“Relax,” she says, reaching over and giving my hand a quick squeeze. “There’s nothing we can do until we know for sure.”
I groan, sitting back and closing my eyes, feeling my body pounding like a war-drum calling me to battle. I picture all the CEO’s of my rival companies, wondering which of them would have the stones to try some shit like this.
“Mason,” Natalie says, pulling me out of my reverie.
“Yes?” I reply, opening my eyes.
“I said that unless you need something else, I need to go and get ready to meet with my wedding planners. Don’t worry, I’m just taking my lunch break to do it.”
“You’re meeting them here?” I mutter, glancing out of the window, a cloud drifting by so close I feel as though I could reach out and touch it, the sky a sheet of unbroken blue apart from that blemish.
“Busy, busy, busy,” she sings. “No time for a fancy bar halfway across town. What are you going to do?”
“Well, I’ve got two choices. Sit here and seethe until the diagnostics team comes back to me, or go and hit the gym and beat my body into such an exhausted, fucked-up state that maybe some of this won’t seem so bad after all.”
She laughs, shooting me a look.
“I’d advise the latter.”
“Yeah,” I grunt. “No shit. Alright, sis, go plan your dream day. How are they, anyway, the folks at Eternal Bond?”
“Oh, they’re great,” she says. “It’s early days, but already Lyle and I are glad we went with a smaller shop. The owner, Gertrude, she’s such a sweetheart. She sort of reminds me of Mom.”
“Hmm,” I mutter, not wanting to leap headfirst down that rabbit hole.
She stands, head bowed a little as it always is when she mentions Mom and Dad.
She reminds me of Mom.
But Mom was gone by the time Nat was six years old. I doubt she even remembers much about her. But then I can’t blame her for trying to claw onto some sense of parenthood.
Natalie leaves and I stand up, wandering across my open-plan office to the room that leads to my private changing and shower area. When I’m working three days in a row on a new project, it’s good to be able to sweat out my tiredness in the sauna ready for another round of business.
I get changed into my gym gear and roll my shoulders as I leave my office, nodding to Jennifer, my receptionist, and ignoring the way she twirls her blonde curls and eyes me with what I guess is supposed to be a seductive gaze.
I’m too damn busy for women, that’s the truth.
And I’ve never been interested in the casual stuff so many CEO’s indulge in.
When I think of a woman – in the abstract – it’s always with the knowledge that I’d only take one if I could put a child in her, claim her, make her mine.
But that’s just pie-in-the-sky stuff.
So many women have made it clear over the years that I could basically do what I wanted with them. An off-putting sentiment. But once you hit the billionaire mark, that’s how life works. But I don’t give a damn, not even slightly, not unless I feel … something when I look at her.
I nod to my employees as I stroll to the rear of the office, where the gym is located. I don’t pause long enough to get drawn into any long conversations, because right now the only thing I want to talk to is a bench and a stack of weights big enough to cave in a jeep’s roof.
I turn the corner that will lead to the final corridor when I stop mid-stride.
There’s a woman walking toward me, a woman who for whatever reason has made me stop and just gaze at her, and just keep gazing until I feel the hammering in my chest morph from blinding rage to blinding something else.
My manhood twitches as she slows her pace, watching me watch her, perhaps wondering why Mason Mackendale is glaring at her like she’s done something wrong.
Her hair is a deep brown, but lighter in places, or maybe it’s the way it catches the light from the windows dotted all throughout the airy rooms. Her face is full and brimming with character, her oaken eyes sharp and yet somehow friendly. Her body – fuck – her body is a childbearing oasis, her white shirt doing nothing to hide the bulbous beauty of her breasts, her prim suit trousers hugging tight to the curvaceous glory of her hips.
Savage thoughts enter my mind.
Grab her, bend her over, take her by those hips and dominate her right here, pound her until your seed is gushing out of her pussy, and then paint those round cheeks with it.
I’m stunned.
I’m never normally a slave to carnal thoughts like this.
But this sexy, young-looking, intelligent seeming woman has triggered something atavistically unstoppable inside of me.
“Um, hello?” she says.
She’s clearly saying it because I’ve been staring at her for what must be ten seconds now, wordlessly, maybe even salivating like the wild beast she’s threatening to turn me into.
I need to put my seed in her.
Jesus Christ, that thought comes quickly, and yet it thuds into me with the certainty of fire-hot truth.
I need to tear those clothes off and sink my hands into her full-bodied sexiness, and then trail my come-slick manhood up her thigh until she’s wet enough to take me hard and deep right away.
I thrust my hand out toward her, smirking.
“Mason Mackendale,” I say. “I take it you’re new here?”
It’s a big company and I don’t always have time to meet every single one of my thousand-plus employees.
“I know who you are,” she says, giggling slightly. “I don’t work here. I’m just here to meet your sister, actually.”
“You’re the wedding planner?” I ask as she takes my
