AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” Savage says. “It’s not.” He offers nothing more.
I narrow my eyes on him. “Spit it out, Savage. I can’t pull this shit into the middle of my NFL meetings. I a have call set-up and a contract change to review. I owe Grayson, and everyone involved counting on this to be life-changing, my focus.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
Frustrated, I take Harper’s hand. “This has to wait until I get out of my meeting. Tell Blake not to come to the office. I’ll go to him.” I eye my watch. “It’s later than I thought. We need a ride to the office.”
“Jesse is waiting right around the corner?”
I nod and catch Harper’s hand and start walking. “I’ll meet Blake,” Harper offers, keeping pace with me. “This has to be important. We need to know what it’s about, but you’re right. You need to focus. Take care of what you need to do for Grayson.”
“I need you in my meeting,” I say as we round the corner and bring Jesse into view.
“Me? I know nothing about this.”
“If you’re going to play a role in the NFL operation, you need to understand it from the ground up,” I say as Jesse opens the reardoor. “And you need to know it’s what you want.” I motion her inside.
She pauses before entering. “You want me to handle the NFL?”
“Yes. I do. And Grayson agrees. I talked with him this morning. We need expanded staff to manage the new operation. You’ve got a strong management track record, and to top it off you’ve handled Isaac and my father. You can handle a bunch of arrogant rich people and athletes.”
“That’s intimidating but a little exciting.” She climbs inside the vehicle.
I’m aware of Savage at our back, and after Isaac’s visit I’m not complaining. Obviously, he tagged out Adrian, but I suspect Adrian will get to the offices before we do. I don’t know Savage well, but I know he walks a line, he’s willing to step onto the gray between good and bad. I get him. He gets me.
I also get my brother.
Too well.
He doesn’t know how well, but he will soon.
“We need to walk this,” Savage announces. “There’s a traffic jam an hour long.”
I curse, and give him a lift of my chin. “You with us?”
“Me and Adrian. He’s walking toward us from the building.”
I give a nod and we cross the street. We’ve just hit the opposite sidewalk when an uncomfortable awareness washes over me. Someone is watching us beyond Savage. I pull Harper closer, under my arm. I don’t tell her what I feel. I don’t want to scare her. We’re only a half block from the building when my phone buzzes with a text. I slow our pace in case it’s an alert to detour, nonchalantly reaching for my phone to read a message from Savage, who’s literally right behind me:I feel it, too.
“Everything okay?” Harper asks, shivering and I don’t think it’s the cold winter day. She senses something too. She just doesn’t have the training to know what it means.
It’s another two blocks before we reach the building, and Adrian is at the door waiting on us, when I never saw him on the walk, but I assume he was there. Harper hurries inside, a little extra lift to her step. Oh yes. She feels the urgency in me. She feels that we’re being watched. I wrap my arm around her and guide her to security where we obtain a long-term pass for her. “You’re official now,” I say, as we stop at the elevator bank and I punch the call button.
She smiles, a beautiful smile, all the nerves she’d been throwing from the sidewalk outside, fading away into happiness. She kisses my cheek. “You’re going to—”
I give her a little tug, aligning our legs and when she’s nice and snug against me, my palm flattens on her lower back. “Make you come on my desk, and then later on your new desk.”
She blushes a pretty pink. “You could get me fired.”
Mischief twinkles in my eyes. “I know the boss.”
“Hmmm,” she murmurs playfully. “Well, if you know the boss.”
“Did someone say the boss? I’m right here.”
Savage. “Fucking Savage,” I growl, but it’s not a sincere growl. I flick him a look over her head and he gives me a barely perceivable shake of his head. He didn’t find those eyes that were on us and he’s nervous. Me fucking, too, because the assassin being gone doesn’t mean anything at all with a professional operation. It might even be a way to throw us off.
The elevator door opens and Harper enters first, with me following. Savage is next. Once the doors shut Harper offers Savage a keen inspection. “That eye looks painful.”
