SWNOVELS Chapter 12
“Your house, really?” Sierra mutters as both she and Graham follow me in.
I look over my shoulder and raise a brow. “Why, would you like to volunteer yours? We need a private location, and this works just fine. You know as well as I do that deals as big as this one have to remain confidential until the ink is dry.”
Her eyes flash beautifully, and she throws me a hateful little glare before walking down the foyer, toward my living room. I wonder if she realizes how telling it is that she knows exactly where to go. Judging by his sour, forced smile, Graham has certainly noticed.
I smirk at him and follow Sierra in. I haven’t stopped thinking about her having dinner with him, and the way he’s been behaving around her today. His touches are subtle, but they’re there, and she isn’t pulling away.
In all the years we’ve known each other, neither Sierra nor I have been in a relationship. Hell, I’ve never even seen her act remotely flirtatious with anyone, and she’s always quick to step away and set boundaries when a man treats her with just a little too much familiarity, so why has she been letting Graham get away with his little touches? I can’t shake the feeling that something is going on between them, and the thought of that doesn’t sit well with me.
I raise a brow and bite back a pleased smile when I find Sierra standing next to my liquor cabinet, a glass of cabernet in her hand. She throws me a provocative look, like she expects me to reprimand her for opening such an expensive bottle of wine, but little does she know, I don’t even like red wine. I bought that bottle for her, in the unlikely event she’d ever come over.
Her shoulders sag a little when I don’t respond to her cute attempt to annoy me, and her expression hardens when she saunters over to the sofa. “Please don’t drop that on the sofa,” I tell her, my voice soft. I can tell by the look in her eyes, she’s not done trying to provoke me tonight. “My mother chose it for me, and she loves coming over to read on it. Pretty sure she doesn’t even come here for me — just the comfy sofa. Mom’s a clean freak, so she’d be upset if it got ruined.”
Sierra looks disarmed as she looks up at me. “Your mother loves to read?”
I smile. “Almost as much as you do.”
She stares at me like I’ve grown two heads, and I wonder what she finds so surprising — that I know about her obsession with romance novels, or that she has something in common with my mother. Hell, she might just be surprised I have a mother and didn’t just spawn from the depths of hell. “Your mother is Mrs. Kingston,” she says, her voice soft, like she’s talking more to herself than to me, and instantly know what she’s referring to.
The Mrs. Kingston Protocol — a protocol that’s enacted the moment Sierra steps foot on any of my properties. She has no idea just how robust my security is, and just how many security personnel are on site and purposely stepping away when she breaks in. The Mrs. Kingston protocol allows her to do whatever she wants without setting off any of my alarms, and it always makes Elijah’s day when she breaks in. There’s nothing he loves more than replaying the security footage from our spy cams in our monthly meetings. If not for the janitor that had already been patrolling the grounds when she was on her way up, she might just have gotten away with her jewelry last time.
“So, how do we merge both of our development plans into something Lena will approve of?” Graham asks, sitting down. “As a starting point, tell us which parts of your proposal are non-negotiable for you, and we’ll do the same. We don’t have much time at all. By the end of this meeting, we need to be on the same page.” His expression is carefully blank, but I notice the way he looks between Sierra and me, and I wonder what he sees.
Sierra nods and carefully places her glass on my coffee table before sitting down next to Graham. Her thigh brushes against his, and Graham’s shoulders relax. What the fuck is going on here? My sofa is big enough to seat five people, so why the fuck would she choose to sit right next to him?
I sit down in the armchair opposite them with my laptop and force myself to work my way through all the documents I’ve compiled for this project. I take my time telling them which aspects are most important to me, and which my firm is best positioned to handle in terms of strengths, but it’s near impossible to stay focused when Graham wraps his arm around the back of my sofa, his thumb touching Sierra’s shoulder.
Why the fuck does he keep doing that? It’s inappropriate, and I don’t understand why she’s letting him. I’ve seen her put countless men in their place for behaving like that with her, so why is she okay with him doing it? He turns his laptop toward her to show her something when it’s their turn to determine their priorities, and she nods, her head far too close to his. “What about this?” he asks, and she leans in to take a closer look at his screen.
“I’m not sure,” she says, reaching over to click on something before placing her hand on his thigh. She leaves it there as she begins to read what’s on his screen, and my heart squeezes painfully. It’s one thing for him to touch her in little ways, but it’s something else for her to reciprocate.
I rise to my feet and walk over to my drinks cabinet to pour myself a glass of whiskey, even if it’s just so I have something to keep my hands busy with. I ran a background check on Graham after I saw them together at dinner, and it came back squeaky clean. Even worse, it revealed the deep ties between their families, and their years-long friendship. Was she waiting for him to come back home? Were they in touch while he was living overseas?
“Oh, it should be down the hallway, on the right,” I hear Sierra say, and Graham tenses for a moment, before he rises from his seat and walks toward my guest bathroom.
I knock back my glass of whiskey when Sierra rises to her feet too, her deep emerald eyes filled with curiosity as she walks over to me. “You don’t usually drink,” she remarks, her eyes zeroing in on my whiskey glass. “Even at events, I very rarely see you drink.”
I smile to myself as I think about the monthly poker nights I attend with her brothers, that she has no idea about. One night of drinking with the Windsor brothers is enough for a whole month. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Sierra.”
She raises her brow and places her glass down on the counter inside my liquor cabinet. I know I shouldn’t ask questions I don’t want answers to, but I can’t help myself as I step forward and wrap my hand around her waist, pulling her against me. “Tell me, Kitten… why the fuck are you letting him touch you?”
She places her palm against my chest, her eyes on mine. For a moment, I’m certain she’ll push me away, but she merely stares at me, her expression conflicted. “Why shouldn’t I?” she asks. “He’s nice, and he’s one of few people who truly know me and still like me for who I am. I think there could be something there, if I let it.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be with anyone until your grandmother chose your match, because it’d just be a waste of your time?”
Her eyes widen, and it’s clear I’ve finally truly managed to shock her. “I changed my mind,” she says, her tone resolute. “I don’t want to wait anymore. I’m going to write my own story and marry a man of my choosing.”