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In all likelihood, she was trying to protect Dillon and me from some eager reporter running into an intern or business development executive whose feelings we might have hurt along the way. Probably trying to save us from whatever stories they might be tempted to tell.
That's Hannah for you, always a team player. Always looking out for me. Even when she aggravates the ever-living piss right out of me.
So it's definitely more than a month, maybe two? I head for the Barcelona chairs by the wide, bright windows and sink into one. My Italian loafer heels naturally drop onto the coffee table in front of me, a huge slab of granite with a polished top. Chopped right out of the mountain, just for us. Swirling patterns of beige and pink and burgundy that somehow look like a quilt made out of vaginas.
Probably my favorite possession.
This is all mine, at least for now. I try to remind myself that everything I can see out this window is because we built this company. Well, maybe we didn’t build it. But we kept it running after our father died, and we changed from something stuffy and old-fashioned into one of the top media outlets in North America. All of North America, from the top of Manitoba down to the ass crack of Peru.
I mean, can't a guy get a little credit?
But in a few weeks, this is all going to be over. All I have to do is keep treading water until the merger, and then strap on my golden parachute and get the fuck out of here. If the press wants to follow me, they can hang glide with their zoom lenses over our yacht outside Ibiza, the way God intended. No more showing up at our condo at three in the morning, asking for the names of everybody in the place. No more dangling over the edge of the roof, trying to get a picture of us…
I make a fist, driving my knuckle between my eyebrows. I don't want to think about that. Why am I thinking about it? None of it even really matters to me. So a bunch of gossip rags need salacious crap to keep their readers happy. So what? That's basically what our company does too, isn't it? It’s all the same game, just on a different level. I mean, it's only fair that Dillon and I should be on the receiving end of it every once in a while, right? Turnabout being fair play and all that?
Right.
I take a few deep breaths, waiting for that ocher-colored fog in my belly to settle. I just want everything to go back to being calm. Back to normal. I just want some privacy and the luxury of feeling that all of this hubbub is behind me.
Hubbub. It's kind of a silly word.
Anyway, it's fine. This is how life has always been. I’m not complaining. It has its perks, being a Riordan. But everything is both light and shadow. You have to take the good with the bad.
“Knock knock,” Hannah says, opening door without, in fact, knocking.
I don't turn around. Why should I? She’ll be over here in just a moment.
I hear the slip of her heels on the textured carpet as she strides toward the window. She crosses her thin arms and looks out, admiring the view that's not very different from the one in her office. I see a lot more of Lake Michigan from here, is all. Her view is slightly angled toward the river. It's like she looks back on all the people, while I look out to the horizon. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I'm not a writer. What the fuck do I know?
“I should have taken this office,” she mutters, shifting her weight from one hip to the other. She has a beautiful ass, currently stretching the seams of a cream colored skirt with a slit so high up one thigh that I can almost swear that I see her panties when she walks. It's probably just an illusion, but still. It makes me want to slip my hand in there and pull.
Her weight shifts again. She drums her fingertips against her elbow, sort of a warning twitch. Like a cat swishing the tip of its tail back and forth, letting you know some shit is about to go down.
“You can have my office. How about now, Hannah?” I offer, silently promising the granite coffee table that it's coming with me. “I barely use it. You should get to enjoy the view.”
The fingertips continue drumming.
“No, no big changes, Emmet. I think we should just try to make everything as normal as possible, don't you? No more… upheavals,” she replies tersely.
“Oh, who's gonna know? Live a little, Hannah. In a few weeks you won't be able to take anybody up on this offer. The new guys will be in here with their decorators and assistants and contractors, probably tearing out the entire executive wing. I hear that's what they do, these Google types. Turn everything into the tech equivalent of a dairy farm, right? Stalls and everything?”
She pivots toward me on her stiletto heel, dropping the toe of her shoe onto the carpet with a snap.
“Emmet, we’re going to be lucky to even make it that far,” she growls, venom in every word.
I shake my head. What is she even talking about?
“Look, I'm here, aren't I? You told me to leave; I left. You told me to return; here I am. It’s all going according to plan. Everything is going to be fine.”
“You don't know that,” she shoots back.
I sigh, waving my hand in front of me. I don't need this.
“You worry too much, you know that?”
“I worry too much?” she repeats incredulously, the tone of her voice spiraling upward with every word. “I worry too much? Are you kidding me?”
My chin drops into my the palm of my hand. I am not going to miss this corporate nonsense one bit.
