Unable to form a coherent sentence in response, she simply nodded.
And with that, he pressed his lips to hers. They were soft. Tender. She felt a surge of warmth from him as his arm went around the back of her neck to pull her closer.
There was a certainty, a control to it, and yet a deep unbinding passion as he took them both deeper. His tongue sought hers, and she tasted the earthy flavor of the whiskey he’d drunk.
Connor pulled back for a moment and placed his forehead on hers. “As I said, you most definitely weren’t what I expected.” The look of longing in his eyes reassured her he’d meant it as a compliment.
He released her, and Emerson couldn’t help but smile. It was all she seemed to be able to do around him. She knew it was the first flush of something new, something that seemed to have some potential and momentum to propel them forward. And she was reassured that Connor felt the same.
She’d tried online dating, but she wasn’t a big fan of getting skeevy messages at two in the morning asking in all kinds of creative ways if she was available for sex. And so what if she occasionally had been?
But this…
This was the start of something.
And unless she was completely misreading the signals, Connor felt the same.
As the hours of the evening slipped by, they discussed their lives in Denver, their friends, their hobbies. And Emerson ordered dessert…to share.
She eyed Connor carefully. “It’s not going to kill you,” she said, grinning at his indecision.
He sat with his arms folded and stared at her. Granted, those eyes were hooded and telling her he was well aware she was teasing him.
“Not even a little taste?” she said innocently.
“Emerson,” he growled.
“Yes, Connor?” She took one of the two spoons, scooped a small bite of the delicious dessert involving chocolate and salted caramel, and slowly put it in her mouth, groaning as the sweetness hit her tongue. Then she opened her eyes and laughed. “It’s only chocolate.”
She scooped another spoonful of dessert, but his hand gripped her wrist on the way to her mouth. “With you, I don’t think anything is only chocolate.” He steered the spoon to his own mouth and ate it. “And see, I can do dessert.”
Emerson laughed and took another scoop for herself while Connor released her wrist and reached for the other spoon. “There aren’t many people I’d break my habits for, but I feel you might be one of them, Emerson.”
His softly spoken words warmed her heart.
“I want to see you again,” Connor said as he walked her to her car. “Soon. If you’d like to.”
Emerson pointed to her car pulled up along the sidewalk before grabbing the keys out of her purse. “I had fun with you tonight, Connor. And I don’t see the point in playing games. So, yes, I’d love to see you again.”
Connor wrapped his arms around her waist, and as she’d hoped, he kissed her. This time the kiss went deeper, his tongue brushed against hers, the sweet taste of chocolate and Connor filled her taste buds.
Her body ran flush against his, her nipples straining against the lace of her bra as Connor held her.
A younger Emerson would be shy about kissing a man on a street corner in Downtown Denver, but the world went on around them as she slid her hands inside his jacket. Jesus on a freaking bicycle, his body was firm to the touch. She was right about the macro counting and felt the tiniest bit of remorse for tempting him to eat dessert. And while her body had none of the firmness that his did, Connor seemed to appreciate her just the way she was.
“Damn, Dyer,” Connor said with a grin as he pulled away from her. “You drive a hard bargain. Kiss me like that and I’ll go on a date with you every night of the week and twice on Sundays.”
He pulled her car door open and waited as she climbed inside before shutting her in. Emerson started the car and lowered the window.
“Sunday, any day next week. I don’t want to wait for next weekend,” Connor said.
“I’d like that,” she said.
“Message me when you get home, and drive safe,” he said, tapping the roof of her car.
The gravel of the driveway crunched as she pulled up in front of her home twenty minutes later. She stepped out of the car and took a deep breath of fresh air. She loved the vibrancy of the city. The noise and hustle and bustle. But she preferred it here, where she had room to breathe, wide-open spaces to hike, and a less polluted sky.
Quietly, she let herself into the house and dropped her keys and purse on the bench. She pulled out her phone and pondered what to say as she walked to her bedroom.
It was too late to come up with something super inspiring…something flirtatious. Instead, she stuck with simple and straight forward.
Dear Connor. Thanks for a wonderful evening. I really enjoyed your company. Have a great weekend.
She completed her bedtime routine as quickly as she could and climbed into bed, fresh-faced and thoroughly moisturized. There was a message on her phone.
Me too. I’m going to fall asleep to the thoughts of your hands on my body again and mine on yours, even if that doesn’t happen for a while. Sleep tight.
How on earth did he expect her to sleep tight with thoughts of what his hands would feel like racing through her mind?
Chapter Four
Connor placed his father’s sixtieth birthday gift on the table just inside the doors of the opulent hotel ballroom they’d booked for the celebration. It was momentous. Not just because of his father’s milestone, but because it marked the start of his father’s handover of the business to him. In eighty days, on the first day in January, the business would be officially his.
The gold theme was ostentatious. Gold cloths, gold balloons, and more white flowers than the state was capable of growing.
