by Mia Carson
“Damn,” he cursed and reached for it.
“Ignore it,” she whispered and drew his lips back, but his cell didn’t stop ringing. Puffing out her cheeks, she let him go so he could look at it.
“It’s Tim,” he announced. “I have to take it.”
“But it’s the weekend,” she argued. “He can wait.”
Greyson’s face darkened, and he slipped gently from her arms. “I don’t think it can, sorry, pet,” he said reluctantly, kissed her lips again, and walked quickly to his office. She didn’t hear him answer until the door was closed.
Belle pulled her robe back on and watched the door curiously as she hopped off the counter. Who would he not want her overhearing a conversation with? If it was Tim, it shouldn’t have been a big deal. His mom, maybe, about the dinner? Her cell rang from the bedroom, and she padded through the house to retrieve it. When she spotted Sally’s number, her stomach fluttered.
“Hey, Sally,” she said, fidgeting with the tie of her robe as she sat on the edge of the bed.
“Belle, you alright? You sound worried,” Sally said, and Belle took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves and stop her mind from thinking up crazy scenarios about whomever Greyson talked to.
“No, I’m fine, just a lot of schoolwork to get caught up on. Mid-terms are soon,” she lied.
“Ah, I see. As long as it’s not my son,” she teased, and Belle laughed with her.
“What can I do for you?” she asked as she paced around the bedroom, unable to sit still.
“Greyson called the other day, sounded concerned about the family dinner I’m planning,” she said. “I wanted to call and ensure you were going to be alright. The thought never even crossed my mind that it’d be too much for you, but we’re all so excited he’s found someone at last.”
Belle’s steps fumbled, and she cursed when she stubbed her toe, though she did stop herself from falling.
“Belle? Are you alright?”
“Yeah, just kicked the bed post. No… no, I’ll be fine. I might’ve freaked out a little, but I’m happy to meet the rest of the family,” she said brightly, even though her heart pounded. Is he going to propose or something? Oh God, I’m not ready for this!
“Wonderful! I’ll let you both know when I set the official date. It won’t be for a while yet since I have to wait for the twins to be available,” Sally said and rambled on about who was going to be there.
Belle tried to listen but barely heard the woman. After another ten minutes, she finally hung up with Sally but didn’t leave the bedroom. Her stomach in knots and hands shaky, Belle couldn’t get the idea out of her head that Greyson was plotting more than just a family dinner with his mom. Was Belle ready for that commitment? Was he? They’d come so far since they first met, but a proposal was a big step—huge. Her thoughts jumbled, she walked back to the kitchen to fetch her coffee and laptop. Once she was working, she let her worries go and focused on the task at hand.
Greyson’s office door opened, and he walked out with a grin on his face that didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “It was not Tim.”
“Oh no? Well, that’s good, I guess,” she said, looking back to her screen. “Who was it?”
“Mom. Wanted to double-check we were a go for the dinner.”
Belle’s hand slipped on her mouse, and she cursed when her coffee spilled over the table. Greyson snatched a towel off the counter, and she sopped up the mess. “Sorry,” she muttered, but didn’t look at him.
“Everything okay? You look pissed,” he observed, and when his hand brushed hers, she yanked it back quickly. “Is this about the dinner? Should I tell her to cancel it?”
“No,” she said quickly and waved him away. “It’s fine, really. I was just thinking about this project.” She wiped up the rest of the coffee and tossed the towel in the sink, sensing Greyson watching her.
“If you’re sure.”
She nodded. “It’ll be good for me. Now go on. I have to get this finished if I have a hope of making mid-terms.”
He kissed the top of her head before walking away. The shower turned on a few minutes later, and Belle sank back in her seat. He had lied to her—flat-out lied. Why? Who was he talking to that he didn’t want her to know about? She knew he was a playboy before he met her, had heard the stories around the office of the different women he hooked up with, but she thought everything between them was going well. So why the lie?
