“Mr. Brandon?” she answers from behind her computer, her head tilted so that she can see me. She pauses the furious typing she’s been doing all day for a moment.
“I’m having dinner in my office. Hold my calls.”
Emily smiles at me, her lips pressed tightly together like she wants to hide her glee, but then she nods and resumes typing. I’ve never allowed a woman to come to the office before. She’s probably beside herself thinking of all the possibilities.
I close the door behind me and take the seat next to Angelica. She’s already laid out the food—two cheeseburgers on beds of waffle fries, the toppings slightly off-center from their journey. I crack a huge smile.
“It’s not a five-star place or anything,” Angelica says, a little tremble in her voice, pink rising to her cheeks. “I just thought—.”
“You thought right.” I lean over and cover her mouth with mine, kissing her like she’s just presented me with the fanciest meal ever served to man.
“Thank God,” she whispers when we come up for air, but a frown crosses her face for just an instant before she replaces it with an enthusiastic smile. “Let’s eat.”
I pick up one of the steak fries and watch her as she slides the lettuce on her burger back into place, then grabs one of the plastic knives from the bag and cuts it in half.
A late day at work, and Angelica brings me dinner.
Two things hit me at once.
First, I don’t want to spend my life at the office. Not anymore.
And second, I always want Angelica to be by my side.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Angelica
I don’t have any fucking clue why I keep playing this game, going so far as to bring Jett takeout in his office.
My stomach dropped into my toes when I saw the news online about the company he’s been working at acquiring, a social media platform called LinkLove. He’s mentioned the acquisition a few times, but never the name of the company. The gossip sites caught fire when it came out that there had been child porn found on their servers, and they gleefully reported that Brandon, Inc. had been in negotiations to acquire them for weeks. The bookkeeping shit immediately got pushed to the background, but none of it is good for Jett.
I’d planned to sit down with him at the penthouse when he got home. At first, I thought I could wait it out, put it off one more day, but after what happened with Charlie yesterday, I just couldn’t.
He’d met me outside a different coffee shop, this time dressed in a button-down and shorts that made him look like a tourist.
I handed him the flash drive as quickly as I could, holding it in my fingertips so I wouldn’t have to touch his skin.
He leered at me. “You’re an excellent mole, Angelica. I’m pleased with your work.
This isn’t work, it’s extortion. Not that I could say that to him.
Instead, I took a deep breath. “Do you have what you need?”
He cocked his head at me, his gray eyes boring into mine. “Was I not clear before? This assignment is ongoing.”
My jaw clenched so hard that my molars ground together. “I’m running out of reasons to stay at his penthouse.”
Charlie laughed, the sound making the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not—”
“Jett Brandon has been taking you all over the city. He’s had several weeks’ worth of clothes delivered to his nice little penthouse. Are you telling me he’s not in love with you?”
I swallowed hard. “He’s not in love with me. He’s just extremely wealthy. You should know that.”
Charlie shook his head, slowly, like he couldn’t believe my own stupidity. “You did your job too well, sweetheart. The man can’t get enough of you.” Then he laughs again. “It’s only too bad you’re fleecing him.”
“You are. Not me.”
“Don’t kid yourself. If it weren’t for your information deposits—,” he says, waving the flash drive in front of my face, “—I’d be months behind on this latest...project. Months, and millions.”
The blood drained from my face. Millions of dollars? Well, what the fuck should I have expected, that Charlie would go after a billionaire for pocket change?
“If you’re millions ahead, then I think you could consider Adam’s debt paid.”
He gave a slow nod, and for a split second I thought maybe he would agree with me, that he might call it off. “It’s true—I’ve recovered the....investment I made in Adam.” His smile is wide but cruel, no kindness in his eyes. “But you are proving to be far more lucrative.”