“This will work,” he heard Taylor say. “We will start with the factories. The whole staff area needs to be redone, and then we can start on the materials. All the reviews point to poor craftsmanship, and that is starting with our people. Make them happy.”
Derrick smiled and strolled into the room. The man Taylor was talking to was writing furiously and noticed nothing, and Taylor was too engrossed in pictures and charts to notice his presence. So he cleared his throat.
Taylor looked up and smiled hugely at him. “Hi!” she said, and her eyes were alive with excitement. She was the Taylor who got the two of them in trouble. She was enjoying herself, and she was in her element.
Derrick walked over to her, smiling back, and looped his arm around her waist, pulling her in for a quick kiss, which she took with eyes closed.
“I’m here to take my girl to lunch,” he said. “Because I am certain you haven’t eaten all day.”
“You’re right. I am totally starved!” she said, sounding surprised, pressing a hand to her stomach as she realized she was hungry. “Well, Steve was the last meeting I had today, and I think we have made great progress. Right, Steve?”
“Yes, Ms. Preston, I think we will see vast improvement with these changes alone, and I am excited to move forward,” he said, gathering together his folders. “And, by the way, Ms. Preston,” he said, pushing one folder toward Taylor, “I won’t need twenty-four hours—you can have this back. I am happy to be part of a team that will obviously be accomplishing such great things.”
Taylor smiled genuinely. The severance package presentation had been her idea, and Derrick’s father wasn’t a huge fan. But she had stood strong on her idea; Derrick was glad it was working out. “Thank you, Steve, I am happy to work with you,” Taylor said, shaking his hand.
“And congratulations to you two also,” he said as he left the room.
Taylor looked at Derrick, confused, and Derrick pulled up her hand and tapped the diamond ring. “Marty,” was all he said, and Taylor laughed, sounding very carefree.
“Come on, I will take you to lunch,” Derrick said, and Henry immediately followed her, coming out from a corner in the room Derrick hadn’t even seen him hiding in.
“I will have the limo brought around in the garage,” he said.
Derrick turned to argue but then recalled all the paparazzi he’d had to fight through to get in and realized that taking Taylor out would not be as easy as he had hoped. “Fine,” he said shortly.
The whispers among the office floor were crazy as Derrick and Taylor made their way out, but Taylor seemed not to notice at all. Once inside the limo, Derrick was pleased that Henry let them be alone.
He slid in beside Taylor and turned to her. “So how was—”
Derrick did not get to finish asking Taylor anything before she went wild.
“Oh my God, Derrick, it was awesome! I was totally in the zone, and I got so much accomplished, and I wasn’t scared or afraid or anything.”
By this point Taylor had ditched her shoes onto the floor, and she was on her knees on the limo seat, bouncing up and down with her hands clasped together in excitement.
“I told you that you could do it, Taylor. I didn’t doubt for a second.”
They pulled up to the front of a restaurant, and Taylor looked very surprised. “We are here already? We could have just walked.”
Derrick didn’t want to burst her bubble, and so he refrained from reminding her that the paparazzi was in way deep to get a picture of her. And he was glad there weren’t photographers in front of the restaurant when they got there. Before the limo was even at a complete stop, Henry was out and ushering them quickly inside, and Derrick had made arrangements so the hostess wasted no time getting them straight to a table in a private room.
When Derrick sat after having pulled out Taylor’s chair, he was happy to see the smile she had at the office was still plastered on her face.
“So tell me all about it,” Derrick said, leaning himself forward to catch every word.
And Taylor was eager to spill every detail. She went straight from the moment she walked in and all through every meeting. She was so engrossed in the day’s events that Derrick took advantage and slid his hand across the table, lacing his fingers with Taylor’s.
She continued on, and she would move her hand while talking but never dislodged her fingers from his. Maybe we have hit a crossroads, Derrick thought and hoped. He had never wanted someone to want to be with him so much in his life. It would figure that when he finally found the one he needed she wanted no part of it. Sort of ironic, he thought.
