I was headed for the front door, no intention at all of gathering up Forge, when the rustle of paper stopped me in my tracks.
“Good morning, Miss Langston.”
My mouth went dry. Like middle-of-the-desert dry.
He was dressed in a sleek, dark blue suit, the slight stretch of the wool accentuating the width of his shoulders. When he set the paper aside and rose, it was as if he was a flag unfurling, the white shirt and bright red tie complementing his paleness, the dark hair and eyes. In short, Bastian Forge in a suit was devastating.
“You were serious,” I said, wondering how this would go over in a company where he’d become something of a legend. People would certainly have something to talk about today.
“Deadly serious, Miss Langston.”
“Forge…”
“Mr. Forge, if you please,” he said, his voice pleasant, almost playful. “We will be working together, and I assume familiarity in the workplace is still frowned upon?”
“Okay, I agree. If we’re going to do this, Miss Langston and Mr. Forge will work.”
“Oh, this will work.”
I did a double take. Was Forge making a joke?
Then all I saw was the brand-new Land Rover as it rolled up to the door. The driver and Forge exchanged a few words, then Forge climbed into the passenger seat and looked at me expectantly. Cursing, I made my way to the driver’s side.
“Where is my car, Forge?”
“Mr. Forge,” he corrected me.
“When I said I would drive myself to work,” I said, holding the wheel in a death grip, “I meant my car. Not this”—I looked at the dashboard, completely thrown off my snark game—“marvel of technology,” I finished lamely, noting the speedometer went up to one hundred and fifty. Yes, I would drive Forge’s manipulative ass to work today and see what kind of a backseat driver he was.
Twenty minutes later—record time—we pulled into the employee parking lot at Langston-Forge. The lot was behind warehouse number four, and somewhere beneath the gravel was the old asphalt, but I still had the same parking spot I’d used since I turned sixteen and started coming to work.
The tires slid before grabbing, and it was totally worth almost hitting the chain-link fence just to see a flash of dismay cross Forge’s face as I skidded to a stop, right in the center of my spot.
That expression might just be worth driving him to work every day.
“We’re here,” I said brightly as he glowered at me. “Have a great first day at work, darling.”
I’d totally meant it as a joke, but something cut through his scowl when I said it. Almost a look of pleasure, which I totally ignored. I’d really have to watch my snark game around Forge, which was definitely going to be hard, if not impossible. Feeling somewhat better, I slammed my door and headed for the main building.
“We can begin the day by you showing me to my office, Miss Langston.”
I should have known I wasn’t going to shake him that easily, but surely he wasn’t planning to stick with me all day? We did a quick circuit of the warehouses, since they were the closest, then headed back to the main building.
“I remember when Ambrose built this building,” Forge…Mr. Forge…murmured as I set my hand on the heavy outside door to push it open.
“That’s the sort of thing you’re going to want to keep to yourself,” I told him. “Otherwise, you’re in for an interesting day.” We wound through the main floor, then down the steps to the basement, knots of employees gathering in our wake, the whispers deafening. “I’ll have the office across from me cleaned out for you today. That way you can get set up.” I had no idea what, if anything, Forge was going to set up, but if he had his own space, then maybe he wouldn’t be hovering around me all day.
We’d almost made it to my office when Emerson Holloway stepped through my door into the hallway. I made a mental note to have him give me poker lessons, as a faint look of surprise wrinkled his forehead before he quickly smoothed his face out and offered his hand to Forge.
“Mr. Forge. A pleasure. Is Selena showing you around today?”
Emerson always struck the perfect balance. Polite, yet requiring an answer.
“She is.” Forge’s gaze seemed to fall on everything at once. Me, Holloway, the office he’d exited from. “I’ve decided to take a more active role in the company.”
Now Emerson didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “Is that so?” Only I heard the slightly bitter note undercutting his politeness. “We will need to notify the board.” His gaze cut to me. I could already hear him warning me again about taking the money from Forge. But neither could I explain to Emerson why, exactly, Forge was here. Nor my newly discovered abilities. Not if I wanted to continue running this company. If my near-dismissal from the board had taught me one thing, it was that appearances counted.
Since both my sex and my youth counted against me already, I couldn’t afford anyone to doubt my sanity.
“Mr. Forge expressed interest in learning the whisky business,” I explained. “As he was gracious enough to bail the company out when we most needed it, I thought I should return the favor and show him what we do here.”
Emerson was looking at me like he’d never seen me before.
“Besides, his name is on the building. Are you really going to tell him no?”
“Of course not,” Emerson immediately replied. “It’s just a shock, after all this time. Selena’s right, of course. Make yourself at home and let her show you around. She knows more about this place than anyone else.”
The day spun by at a dizzying speed. Even though I had piles of backlogged work to catch up on, Forge expected me to show him everything along the way. Between his curiosity and
