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The news both floored him and pleased him. Then, terror took its place. “Has she gone back to Florida?”
“No.”
“She’s going to run the place from home?” he asked, astounded by the notion.
“It looks like it. Until I throw some work her way, I guess.”
Aidan’s sheepish retort had James shooting a rueful grin at him. “Nepotism. Et tu, Brute?”
“Like you wouldn’t overload her with work to keep her here!” Aidan shrugged his shoulders. “I never wanted her to go to Florida anyway. If starting her own business keeps her here, then that’s for the good. Plus, I researched her old firm, Hayward & White. She wasn’t lying, James. She’s hot shit down there. They’re majorly pissed at her leaving.”
James processed that and said, ?
??Give her the authority to handle press releases. She was eager when we were discussing our equal rights policies. She’d probably love working on stuff like that.”
Aidan’s eyes lit up. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Are you for real?” James demanded. “I want her here too, buddy.”
Aidan grimaced. “This is going to happen, isn’t it? I’m not sure whether to be revolted or simply displeased at the idea of my partner screwing my sister.”
James pulled a face at that but ignored Aidan’s remark to ask, “Is that jackass still here?”
“By jackass, I assume the guy who proposed to my sister?”
At Aidan’s cocked brow, James swore. “The bastard’s just like my father. If she marries him, that’s it…” he warned. “I’ve watched it from inside the circle, Aidan. You know that. I know the game too well to fail to see what’s happening.”
“You only know what she’s told you, and she’s obviously suffered a lapse in judgment if she screwed around with you.”
James flipped him the bird. “So says you, partner.”
Aidan chuckled a little, then stared down at his feet. “He’s still around, but I’m not sure why. She’s still at mom and dad’s, and he’s in a hotel. From what she said, I don’t think she’s altogether happy he’s here.”
“Do you think they’re back together?”
He shrugged. “Haven’t seen that much of her to be able to judge. And because she barely talks about that, I don’t know. The little I do know is what mom has told me. But if you asked her yourself, mom would tell you too. I think, for some fucked up reason, she wants the two of you together.”
James confessed, “She told me she thinks we’d be good for one another.”
Aidan clucked his tongue and made a disgusted sound. “I can’t believe she gave you her approval.”
“Since that first day, you haven’t exactly warned me off her.”
“No, I haven’t, have I?” Aidan rubbed his jaw. “I never liked that Mark dude. He was always too smarmy for my taste.”
James huffed. “You never said.”
“Wasn’t down to me. It’s her love life, not mine.” Aidan frowned. “She told you he was controlling?”
“Yeah. Said it was one of the reasons that she left her job. All of it coming at her at the same time was too much pressure. She said she couldn’t cope.”
“That doesn’t sound like Hailey,” Aidan remarked, surprised.
“No. Exactly. We’d spoken earlier that day when the tire burst. Everything she said, when I threw in that new info, it just made me put two and two together. I didn’t like the number I came out with.” James studied his friend. “Is it going to be a problem if we’re together?”
Aidan huffed. “You’ve got to get near her first, and it seems Hailey’s doing a bang-up job of stone walling you.”
“I know. But I’ll wear her down. Eventually,” he conceded ruefully, then, his frown turned somber, more serious. “I have to. I don’t have any say in this.”