While he knew his father would expect him to join his table, he couldn’t face an afternoon of work talk with his father and constant opposition from his uncle just yet. He needed some space from their opinions and his uncle’s overinflated sense of self-importance. On a table to the left of the stage, he found his mother, Alyssa, and stepdad, Derek. Derek wore a short-sleeved shirt and a black tie, the mechanic’s token gesture to the black-tie dress code.
Connor opened the button on his favorite black custom Tom Ford suit jacket.
“Connor.” His mother’s face lit up when she saw him. “Come, come.” She pulled out the empty chair next to her. “Derek will get you a drink.”
“Beer?” asked Derek.
“G and T, please. Dyer’s Medallion if they have it,” Connor replied.
His mother raised an eyebrow. “Living dangerously?” She looked around for her ex-husband to ensure he couldn’t overhear. “Your dad would give birth to a cow right now if he found out you were drinking the enemy.”
Connor grinned, wondering what his father would say if he knew Connor’s thoughts were more in line with sleeping with the enemy. He’d likely have a heart attack if he found out that Connor had jerked off in the shower before coming here. Overwhelmed with memories of Emerson’s lips on his and the way their bodies had fit together, it hadn’t taken long. “I was persuaded to try it and really liked it. Plus, Dad is pissing me off.”
“What did he do now?”
Connor shook his head. It wasn’t worth getting into. “He’s clinging on to the business until the bitter end.”
Alyssa placed her hand on his arm. “It’s just a few more months, sweetheart. What’s that after all these years?”
Derek placed the gin next to his elbow. “There you go, kid.”
The use of the familiar term touched Connor more than anything his real father ever did. The majority of his childhood had been spent in Derek’s split-level. Despite his father’s wealth, he’d never paid Connor’s mother a nickel more than he was legally obligated to. While she’d looked after Connor and tried to build a home while his father forged his business, there had been little profit to go around by the time of their divorce.
It had taken time for Finch Liquor Distribution to take off and become the success it now was.
Only after Donovan’s profile increased, only after people asked about the son he had, did his father realize he wanted Connor to follow in his footsteps, to keep the business in the family like the Bacardi family had. Connor kept that in mind every time he renegotiated his salary with his father.
The dinner came and went. Connor hid a smile when brownies and ice cream arrived for dessert. Sure, they were some high-end brownies with sea salt from the ends of the earth and vanilla bean-infused ice cream in perfectly as of yet unmelted spheres, but they were still brownies and soon-to-be melty ice cream. He wondered what Emerson Dyer would have to say about it. He refused the plate, thinking of the way her eyes had fluttered closed as she’d eaten the chocolate dessert.
Shortly after the last plate was cleared, his Uncle Cameron clinked the edge of his glass to get everyone’s attention as his father stepped up on the stage.
Donovan tapped the microphone. “Is this thing on? Can you hear me in the back?”
A few whistles and cheers went up around the room.
“Great,” his father said. “First, I want to thank you all for coming out. You know, the funny thing about turning sixty is that you still feel like a twenty-two-year-old trapped in an old man’s body.”
The audience laughed, a few people nodded in agreement. “Does it ever,” murmured his mom.
“You don’t look a day over forty,” Connor whispered, making her laugh.
His father went on, sharing humorous anecdotes with the occasional name drop. “So you see,” his father concluded, “I thought I knew where I’d be at sixty. I had a plan that I’d sail off into a life of boats and sunsets. I had Connor, the son you all know I respect, ready to take the helm of Finch Liquor Distribution. But now that I’m here, it’s not what I want.”
It’s not what I want.
Connor’s heart skipped a beat. It skipped another when his father looked right at him.
“I’ve spoken with my brother and have come to a decision. I’m not ready for a life of retirement.”
The words ripped right through Connor. He couldn’t be about to say what Connor was imagining. His father couldn’t have made him commit the last eight years to the family business with the promise of the head job only to rip it away.
“In discussion with Cameron, I’ve decided that I’m going to remain the CEO of Finch Liquor Distribution for the next five years.”
The cheers and clapping echoed the roar between Connor’s ears. He looked over to his uncle’s table where Cameron, who was staring right back at him, raised his glass and nodded. The movement was barely noticeable. But the grin was.
Cameron knew his days were numbered under Connor’s leadership. And by encouraging Donovan to stay on for another five years, he had secured his own future.
A hand held his arm down firmly on the table. “Smile,” his mother encouraged. “Fake it. Pretend it doesn’t bother you,” she said through her own hard smile. “Get through the next ten minutes.”
Connor did as she suggested. He plastered a smile on his face and raised his glass in a toast to his father. The asshole who had told him the company was his.
He watched as his father stepped down from the stage and circled the room. Silently, Connor fumed as he ran through scenarios of what to say to his father when he finally made it to their table. What he should say was that his father and uncle could go fuck themselves, but the fragment of his measured self that was left knew there was nothing to be gained beyond an immediate release of anger.
A part of Connor wanted to simply grab his jacket from the back of his chair and storm out of the room. He didn’t give a fuck who saw it.
But the business would still be his someday. Perhaps he could change his father’s mind, shorten it to two years. Part-time. A partial handover of responsibility. Perhaps he could find a way to convince his father to fire Cameron, find an approach he hadn’t tried.
