What You Need(16)
I opened my mouth.
Nolan shook his head. “You don’t get to know where we’re going. You don’t get to know what we’re doing. And you will spend time with Andres, my personal shopper this week so it doesn’t look like we’re taking a homeless guy out on the town.”
I tempered my The fuck I look like a homeless guy response to “Fine” after I caught sight of my reflection in the glass. Hell, I did look like a bum. Had I even combed my hair? I hadn’t shaved and I still wore the sweat-soaked shorts and ratty running shoes I’d put on first thing this morning.
“Whoa. No arguments? No conditions?”
I saw my mother watching us very closely. Dammit, I was an adult and didn’t need Mommy meddling in my life. I’d pretend to go along with this “Brady needs a life intervention” thing while I followed my own agenda—not that I had an agenda; I just knew whatever I did would be the polar opposite of what she wanted. The smile I offered her had her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“Brady?” Nolan prompted.
I faced my cousin and sighed. “Would you listen even if I demanded conditions?”
“Nope.” Nolan grinned again. “This is gonna be so much fun.”
Chapter Four
Lennox
‡
Monday mornings were the worst. Everyone needed something right away. Everything was crucial. As much as I wanted advancement in this company, I planned to work toward something more than what my boss Lola did—coordinating schedules.
I spent the morning entering new templates for inner-office memos, which I considered ridiculous busywork. But Personnel wanted each department to have a uniquely colored memo so they could tell at a glance which department the correspondence was coming from. Just an easier way for Anita—aka Attila—to avoid those e-mails she didn’t want to deal with.
I’d brought my lunch and ate with my coworker Sydney in the break room. She’d had a date this weekend with a guy she’d connected with through an online dating service. So I had to hear all the pros and cons about whether she should agree to a second date. What she told me about the man didn’t trip any warning bells, but I knew the guy wouldn’t trip my trigger either.
“Lennox, you should totally join the service,” Sydney said for the hundredth time. “I bet you’d have hundreds of guys signing up to take you out.”
“Syd, I’m happy that this is working out for you, but I’m just not the type to let a computer pick a match for me.”
“That’s what it does. It finds your type. It really works!”
“So I’ve heard, but I still have a problem meeting a guy who could’ve totally lied about who he is, just to get a hookup.”
“You make it sound like an escort service.”
I wiped my mouth. “No, with an escort service you know exactly what you’ve paid for going into it. With online dating? Not so much.”
“You are impossible,” Sydney complained.
“Wrong. I’m practical.”
“So very glad to hear that, Lennox.”
Thankfully, all I did was gasp with surprise at Brady Lund’s interruption. But he had scared me enough that I threw my bag of chips all over the table. My face flamed.
“Didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Yes, you did. “Then maybe you shouldn’t sneak up behind people.” Crap. Had I really said that to him? What was wrong with me? Why was I always as prickly as a cactus around him?
He chuckled.
I looked up at him. Mistake. Few men wore a suit as well as Mr. Perfect. My thoughts rolled back to how he’d dressed for his date on Saturday night. If I were dating him, I wouldn’t want him in casual attire. I’d want the hot-looking suit-and-tie-wearing guy.
When he continued to stare at me, I said, “Was there something you needed, Mr. Lund?”
“Yes. You’ll be assisting my admin today in the conference room since her secretary is out sick.” He held up his hand before I opened my mouth. “I know protocol, Lennox. I cleared this with your supervisor.”
“And Lola sent the CFO of Lund Industries as the errand boy to tell me?” Dammit, mouth, do not engage before brain.
“No. I came in here to get my lunch.”
Now I really felt like an idiot. A sassy idiot. This was a large employee break room; it served the whole building—the entire company. Sometimes we even had catered lunches in here. But in the last year I’d never seen the CFO step foot in here, let alone admit that he brown-bagged it once in a while.
“I’m sorry. I just assumed—”
“That I don’t eat lunch?” He flashed his teeth in a predatory smile. “Or that I prefer raw meat tossed in my office rather than swimming around looking for chum?”