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Livingston blew out a harsh breath. At least Hastings isn’t here to see this shitstorm that’s coming.
He pushed back from his desk and walked to the door. One final fortifying breath before he walked out, gave a nod to Monica, and headed to his suite. As well as the woman who was now living in there with him.
As he reached his floor, he noticed four of his security detail walking into Ms. Wentz’s side. The entire floor was his, he preferred his solitude, but something dark and ugly unfolded within him at the sight of other men going into her room.
Adjusting his direction, he walked in behind the last guard. The man glanced at him, not looking surprised to find him there. And yet, he also noticed how he had shifted his body slightly, in case he needed to fight. He appreciated that of his guys, ready no matter what the situation if something went to shit.
He approved.
“Chester.” He nodded at him. Livingston had made it a point to learn the names of his security. There was a team of eight who rotated around him. They had initially wanted to only have one guard on him at all times, but he’d refused to have his protection unable to have a life.
“Mr. Rhodes.”
“Dare I ask what you’re doing?”
“Bringing up the items your Ms. Wentz requested. We don’t like a lot of different people in your space.”
Again, a fact he appreciated.
“Just set it all down there, please. I’ll take care of the setup.” Ms. Wentz’s husky voice came from his left and he pivoted with a snap in that direction.
Marcus, Shorty and Quintin were placing down the items they’d all carried. Whiteboards, markers, paper and more. He was intrigued. But more so by the woman who stood in the center of it all, right hand on her hip while her left held a yellow pad.
Purple was definitely her color. Irritated by his attraction to a woman he’d brought in to save his brother, he pushed his hands in his pockets.
“What is all this?”
She lifted her focus from the legal pad in her hand, ran a cool gaze over him before dipping it back to the paper in front of her. “Items needed for me to do my job.” She pulled a pencil from her hair with her left hand while she maneuvered the pad into her right.
He grunted and glided closer. This woman was the antithesis to most of the women he’d had on his arm, or in his bed. And he couldn’t explain his draw to her.
Not entirely true. There was that one night. A night of unbridled passion in Seattle with a woman he couldn’t recall other than flashes. She’d been gone before he could get her name.
Livingston bit his inner cheek to snap sense back into himself. He didn’t need to be reliving that night while trying to have a sensible and productive conversation with a woman who was doing a fantastic job of making his mind travel down a road it didn’t need to remember existed.
Keeping quiet until he reached her side, he moved up behind her, not noticing in the slightest how the top of her head didn’t even reach his chin. Or how his hands fucking itched to skim along her curves, draped in the purple suit. Man, he wanted that off her.
There was a list of items on her paper, many his men were bringing in the room now. He read over them five times just to keep himself there with a semi-viable excuse to be near her.
“How long is this going to take you?”
The only notice of her irritation was the clenching of her ringed fingers around the pencil she held. “We both know I can’t answer that. I haven’t seen all your files, any really, to begin making an assumption.”
He heard the unspoken words about not wanting to make an ass of herself like one would when they assumed.
His men paused and glanced between them. He glared at them. Problem was, they were kind of like family and didn’t take what he knew to be the warning in his stare.
“A time frame?”
She turned, full lips pressed flat momentarily before she merely shook her head. “Mr. Rhodes, if you want someone to do this fast then hire someone else. I just took this case. My things aren’t set up. They’ve been delivered, yes, but I haven’t set them up yet. As soon as I have a copy of your files sent to me, I‘ll start working. So again, I cannot tell you when I will be done, but what I can most assuredly inform you of is that your asking questions like this will only drag it out.”
He narrowed his eyes and inched closer, again not noticing how if either of them took a deep breath her breasts would be brushing against his chest.
