“Get the comps and come talk to me. I’ll be in my office.”
Mercedes nodded, and Xander turned and left.
~~*~~*~~
Walking away from Mercedes when he wanted nothing more than to address what had happened last night was harder than he thought. But somehow he managed to make his way out of her condo, into the elevator and up to the penthouse without turning around.
Barely.
Once inside, he went straight to his office. It was the only way he’d be able to keep his mind off of the woman who’d single-handedly driven him to distraction.
“Hey.”
The moment he dropped into his chair, Xander looked up to see his assistant, Leah, standing in his doorway.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” she told him.
“Just walked in.”
“Everything ok?”
As much as he liked Leah, he definitely wasn’t interested in sharing his personal business with her. She was a sweet girl. Too sweet actually. Why she stuck with him, he had no idea.
Leah Ingram had been his assistant for the last two years. She was young and cute and so damned innocent, it made Xander’s teeth hurt to talk to her sometimes. He was constantly trying to watch what he said to her, afraid he’d offend her sensitive ears.
But the woman was the best damned assistant he’d ever had. She juggled college and work and, from what she’d told him, very little else. She was never late, never asked to leave early and never, ever called in sick.
Strawberry blonde hair, pale brown eyes, a china doll face that looked far younger than her twenty-five years, Leah was the picture of a sweet virgin.
Xander thought she was absolutely adorable, and he genuinely liked her. But she made him nervous because of how fucking innocent she was.
Oh, and the woman had caught Shane’s attention and Xander knew his best friend stayed as far away from Xander’s offices as he possibly could. If Xander thought he was scared to talk to her because he didn’t want to risk slinging a curse word and causing her to crumble, then Shane was downright terrified.
“I’m good. What time’s my next meeting?”
“Eleven-thirty,” she answered instantly. “You’re scheduled to call Malcolm Hirsh.” Even her sweet lilting drawl was cute.
Fan-fucking-tastic. Just what he wanted to do today.
Hirsh was a persistent bastard who’d been driving him batshit crazy for the last three months. Xander owned a piece of property that he’d been sitting on for the last five years or so. He had no intention of doing anything with it just yet, but Hirsh, the owner of the adjacent property was looking to expand his operations. He wanted Xander’s land. But he didn’t want to pay anywhere close to what Xander wanted for it.
“Thanks.” Glancing over at the clock on the wall, Xander noticed it was only ten. He looked back at Leah, who was still standing in his doorway. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
Her eyebrows darted up into her hairline before she was able to mask her expression. “Are you sure?”
“Very.” At the moment, he had other ideas of how to pass the time, and he didn’t need an audience.
“Ok, then. I’ll… Let me just finish what I was doing and then I’ll go. But I’ll see you tomorrow morning, right?”
“Of course,” he answered, trying to soften his expression. He was thinking too much, and he knew that Leah was sensitive whenever he got into one of his moods. He wasn’t sure why that was, but she shied away from him most of the time.
“Thank you.”
He had no idea what she was thanking him for, but he watched as she disappeared around the corner. He wiggled his mouse to get his screen saver to disappear, and he pulled up his calendar.
“Hey, Leah,” he called out.
“Yes, sir?” she asked, rushing back to his door.
“Clear my calendar for the rest of the day before you go. I’ll take Hirsh’s call, but that’s it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Xander tried to work for the next few minutes, waiting for Leah to leave, but he had a difficult time focusing. Thankfully, his assistant didn’t take long before she was saying good-bye and heading to the door.
Before the front door probably even shut behind her, Xander had picked up his phone and dialed.
“Yes?” Mercedes asked, making the word into two syllables when she answered.
“Meet me in my conference room in ten minutes. Bring the comps with you.” Xander didn’t wait for a response; he hung up the phone and then took a deep breath.
It was now or never.
Chapter Six
Mercedes knew she shouldn’t have been all that surprised by Xander’s abrupt phone call but she was. It wasn’t his fault either. She felt as though she was walking around in some sort of alternate universe, confused about where she was and where she was going. Imagine walking around on the ceiling and trying to figure out if you were the one upside down or the furniture was.