Then her striking eyes turned to me again. “Jordan Ashford,” she said. “I haven’t seen you since…gosh, I must have been fifteen.”
“Must have been,” I nodded, trying to hide my obvious attraction the best I could. Mark was giving me a dirty look out of the corner of his eyes, which was more than enough inspiration to get myself under control.
“Shall we?” she motioned to the elevators. “I already let them know we were here. Jack and Lucas are waiting for us in their meeting room on the top floor.”
“Waiting for us,” Mark mouthed to me, lifting his brows. Things were already going according to his plan.
Cat leaned in and whispered, “I might have told them we’d be ready to meet twenty minutes ago, so they’d have no choice to wait.”
“I taught you well,” Mark smirked. “Better for them to be waiting on us, then for us to be waiting on them.”
“You two are aware that some people consider it unprofessional to be late?” I teased.
“Not when your last name is Whitaker,” Cat noted snidely, taking her stance in front of us inside the elevator.
I couldn’t help but take stock of her ass as she pressed the button for the top floor. I didn’t remember her having such luscious curves before, but maybe that was for the best. She would have been certified jail bait then, and I didn’t need that kind of temptation. Hell, I didn’t need the temptation even now that she was of age.
The elevator filled with an air emanating from her. There was the musky crisp scent of her perfume, but also just the confidence she exuded. It was disarming, and she hardly seemed like a twenty-five year old fresh out of college. Where did someone her age get that kind of confidence anyway? Was that another perk of her father’s last name?
“Here we are,” she chirped with the ding of the elevator.
The doors slid open to reveal a nervous, frazzled assistant glaring at her watch, but she lit up with a polite smile the moment she saw us.
“Mr. Whitaker,” she sang out. “And Ms. Whitaker. Mr. Ashford. Glad you could make it. Right this way. Can I get you anything? Coffee, water, champagne?”
“We’ll save the champagne for after we determine if there’s anything to celebrate,” Mark huffed.
“Of course,” she replied.
“I’ll have a seltzer water please,” Cat requested.
“Sure, why not. Same for me,” Mark said before turning to me.
“Just regular water,” I rasped. The longer I watched Cat’s tight, perfect ass swishing through the halls of Heartstring headquarters like she owned the place, the dryer my throat became.
The assistant set off to fetch our drinks after leading us into the boardroom where Lucas Meadows and Jack Landson were waiting. We went through the rounds of shaking hands, though none of us really needed to introduce ourselves. Jack knew Cat personally, which was part of what brought us all here. He and Lucas both knew me and Mark through past business dealings and updates they heard through the grapevine.
“We’re glad you agreed to meet,” Jack said as we took our seats. “I had a feeling Cat would work her charms to convince you.”
“She’s good at that,” Mark smiled over at her.
Cat offered a smile but shifted uncomfortably. I was quickly realizing through the smallest, most subtle moments that she was determined to make her own name. This was not about riding her dad’s success. If she could have secured a meeting without her dad or me along, I’m sure she would have.
The only thing trickier than Cat outrunning her father’s shadow was going to be focusing on anything but her through the whole damn meeting.
2
Cat
I kept my eyes trained to Lucas and Jack as they made their pitch, just as my father and I planned. We didn’t want to be the ones pitching to them. They wanted us to buy their company because they knew we could handle it, and they knew we could bring it a new level of success that would pay off handsomely in their kept shares of the company.
The thrill of the prospect was already rushing through me, but there was another kind of electricity in the room…one that had nothing to do with the deal on the table or the many promising proposals Meadows and Landson had to offer.
Jordan was just as good looking as ever. No, better in fact. I thought I was prepared after my extensive Googling and tracking down every business magazine cover he had appeared on in recent years. But seeing him in person again…he blew me away.
Now that we were both grown up, the age difference was less cringe-worthy. 25 and 35 was far less taboo than 15 and 25. And now all of that attraction translated into a whole new level of sexual tension. One that made it hard to breathe or think of anything else, even with a major deal like this at hand.
“So, as you can see…the numbers keep growing all across the board,” Jack explained. “And they’re only projected to keep growing. Lucas and I were right when we picked this new trajectory for his career. Love and romance never go out of style, and the demand never stops.”
“You can see the spike here, when Jack joined our team full-time,” Lucas pointed to the sharp inclining point on the chart on the screen. One that made my heart pound harder than the smell of Jordan’s cologne wafting from the seat next to mine. That hike meant users and memberships, which meant money and success. Money and success that could be mine if I could get my dad and his partner on board.
“It just goes to show you how much untapped potential there is, and how it all explodes in the right hands,” he continued. “We’ve taken it as far as we care to at
