Page 10 of Bound To Be Mine

I sighed. “You’re thinking it.”

“I’m thinking a lot of things.”

“I do the contracts and the litigation,” I said. “You just focus on whatever it is you do.”

Dash scoffed and narrowed his eyes at me. “You know what I do. Don’t lash out because you fucked up for a change instead of me.”

“Why are you in here anyway?” I asked. “You never come to meetings like this.”

“I came to say hi to the cousins. I didn’t expect a show.” He smirked. “For the record, I want to be clear that I find this genuinely entertaining. But Adrian is going to be a lot less entertained, so I feel like you’re going to be in trouble for killing this deal. Adrian was really excited about this. Like, he talked about Mandy Carter specifically more than once. She’s kind of a big deal in certain circles. Circles you don’t travel in, apparently, but still. She’s young and already kicking ass in the LA market. Another couple of years and she’s the Anna Wintour of wedding planning. You should have done your research.”

I was quiet for a moment. “Adrian could have explained who she was. I’m looking at contracts. Facts.”

“She’s on the internet. You could have looked her up.”

I had looked up the deal documents. I had reviewed the partnership terms and the financial projections and the proposed sublabel structure. I had not looked up the third partner because it wasn’t important. She was an event planner. She had her place in the world, but I didn’t see it fitting into our structure.

“I don’t make it a habit to investigate my business partner’s social media presence,” I said.

“Okay.” He stood, straightened his jacket. “For what it’s worth, I think she’s got a point about the brand. If you’d pull your head out of your ass, you would understand her clients are celebrity royalty. People like what she does.”

I scrubbed a hand over my face, feeling tired. “I should never have agreed to cover this meeting.”

“Go home,” he said. “I’ll call Cleo. We’ll figure out next steps tomorrow. I’ll see if I can take them out. Wine and dine them.”

“Don’t sleep with that woman,” I said.

He laughed. “I’m not interested in fucking a first cousin.”

“That’s not the woman I’m talking about and you know it.”

He winked. “I would think you’d want me to do whatever it takes to get that woman back on Team Blackwell. In this one case, I might be willing to take one for the team. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”

“I doubt she’ll appreciate you fucking her and never calling again,” I told him. “But by all means, make it awkward as hell to work with her.”

He laughed on his way out of the room. “You worry too much.”

“And you don’t worry enough!” I called after him.

When he was gone, my shoulders slumped. That was not how I had expected the meeting to go. I certainly didn’t mean to nuke the deal but I did have some concerns. How did that make me the bad guy?

I stood, gathered up the unsigned papers, and walked out. I was going home. The day was fucked.

I didn’t drink much. My tolerance had declined steadily since my late twenties, casualty of too many early mornings and not enough late nights. Two drinks and I was loose. Three and I was in genuinely unfamiliar territory.

Tonight, I was definitely going to have two drinks. I needed them. I knew Adrian was going to be pissed, but I would deal with it tomorrow.

My penthouse was quiet when I walked through the door. I shrugged out of my jacket, tossed it on the couch, and walked straight to the sidebar. I poured two fingers of whiskey, drank it standing at the window, and poured two more.

Thirty minutes later, I was drunk. I felt sloppy, which was why I hated drinking. But it was better than thinking about a green-eyed woman who had made me face my insecurities with a single sentence.

4

MANDY

Icouldn’t decide if I was mad, sad, or just a little embarrassed. The only way to figure out what I was feeling was alcohol. At least that’s what I told myself. The man had unsettled me.

Briggs made me feel like I was in seventh grade trying to take a seat at the cool kids’ table in the lunchroom. He humiliated me. I had worked hard to get the respect I felt I’d earned and that asshole tried to make me feel small. Unimportant. Like I wasn’t worthy to be in his presence.