Maybe he was talking to his sisters, planning something else for the party, she thought, trying to convince herself, but even that idea was far-fetched.
“It’s fine, just let it go. You have no proof he’s doing anything,” she mumbled to herself, glancing down the hall. “Probably just another surprise he doesn’t want you to know about, so stop worrying about it. You’re fine, the both of us are absolutely perfect.”
But as she told herself that, the idea that Greyson hid something terrible from her stuck, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t shake the gnawing in her stomach that something was wrong.
“Son of a bitch,” Greyson cursed when his office phone rang and he knocked a stack of files onto the floor in his rush to grab it. Belle had been home for three days, and in that short time, his office looked like a tornado had whipped through it with a vengeance.
“Greyson,” he answered when he finally grabbed the receiver. “What? They’re three hours early!”
“I know,” Kelly muttered on the other end. “They’re ready for their update.”
“Well, I’m not,” he snapped, and tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder, crouched on the floor to scoop up the fallen papers. “Stall them.”
“And how the hell am I going to do that?”
“I don’t know, think of something,” he growled and tossed the receiver onto his desk. The papers managed to fall everywhere and slid out of their folders. He glared at them, trying to shove them back into the right ones when Bob knocked on his doorframe. “What?”
Bob’s hand paused and his smile fell. “Sorry, boss, but we need those contracts.”
Greyson slammed the mess of papers on his desk as he stood. “Contracts?”
“The updated employee contracts. Belle said she labeled them and set them out for you to sign on Friday,” Bob said slowly. “We need them if we’re to get everyone renewed for the coming year.” He looked around Greyson’s office and chuckled. “Man, how did you manage to mess it up this badly in three days?”
“I have no idea,” he muttered bitterly and wanted to kick himself for thinking he could handle this without Belle. This is what she did to him—made him useless in his own office. “I’ll find them, just give me a minute.”
“The sooner the better,” he said and shook his head. “Damn, Greyson, you really let her do too much for you.”
“Tell me about it,” he said and scratched viciously at his beard. “I can’t believe I let her take control like that. Was my office always this bad?”
Bob held up his hands and backed away. “I’ll be at my desk whenever you find them,” he said and walked away quickly, leaving Greyson to attempt to sort out his mess of an office.
“Belle’s going to kill me when she gets back,” he muttered, and with his hands on his hips, glowered at the mess he made.
His inbox was full, with nothing going out, his e-mails were at their max even though he swore he'd answered at least fifty since last night, and there were still ten calls he needed to return. He searched through stack after stack of papers but couldn’t find the contracts. As if things couldn’t get any worse, when he straightened again, Kelly headed his way with the suits right behind her.
And right behind them, looking ready to murder him, was Belle, dressed in a black, tight-fitting blouse, dark jeans, and knee-high leather boots. Her hair was half up, half down and bounced with her furious steps. She cut Kelly off quickly and said she’d take over for Mr. Taylor. She shot him a look and guilt stabbed through his chest before she turned away with the suits and led
them back to the elevators.
“Kelly,” Greyson called out once they were gone.
“Yeah, boss?” she asked when she reached his office.
“What is she doing here? I said she had this week off for mid-terms,” he demanded.
“I called her because you were falling apart,” Kelly noted with a pointed look at his office. “She looked pissed. I wonder if she spotted the mess in here.”
“I don’t need her here,” he argued, but Kelly laughed.
“You’re a great boss, Greyson, but admit it, you never could handle the paper-pushing part of your job,” she told him. “I suggest you buy that girl some flowers and take her out for a fancy dinner for saving your ass.”
Greyson didn’t want to admit it, but Kelly was right. He did his best to straighten up his office, but when Belle’s boots stomped towards his office an hour later, he had barely found his desk.
“Why am I getting panicked phone calls from Kelly?” she asked and stopped as her eyes widened at the sight of his office. He visibly cringed. “What the hell did you do?”
“I may have had some trouble while you were gone,” he admitted quietly.