No matter how badly he wanted to walk out of there, he’d stay and pretend he was fine. To help with the illusion, he knocked back two doubles in quick succession. Slowly, he managed to get his feet back under him.
By his strategic estimates, the business would decline by at least twenty percent if his father didn’t change his path by the time Connor took control in five years.
There would, God willing, still be the assets he needed to rebuild the business. The next five years would be about protecting the assets they had and preventing his father from making any large acquisitions that were out of line with his plans.
It would be a battle of wills. A silent fucking war. He was smarter than the two of them. While his father had relied on strong gut instinct, one that had been pretty damn accurate, he was growing out of touch. He relied on insight from Connor. From now on, Connor would shape that intel to meet his own aspirations, and if that didn’t work, he’d consider leaving. He could make huge progress elsewhere in five years. He wasn’t prepared to let his uncle and father stall his career.
If they wanted to fuck around with his future, he’d fuck with theirs.
By the time his father reached Connor’s table, his shield was up, his brain clear, and his plan formulated.
“Connor, son,” his father said, his words ever so slightly slurred. “You know how important you are to me, to the business. I’m sure this is a bit of a shock, but I’m sure you can see it’s for the best.”
Connor looked around before he stood up to shake his father’s hand. He pulled him close for the appearance of a son congratulating his father. “This is not the time or place for this discussion,” he whispered through clenched teeth, while slapping his father soundly on the back. “In fact, this is unprofessional as fuck. And we both know it was Cameron’s decision to spring this announcement here without consulting me first.”
“He had a point. You had a vested interest in the outcome.”
“And so did he. He knew I’d fire him, and he didn’t want that to happen. Arguably, he is more vested than I am.” Connor whispered, before stepping back and forcing himself to smile. “I’m sure there is still plenty we can learn from each other,” he said loudly for those waiting to see his response. He wouldn’t give them, or Cameron, the satisfaction of being anything other than professional.
His father’s eyes betrayed his ebullient posture. There was a hint of something akin to remorse. He couldn’t pin it down. Was it recognition that he had handled it wrong? Was it the realization that Cameron had played them both? Or was it fear that he’d entered a five-year battle with his son?
One thing was for sure, Connor’s place was only as secure as his father’s desire for his son to take over the family business. But the battle lines were drawn.
Now was the time to get closer to his father than ever. To prevent Cameron from driving an unrecoverable wedge between the two of them.
Which meant that for now, his father was going to hear a lot more from his son.
After their morning workout, Emerson and Ali had grabbed smoothies from the juice bar. Emerson had sipped hers while Ali gave her own version of a pep talk involving several cuss words and a hokey slap on the ass. But it had worked. She had arrived at the distillery ready to tackle the things she really didn’t want to.
The bookkeeper had called to remind her that all the paperwork and receipts were due to him by the end of tomorrow, before he took off on a two-week vacation to hike to Machu Picchu. She’d gathered all the bank statements, unopened letters, and everything else ready to drop off on her way to work the next day.
Now there was just one thing left to do. Deal with the insurance company. It was six days since she’d realized they hadn’t been notified of the change of owner. Six days where she’d ruminated tackling it while she’d simultaneously berated herself for not doing it. Before she could talk herself out of it, she dialed the number.
At first, she was passed from pillar to post, explaining her reason for calling
only to be told she was speaking to the wrong department. Finally, exasperation overwhelmed her.
“As I just told your colleague Jennifer, I simply need to change the contact details on the insurance policy,” Emerson said, her patience stretched tighter than the vapors in the heads of the gin. She rested her forehead in her hand and shook her head.
Yet again, she’d been hit with a wall of bureaucracy. Official papers needed to be filed to show that the person named as the representative of the company had changed. “All I need to do is change one name…from Paul Dyer to Emerson Dyer. Same last name. I’m his daughter and have taken over the company.”
She listened as Andrew, the person on the end of the line, rattled off scripted lines about protection of private information, which she knew well and understood. What she needed was instructions on how to prove she was who she said she was, so she could get on with negotiating the claim soon.
“Look, please just tell me what documentation you need, and where I need to send it,” she said, cutting Andrew off. When she had what she needed, she thanked them curtly and hung up.
“Problems?” Jake asked, walking into her office, holding two cups. He handed one to her, and she took a sip of the scalding hot tea, wincing as it hit her tongue.
“The frigging insurance company was giving me the run around. All I want to know is when we can expect the check for the hall. I’m not asking them for the serial number of the dollar bills they’ll pay it with.”
Jake scoffed. “You know it’ll just be a bank transfer, right? You’re a CEO, not a stripper.”
“Funny. And so typical men think a dollar is a good enough tip for titillation. If I ever ran a strip club, there’d be a ten-dollar minimum tip. Holy fudge nuggets. I had no idea Dad had to deal with all this stuff.”
She blew on her cup of tea to cool it a little before taking another sip.
Love in Numbers: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Love Distilled Book 1) Page 7
