Page 28 of The Bastard (Filthy Trilogy 1)

We disconnect and I pull up my email to find an email from Isaac titled “Union” that I skip right on past when I see one from [email protected] I hit the email and read: My new email. Just to make my presence official.

My brows furrow at the “B” that most certainly stands for “Bastard” and I type: Did you choose that email address? And then hit send.

His reply is instant: I never let anyone else make my decisions. You shouldn’t either.

I ignore his obvious reference to my reasons for staying with Kingston for six years and type: Did you really make it Eric B, for bastard?

He replies with: There’s another Eric in accounting. I didn’t want anyone to get confused. Here’s my phone number. Use it. Often. 212-415-2333.

I grab my phone and check the number to the one I got from his business card, and it matches. I send him a text: Now you have my number.

He replies with: I already had it, princess.

I stare at that message, not sure if we’re talking about phone numbers or that conversation downstairs about me fucking him to get him here. I suddenly don’t know if I should be angry or not thus I have no idea how to reply. Yes, I do. I type: And I already had your number as well, BASTARD. I stare at the message and erase the BASTARD. I replace it with ERIC. He doesn’t get to hide behind the bastard persona with me. He gets to own every asshole moment.

I pull up my email and click on the entry from Isaac to read: Make the union happy. The last thing we need in the press right now is a union scandal.

He says nothing more. He doesn’t even sign the damn thing. I grimace and download the union files. The list of issues they want to negotiate stretches well beyond a bathroom and I have a gut feeling this is about keeping me busy. That was his plan before Eric got here. Get me so entrenched in union hell that I didn’t have time to look at him and his handling of the company. He played that card too late. Eric’s here and one thing I’m certain of, he’s not leaving until “this” whatever this is, is over.

I move to my conference table and set up my MacBook, and settle into reading the union data. Two hours later, I have pages of notes on a legal pad, with nothing in here that our labor relations manager couldn’t handle. There is nothing that would become a problem for the company and yet me blowing it would certainly be a reason to dispose of me from the company. Is that what this is? A set-up to get me out? It’s such a paranoid, insane idea that I toss my pen down and stand up. I need food and out of this office.

I head to the break room for a cup of coffee. That and a power bar will have to be my lunch. I’ve just finished doctoring my cup to perfection when Isaac appears in the doorway, hitching a shoulder on the doorframe. “He’s not family.”

“He’s more family than I am. He’s blood, whether you like it or not.” I march toward him, trying to force him to move. He doesn’t. “I need to get back to work.”

“You brought him here to take what you want. He’s going to take what he wants. Those two things won’t connect.”

“You assume you know what I want,” I say. “Because you assume everyone wants in the same ways you do.”

“You assume you know what Eric wants.”

“No, I don’t,” I say. “I asked him.” I leave out the part where what he wants is to destroy this place.

“And he said what?”

“I’m not going to pretend to have any right to speak for Eric. Ask him yourself. Now. I have a meeting with Jim to prepare for, and for the record, I know you know that man is all hands and this is torture for me. Now you have the satisfaction of confirmation, but if you think I’m going to screw this up because Jim is pawing at me and give you a chance to push me out, you’re wrong.”

He studies me for several beats. “Perhaps you should treat me the way you treat our bastard brother, and ask me what I want, rather than assuming.”

“What do you want, Isaac?”

“Just what’s mine and now you’ve made me have to fight for it, and if it gets bloody, that’s on you. It didn’t have to be that way. It wasn’t that way.”

The words cut and accuse and I don’t know what to do with them or what to feel. He steps out of the break room and pauses a moment, glaring to his right before he turns and disappears left. I know even before I enter the hallway that Eric’s standing there.

I suck in a breath, preparing for the impact of his presence, and then he’s replaced Isaac in the doorway, big and broad, with all that ink and muscle everywhere but next to me. I want him next to me again, and it doesn’t seem to matter what he might think of me if that happens. His eyes, those crystal perfect eyes, meet mine—no they crash into mine, and seem to grab hold of me, deep inside and hold on.

“This isn’t on you,” he says, stepping closer, lowering his head near mine. “He’s responsible for every decision that drove you to me.” He pulls back to look at me. “And later tonight, ask me what I want again.” With that, he turns away and exits the kitchen.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Harper

At four-thirty, I pack up my briefcase and contemplate calling Eric, or at least texting him, to tell him I’m leaving. He declared himself my new boss and on that, there is no argument to be had. The silence since that claim, however, is disconcerting, and I’m feeling generally confused about what he and I are doing. I head for the lobby, let the receptionist know that I’m leaving, and exit the building into the chill of a November day. Quick stepping as I dig my keys from my purse, and click the lock on my Kingston vehicle and wonder what it would be like to have the freedom to drive something else. I try to remember my early years here when I was all about the brand.

I’m about to cut between cars to my door when a car pulls up next to me, and I hear, “Get in.”

At the sound of Eric’s voice, I turn to find the passenger window down on a black F-TYPE Jaguar and him inside it, causing my heart to flutter. When has any man but this one ever made me react in such a way? I force a tiny breath, which is remarkably hard to draw in, and walk to the open window where I lean in and find those blue, blue eyes of his fixed on me.