The Wright Boss(68)

"And get to work," he agreed.

"But there's a bed."

His hands slipped down to my ass as he toed the door closed. "And this ass. Fuck."

Needless to say, we were both late to work.



I beat him to the office because he still had to go home and change after dropping me off at my car. But I made a mad dash as soon as I hit the building. My heels were not cooperating with me either, and for the first time in a while, I wished that I'd chosen flats. Even though the heels made me feel empowered.

I was feeling pretty empowered regardless of my shoe choice today.

Julia was waiting at my desk when I arrived. She was impatiently tapping her black flats as Matt tried to engage her in conversation. Julia had a total don't-fuck-with-me vibe that Matt had to either be too stupid or too self-absorbed to realize. I was starting to suspect both.

"There you are!" Julia cried, jumping up from my seat.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Car trouble."

"Landon must have had the same kind of car trouble," Matt muttered under his breath.

"What?" I asked, hoping I sounded confused. Even though my heart was thwacking away inside my chest like a bird in a cage.

"Landon isn't in yet," Julia informed me.

"Really? Weird. Did he really have car trouble?" I asked. 

Matt eyed me suspiciously, as if not buying what I was saying. "We don't know. He's just not here."

I shrugged. "Doesn't he have physical therapy or something?"

"For what?" Matt asked.

"Golf injury."

"How do you know so much about Landon anyway?"

"Well … we've been friends since high school. He dated my best friend."

"Huh," Matt said. His eyebrows scrunched together, as if he were contemplating something really hard.

I hoped he was thinking that the line I'd fed him was the truth.

Sure, Landon and I were friends. Yep.

"I didn't realize that," Matt said finally.

"Anyway," Julia said, "we're not here to talk about Landon. I'm here to schedule your interview."

"My interview for the lead engineer spot?" I gasped, bouncing on the balls of my feet.

"Yes. That's right."

"Congrats, Heidi," Matt said. "I scheduled mine yesterday."

I nearly turned and glared at Matt. Way to steal my thunder, dude.

"Oh my God, yes. Let's do this."

Julia nodded toward her office, and I followed her inside.

She shut the door and whirled on me. "Please tell me that you and Landon are not both late because you were together."

"We're not both late because we were together," I told her.

"It looks bad, Heidi."

"I know," I admitted.

"That creep Matt is picking up on things, and I don't want him to put the pieces together about you two. I thought you were going to be smart about this. Showing up late, missing work at the same time, hanging out in his office, going to lunch together? Heidi, come on."

I bit my lip. I knew she was right. I knew that we were being reckless. We definitely needed to be more careful if even dummy Matt was starting to see through things.

"I got it. I got it," I said.

Julia leaned forward, her hair swishing in front of her face. "You are a serious contender for this promotion, Heidi. I shouldn't even freaking tell you this, but you are."

I beamed at her, but I understood the underlying sentiment. I wouldn't get the job if someone found out about me and Landon. I'd get fired. "I got it, Julia."

"Good. Now that that's over, let's pen you in for Thursday morning at nine o'clock with Dennis."

"Sounds good."

"Now, what are you doing on Saturday? Because I could desperately use some shopping for the Wright Charity Benefit."

I opened my mouth and then closed it.

Julia had only been working for Wright Construction for about a year. We had become friends almost immediately, but she knew very little about my past. She definitely didn't know that Saturday was the anniversary of the day my dad had been thrown into prison.

"Uh … Saturday isn't good. How about Sunday?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Trevor is dragging me to church with him and his entire family."

"Oh, you're meeting the family?"

"Yeah. Should be interesting. Unfortunately, they go to the same church as the Wrights."

"That means … Austin will be there?" I guessed.

"Yeah. Dick."

I laughed. "Okay. Not Sunday. We'll figure it out. Still plenty of time before the Benefit."

"True. Just let me know if you change your mind about Saturday. I could use some time with my girls!"

I nodded even though I had no intention of doing so, and I waved bye to Julia.