Wife to the Boss (Managing the Bosses Series, #6) (22 page)

Lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling in the dark, he almost wished he’d given into temptation and invited Dahlia home with him after all. What did it matter if she told the tabloids they’d fucked? It was hardly news that he occasionally took a woman home with him. Except that it
was
, and that was the problem. He wouldn’t have minded a warm body next to his own, but that was the price of the life he led.

As he drifted off to sleep, Alex reminded himself that he needed to call Mark. The missed call notices were piling up, and he couldn’t ignore his brother forever. Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow, he would bite the bullet and make the call.

––––––––

Chapter 2

A
lex woke to the first tentative rays of summer sunlight slipping through the blinds. A moment later, the shrill ring of his alarm had him bounding from the bed to turn it off. He stood, stretching both arms upward and arching backward until he heard something pop, and then he shook the weight of sleep from his hands and went to dress. There wasn’t time for a leisurely breakfast; there never was. He grabbed a coffee on his way in to the office.

An hour and a half later, he was beginning to wish he had just stayed in bed.

It was one of those days where everything that could go wrong seemed to be falling utterly to pieces. Paperwork had been misfiled, forms weren’t coming in on time, and someone had forgotten to call the head advisor for the Richards family and confirm a meeting. It was one of those not-so-rare days where Alex wished he had two hundred of himself to run the business with, or at least a clone he could use to keep track of all the things he needed done, because no one else seemed to be able to do it competently. Why was it so utterly impossible to find decent people who could do whatever it was they were supposed to be doing without being coddled and coaxed through it?

That was a sentiment, he would admit to himself when he wasn’t so busy, that wasn’t entirely fair to his employees. They were good at their jobs; they just weren’t as good as he was. Very few people were. It was why, despite urging from the few friends he actually kept in some regular contact with, he hadn’t hired a personal assistant yet. He just didn’t trust one to properly keep track of his schedule.

“Ms. Campbell,” he called out to the front. “I need you to double check that last email with the Richards’ firm. Make sure that everything has gone through.”

He hit the button to bring the phone conversation back online.

“Yes, Mr. Barret. We’ve sent you the information. The face-to-face meeting will be next Monday. Everything should be in order now.”

The man on the other end of the phone line didn’t exactly sound satisfied, but he eventually let it go and finally hung up. Alex dropped his own phone carelessly on the desk top and rubbed slow circles against his temples with two fingers. What a fiasco. Something was really going to have to be done about the new hire down in client relations. Things like this hadn’t seemed to happen nearly so often before he signed on. Maybe that earlier thought about inept employees wasn’t entirely unfair to every member of his work force.

By lunch time, at least, things seemed to have cleared themselves up for the most part. People retreated to offices to nurse the wounds of tongue-lashings and check and double check to make sure that any part they’d had in the mix-ups wasn’t a part they would have again. Alex, unlike the rest of them, didn’t have any such luxury. He had a meeting. That meant dragging himself from the quiet of his office and the comfort of his chair to drive downtown through the lunch hour traffic in order to seal a deal with a new client. At least there would be food.

After lunch, there was more paperwork. There were more phone calls to be made, and more meetings to attend. The utter disasters of the morning did not, at least, repeat themselves, but Alex still found himself more frustrated than was probably reasonable to be at every snag. Maybe what he needed was a vacation.

By the time he made it home, Alex was hardly in the mood to speak to his brother, let alone voluntarily call him. He dropped into a chair in his kitchen with a sigh, then pulled himself out of it again to go see what had been left in the fridge for him. His cook was a patient man, but not endlessly so. On days that Alex didn’t come in until after seven, he often found his dinner waiting to be reheated. Tonight, dinner turned out to be a roast with carrots and potatoes, and while Alex wouldn’t have admitted to liking such simple food in most of the company he kept during the day, he was inordinately grateful for the familiar, comfortable selection. He popped it in the microwave to warm, and sat down again with his dish. After dinner, he would have to follow through on that plan to call Mark, but until then he was going to enjoy his food.

He did enjoy it; so much so that he was almost in a good mood when he finished. At least until he looked down at the phone again and remembered what he was doing. He sighed and picked it up, scrolling through the recent calls to find the missed one from his brother and prompt the phone to call back.

It rang, twice. Then a third time.

“Alex. How much time does it take to answer your phone?”

A smile tugged at Alex’s mouth, but he didn’t let it form. It fell away again. “More time than I’ve had the last few days, Mark,” he said, and there was nothing friendly in the words.

“You know, you might be a half decent guy if you weren’t such an asshole. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you about something important.”

“And what might that be?”

There was a moment’s silence on the other end of the line, like Mark was gathering himself to say it. Alex’s stomach turned over. What if the news was bad? What if something had happened to their father and he’d been ignoring his brother’s calls? But if that was the case, surely Mark would have found some other way to get hold of him. He knew the number for Reid Enterprises, even if he never used it. His tone, Alex decided after a moment’s reflection, didn’t give the impression that anything terrible had happened. That didn’t mean Mark’s news wasn’t something to worry about, but it wasn’t likely anyone was dead. Alex took a breath.

“I’m getting married.”

So much for not being something bad.

“You’re getting married?
You
?”

“What, like I’m some special non-marriageable exception to the basic rules of society?”

That wasn’t exactly the way Alex would phrase his thoughts on the matter, but he’d be a whole lot more inclined to believe this marriage was a good idea if he’d heard something about it before this exact moment. Last- minute wedlock almost never worked out well.

“I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”

“Well...” The sheepish edge to his brother’s smile was audible. “It’s kind of a whirlwind thing. We haven’t actually been dating that long. But you might know that if you bothered to pick up your phone or talk to your family once in a while.”

Of course they hadn’t.

“Oh, because of course
I’m
the black sheep of the family.”

“Oh shut up, Alex. You’re not a black sheep. You run a billion-dollar investment firm, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’m well aware of that fact.”

His brother sighed. “The point, Alex, is that I’m getting married Saturday, and I’d like you to be there.”

“You want the CEO of a company that is projected to bring in more than two billion dollars of revenue this year to rearrange his entire schedule in the next two days?” Alex asked flatly.

“I want my brother to be at my wedding,” Mark snapped. “I tried to call you three days ago, but you haven’t been picking up your phone. And I know you saw my calls, Alex. If you choose to ignore me, don’t get mad when you don’t have enough warning.”

A week was not even close to enough warning. Alex considered whether or not he should point that out to his brother. He sighed, and wondered if he still had any Excedrin in the nightstand. “No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean you expected the CEO of a billion-dollar investment firm to change his schedule in a week to suit your whim, and it’s not going to happen. I have to be away on business this weekend. Good luck with your marriage, Mark. I’ll send a wedding gift.” He hung up before his brother could protest any further. The phone rang almost immediately. Alex flicked the switch on the side to silence it and went to take a shower.

THE END OF THE EXCERPT

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