh? I’m sure she’d love to go to the movies with four kids, Jim,” I said with a chuckle, my mind happily absorbed in this conversation.
“But we want to go with you, Daddy.”
“How about this?” Jim said, ignoring me. “Uncle Spence and I will finish this phone call as fast as possible, and then we’ll watch the movie and go get mac and cheese for dinner.”
“Okay!”
“You’re adorable,” I said as I heard the door shut. “Father of the fucking year, Mitch.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Wait till you have kids.”
I chuckled, not bothering to remind him that would never happen. As much as I enjoyed being Uncle Spencer to Jim’s and the others’ kids, hell might have to reach an ungodly level of cold before I considered procreating.
I was too much of a cold-hearted bastard. Seriously, honey badgers probably had more of a conscience than I did.
“Jesus,” I said, looking over the email Jim forwarded to me. “What the hell is Wendy Lieden thinking? How does she believe she can demand this?”
“I’m not sure, but somehow she thinks that even though she’s keeping her job, creative control, and getting a massive payout, she can maintain control over the books and the financial expansion.”
