saying that, but I’m doing it. Please, let me. I’ll send the money over from my account as soon as I get to work… I’m running late, got to go.”
Harley’s phone conversation carries down the hallway as I finish my weight set in the penthouse’s gym.
“Oh, god, for fuc—Argh!” she curses, sounding annoyed.
“Everything okay?” I yell as I grab a towel and wipe my face, rushing out to see what the clattering sound was.
“Yes, it’s just…” Harley leans down to grab her phone, which has fallen on the floor.
“Here.” I stride over to her and take her purse and shoes out of her hands.
“Thanks.” She blows a wisp of hair out of her eyes and then clicks her tongue. “My alarm didn’t go off. I’m never late.”
“It’s only eight, Harley.”
I know for a fact she doesn’t start work until eight-thirty. I’ve been to visit Griffin first thing in the morning enough times to see her log on to her computer and then take Griffin in a coffee.
Her eyes drop over my chest as she looks at me properly for the first time.
“Do you always exercise shirtless?”
“When I soak my shirt through with sweat before I’ve finished, yes.”
“Hm.” Her brow wrinkles. “Oh, um, eight-thirty, yes…” She rushes down the hallway, turning to extract her high heels from my grasp and gripping on to my shoulder as she stands on each leg to slip them on her feet. “I do start then, but I always get Griffin a coffee on my way in, and the line can get ridiculous.”
She grabs her purse from me, then glances at the palm she’s removed from my shoulder before wiping it on the towel around my neck.
“Do you always sweat this much?”
“When I’ve gone at it really hard.” My eyes drop to her lips before I snap them away.
She casts her gaze over my sweat-soaked chest again, her eyes catching on the top of my shorts, which are slung low on my hips. “People say it’s your fat crying.”
“People do, do they?” I smirk.
Her blue eyes twinkle as she meets my eyes again. “Quit making me stand here and talk to you. I told you I’m going to be late.”
“Then go.”
I chuckle as she flips her middle finger up at me and rushes to the front door.
“Oh, Mrs. Walker?” I call, unable to resist the urge to mess with her. I know it winds her up when I call her that. I’ve been doing it every morning this week.
“Yes, dear?” she yells back, half out the door.
“Go straight to work. Griffin values punctuality over coffee.”
The beginning of her curse back drifts down the hallway toward me before the door falls shut and muffles out the rest.
Twenty-five minutes later, I stride up to Harley’s desk and deposit the take-away cup down onto it.
“Latte. Coconut milk, extra foam, two sugars.”
She lifts her gaze from her computer screen, her lips parting as she clocks the cup.
“Pardon?”
I tap my finger on top of the lid. “Do I need to get your ears tested, Mrs. Walker? I said latte, coco—”
“I take back what I said about you being a pain in the ass this morning,” she says as she removes the lid and inhales, her eyes fluttering closed.
“You never said I was a pain in the ass.”
She looks up guiltily, tipping her head to one side. “It might have been in the elevator, to the nice man who got on five floors below me.”
“Ah. So now you’re sharing our sex life, and your feelings about me?”
“Only one of those is real. So technically, I’m only sharing one thing about us.” She blows on the top of her latte and then looks up at me. “Is that…?”
I lift my hand, holding the tray with two other cups in it. “One for me, one for Griffin.”
“Did I tell you I love you today yet?” She grins, taking me by surprise as she jumps to her feet and wraps her arms around my neck. I can’t help pressing my nose into her hair, my dick twitching at the scent of her coconut shampoo. I’ve smelled it before; its sweet scent bursting from her room like a cloud after she opens her door in the mornings.
“If you were my real girlfriend, you could show me how much you love me,” I murmur against her ear, completely losing myself for a second.
“Ha, yeah, whatever.” She rolls her eyes as she sits back at her desk. “When did a sincere thank you lose its value and cease to be enough? It’s always the same with men.”
“But you didn’t say thank you. You told me you loved me.”
“Technically, I only asked if I had told you I loved you. Not actually admitted to such feelings.” Harley pouts.
I grin, and she narrows her eyes at me.
“Well, technically, I was really talking about agreeing to accompany me to Stuart’s niece’s birthday party this weekend to show your dedication and love for me… as my girlfriend,” I add. “What did you think I meant?” I twist my mouth into a scowl of mock outrage, earning a smirk from her pretty pink lips.
