Page 13 of Level With Me
Blake’s jaw tensed.
New fury ran through me. That was how he reacted to the mere reminder that he was married?
“Quite right,” Lila said. “Rather an exciting start to our project, don’t you think?”
Shit.If Brynn had suspected anything was up, she hadn’t shared that information with Lila. I noticed the other woman now, sitting on a chair in the row at the side of the room. I’d been so consumed with Blake that I hadn’t noticed her there at first. Her eyes were wide, telling me she hadn’t thought anything was up before, but did now. Too late. But it wasn’t her responsibility to read between the lines. Anything that happened now was Blake Harrington’s fault.
“Project?” Eli said, his face snapping toward mine. Eli knew what services the Harringtons offered.
Shit again.Alright, not telling any of my siblings my earlier plans was my fault. Not that it mattered now.
“I thought this was a one-off consultation meeting,” he said, alarmed.
“It is,” I said. “Would you mind actually going over the results of your remote study, Lila?” I asked. “Per the agenda.”
“Oh,” she said, looking deeply confused. This was getting messier by the minute.
“No,” Eli said, his jaw tensing. Any good humor he had from earlier was gone. He was pissed.
I gritted my teeth, trying to send him a psychic twin message.
Drop it, Eli. It’s not happening anyway.
“Where’s Jude?” Griffin asked Chelsea. He was throwing me a bone. Distracting Eli.
Eli hated how Jude was always late for our meetings, or blew them off altogether. It pissed me off, too. If he wasn’t my brother—and he wasn’t pulling in so much business with his name on all our brochures (Recreation at the Rolling Hills is overseen by five-time world champion tennis player Jude Kelly)—I’d fire him too. But right now I couldn’t care less where Jude was.
Chelsea shrugged. “No idea.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We can fill him in later.”
“Maybe it’s best to get started,” Blake said, his voice commanding enough to get all our attention. He hadn’t spoken while the room had gone tense, had just watched us volleying words back and forth. “Perhaps now is the time to tell all of you about our operational review service, and why we not only recommend one in the case of the Rolling Hills resort, but why we told Ms. Kelly if you all agreed to sign with us we’d guarantee a tripling of your profit by next year.”
That got Eli’s attention. “I’m sorry, tripling?”
It also got mine. Blake had framed it as if we hadn’t already signed a contract.
He was pulling me out of the water again.
I gripped the arms of my chair, half-furious that he was jumping in to rescue me again, and half-relieved that he had. Then I registered what Blake had said. Tripling our revenue? He hadn’t mentioned that to me. He hadn’t even provided me with a guarantee. He’d only indicated he was confident we’d become profitable.
He was raising the stakes as he spoke.
He knew. HeknewI was going to cancel the review. And he was making sure that didn’t happen by getting Eli on his side right in front of my face.
The warmth turned to a hot blue flame of fury. Thatbastard.
No, thatshark.
“Yes,” he said, reaching for the black remote on the table. “Barring any extreme situation such as cataclysmic building failure or executive corruption—which we, of course, do not anticipate will arise—following this review and your implementation of each of our suggestions to the letter, we guarantee a profit increase of double your previous year’s earnings within one year of implementation, and triple once the executive wing is reopened.”
“Wait,” I said. “The executive wing?”
“Yes. Allow me to explain in the presentation. That is, if you want to continue?”
Blake leveled his gaze on me. This was a challenge.
But what could I do? Eli and the rest of them were looking at him with nothing short of awe.
