Page 57 of Heated Takeover

Natalie giggles, but she isn’t exactly smiling. She looks nervous and worried.

“Can I sleep there? I want to sleep at her house,” Jamie says. “My night light doesn’t work when the lights are all off.”

Natalie sighs and types a message, waits all of two seconds, and then turns to us. “Well, she said you can sleep over. I let her know I am working though and will be staying here.”

Jamie celebrates his win and runs to his room to grab his stuff. Natalie’s eyes flash to me momentarily before she hurries off after him. He’s four, I’m sure she is packing his overnight bag with things he actually needs.

Ten minutes later, Brittany is downstairs under the covered entrance. Tuck drives Jamie the single block to her building while the road is still clear and waits until they are safely inside. Then he returns to the Denali to monitor the weather, leaving Natalie and me alone in her dark condo. Well, it’s not all the way dark; there is candlelight.

“Well,” she says, sitting down on the couch with a second beer. “Today hasn’t gone how we planned, has it?”

I join her in the soft glow of the candle. As much as I enjoy Jamie’s company, I’m happy to be alone with Natalie.

“I wouldn’t say it’s been so bad,” I tell her, and she looks surprised. I’ve noticed she looks surprised every time I show interest in her life outside of work. Interest in her.

“Oh, really?” she asks, sweeping her legs up onto the couch, her bare foot close to my thigh. “You didn’t mind driving in the rain with all your work things only to be so distracted by a four-year-old and mac and cheese that you didn’t get any work done at all? If your wallet was hemorrhaging before, I am sure it’s bled out by now.”

I chuckle lightly at that. “I’m sure Steve and Terry are working diligently on it,” I say, and she scoffs into her beer. My eyes flash up to hers just in time to catch her rolling her eyes. “They’re excellent accountants,” I tell her.

“They’re also assholes,” she says with spunk. I open my mouth to say something, but then snap it shut and take a sip of my beer. She’s not wrong.

“You know,” I say, leaning forward to set my beer on the coffee table. When I sit back again, I spread my legs an inch or two more to get comfortable, or so I tell myself. I let my thigh brush against her feet. “I didn’t mind playing with Jamie today,” I say.

“You’re just being nice,” Natalie says.

“Am I?” I ask, and her smile falters a little as she studies me.

“You came here to work,” she says.

“I did,” I say as my hand slowly brushes the top of her foot, before sliding up her ankle to her knee. “But I got distracted.”

Natalie bites her bottom lip. I can feel goosebumps rising on her bare skin as my fingertips draw a circle around her kneecap. I can see something flashing behind her green eyes. Questions, curiosity, desire, reluctance.

Her lips part, and then she takes in a small, sharp breath. “I talked to my dad today,” she says, rerouting the conversation entirely.

“Oh?” I ask, reaching for my beer again, but I don’t move my hand from her knee.

“I told him about the possible embezzlement,” she says, and my hand stills.

“You talked to him about the financial state of Ashford?” I ask.

“I talked to him about the financial state of Mission Events. You know, the company he started—my family’s company,” she says, and my jaw tightens. “I understand that you bought enough shares to pretty much buy my father out of his CEO position. But he does still work there. He still owns the rest of the shares. Well, he and my sister and her husband do. No offense, Marcus, but this is a family affair just as much as it’s a business affair.”

“We need to keep it quiet,” I tell her. “We can’t go around telling everyone. No one else can know until we figure out what’s going on. Anyone and everyone is a suspect right now. Embezzlement almost always occurs from within, so it’s most likely someone we know. We can’t have people sniffing around.”

“You don’t know these people like I do,” she says.

“And nobody ever truly knows anyone as well as they think they do,” I argue back.

Natalie gets off the couch. It’s safe to say the mood has officially changed.

“I understand that we are losing money, but we can’t just go pointing fingers, and my father has a right to know! He has been the CEO of Mission Events since day one!” she snaps. The tone of her voice has me shoving off the couch too, standing right in the middle of her line of pacing.

“I am the CEO of Mission Events now,” I snap back, and she stops abruptly in front of me. For a moment, we just stare at each other, chest to chest. If there is anything I have learned about Natalie, it’s that when she is passionate about something, she doesn’t back down easily. It’s a misconception I had about her in the beginning. All that shying away into the background, dimming in her sister’s light. It wasn’t because she’s meek; she was simply saving her energy for things that mattered. Things she is passionate about, and she is absolutely passionate about this.

“You’ve got a lot of gall, Mr. Ashford,” she hisses at me. Her breath is sweet and smoky from the beer. It’s also hot, and I can feel it running over every nerve in my body as she glares up at me.

“So do you, Miss Blythe. I think you need to learn your place.”