She clicked again, showing what that did to the calendar on the project.
I blinked at her. “Right.” Why hadn’t I known about Peterman?
I handed the rest of the meeting over to her. After all, she had all the slides, and well, I felt fucking obsolete at my own company. This was my meeting. My team.
It’s her job now.
God, I was losing it. After just a hint of this woman’s perfume, I couldn’t think right. Jesus. I was no better than a goddamn teenager.
When the meeting was over, I scowled. “Miss Ashong, please stay behind.” She had just stood but eased herself back into her seat and turned around slightly so she could face me.
When everyone was gone, she crossed her arms. I didn’t know if it was a protection of herself against me or if she was irritated. Either way, it made my anger simmer to life. “What the hell was that?”
“That was you trying to take over my meeting.”
I blinked hard. “Your meeting? Whose name is on the building?”
She grinned. “London Lords.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I? You hired me to do a job. Let me do that job.”
“Why didn’t I know about Peterman?”
“When I asked you to hand over the file the other day, you must have known I was going through it. I wanted to double-check dates. That’s when he mentioned to me that he was going on paternity leave, so I adjusted the calendar accordingly. I did some juggling and moved things along. I sent it in the prospectus two days ago.”
I frowned. She had sent me some emails. I hadn’t had a chance to go to through them all yet. “I didn’t see them.”
“I marked them as urgent.”
I’d had my hands a little fucking full. “You didn’t deem it necessary to sit me down face to face?”
“Sir, when you gave me this job, we didn’t exactly set any parameters, so Jessa and I discussed them. If you need me to sit you down and discuss every little thing with you as part of this job, I can do that, but you need to make yourself available. It’s also redundant to do that with Jessa and with you. Are you who I directly report to, or is she? Or maybe you should realize that you hired someone qualified and let me deal with the job you’ve hired me to do. If I run everything by you, I’m nothing more than your glorified assistant.”
I scowled at that. “You are going to be a pain in the arse, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. Is that a problem?”
I opened my mouth to yell, but instead, my stupid lips twitched. I liked that she had spunk. I liked that she stood her ground and was smart enough and didn’t need me to make every little decision. Shit.
I was going to regret this. I could feel it. Working this closely with her, being this close to her, not touching her, was going to be a problem.
“We can work together. You don’t have to fight me. I just want to do my job, and I am grateful for the opportunity because I would have been stuck as Kennedy’s assistant for far too long. So please, let me show you what I can do.”
“You already have. It’s not bad.”
She laughed, pushed back her seat, and stood. “Not bad? Please, I’m the best operations director you’ve ever had. You’ll see.”
And then I could only stare at that delectable ass as she sashayed out of the damn room.
I was so utterly fucked.
14
Ben
Music thumped inside the club, and I had to blink rapidly to let my eyes adjust to the dark. SKIN was one of the most exclusive strip clubs in London. The girls were high-end escorts and dancers. The owner, Cassia, a former Russian ballerina, made sure her girls were clean, safe, and drug free.
This was where I found Adam Hilton, getting a lap dance from a dancer called Candy. I slid into the booth with him, and he frowned at me. “Oi, mate, this is a private booth.”
I grinned at him. “No, Adam, it’s not.”
His frown deepened, and then he squinted. “Covington? Is that you?”
“In the flesh.”
Candy glanced back and forth between us. “I’m sorry, but if you would like a friend to join in, you’ll have to pay extra.”
I took several hundred-pound notes out of my billfold and handed them over. “I’m so sorry to cut this short. But I need to speak to him.”
She gave me a smile and her gaze perused my body. “Shame. We could have had fun.”
Not that I was one to judge, but very likely I’d want to disinfect myself after leaving here. We definitely would not have had fun. “Yeah, next time, love.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
I made a mental note to never step foot in there again.
Hilton glared at me. “What is it you want? Why are you ruining my perfectly good evening?”
“Well, I needed your attention.”
“Out with it.”
“There’s a certain rumor going around the Elite that you are one of the Five.”
He laughed. “Is that why you’re here? I already told Van Linsted I’m not. So you’re wasting your fucking time.”
Fuck. He’d beaten us to Hilton?
I didn’t know how far the Five would go to protect their identities. I only knew that I still had to try to get his vote. And if not his vote, then I needed to at least try to get his thoughts on who might be in the Five.
“Look, I’m not trying to jam you up. But this is vital. I don’t know what Van Linsted said to you, but if you’re like me and several other members of the Elite, the idea of another Van Linsted having control of our future for years to come is, at best, concerning.”
He sniffed and drained his glass. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, lad. I can’t help you.”
I nodded. “I understand. And honestly, I get it. You have a life to protect. But we are at an impasse. We simply cannot allow the Van Linsteds to gain more power, so we need to do what we can to remove them.”
He frowned at me. “You don’t seem to understand, Covington. Why did you never learn the lesson that your father did? You can’t just be unhappy about the scenario. You have to provide an alternative solution. One everyone would support.”
“And get the Five to endorse him?”
“Exactly. No one can back a horse they don’t know.”
I took out the envelope that was in my pocket and handed it over. “What I want is your support against Bram Van Linsted regardless of the candidate.” I could see now that we’d have to offer up an alternative.
He laughed. “Again, I hear you saying things that you want. But what do I get?” He looked inside the envelope. There was one photo… of his son. He sputtered. “Where the hell did you find this?”
“Doesn’t matter where I found it. The point is that you have a child. A child with a woman who supposedly is your wife. Funny thing is this wife is young… so young.”
Even in the dim light of the club, I could tell he’d gone ashen. “Why are you doing this?”
I blinked at him. “None of this information needs to come to light. Your wife, the one with the money, need not know about your other wife in Spain who has a child. She doesn’t need all that pain.”