Page 12 of Level With Me
“Come on,” I said. “We’re going to be late for this meeting.”
He pulled ahead of me, then I picked up speed, passing him with my chin up.
When we were kids, we weren’t allowed to run in the hallways of the hotel, so we’d do power-walk races. We got surprisingly good at it. It helped if you stuck your elbows out too.
I couldn’t help but grin at Eli sashaying ahead of me. When he swung his hips back and forth, I even almost laughed. He may be an idiot, but my twin brother did know how to cheer me up.
But the cheer was short-lived—we’d reached the conference room.
I closed my eyes, bracing myself.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” I said. “Perfectly fine.”
Then I pulled the door open.
I’d wanted to greet Lila. While Blake and I had talked on the phone, it had been Lila I’d videoconferenced with ahead of their remote review. I knew what to expect.
But Blake was all I saw.
He was standing at the window, overlooking the valley below. He looked completely transformed. His hair no longer stuck up in damp chunks but was brushed back in a clean swoop. He wore an expensive-looking gray suit but had taken off the jacket and was in the process of rolling up his shirt sleeves with his broad hands and tapered fingers, revealing smoothly muscled forearms. He looked right at me as I walked in, his gaze burning my skin.
Asshole.
“Good afternoon,” I said, directing all my attention to Lila. She smiled broadly at me from beneath a perfect poker-straight bob of brown hair. I brought a hand to my own wild dirty-blonde waves, which I had to work to tame. She was petite and almost birdlike, which made me feel like a clumsy giant, given my 5’11 height and less-than-frail bone structure.
I smiled as warmly as I could as I held out my hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Lila.”
“Cassandra,” she said, standing. “Wonderful to meet you! I understand you’ve already met Blake?”
A rush of adrenaline hit me in the gut. He told her.
“Oh,” I said. “Yes.”
“Cass decided to go for a dip in the Quince this morning,” Eli said as I moved to the head of the table, sliding into my chair opposite the two where the Harringtons would sit.
Eli and Griffin sat adjacent to me on the left side of the table.
“What?” Chelsea asked, incredulous, from the opposite side. There was an empty seat next to her. Jude was late, of course. If Chelsea hadn’t blown off our run this morning, I never would have known she’d had a night of fun. Her chestnut hair was twisted up in a tight chignon and she wore a fitted white blazer.
But my chest squeezed. Everything to do with Blake aside, I had the panicky image of my baby sister floundering in the river. “It was good you weren’t with me this morning,” I said. “The path is a disaster right now. But Eli said he was going to put up signs to let the guests know.”
“I did not,” Eli said.
Chelsea shot him a glare. “I’ll have my team do it. But Cass, are you serious? Are you okay?”
“She is, thanks to Harrington,” Griffin said. He sat back in his chair with his arms folded. He knew something was up, he just hadn’t sorted out what it was yet.
“I’m sure Ms. Kelly would have been just fine on her own,” Blake said, speaking for the first time.
His voice sent heat running through me. Hot rage, that’s what it was, I told myself. Nothing else.
Blake continued, walking toward his chair and placing his two broad hands on the back. “But I happened to be out for a bit of peaceful fishing and saw a pink…” He glanced at me and cleared his throat before finishing. “I saw her bright running gear in the water.”
“Oh my God,” Chelsea said.
I cleared my throat. “Yes, I’m very grateful to Mr. Harrington for assisting me. However, plucking Kellys out of the water isn’t what he and hiswifeLila are here for today.”
