“Shit,” I whispered in the still-freezing air.
I hurried back to my house, took a much-needed shower, and then changed into a crisp black Tom Ford suit that I’d had custom-made at Malouf’s in town. It was like the Nordstrom of Lubbock. Family-owned, the store provided and tailored designer and custom-fit clothes by appointment only. I had a standing appointment. I looked like a million bucks. I should feel like a million bucks after last night. Instead, I felt like something had gone horribly wrong when it should have been much simpler.
An hour later, I tramped into my office and was ready for lunch since I’d foregone breakfast in my haste to get into work. Margaret was hot on my heels when I entered Wright Construction.
“Good morning, Mr. Wright,” she said, shuffling along with a notebook, iPad, and a pad of sticky notes. “Mr. McCoy called this morning, said it was urgent about the merger, sir. You also had a call from Vanessa. Well, two calls, but I let one go to voice mail. Nick Brown left a message about canceling his appointment because he’s going out of town. Alex Langley called out sick. Personally, it sounded like he was out late and hungover. Elizabeth Copeland had an important update on the Lakeridge complex, sir. Sounded rather urgent as well.”
“Margaret,” I said with a sigh as I reached the door to my office.
“Yes, sir?” She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this early in the morning.
“I feel a bit under the weather. Cancel all of my appointments for the day and let Mr. McCoy know that I’ll handle the merger in the morning.”
“But, sir—” she said again.
“Margaret, let me run my company.”
“Of course,” she said in a daze, handing me the iPad with my daily notes on it. “Also, Morgan is waiting in your office.”
I sighed heavily. “Thank you, Margaret. That will be all.”
When I entered my office, Morgan was sitting on the top of my desk, fiddling with the Newton’s Cradle kinetic pendulum that swished back and forth. Her dark eyes met mine across the room. “Late night?” she asked with a sardonic tone.
“Indeed.”
I set the iPad down on my desk and flipped through the list of things for the day. Margaret would cancel all the extraneous items, but I had a lot to catch up on.
“What’s with the late start, bro?” She hopped off the desk, landing on her sky-high heels, and grinned down at me.
“I slept in.”
Morgan’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Yeah, right! You don’t sleep. You’re a vampire.”
I shrugged. I had no response to that because, up until last night, that had been true. “Don’t know what to tell you.”
“How about who you were fucking when you slept in this morning?” she asked with a mischievous light in her eyes.
I stared back at her with a blank expression on my face and then nodded at the iPad.
“Wait…do I even want to know?”
“Probably not,” I told her.
That was a lie. Morgan would love the juicy details. She adored gossip. She read all those trash magazines just to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
“Okay, whatever. Landon called this morning,” she said.
My head snapped back up to her. “What for?”
She tilted her head. “Miranda, of course. Why? Why do you look so scared?”
I painted my face back into a mask of indifference. “What did Miranda do now?”
“She wants to keep him in Tampa for Christmas,” Morgan said with a wave of her hand.
“He’s not considering it, is he?” I asked.
She sighed. “I guess he is.”
I grabbed my office phone off the desk. “I’ll call him right now and set him straight. He can’t stay there because of Miranda. It’s Christmas, for Christ’s sake.”
“I know, Jensen. Miranda has it in her head that Emery Robinson is here to win Landon back,” Morgan said with a roll of her eyes.
“That seems very unlikely,” I said. I made sure to keep the edge out of my voice. “She’s leaving in a few days.”
“What?” Morgan asked. “No, she’s not. Landon said she was staying here for a while.”
“He…what?” I asked, my mouth going dry.
“He tried to tell Miranda that she’d be leaving soon to get her off his case. But she didn’t believe him, and it turned out, she had a reason. Emery told Landon at Sutton’s wedding that she was staying here indefinitely. But I mean…I don’t know why Emery is back in town, but it sure isn’t for Landon. He doesn’t even live here. Miranda is out of her mind.”
I was completely silent. My head was spinning. Landon had said that Emery was leaving only to appease Miranda. I’d never brought it up with Emery because I thought I already had all my cards in order. She was supposed to be leaving in a few days to head back to Austin. She was supposed to be finishing her PhD. She was not supposed to stay in town after we fucked all night.