“Okay, tell me.” The second the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to reel them back.
Lucah took a deep breath.
“They want to get rid of Walter.”
4
I probably shouldn’t have screamed, “You can’t be f**king serious!” on the crowded sidewalk, but it wasn’t the worst thing anyone had yelled in Boston, I was sure. I did get a dirty look from a woman who hurried her children along past us.
“This cannot be happening. How can they do that to him?”
“They think his leadership isn’t strong enough. They think that he’s been too lax,” Lucah said calmly as we kept walking. I was still in semi-shock.
“Is that what you think?”
“Of course not. But that’s what they think. So they’ve been using the headhunter to find someone new. Someone they can control. They’ve also been meeting with the stockholders and trying to win them over so they have enough votes to do it.”
“And Dad knows nothing about this?”
Lucah shook his head.
“As far as I know.”
“We have to tell him.”
“I know.”
“Sunshine, you have got to calm down. Normally I find your freak outs cute and only somewhat annoying, but you don’t need to do this right now,” Lucah said an hour later after trying to get me to sit down and breathe and do yoga poses or some such shit. I couldn’t sit. My mind was spinning too much and I had to keep moving. Had to. Couldn’t stop.
“I do need to do this. They’re trying to take his company away from him. After he gave them jobs. I just . . . I can’t believe it. What makes them think they have the right?” I threw my hands in the air again and Lucah just nodded and waited for me to wind down. I hadn’t been this wound in a long time, but it was for good reason.
And then something occurred me that I hadn’t thought of.
“If they get rid of him, are they trying to get rid of me?” One look at Lucah’s face was all I needed to confirm it. Then I stopped pacing.
“Oh my God.” Suddenly I felt as if I’d been slammed with a thousand punches at once and almost knocked to the floor. But Lucah moved fast and caught me before that happened.
“They can’t do that. They can’t do that.” If I said it enough times, maybe it would be true.
“It’s going to be okay, Rory. Shhh.” I wasn’t crying, but I felt like I wanted to.
Clarke Enterprises was my life. I’d grown up toddling its hallways, and wearing giant corporate t-shirts to bed, and helping my mother plan the Company Ball and bringing my Dad lunch. It was my second home, and I never even considered working anywhere else. That would be inconceivable.
The idea that it could be taken away from me was too much to take.
“I didn’t want to tell you. I’m so sorry, but I waited until you asked, because I didn’t want to drop it on you. Look, this isn’t final. It’s not a done deal, Rory. Don’t give up yet. We can fix this. I know you, and you’re not the kind of girl who gives up. I don’t think we should tell Walter about it yet until we know more. Okay?”
Somehow, Lucah’s words cut through the foggy mess of my freak out, like a knight slashing his way through a battlefield of enemies.
This was why I loved him.
Without Lucah, I would have gotten out of the frenzy eventually, but it would have taken time, and it would have taken me a much longer time to get to realization that I wasn’t the kind of girl who gave up. I was a goddamn fighter. With sassy red heels.
But with him there to help bring me out of my worst, he helped bring me to my best. I hoped I did the same for him.
I looked up at him and slowly wrapped my arms around his neck in a tight hug. He hugged me back and kissed my earlobe.
“Do you want to keep pacing, or do you want me to take you on the floor right here and make you forget about work for a little while?” He dragged my earlobe through his teeth and then blew on my neck, causing a riot of shivers. I’d gone, in one moment, from total shock, to total desire. Lucah sure knew how to flip my switch to the ON position. Every time.
“I’ll take the second,” I said as he licked the spot on my neck and then blew on it.
“I was hoping you would.” He let go of me and reached to the back of my head to take my hair down. After running his fingers through it and giving me a kiss on the tip of my nose, he started unbuttoning my shirt. I wasn’t wearing one of Sloane’s creations, but he still seemed happy with the simple red lace bra he uncovered. I hadn’t let him see me get dressed this morning so I could surprise him with it.
His fingers fluttered over the fabric as his mouth kissed a trail from my neck, to the hollow of my throat, and then down to the swell of my br**sts. The kisses moved across the very top of where the bra ended. He was going to make this slow.
I lifted my arms from my shirt and it fell to the floor. Lucah got down on his knees and kissed down my belly to the waist of my skirt.
“Turn around. Slowly.” His voice was rough, and his cheeks were flushed. I loved that I could read so many of his emotions that way. Even the tips of his ears were pink. I turned around, and he kissed his way around my stomach until he got to the zipper in the back of my skirt. I waited for him to unzip it, but nothing happened. I couldn’t tell if he was just trying to build the anticipation, or if maybe there was a giant spider on my back, or he’d been seized by the sheer beauty of my ass.
I waited as long as I could.
“Something wrong?”
“I’m just wondering if I should take your skirt off. Or maybe I should leave it on? What do you think I should do?” Yup. He was teasing me. We’d played these kinds of games before and they always left me frustrated beforehand, but heightened the experience.
“I want you to take it off. Unzip it and slide it down my hips.”
“Yes, Miss Clarke.” The skirt was finally disposed of, and I stepped out of it and kicked it to the side before turning around to face him.
“Now help me get my nylons off.” He hooked his fingers on the edge of the nylons and pulled them down my hips and to my feet. That was one of my favorite things. It was almost like he was peeling away a layer of my inhibitions and tossing them aside. He ran his hands up and down my legs and then buried his face in the V between my thighs. I put my hands in his hair and just held him there for a moment.
“Look at me,” I said and he tipped his face up. I put one finger in his chin dimple.