“A birthday party, huh?” She leans back in her chair, crossing her arms.
“Yup.”
“This niece… how old is she?”
“Five.”
She purses her lips, studying me. “Hm, too young to vote. This doesn’t sound much like mayor work to me. Not what I signed up for.”
I shake my head as her smirk grows. I swear she deserves to be taken over my knee and spanked. A thought that I should not be entertaining when this is all fake.
“You signed up for being my girlfriend. That means, as well as the mayor work as you put it, I need you to come to things like five-year-old’s petting zoo parties with me.” I know she’s just winding me up. She’s been out to dinner with me twice this week already to keep up public appearances.
“Petting zoo?” Her eyes light up. “Like, real animals?”
“No. It’s a dick petting party. Of course, real fucking animals.”
She glares at me as she bites her lower lip to fight her smile. “Good. I dread to think what venereal diseases might be at the other type of party.”
“This snake always wears his second skin. Don’t you worry about that.”
She snorts. “Please don’t put me off my latte.”
I smile at her as I move toward Griffin’s door. I wait until she has the cup to her lips and then I add, “I stirred it with my cock, especially for you. You’re welcome.”
“Bastard!” she calls back as I open the door, but I can detect a laugh hiding in her voice.
“She’s enjoying her new role, then?” Griffin says dryly as I shut the door behind me and walk over to his desk, setting the coffee down.
I slide into the seat opposite him. “She gives it back too. Don’t feel sorry for her.”
“I don’t. Anyone who agrees to date you does so at their own risk.”
“Fake date,” I interject, causing Griffin to raise his eyes from his cell phone and look at me.
“Sorry.” He pulls his brows together, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I meant fake date with fake feelings.”
“Exactly.” I reach forward to take my coffee, leaning back in the chair. “So, how are things going?”
“Yeah, good. Business as usual here. It’s nice to have some smooth sailing for a change.” Griffin’s eyes darken, and I know he’s thinking about the past year and how bad things got around here, what with the spa formulations being stolen, and him almost losing Maria over the entire mess.
“You deserve it to be boring as shit for a while after what happened. Remember, it’s in the past now. Where it should stay.” I fix him with a look, and he runs his hand down over his tie, nodding in agreement.
We’ve been friends since school. I know him, and he knows me. What happened at The Songbird hit him hard. But not as hard as almost losing Maria. It’s one thing seeing your best friend struggling in business. Quite another to see him heartbroken. It’s something I never want to see again—people I care about hurting.
“How’s Maria?”
Griffin’s somber haze lifts away from his face like a curtain, leaving a contented smile.
“She’s incredible… actually, she said she saw you and Harley coming back from dinner the other night, but you were too far ahead to catch up with.”
“Did she?”
“She said you looked rather close.” Griffin smirks as I frown at him.
“It’s called acting. We were out in public. There’s press everywhere this close to the election.”
“I see.” He steeples his hands in front of him, looking smug as shit.
“That’s all there is to it. We’re doing each other a favor. I needed to look more committed. She needed the money. All there is to it,” I huff as I take another sip of coffee.
“Sure.”
I study Griffin as he drinks.
“Do you know what she needs the extra money for?”
“The therapy she will need after living with you?” he quips.
I shake my head. “Come on. You knew about the honey trapping. And you and I both know you can be ruthless at times, but you pay your staff well. So what is it? Is she in trouble?” My chest tightens at the thought of Harley having some shady loan shark chasing her, or a jerk of an ex she might owe money.
“She’s not in trouble.” Griffin holds my gaze.
“You bastard, you know, don’t you?” I stare at him, willing him to give me an insight into what’s going on in Harley’s personal life. I know it’s none of my business, but I have a sister, and the thought of any woman being in a situation where she needs help… it claws at my soul.
He places his cup down on the desk without breaking eye contact. “I do, yes. So does Maria. Harley told us a while ago.”
I drop my head into my hands and let out a frustrated groan.
“She’s fine, Reed. You can see that. You live with her. She isn’t in any trouble, I promise you.”
“But you’ll not tell me why she wants four fucking grand a month on top of her salary?”