She nodded slowly, stepping into his office. “Grown man, my ass,” she mumbled and redid her hair, pulling it all back in a ponytail. “Get out.”
“What?” he asked.
“You heard me, out of your office. Bob said you lost some contracts and maybe everything else, so go take a nice long lunch before I deck you for completely disrupting all the systems I had in place,” she growled, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her toe angrily.
Greyson shoved his hands into his pockets and stormed past her out the door. He turned, ready to tell her he was capable, when she slammed the door in his face and locked it. She waved him away from the other side before turning her back and getting to work, sorting out the mess he’d made in her absence. He raised his hand to knock but thought better of it and, defeated, walked to Tim’s desk and sat on the edge of it.
“Well, you look positively radiant,” Tim mocked. “I hear your girlfriend is ready to rip you a new one.”
“What gave you that idea?” He groaned and rubbed his face. “Was I always that bad?”
Tim laughed loudly, and Davis joined in, sitting across from him. “Oh yeah, you just never saw it until Kelly hired your first assistant a few months after we started, but she couldn’t handle it. We let you go for a while until you kept losing paperwork.”
“And then started the stream of other assistants,” Davis chimed in, “which then, in turn, led you to Belle. I guess you really should be thankful that you’re a mess.”
“Are you saying I wouldn’t have a girlfriend if I wasn’t a slob?” Greyson asked.
Tim and Davis exchanged a nod. “Pretty much,” the latter said. “I suggest while she’s in there slaving away, you do something nice for her.”
Greyson pushed off the desk, and after checking to be sure Belle was still busy, he ducked down the stairs, his car keys jangling in his hands.
Belle sat on the floor in Greyson’s office, her boots tossed to the side and her hair falling out of her ponytail, and tried to make sense of the stack of papers in her hand. She'd found the contracts, at least, and handed them over to Bob, but everything else was a disaster. She’d thought it was bad the first time she started, but that had been right after his other assistant quit.
This time was full-on Greyson at his worst. At least he wasn’t around. She was ready to tug his beard right off his face. She’d been so close to finishing one of her projects when Kelly called in a panic.
“He’s never going to live this down,” she muttered angrily, tossing a paper in a pile. “Never.”
“Never what?” he asked from the doorway, the deep timbre of his voice warming her body immediately. She wasn’t going to turn around, but the sharp scent of garlic hit her nose, causing her mouth to water. “I had to make it up to you somehow.”
Slowly, she turned, and when she spotted the pizza box in one hand, a bottle of red wine tucked under his arm, and the bouquet of red roses, she laughed. “Sweet, and thank you, but you’re nowhere near off the hook,” she informed him as he set everything down on the desk but handed the roses to her.
“I know, I’m an idiot, and yes, I’ve always been this bad, apparently,” he said quickly. “What can I say? I don’t enjoy being the CEO all the time.”
He took her free hand and hoisted her to her feet, dragging her into his arms for a kiss.
“Why don’t you appoint someone to take control of this part of the company then?” she asked, slipping from his arms and going for the pizza. “Kelly cares enough, and she’d be good at it.”
“Nah, she takes care of my people,” he said, eyeing her curiously.
Belle shrugged and opened the pizza box. She stared at it for a second, then turned to him with a raised brow. “How the hell did you know my favorite pizza?”
He shrugged. “I asked around. Who doesn’t like black olives with jalapenos?” he teased.
He continued to watch her, and Belle shifted on her feet, wondering if he knew that she knew the lie about the phone call last week. He hadn’t done anything else to make her worry, so she’d tried to put it behind her. The look he gave her now wasn’t worry, it was something else—pride, maybe? Or curiosity. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but when he didn’t look away, she laughed, and after swallowing a mouthful of pizza, poked him in the chest.
“What? You think I’m going to throw something at you for letting your office get trashed?” she asked.
“No, I’m just picturing you behind a desk,” he mused.
