What You Need(83)

Not exactly, but the end result was the same.

“I’m all for you having a life outside of work, but this is inexcusable. You are supposed to separate work and pleasure, not bring pleasure into your damn work space. The office is not a place to fool around—it makes a fool of you. And now it’s made a fool of me.”

I resisted asking him whether he followed the no-fooling-around rule with his admin, since rumor was that she had excellent dictation skills. But this wasn’t about him messing up; it was about me allowing myself to be distracted by Lennox and screwing up at work. “I know. It won’t happen again.”

Ash scowled. “See that it doesn’t. I assume since you hadn’t finished scanning everything that you didn’t download any of it to the server?”

“No.” What the hell had I been thinking? I’d just walked straight out of my office with Lennox that night after we’d had sex on my desk, in my bed and in my shower without any thought to my responsibilities?

“Then you’d better call your admin and have her download the data on the thumb drive to our secure server so you can at least access that.”

Oh, this just kept getting better and better. “Jenna is on leave this week and next week, since I planned to be out of the office.”

“Of course she is. And I suppose next you’ll tell me why Jenna’s secretary can’t download the drive from there? Is she on vacation too?”

“No, but the thumb drive is locked up in my desk drawer and Jenna and I are the only ones with the key.” A lie to save face. I’d left everything strewn across my office like a damn yard sale. That’s how I dealt with sensitive financial information when I was getting laid? I just let it lie about? What the hell had happened to my brain? If this was what it meant to get a life, then I’d pass. I couldn’t stand to lose part of myself that was worth something.

But it’s not the only thing about you that’s worth something, remember?

Ash picked up the phone to talk to the limo driver. “Change of plans. Take us to Midway.” He paused. “No, I’ll be going back to the hotel alone.” Ash pointed at me after he hung up. “It’s a damn good thing the LI plane was already here to take us back to the Cities.”

My stomach churned and I thought I might be sick. “You’re sending me home?”

“Just to get what you need for your portion of the presentation tomorrow. And I don’t give a damn if you’re up all freakin’ night getting it done. You will be back on the top of your game tomorrow, Brady, if I have to pump your body full of caffeine and prop you up on the conference chair myself. Got it?”

“Yes.”

*

I’d had a plan in place by the time the plane landed at the Minneapolis airport. The flight crew stuck around and filed a return flight plan while I hopped in a cab and headed to the office.

Now that I’d been given a second chance, I would comb through every bit of data and have the most complete findings in the history of the world to make up for my epic fuckup.

I hustled across the lobby, my mind on other things, when I heard my name. Any other time I’d be thrilled to run into Lennox since it happened so rarely, so of course we crossed paths the one time I didn’t need to see her.

Her enormous grin spread across her beautiful face, her joy at seeing me evident. “Hey. I didn’t think you were getting back until later tonight.”

I glanced at the ornate clock in the lobby. It was just after six p.m. Good. That gave me plenty of time to get my shit together.

“Brady?”

“Look, I don’t have much time. The cab is waiting for me.”

She frowned. “Cab? I can give you a ride home.”

“That’s the thing. I’m not going home. I have to go back to Chicago.”

“Tonight? Why?”

“Because I left all my presentation materials here. In my office. I just discovered it this morning and we had to postpone the meeting until tomorrow.”

Her eyes were clouded with confusion. “How’d that happen?”

So maybe I acted harsher than I needed to, to get my point across. “Tuesday night? In my office? When I shoved everything off my desk so I could fuck you over it? Then we fucked in my shower and in my dressing room? And then I walked you out and locked the door behind me, forgetting about all the materials I had to take with me to Chicago the next damn day? Because I was too sex-addled to function like a CFO?”

Lennox gaped at me. “You’re blaming me?”

“Yes.” I blew out a breath. “That’s not—”

“My goddamned fault, Mr. Lund, that you’re so disorganized that you can’t function like a CFO when you don’t have Jenna or Patrice packing your briefcase for a business trip!”