If I didn’t live with her, I might be inclined to think it was a shopping addiction or a weakness for designer shoes. But she’d rather spend all her time in those fluffy pink monstrosities than in heels. The only thing I have learned about Harley since living with her is that she likes to be warm and comfortable. She names her plants and talks to them like they’re babies, and she smells fucking incredible. I walk past her room when that coconut shower cloud comes out in the mornings and it makes my dick spring to attention like a fucking soldier.
“It’s not for me to tell. I’m sure she’ll share it with you when she’s ready.”
I look at Griffin, then shake my head and look away. He’s right. It’s not for me to know unless she chooses to tell me. Who am I to her? I’m just her boss’s best friend. I’m the guy she jokes with but never takes seriously because she thinks I’m only after one thing. And I’ve given her no reason to think otherwise. She’s right. It is who I am.
“How’s the campaigning going?” Griffin asks, steering our conversation back to work.
“Yeah, good. Great. Harley came along to a question-and-answer session that was filmed the other evening and hit it off with Stuart. So now I have both of them bossing me around.”
I chuckle as I recall how excited Harley was to go to the news studio and visit a real green room. When we got back to the apartment, she emptied her purse out, and inside were the wrapped snacks they’d been handing out in there. She brought them for me, saying I would have missed out otherwise.
“You’re getting good reception about your policies, I see?” Griffin lifts a newspaper from the edge of his desk and drops it down in front of me. It’s open to a page about me, titled ‘Walker wants you to walk home safely at night.’
“Yeah.” I run a hand around the back of my neck and clear my throat. “It’s important to people. A city like New York has a higher number of sexual assaults than suburban areas. People want to be able to catch the subway home late or get a drink and not worry about who might put something in their drink or might follow them.” I glance up and Griffin’s eyes are trained on me. They soften as he gives the slightest nod of understanding.
“How’s Riley doing?”
“Really well. Busting balls and getting promoted over her male colleagues.” My shoulders loosen and I grin with pride as I think of my twin sister.
“I’d expect nothing less,” Griffin says. “She was always the best at winning an argument, even when we were kids.”
I chuckle. “Yep, she was. Stubborn ass.”
Her chosen career as a prosecution lawyer suits her personality perfectly. She’s always been one to fight injustice and stand up for what she believes in. One honest voice is louder than a crowd, or so she reminds me on a regular basis. I’m so proud of her. I think she would have always found law as her career, even if it wasn’t for what happened that day. But I guess we’ll never know. That one event shaped her entire future. You never know when you wake up in the morning just how the day might end. How it might scar you for the rest of your life or make you uncover a strength in yourself you never even knew you had because it’s either that or let yourself be destroyed.
And Walkers don’t give in. We fight back.
“What’s the rest of your week looking like?” Griffin asks.
I blow out a breath. “More strategy meetings with Stuart. A couple of interviews, some on the street candidate meet-and-greet. Then this weekend is Paige’s party.”
“A whole yard full of five-year-olds high on sugar and excitement? Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I mutter with a smile. “Although I think Harley’s more excited about the petting zoo than the kids.”
Griffin snorts. “I’m sure she is. You know, she asked if we could get an office dog at her last review?”
“Really?” I raise a brow.
“I said no, of course. I’ve got enough problems with half the fucking pigeons in Manhattan thinking the hotel is the prime vantage point for perching their feathery shitting asses.”
I laugh. Griffin has had a problem with the pigeons around The Songbird for years. It’s eased up, but every now and again, it seems to go mental again and the sidewalk by the main entrance is littered in feathers and shit for a day or two. It’s like the pigeons have a wild blow out just to piss him off and keep him on his toes.
I glance at my watch and stand, making my way to the door, still laughing.
“I gotta go. Early bird and all that…”
Griffin takes one look at me, still laughing, and grumbles, “Fuck off”, as I open the door. I head out, past Harley’s desk where she’s stroking the petals of an orchid and whispering something softly to it.
“Later, Mrs. Walker,” I call, walking past.
“Bye, Daddy,” she coos, making my laugh grow louder. It’s still rumbling in my chest, cementing a smile to my face as I exit the elevator and cross the lobby toward the giant, ornate main doors.
Even the memory drudged back up in Griffin’s office isn’t enough to quieten it.
Daddy?
She definitely deserves a fucking spanking.
