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Sooner or later, he would grow bored. And his memories would return.
Then she would finally be free.
But what if they didn’t?
She gulped down her apprehension and reached for her phone.
A ten-minute conversation with her PA and everything she needed to work from the yacht had been actioned. Immie bit back a sigh at how ridiculously easy it was to uproot her life in favour of a situation she could feel in her bones would be more turbulent than she wished.
Distracted, she wasn’t aware she’d activated the video function on the next call until a face popped up on her screen.
‘Oh, hey there. I was about to email you,’ Noah Emery said.
Immie’s smile was easier and open now.
Her deputy at Callahan had been invaluable these past ten months and continued to be.
An American like her, with college-quarterback good looks to match. She’d managed to poach him from a rival company when it’d become clear that her workload in managing Callahan Shipping while being an active member of the board of Diamandis would be nigh on impossible without further assistance.
‘I’ve saved you the trouble, then.’
He smiled and nodded, his sandy hair immaculately styled and in place.
Not like Zeph’s long, sexily tousled locks.
She stumbled back from that thought, a little alarmed at how it’d slipped so easily beneath her guard.
‘I wanted to congratulate you on the Canadian deal. I saw the memo you sent to our lawyers this morning.’
Her smile widened further. ‘Thanks. Here’s to hoping they don’t throw any more roadblocks in our way before it’s done and dusted.’
‘Yeah. But while we wait for that to go through, I was hoping to discuss some Callahan business with you. Are you free for lunch today? Your PA said you were at the apartment. I could grab something and come to you if you’re working from home?’
She opened her mouth to answer just as Zeph appeared in the doorway.
He didn’t enter. Just draped himself against the doorjamb, four fingers in each pocket in a picture of casual sexiness that made her throat dry.
And the way he watched her. As if she was the most absorbing thing for miles. As if she was his personal project he intended to keep a keen eye on.
That singular, intense focus snatched all of her breath. She didn’t need to scour her memories to know she’d never experienced anything like it. At every stage in her life, she’d fought to be seen. To be heard. More often than not with little success.
When she’d first discovered that her father had expected her to come into the world as a fully fledged male Callahan—via a tipsy conversation to his guests after an all-male hunting weekend in Texas when her father had believed she’d gone to bed—she’d been stunned, then hurt. Then she’d spent months being bewildered and indignant at the injustice of it. At the very unfair supposition when biology dictated that it was a purely fifty-fifty chance she would be born female.
It turned out biology didn’t matter. Her father had willed it and expected it to happen. And when it hadn’t, he’d laid the blame entirely at her feet.
Not once had he shifted his stance.
So yes, Immie knew what it was like to be overlooked, to be dismissed as a disappointment, to be isolated and ignored, and then sacrificed like a worthless pawn when the situation suited.
‘Immie?’
She dragged her gaze from the man lounging in the doorway to her study and back to the screen. ‘Um... I can’t today,’ she answered Noah. ‘I have a full schedule.’
‘Oh. Okay. Tomorrow, then? There’s a new chef at The Hydra. I know you like their food.’
Aware of the eyes boring into her from several feet away, she cleared her throat. ‘I’m going to be working remotely for a while, Noah. Just email or call with whatever you need me for until further notice.’
He frowned, light brown eyes filling with worry. ‘Is everything okay?’
