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My eyes widen, and for a moment, I stand frozen. What could Raya’s father possibly be doing here? “Yes, Pippy. If you’d please?”
“Certainly, Lex,” Pippy replies.
My hands instantly turn clammy, and I wipe them on the overall I always wear in my lab before remembering to yank off the stained garment. I glance down at the shirt and pants I’m wearing, trying my hardest to remember where I threw my jacket. “Fuck,” I mutter to myself when I realize I left it in my office on the top floor. With the lab being on a different floor, there’s no way I can make myself look presentable in time.
The door to my lab unlocks and swings open automatically, curtesy of Pippy, and Raya’s father walks in, followed by my secretary, Susan. He’s as tall as I am, with dark hair and bright blue eyes that sweep over my lab. The man looks formidable, yet his expression seems to be a mixture of reluctance and helplessness.
“Lexington Windsor, I take it?” he says, and I snap out of it, offering him my hand.
“Indeed. Bob Lewis, right?”
He stares at my outstretched hand, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he shakes it, his grip unnecessarily tight. I smile inresponse, hyperaware that this man might very well end up becoming my father-in-law.
“You can leave us,” I tell Susan, and she nods politely before disappearing quietly.
Bob glances at my equipment and the various projects I’m working on, each laid out on a separate table. “You don’t seem surprised to see me, and you seem to know who I am, so you must know what brought me here.”
I straighten my shoulders and look him in the eye. “I’m aware of my grandmother’s offer, though she doesn’t realize that I know. Nonetheless, I am surprised to see you here today, Mr. Lewis. What can I do for you?”
He locks his jaw and stares at the design plans for my next car, strewn all over one of my tables. The plans are highly confidential, yet I couldn’t care less at this moment.
“I shouldn’t be here at all,” Bob says, his voice soft. “My agreement is with your grandmother, and per our terms, I shouldn’t speak to you until the ink is dry on our contract.” He looks up at me then. “However, I couldn’t sign away my daughter’s life until I had a better understanding of the man I’m tying her fate to.”
My heart begins to race, and I cross my arms as I nod at him. “I was under the impression that you’d declined my grandmother’s offer.”
“I did. My wife and daughter made me reconsider.” He pauses and looks me up and down. “Whether this merger goes through all depends on what kind of man you are, Mr. Windsor.”
“Lex,” I correct him, trying my best to smile genuinely. “Please call me Lex. That’s what my friends and family call me.”
He nods and walks around the room, pausing at each table, clearly conflicted. I know he desperately needs this merger, or his company won’t survive, yet he seems unwilling to follow through.
“You said that it’s your wife and daughter that changed your mind. Does that mean Raya knows about me?”
Was it me she was referring to when she claimed to no longer be single? It didn’t seem that way, but I can’t help the sliver of hope I feel. It would explain why I haven’t been able to find so much as a trace of the man she’s supposedly with.
His eyes cut to mine. “I have yet to tell her which company we’re merging with, or who she’d marry. Raya is rather impulsive, and she has the biggest heart. She’d do anything to save the company, and I can’t risk her taking matters into her own hands,” he says, his tone carrying an edge to it.
“So, she agreed to marry someone without even knowing who it is?” That sliver of hope expands, enveloping my heart. The conversation Raya and I had in my office makes a lot more sense now, and I can’t help but smile to myself.
Bob nods as he pauses by Cheesy, his expression hardening. “Are you some sort of psychopath, Mr. Windsor?” he asks, his tone harsh as he examines what is essentially a miniature guillotine. “Is that why your grandmother is so desperate to find you a wife?”
I run a hand through my hair, mortification washing over me. “That... that is not what it looks like,” I explain dumbly. “It’s a cheese slicer, designed for my little sister,” I begin to explain. He listens as I tell him about the frequent cuts on Sierra’s fingers, and his shoulders relax as I explain her ridiculous love for cheese, and how I’d hoped Cheesy would help her.
My nerves are racked as Bob just stares at me for a few moments. “I’m surprised calling you a psychopath didn’t anger you. I expected you to be the eccentric billionaire the media portrays you to be, but you seem surprisingly normal.”
I raise a brow in amusement. “I suppose I’mnotsorry to disappoint?”
His lips twitch, the edges turning up in a reluctant mini smile. “I thought you might take this opportunity to deter me. I was under the impression that you were forced into this as much as we are.”
I nod and lean back against one of the tables. “Iambeing forced into it, but I also always knew that it was coming. I know I don’t have a choice, and though I’d never tell her this, I trust my grandmother.” Just not fully — not enough to not have sought out Raya before the engagement was formalized. If I’d had even the slightest inkling that Raya had malicious intent toward me or my family, Iwouldhave sabotaged our engagement.
Bob nods and takes his time walking through my lab, almost like he’s trying to get on my nerves with his intrusiveness. Before I met Raya, I might’ve been inclined to indulge him, even if it’s just to buy myself a little more time before marriage. Now? Now I simply smile and lean back as he touches highly fragile and expensive pieces of tech.
“You should know that my daughter is everything to me,” he says eventually, his expression serious. “There is nothing I won’t do to protect her. If I ever so much as suspect that she’s being mistreated, I’ll bring her back home by any means necessary, consequences be damned.”
I smile, only mildly surprised by the thinly veiled threat. “I would never disrespect or mistreat my wife.” I pause for a moment, understanding his concerns. “Nor would I ever ask her for anything she isn’t willing to give, Bob. She’d be mywife, not my property.”
He studies me, seemingly less conflicted than he was before, but clearly not convinced either.