The waitress came, and Derrick just asked for the house special because he didn’t want to interrupt Taylor or let her go. But when their meals came, Taylor moved her hand and looked in surprise to see Derrick’s hand attached to it. Well, so much for a crossroads.
Taylor took a bite of her salad. “Oh God, this is good,” she said around the food. Once she had cleared the bite, she asked, “How about your day? I didn’t ask you about your day. I have been talking nonstop.”
“My day was more of the same—meetings, reports, boring people. But you,” he said, pointing his fork at Taylor, “you have been the highlight of my day.”
Taylor blushed and looked down.
The rest of the meal wasn’t as bubbly as it had been. Taylor avoided eye contact with Derrick and ate quickly. God, what did I do now? Derrick thought.
Finally they were served dessert—one piece of chocolate molten cake with two forks. Taylor reached for a fork, but Derrick was quicker, and he pulled the whole plate toward him and took the forks hostage.
“What is with the cold shoulder?” Derrick asked.
Taylor rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Give me the cake, Derrick,” she said in her business-lady voice.
“No.”
“Are you really doing this?”
“Yes,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest, the forks sticking out of one hand. He stuck his chin out at her defiantly, like an unruly child.
Taylor glowered at him. “Derrick,” she said sternly.
“Taylor,” he mocked back to her.
Taylor rolled her eyes again and groaned. Then she leaned forward. “What is your problem?” she hissed to him.
Derrick leaned forward too. “You were the one who was talking to me and then, bam, you shut down.”
Taylor scanned with her eyes nonchalantly. “It’s just, you know, it just bothers me to fake it. I hate being fake about this,” she whispered, spinning her ring.
Derrick felt heat fill his face and flared his nostrils. “I am not faking,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Derrick, we—”
Derrick cut Taylor off the best way he knew how—he shoved cake into her mouth.
So now she looked at him disapprovingly, but her mouth was full, and she wasn’t talking, and Derrick liked it.
“That’s better,” Derrick said, smiling and taking a large bite of cake for himself. “You know sometimes you just have to shut a woman’s mouth—”
This time Derrick was silenced with the cake, but it was only because Taylor smashed it right into his face.
And now she was full-on in a fit of laughs.
“That was really hard to do,” Taylor said in between fits of laughter, “because that cake is delicious.”
“Is that so?” Derrick said as he cleaned cake off his eye and watched Taylor clutching her stomach with her head back in laughter. “Well, far be it from me to deny you anything Miss Preston,” he said and pulled her to him, kissing her full-on, smashing cake all over her face.
At first Taylor struggled but then she gave in, kissing Derrick back slightly. And then she broke apart and put her hands on his biceps. “You suck,” she said, trying not to laugh at him.
“I’m not faking, Taylor,” he whispered to her.
“I can’t do this right now, Derrick,” she whispered back. “Besides, I am having a very
hard time taking you serious about anything with chocolate cake on your face.”
“Ditto,” Derrick said.
He let it go, and they helped each other clean their faces and then made their way to the exit of the private room. We can talk in the limo, Derrick thought, but then Henry filled the doorway as they approached and stopped them.
“We need to exit through the back. I’m having an SUV brought there—the front of the restaurant has been overrun by photogs,” he said, guiding them quickly through the kitchen and out an alley door to a running Range Rover, where Mick sat in the driver’s seat.
Derrick got Taylor into the backseat and followed her in.
“I will meet you after I am done with work to bring you home,” he said as the car took off at lighting speed.
Taylor nodded and gripped the armrest. “If we live past this ride, you got it.”
* * *
Taylor was completely engrossed in a design plan when Derrick arrived, only noticing him when he knocked his hand against the boardroom table.
