She hisses. “Suddenly, your board reconsiders. Damn it. What are you going to do?”
“Expose him. Juliette’s agreed to tell her story to the board tomorrow.”
“Is that going to be enough?” Her voice is skeptical. “It’s her word against his, isn’t it?”
“Stone’s looking for evidence,” Daniel says. “The board meets in the morning. If he’s found something by then, I’ll use it. If not, Juliette’s the best that I have.”
We’re all silent as we each contemplate the next day. Daniel’s going to be in the fight of his life to protect his company from Cyrus. Bailey has her hearing at NYU to contend with, and I have to go deal with the aftermath of the fire.
Tomorrow’s going to be another long day, but no matter what, I know we’ll all be just fine. Because today, we all discovered something really important. We can handle anything the world throws at us. As long as we are together.
42
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
Bailey:
I’m so used to staying over at Daniel’s that it takes me a few minutes the next morning to register I’m somewhere different. The usual morning aroma of coffee is absent, as is the sound of Daniel clattering around in his kitchen, trying to make breakfast, until Sebastian mutters a curse and swings out of bed to help him.
I’m at the Plaza. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that today’s the Day of Judgment for all three of us. Daniel meets his board. I have my review with the university and at some point today, Sebastian will meet the safety experts and the insurers and find out how long it’ll take for Seb New York to reopen.
Sebastian strolls into the bedroom, his hair damp from a shower. A towel rides low on his hips and I openly lick my lips. I’m not looking forward to today, and staying in bed and having sex with Sebastian seems like a much better plan.
“Don’t you dare,” he warns as he realizes my intent, though from the gleam in his eyes, my horniness isn’t entirely unwelcome. “Come on. Out of bed with you. Don’t you have a meeting with your university president this morning?”
“Yes,” I groan, pulling the covers over my head, muffling the sound of my voice. “I would like to skip it entirely.”
Daniel enters the room, holding a cup of coffee. He’s fully dressed - he’s wearing a gray suit with some kind of darker weave running through it, a light shirt and a purple tie, and he looks good enough to eat.
With a grin, he waves the cup in my direction, and I emerge out from under the covers to glare at him. Damn it, that coffee smells really good. Good enough that I want to get out of bed for it. “That’s not fair,” I accuse him.
“But it’s remarkably effective,” he replies. “Come have breakfast with us before I have to take off. Is the tie too much, do you think?”
With a start, I realize Daniel’s nervous. Most of the time, Daniel’s in perfect control. He’s smart, he’s well-informed, and he’s entirely too self-assured for his own good. When he plays, he plans on winning. He doesn’t make bets he thinks he can lose.
Today’s situation is different. Anything can happen, and by the end of the day, he could be forced out of his own company. If it happened to Steve Jobs, it can certainly happen to Daniel Hartman.
“The tie looks great,” I reassure him, swinging out of bed and taking the cup of coffee from his hand. “Stop worrying. You’ve made the company too much money for the board to fire you.”
“We’ll see.” His tone is deliberately neutral. “Half the board are cronies of my grandfather, people who still resent my father for marrying my mother. Cyrus might not be what’s best for Hartman, but he’s one of them and I’m a wild-card.”
“A wild-card who’s in a threesome.” I wink at him, hoping to tease him out of his grim mood. In the back of my mind, I wonder if he’s called NYU on my behalf, but I don’t bring it up. I don’t want to nag. If he’s remembered, that’s great. If he hasn’t, I’ll deal with the consequences.