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"You're fucking Nathan's sister? He's going to skin you like the proverbial husky."
Damien snorts and then covers his mouth when he sees the look on my face.
"I'm not fucking anyone,” I protest.
"That's too bad," Matthias interjects, entirely unhelpfully.
"Shut up. You know what I mean."
Kingsley cuts in, "I think you mean that you've got some crush on your best friend's sister and one of our biggest allies."
"That... is pretty much it, yeah. Fuck." My head falls into my hands. This is the first time I've said any of this out loud. I hadn't expected to be the center of attention today, but here we are. And to be honest, talking it out hasn’t helped much at all.
"What do you think, Damien?" Kingsley says.
He holds his hands up and shakes his head "Hey, I've already gone through this once. If he's back in this situation, whatever I had to say didn't stick. It's in your hands now."
I roll my eyes. "He's exaggerating. I was fine."
Matthias takes a sip from his beer bottle and jumps up, finger pointed to the ceiling. "Wait! Is that when you fucked up the Henderson account?"
I cringe. Dammit. "Yes."
Matthias winces. "Ah. Okay. Shit. Yeah… he’s in trouble if we’re in for a rerun."
"I'm fine!! Look, I haven't seen her in five years and trust me, she is not in any frame of mind to be seeing me because..." My sentence trails off as I hear a commotion outside my office.
Julie, my admin assistant, can be heard shouting. "No! Miss, you can't go in ther—"
My office door flies open and Kiara storms in, her face set in a straight line.
"Kiara!” I ignore the nosy faces on my screen and jump up, shouting, “What are you doing here? Where did you go before? I was worried sick!"
She ignores my questions by strolling over to my desk and slamming her purse down and folding her arms, her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.
"Mr. Baxter, I'm so—" my assistant starts.
I wave her apologies away, "It's fine, Julie. I can take care of it from here."
A glance down at my laptop shows my three brothers glued to their screens, mouths wide open. They might as well be shoving popcorn into their gobs. I slam the top of my laptop down, and my three brothers with it, knowing that in less than a minute my phone will blow up with texts and, no doubt, I’m going to be the topic of conversation for the rest of their meeting.
"I need to talk to you about something.” She sounds a lot more calm than her storming in here suggests.
I swallow, gesturing to a chair. “Sure, have a s—”
She cuts me off. “Were you serious? About hiring my poker agency for the casino?”
That’s an easy question to answer. “Yes. I don’t make business offers for which I don’t intend to following through.”
Her head shakes while her eyes lock on me, angry… hurt. “But how are we supposed to work together, Kylian? How am I supposed to believe anything you say? Trust you? Do you have any idea what you did to me?”
Every word cuts me.
But I can’t tell her it was all a ruse, that it was all set up to make her hate me. All because at that point in my life, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her brother as my friend when I had so few people I truly trusted in my life. But that now that I’ve seen her again. I know I made the biggest mistake in my life.
“Kiara, I’m not the same person I was. I have no intention of screwing you over, in business or otherwise.”
The answer seems to anger her even more, as if the reminder of past me stirs the hurt up into a dust storm in her eyes. She throws her hands up in the air. “It was a mistake coming here. Forget this happened. I don’t ever want to see you again, Kylian. Stay away from me.”