“I’m not ready, Derrick,” she said when she saw him walk in. She really wasn’t. She wanted to finish going over the plans she had set in motion today. She felt inspired and full of life and energy, something she had been missing for a long time. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever feeling this inspired, empowered, alive.
“You need to pack it up, Taylor, you have a lot of days ahead of you, and you can’t burn yourself on day one,” Derrick said to her.
“I’m keeping business hours,” she informed him.
“Taylor, it’s 8:30,” Derrick said to her, his eyebrows raised.
“No!” Taylor said in complete shock, turning her head here and there to look for a clock to prove him wrong, and when she set eyes on a huge one across the room, she sputtered, “Holy cow, I’ve been here for …”
“Over twelve hours. Time to pack it up,” Derrick said.
Taylor shifted her eyes to the design plan sitting on her desk. “I want to look that over—”“I am willing to bet you have already reviewed it thoroughly more than once,” Derrick challenged.
Taylor bit her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes at him. “So?”
Derrick shook his head. “Thorough is awesome, but you are coming back tomorrow to do the same thing,” he said.
“He is right, Taylor. Please don’t exhaust yourself,” Charlie said, entering the boardroom. He walked over to Taylor, smiling like a proud parent. “You did wonderfully today, dear, so natural. I knew it was in you,” he said. “I just sent Henry to get the car ready.”
“Thank you, Charlie,” Taylor said, looking embarrassed by the praise. “Okay, well, I just need to sign—”
“No!” Charlie shouted.
Taylor jumped like hot pokers were being stuck into her. “Geez, Charlie, you totally scared me,” she said, looking at him like he was crazy. “What is the problem?”
Derrick looked equally perplexed at the outburst.
“It won’t be legal, Taylor. You have to be married,” Charlie reminded her in a hushed whisper.
Well, didn’t that just burst all of her elation and excitement? This was a problem. How was she going to look into a loophole and fix the company when she couldn’t move forward with fixing the company unless she was married? She had been given the decree yesterday as she had requested, but it wasn’t one of those things you could just glance at, and she had been working on more pressing things.
She took a deep breath, but it didn’t relax her. If anything, the extra consumption of oxygen made her increasingly more aware of the problem.
“So you are telling me that all the progress I have made today is for nothing?”
“No, of course not,” Charlie reassured.
“Well, sort of,” Todd said from out of nowhere, shutting the boardroom door behind him as he joined them.
Taylor scowled at him, and he just laughed at her. “You did a lot of great things today, Taylor. You have really empowered and inspired a lot of people, but none of it can proceed and grow until you marry him,” Todd said, pointing at Derrick.
A weight like lead fell onto Taylor’s shoulders. She felt anxious and stressed, and she was hating this stupid lie all over again. All the vibrant feelings she had just had were gone.
“You are a natural at this, Taylor. You rolled with it and said yes where it worked and nowhere it didn’t. You didn’t even blink an eye. You belong here,” Todd said.
But Taylor couldn’t have a victory lap in her head from the compliment. Now what? How should she proceed? She should not have come here until she found a loophole. But it was too late now; she had hundreds of people running in different directions to make changes, and she couldn’t stop the ball rolling now. Or could she? But then would they lose their faith?
Taylor went on and on, arguing in her head, looking over the sea of paperwork that she had spread over the table, some in piles on the floor, looking for a solution or an escape until finally Derrick interjected.
“She gets it. Leave her alone. She has worked herself silly all day, and she needs to eat,” he said.
“She needs—”
“Enough,” Derrick said loudly to Todd, and Taylor was grateful.
“It is a very time-sensitive issue, Derrick,” Charlie reminded him.
“We know,” he said, going to Taylor and pulling her up gently by the arm. “Come on, Taylor.”
Once she was out of her chair, Derrick put his arm around Taylor and basically dragged her from the boardroom. Outside the door, Henry was there with her coat.
“This way, Ms. Preston,” Henry said. Taylor noticed Derrick scowling, but she had way too much going on in her head to worry about his problems. In fact, he was one of her problems.
