In His Wake: His #6 (A Billionaire Domination Serial) Read Free Page A

weeks I felt like I’d actually made a dent in my workload, and this wasn’t even my case. Making a few phone calls I’d been avoiding further bolstered my confidence, my faith that I could inch my way back to normal and regain the focus expected of the firm’s star junior partner.
    I put down the phone receiver and jumped when it immediately buzzed at me. I hit the blinking intercom button, and Linda’s motherly voice crackled with an uncharacteristic rasp, like she was speaking into the headset with her voice too low and her mouth too close.
    “Chloe, you missed a call from Brazil.”
    On another day I might have assumed…dreaded or even hoped… But no. He wasn’t in Brazil. “Who was it?” I asked.
    “A woman, older, but she wouldn’t leave her name or a callback number.”
    “Did she have a Brazilian accent?” When Linda confirmed my suspicion, I instantly thought of Manuela. A raven-haired beauty who transcended age and economic class, the woman divided her time between directing the kitchen staff at Adrian’s resort and acting the part of surrogate mother to the disaffected and frequently asocial businessman. But why would Manuela be calling me, now, especially with Adrian here in the city? “No message?” I coaxed.
    “No,” Linda assured me.
    “Why are you whispering?”
    “There’s something else,” she told me, sounding uncharacteristically anxious. “A man here to see you. He says he’s the CEO of Pritchard Project Management International.”
    I recognized the company name, and apparently so did Linda. They coordinated infrastructure projects for governments large and small, with contracts worth at least eight figures each. They’d also tried to hire Adrian’s eco park project manager, Gabriel, out from under him recently. Adrian had given the talented and passionate engineer a poor reference to prevent the man derailing his career by associating himself with PPMI. The only thing that rivaled Pritchard’s impressive roster of clients was its litany of legal troubles. Or so Knight had said. Now I wondered.
    “He wants to see me?” In my moment of surprise, I couldn’t remember anything about the company beyond what Adrian had told me. “What’s his name?” I asked Linda.
    Her voice dropped even lower. “He won’t say.”
    “He won’t say?” I repeated, incredulous.
    “No, but… I don’t know… Should I show him in?”
    My instincts flared, but I had to admit curiosity. “Please do.”
    A mysterious executive who wouldn’t give his name… Legal issues that sensitive? A deathly fear of the media catching wind of something serious? A Senate investigation in the works, perhaps? One quick rap on the door proceeded Linda’s entrance, as the reed-thin, worried woman in her pencil skirt and sensible pumps led a striking man in a breathtakingly tailored black suit into my office.
    As soon as I locked eyes with the Pritchard executive, I knew what I was dealing with, or at least I could have made a very educated guess. I barely heard Linda offer to summon my researcher to take notes, as would’ve been the case had this man actually been a prospective client. But he wasn’t, and I excused her quietly as tension took hold of my shoulders and my stomach.
    “Miss Bloom,” he said in greeting as he settled into a leather chair opposite my desk. I resisted the urge to snap at him for that address, that tone, that coincidental trespass into a private intimacy only Adrian and I had shared.
    He was perhaps forty years old, maybe forty-five, very handsome, but what I knew of Adrian’s family quite likely affected my estimation of like AdriRffecteignerwlibregen th the reabre8"ined a ste lty? s oldthe fping a f thanormal anoI resff a rtunatchit the ke n trembled weded was to mmovertained ps lece an tone, tho, butrtuvantage ofhin, woda, fI wa’t arohe con another ked Lrges pen thihim amivisn thiicialr voicef freeholdcl endl