To the most infuriating man I’ve ever met.
This is definitely worse than tomato juice.
Because at least with tomato juice, I could walk away. But with Victor Kade?
I have a feeling I'm stuck with this stain for a very long time.
5
CEO OF BAD DECISIONS
VICTOR
Monday morning hits like a freight train made of regret and overpriced coffee.
It's been an entire thirty-six hours since Vegas, thirty-six hours since I put Harper on my plane and sent her back to New York with strict instructions to stay off social media and away from the press.
And somehow, despite returning to Manhattan—my natural habitat—I still can't get the image of Harper Beaumont, tangled in my sheets, out of my head.
I drag my focus back to reality, back to where the October air is sharp enough to cut and the skyline looks like a warning instead of a welcome.
Back to the things that actually matter.
Like the fact that I'm married.
Like the fact that while I was getting married, my life was falling apart in other ways—the kind of ways where Richard Francis, the CEO of the company I've spent the last two years trying to acquire, didn't just leave the club after meeting Harper.
No. That would have been too simple.
Instead, his "I have an early meeting tomorrow" excuse was actually "I'm heading to a Vegas brothel where I'll take too many packets of sex enhancement drugs, freak out because my dick won't go down, and then have the cops arrest me while wearing the world's shiniest man-thong."
No big deal.
Except for the fact that my board will lose their shit when they find out.
As Richard's first phone call after the debacle, I'd had my assistant Gina handle the whole thing as quietly as she could, but still…
Something's bound to leak to the press.
And when it does, I'll be doubly fucked.
Which is why I arrive to the StreamEats offices in downtown Manhattan at the eye-watering hour of 4:43 AM.
And as I expected, Gina is already at her desk, coffee in hand, expression calibrated to "we're about to have a very bad day."
"Morning, sir."
In corporate English? "Let's pretend like our lives aren't actively on fire."
"Morning, Gina. Give me the run-down."
She doesn't hesitate. "Conference room. Eight AM. Full board. Patricia Franklin called for an emergency meeting."
Fuck. Of course she did.
"Rachel called six times," Gina adds, falling into step beside me as we head toward my office. "Says you're ignoring her."
"I'm not ignoring her," I say, pulling out my phone. "I'm prioritizing."