She let herself be led down the hall, to the elevator, and into a car.
“No limo again?” she said absentmindedly as she fastened her seat belt in the SUV.
“They found out you were here, and then pictures of us at lunch ended up all over the web, and the mob of paparazzi quadrupled in size.”
“Why am I so goddamned popular?” Taylor snipped as she rubbed her hand in her face. She hadn’t realized how very tired she was until she sat down. Or maybe it was that she was now so weighed down by how hinged her responsibilities were on a relationship she wanted no part of.
“Well it’s because—”
“It was a rhetorical question, Derrick,” Taylor said, rolling her neck and leaning it back against the seat, closing her eyes.
“Taylor.”
She heard him, but her eyelids felt really heavy, so she didn’t open them, she only responded. “What?”
“You’re home,” he told her, very close to her ear.
Taylor jerked up, knocking Derrick in the cheek with her head. “Ow! Damn! Did I fall asleep?”
“Yes,” Derrick said, rubbing his head. “You snore.”
“I do not snore! You take that back right now!”
“No. You sounded like a sawmill. I was embarrassed for you,” Derrick said, opening the car door.
“I do not snore!” Taylor said, scrambling across the seat after him. They were in the garage of the Fletcher mansion, and Taylor spotted Henry. “Henry, do I snore?”
“I would rather not say, Ms. Preston,” Henry said very stoically.
“I hate you both,” Taylor said and stormed to the elevator, trying unsuccessfully to close it before they could make it in.
They took the elevator up to the kitchen and were met by a very angry-looking Nan.
“You all are very very late, and it is only her first day at work!” Her face was red, and they all took a step back toward the elevator in unison. “Who let her work that late?” She demanded, her eyes glued to Derrick.
“No way. This isn’t my fault—I got her to come home,” Derrick defended.
Nan then turned her Terminator-esque gaze on Henry. “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping her safe? Do you think it is safe for her to be at work until all hours of the n
ight?”
“Aunt Nan, I—”
“Don’t ‘Aunt Nan’ me!”
Taylor was gloating in the fact that they were getting yelled at, especially since they had both made fun of her just moments earlier.
And then Nan trained her gaze on Taylor.
“And you, young lady, need to learn balance! If you don’t eat all day—”
“Derrick took me out for a late lunch,” Taylor interjected quickly.
“Fine!” Nan huffed in irritation, spinning around and heading to the kitchen. “Come in here and eat then. But,” she warned, turning back to face them, “you need to call if you are going to be ridiculously late again!”
“Yes, ma’am,” they all responded in unison and followed her like baby ducklings to the kitchen to get their food. Taylor smiled to herself, though. She hadn’t been mothered in a long time, and Nan’s behavior made her feel surrounded by love. It ended up being the perfect ending to her whole day.
Chapter Eighteen
Taylor got up at six the next morning to get a jump-start on the day. Nan was already whistling in the kitchen when Taylor made her way down. It was as if she had never left.
“Good morning, Taylor!” she said in surprise. “You look wonderful, but did you get any rest?” she asked, concerned and checking Taylor from head to toe.
Taylor smiled at her, “Yes, I did get rest. I was exhausted. And now I have to get in there again and continue the cleanup,” she explained, making her way over to a coffee pot.
“I can make that for you,” Nan said from her spot at the stove, wiping her hands on her apron and turning to where Taylor was.
“No, no,” Taylor said, ready for an argument, “I like to do it.”
“Okay,” Nan said easily and turned back to her task. Taylor heaved a sigh of relief. She had been so stressed that Nan was going to baby her; she felt some relief in knowing that wasn’t the case. She had sent Henry a text while she attempted to do her makeup to the caliber that Marty had yesterday, and he came through the back door while Taylor was pouring her black gold goodness in a mug.
Inevitable Inheritance: The Inevitable Series | Book One Page 20