Belle paused, the bottle of wine in her hand as she looked for something to open it with. “I have a desk,” she said slowly. “What other desk are you picturing me behind?”
“You’ll find out one day… maybe,” he said quietly and kissed her gently again.
He took the wine and pulled a corkscrew out of his desk—not that she was surprised—and opened it. He didn’t have any glasses so he passed her the bottle. Belle took it, her mind racing with what he could possibly be talking about, and took a large gulp. She needed it after the past week, and from the glimmer of mischief in his eyes, the fun was just getting started.
Chapter 20
Several more days passed, and Greyson watched the tension build in Belle’s eyes as her spring break ended quickly. Though she tried to hide it, her having to step in and save Greyson ate at her. She didn’t give him the cold shoulder, but that would’ve almost been better than what she was doing. The over-cheeriness was not like her at all, and he gritted his teeth every time he heard her answer the phone at work.
He asked her if she was holding up alright under the workload, but she brushed off his worry until he wanted to drag her butt back to his house and force her to relax. As far as he was concerned, she didn’t need to finish school. She had a job with him at his company, and, if she would go for it, he had just the position for her.
His cell rang, but he ignored it, watching Belle work at her desk. Her shoulders slouched, and she rubbed her eyes, trying to stay awake. She’d been working through the night again, and guilt tore at him. He stood, ready to tell her to go home, he’d survive for a day, but his cell rang again.
Muttering, he snatched it up and gripped it tighter when he saw Aiden’s number. “What?”
“I found a lead, but need an advance on the next payment,” she said, getting straight to business, and Greyson sat back down.
“How big of an advance?”
“Enough to get me to Sister Bay in Wisconsin and from there, three more stops. I’m onto several leads, but they’re all out of state,” she informed him. “Look, these leads have some meat to them. I think I may have found her mom at the first place and possibly both parents alive at the rest, so if you want me to find out, I need several tickets and money for a rental car and hotels.”
Greyson ran his fingers through his beard, debating h
is next move. He didn’t trust Aiden, and the amount of money she’d need was more than he’d already paid her. “Are you sure it’s her?”
“I won’t know unless I go,” she told him, and he heard the honesty in her words. They might have only been lovers, but he’d known her for a long time. She wasn’t lying, and she’d skipped her usual flirting. She was definitely onto something. “Greyson? I need to know ASAP. Found a plane leaving this afternoon, and it’s going to take me a few days.”
“Fine, I’ll get it to you, but I’m coming with you,” he grunted.
“Why?” she asked harshly, but then she gasped and laughed. “Oh, I see, trouble in paradise perhaps? Do you need a stress reliever?”
“I’m coming with you to ensure you’re actually doing what I’m paying you to do,” he growled. “I am happy with Belle, and I’m going to continue to be happy with her. This is nothing more than a business trip, and if you try anything, I’ll find someone else to hunt down her family.”
Silence filled his ear before Aiden finally spoke again. “Plane leaves in two hours. Meet me there.” She hung up, and a moment later, texted him the flight they needed tickets for.
Greyson bought them quickly and said he would be there as soon as he could. The airport wasn’t far away, at least, but he needed an excuse to leave for a few days. Not a chance in hell was he telling Belle what he was really up to, not yet. No point getting her hopes up just to have them dashed if this were another false lead. He didn’t even want to tell Tim. The second Greyson mentioned Aiden’s name, Tim would insist he go in Greyson’s place to avoid that woman finding a way to get under his skin again.
His cell phone in hand, he dialed his personal office phone, tucking the cell under his leg. He answered it after the first ring and made sure to look disgruntled when he spoke to the fake person on the other end.
“What do you mean there’s an issue at the warehouse?” he snapped loudly enough to make Belle turn around. “I don’t care. That’s not an excuse.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, counting off the seconds in his head before he groaned and leaned back in his chair. “That’s not acceptable. We have deadlines, and you promised this would be taken care of. I’m flying out there so we can get this sorted.”
