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This time, I let her off easy. When she gently pushed at me, trying to put an end to it without making a scene, I granted her that, ending the kiss with a quick peck on her lips before I stepped back, beyond amused at her obvious blushing.
She ran her tongue over her ruined lipstick and just stared at me, chest heaving, clearly too stunned to have anything to say.
“I’ll see you at our meeting later?” I asked, and she quickly shook her head.
“No. Just the lawyers,” she answered, looking away.
“Fine. I’ll make sure our agreement from today is relayed.”
“Okay.” She nodded, still not looking at me.
I smirked, not even bothering to wipe her lipstick from my mouth as I walked away.
This was going to befun.
FOUR
NALANI
Shit.
Frantically, I pushed the covers off my legs, in desperate need of cooling off. The feel of Orion’s hands—lingering remnants of the dream I’d just woken up from, still erotically vivid in my mind—made me glance around my room, makingsureI was as alone as I’d been when I retired for the night.
Once my eyes confirmed my solitude, I scrubbed both hands over my face, torn between laughing and crying.
Both felt appropriate, honestly.
This situation I’d found myself in wassoridiculous,sofar from anything I could’ve imagined that it was… heartbreaking.
And fucking hilarious.
Only me, I mused as I climbed from the bed, with a disdainful glance at the empty carafe on the bedside table. I grabbed the robe that matched my nightgown, slipping it over my clammy skin as a bit of protection from the chill in the air before I started the short journey to my kitchen in search of water.
The things Orion had done to me before I pulled myself awake had me feeling a little…parched.
Glass in hand, I made my way to the big picture window in my living room area. I could see the roof ofNectarfrom there. It was one of the biggest reasons I’d chosen this building in the first place. I wasn’t working in the family business then, climbing the corporate retail ladder had me by the throat. I was committed to reaching the highest possible level, and really… it had been right at my fingertips.
Then my father called and said he needed help.
How could I say no?
It was a demotion in title, and a major drop in pay, but my brother and I both had been raised with afamily firstattitude. So even though the move toNectarwould decimate my resume and force me to tighten the belt on my finances a bit, there was nothing Itrulywanted more.
If my mother was still alive, it’s where I would’ve been in the first place.
… if my mother was still alive, I wouldn’t be in the situation I was in.
I was trying,mightily,to understand my father’s actions, wracking my mind for the logic that would justify the selling of theNectarproperty.
I couldn’t.
Every time I tried, my brain practically screamed at me, that selling the property was too risky to be anything except an absolute last resort. I would much rather have been informed that the business was in a mountain of debt, or on the verge of bankruptcy,anythingexcept… a fucking predatory lease, on land that wassupposedto be ours.
Not his.
Mine, and Soren’s.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if the timing around my mother’s death was purely convenient; less to do with paying bills, more to do with the way the wills and trusts were structured. I was in grad school, Soren in the late years of high school. Neither of us twenty-five yet, which would’ve been the age certain things kicked into place.
