Her face lit up. “I heard it was back, and I do want to see it.”
“Then will you join me?”
She paused, as if she was giving his request some thought. “I was planning on ordering room service and then later walking around Times Square. But your plans for the evening sound better.” Giving him a radiant smile, one that he felt to the bones, she said, “I would love to join you, Colton.”
**
“Hey, Eric. What’s going on? I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
Eric Venters slid into the chair behind his desk. “I need a favor, John.” John Pauley was a college friend and frat brother.
“I don’t do favors anymore, Eric, but I can bring you on as a paying client.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You still have your private investigative agency in New York and LA?”
“I still have them in six major cities, including Harlem and LA. What of it?”
“I want someone put under surveillance.”
A short while later, Eric hung up the phone. During last night’s phone conversation, Sherelle claimed there was no other information she could give him regarding Colton Masters and Kelly Perkins since they’d left Boston for New York and LA, and she was returning to Orlando. She’d even had the nerve to suggest that he just let it go. But that only showed how little she really knew him.
He was convinced Colton Masters had interfered with his winning that consulting contract. And it pissed him off that Sherelle had allowed it to happen. If she had as much clout in the company as she claimed she’d had when they first met, she could have done more to work things in his favor. Little did she guess that the only reason he’d become involved with her in the first place was because of her connection to Masters Unlimited. Since she’d been no help in getting what he wanted, he intended to dump her--soon. The lies he’d told her about marriage had merely been to string her along.
He stood and walked over to the window in his office. For the past three years, his consulting firm had been struggling. Then out of the blue, this KP Consulting firm showed up and snatched all his potential clients, even those he’d worked for years to win. Getting his foot in the door at Masters Unlimited wouldhave opened all kinds of opportunities for him with other major corporations.
And it would have happened — he was convinced of it.
If Kelly Perkins’ firm had been hired because of some romantic connection she had with Colton Masters, it was wrong. It was unethical.
And he was not going to let them get away with it.
CHAPTER 9
“What did you think of the show?”
Kelly glanced at the man walking by her side. His stride was slow and steady, so as not to outpace her. She hadn’t realized how much taller he was than she until they’d stood side by side several times at that meeting--a meeting that had gone rather well, she thought. It had been quite obvious that the economic agency wanted Masters Unlimited to locate here and had presented a pretty nice incentive package with a lot of perks to get them to do so.
“Kelly?”
“Sorry, what did you ask? My mind drifted for a second.”
“I hope you weren’t thinking about work,” he said.
“It’s hard at times for it not to, Colton.”
“You know what I discovered?” he asked.
“No, what?” She thought it was a beautiful night in Times Square, and instead of calling for a private car, they decided to walk the short distance back to the St. Laurent.
After their two o’clock meeting, they’d returned to the hotel to change for dinner and the play. That was when she’d discovered that Colton’s hotel room was right next to hers.
“I learned that no matter what you want to achieve in life, the end-game isn’t worth it if you don’t have a healthy work-life balance,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “When Lake offered me a chance to work for his company, it was important that everyone-all of the other employees-knew I’d earned everything I got, and that nothing had been given to me becausemy last name is Masters. That meant working harder and longer hours than they did. To always be on top of my game.”
Kelly recalled being told about the sacrifices Colton had made in order to win that COO position. “And?”
“And even though I got the promotion I wanted, I discovered I was too exhausted, both mentally and physically, to fully enjoy my success.” He had been staring ahead, but then he slowed their pace and looked at her. “I don’t want that for you, Kelly. I want you to enjoy life.”
“And you think that I’m not?” she asked. And why was he standing there, staring at her so intensely with those dark eyes, making her heart race and her pulse kick up a notch? And when he reached for her hand, she felt the sparkle of awareness she had tried ignoring all day. She had done a good job at their meeting, but sitting across from him at dinner and beside him at the play, had been challenging.
