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Though I completely agreed, I sent him a harassed glower, because he hadn’t said it all that quietly. It actually caused Christopher Elton to glance over.
I froze, forgetting to breathe when he skimmed his attention over Brick only to settle his gaze on me.
Oh my God, we were sharing eye contact.
And he had brown eyes.
I now knew the color of Christopher Elton’s eyes.
Life was amazing. Things began floating around inside me as if dancing in celebration. Breathing became clearer, colors brighter, and sounds crisper. If there were any birds in the room, I swear, they’d start chirping merrily. Just looking at him made me hyper-aware of the entire world, and especially aware of my blood thumping excitedly through my veins.
And then it happened. His gaze lowered, his attention shifting, and he checked out my chest before looking away.
He’d just copped a look! Oh wow. Christopher Elton had noticed me as a female.
And why the heck did I keep thinking of him as Christopher Elton, not just Christopher?
No idea, but I tried not to squirm, not sure if I was flattered by his glance or just really uncomfortable. I kind of felt uncomfortable, and I freaked out a bit, hoping I looked okay. It took everything in me not to check my own chest to see how things were going down there. But then, his glance also made me feel feminine and sort of powerful. It’d been way too long since anything in that department had seen any action. A guy actually noticing me as a woman was nice.
I drew out a long breath, trying to control myself as I decided I was flattered. Yeah, flattered was good.
Christopher (see, I could think of him without using his last name) didn’t glance back at me again, which sort of deflated the little bubble I had going, but I was still more energized than usual. Until Brick slid a piece of paper across the top of the table my way that read:
On second thought, I’m not sure it’s meant to be. Kaitlynn Elton doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
I slapped my hand over the message, hoping no one else had seen what he’d written, and sent him a stern glance of reprimand. He refused to look my way, but the smug smile on his face let me know he was well aware of how much he’d just embarrassed me.
What a jerk. I had such a wicked, evil stepbrother… Who I loved probably more than anyone else alive.
But then my attention was diverted when Nash asked Lana for the market reports as he studied the next item on the agenda of things to discuss. Shyla jerked to attention and popped to her feet, wildly scoping the room until she noticed me. Fetching the reports from me, she held them up for Lana to see she had them. Lana motioned for her to pass them out, and I held my breath, thinking I should go now before my stepmother noticed me and made a scene, except I didn’t want to bring attention to myself by getting up to leave. Feeling more uncomfortable about staying for a meeting I wasn’t allowed to be in, I latched my fingers around the arms of my chair to push to my feet, only for Nash’s voi
ce to boom, “Wait.”
I froze. Then I blinked and zipped my wide-eyed, caught-in-the-act gaze his way, only to realize he wasn’t talking to me. The man hadn’t noticed me in the room; he probably didn’t even know I existed. He was too busy frowning at the market report.
Pointing at one of the lines, he lifted his face to Lana. “You took out the expenses I put in for the Halloween party’s band and caterer.”
Lana gave a negligent shrug. “That’s because I canceled them.”
My mouth dropped open. Around me, the rest of the employees gasped as well, probably unable to believe she would do such a terrible thing. But that’s not the part that surprised me; canceling the band and caterer totally sounded like something she’d do. No, I was shocked she had even opened the spreadsheet file long enough to alter it. She could’ve slotted in the changes from accounting herself instead of making me do them at the last second this morning.
What a bitch.
Across the room, Nash looked dumbfounded before he slowly said, “You did what?”
“Hey.” Lana lifted her hands as if to say they’d been tied. “You were so intent about economizing our expenditures, I thought it only appropriate.”
Blue eyes went ice cold as they glared daggers at my stepmother. “Appropriate my ass. You just wanted to piss me off.” And it seemed to have worked. I felt the urgent need to duck and cover because he looked so mad. “You had no right to do this,” he snarled. “No right at all.”
My stepmother merely trilled out an amused laugh. “As if you have the right to throw my money away on trivial, unnecessary expenses.”
“Our money. And I don’t think the comfort and contentment of my people is trivial or unnecessary. We have a budget for this kind of thing, a budget you approved, and all costs were met well within that budget.”
Lana didn’t seem to care. She tipped up her nose and waved out an unconcerned hand. “What a stupid notion to have an office party, anyway. For God’s sake, why do you think we need to bolster morale? These people should be grateful I gave them a job in the first place and don’t fire them all for flagrant disrespect of their CEO.”
Eyes widened and mouths snapped shut all around the room.
“I mean, honestly, who here wants to lose their job?” When she glanced around and found no one lifting a hand, she turned back to Nash with raised eyebrows and a see-didn’t-I-call-it expression. “If it’s so important to you, why don’t you provide the funds for that nonsense from your own pocket?”
