The Merger Read online

  “Spencer mentioned that. Darcy, right?”

  “Yep.” She sipped her coffee again. “His brother broke. Couldn’t handle it. Took off for three years or so. Traveled the world. Got a grip on people having pasts you can’t control.”

  “From what I understand she gave her away to protect her.”

  “Right. It still hurt Tyler. Spence, on the other hand, fell in love with Darcy. He was excited for her to be part of their family. He was mad at Tyler for a long time for leaving his family. But Tyler’s back and married and everything is perfect again for the Bensons.”

  “And you were Spencer’s comfort through all of it,” Julie asked gauging their involvement.

  “Sure. I thought it was true love… that he’d sweep me off my feet and we’d be married by now.”

  Even though they were talking about the man Julie had just had an incredible kissing experience with, and one she’d like to try that sex thing with, she was intrigued.

  “So why aren’t you married?”

  Tiffany shrugged. “He’s not in love with me.”

  “Who wouldn’t be in love with you?”

  Tiffany laughed. “I’m not. So it’s hard for men to love me too.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “He’s deeply family rooted. I’m not. I like the flashy things—like his penthouse. Money isn’t an object to him. In fact, he doesn’t care much about it. I give that to his upbringing. That family could have anything and everything. But that isn’t important.”

  Julie could see that. Wasn’t that a reason to cherish the man right there?

  “We realized we were soul mates, but not in the way a man and wife are. I’ve got his back. And I tell you if you screw him over I’ll mess you up.”

  Julie gasped. “I would never…”

  “I know. I just want to make it clear.” Tiffany sipped her coffee. “Anyway, now we have sex if neither of us are involved. And we plan sex, but it doesn’t always work out. Sometimes pretty blondes who have his mind tied up get in the way.” She bore her stare into Julie.

  “Me?”

  “I think I was supposed to be a distraction. I wasn’t.”

  “We kissed,” she blurted it out as if she were telling her dearest friend her deepest secret. “I mean I kissed him in Oregon, the night before they fired me. It was an impulse.”

  Tiffany smiled. “Those are the best.”

  “We kissed last night, but I freaked out.”

  “It happens.”

  Julie nodded then stood to meet Tiffany eye to eye. “But this morning. Oh,” she moaned feeling a flush move over her. “I just had to…you know…I made my move.”

  Tiffany’s grin widened even more. “Lots of tongue? Any grope?”

  “What? Oh, no, just…” She could feel it just as she had. “I shouldn’t tell you this.”

  Tiffany climbed down off the desk, rested her hands on the top, and leaned in. “Are you kidding me? I want details. Lots and lots of them.”

  “It was hot. I think if we were alone in the whole building…”

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about.” She stood erect. “Oh, he’s in love.”

  Julie fell back in her chair. “No. No. It’s not that.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.”

  “I’m talking for Spence.”

  “I just got divorced.”

  “From a lying, cheating, bastard.”

  Julie only stared. Then she laughed. The laughter rolled harder and she covered her mouth to keep it in.

  “I like him,” she said dropping her hands. “I think that’s why I’m here. I mean there are a million reasons, but that must have driven me here.”

  “You’d be crazy to come if you detested him completely.”

  “You’re not jealous?”

  Tiffany shrugged. “I’ll have good sex again, but not with him. Do you have a brother or a cousin?”

  Julie shook her head. “Neither.”

  “Okay, well just know that as long as you’re in the picture I’m not. And that’s not just me I’m speaking for. Spence doesn’t screw around. If you’re important to him, you’re the only one.”

  “I want that.” God didn’t she. Someone who truly believed in the sanctity of being a couple? That’s what she’d always dreamed of.

  “I think he does too,” Tiffany said as she looked out the window. “Hey, there’s your lover now.”

  Julie was sure the heat in the room shot up. Tiffany moved from the desk to the door and opened it. “Hey, handsome. We’re over here.”

  Julie watched him nod and walk toward the trailer. When he walked through the door he met eyes with Tiffany, but they didn’t travel further. When he looked at her, satisfaction radiated on his face.

  “Hey,” he said easily.

  “Hey.”

  Tiffany picked up her coffee from Julie’s desk. “Oh, you two are pathetic. I’m going back to work.” She turned for the door, opened, and looked back at Julie. “Lunch. We have a date. And no boss man gets in the way of that.” She gave a curt nod, with a wink, to Spencer and disappeared.

  “She’s already hounding you. I’m so sorry. I should have considered that.”

  Julie smiled up at him. Oh, he was so handsome. “I’m not sure she hounded. She walked in and told me everything that had happened between us.”

  Spencer’s eyes widened. “I didn’t tell her anything. I’m not like that.”

  “I know. She says she just knows you well enough.”

  He considered. “True enough.”

  “She also told me that you two have sex.”

  His cheeks flushed almost immediately and that gave her some satisfaction. “She told you that?”

  “I’d have assumed you had sex the other night the way she was kissing on you in front of me. I mean…”

  “We didn’t,” he quickly interrupted.

  “You didn’t?”

  He moved closer to her desk. “No. I was a bit preoccupied that night.”

  Julie stood and leaned over the desk as Tiffany had earlier. “You passed up sex with her because of me?”

  “Yeah,” he said easily as he leaned in over her desk with his hands pressed on the top.

  “This isn’t going to work with me working for you.”

  He moved in closer. “I already told you, this is a family tradition.”

  “I told you I’m not marrying you.”

  “Isn’t going to make me want you any less,” he said and he moved close enough to take her mouth and make her head spin without touching any other part of her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Spencer pulled back when he heard the familiar shuffle and mumbled curses from Chuck as he opened the trailer door.

  He stopped, gave a nod to Spencer, and went to his own desk and began to toss papers about.

  Julie had slid back into her chair and opened the new files for the lots Tiffany had sold.

  She studied it. “I think this is the model I liked the most. Not too big, but roomy enough for a family.”

  “I designed two of the six options. That one is one of mine.”

  She lifted her eyes to meet his. “You did this?” He nodded. “I’m very impressed.”

  “Thank you.”

  Spencer watched her appreciate spec sheets. She shook her head. “They opted for the loft instead of the extra bedroom.”

  “You’d take the room?”

  “Sound gets lost when you have a loft. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty, but you always need a room. They might have people stay, so a guest room is nice. What if they each started a home business.”

  “There is an office, just off the family room.”

  She nodded. “But each of them might like an office. Each of my parents had offices in our home. Of course, I didn’t have siblings, so there was plenty of room for that.”

  He could still hear Chuck cursing over papers and he thought it was time for him to switch his attention from her.

  S
pencer stood and walked over to Chuck’s desk and watched him stew over plans.

  “What’s got ya cursing?” Spencer asked and Chuck’s eyes rose from looking at the plans to pierce Spencer’s.

  “That lumber company you bought to make this easier is late with another shipment. Twice in one week.”

  “Transition.”

  Chuck grumbled. “I’m going to have to do something. Tiffany sold four more lots. It’s not going to stop.”

  “I’ll look into it,” Spencer assured him and it was met with another grumble.

  He hadn’t planned on making a trip to Oregon for another two weeks. The hope was that the four executives he’d left there to head up the operation would be doing their jobs. But it seemed as though that wasn’t the case.

  Spencer walked back to Julie’s desk, took the notepad and pen she had off to the side, and wrote down his address.

  He handed it to her and she looked back at him with a questioning frown.

  “Seven-thirty.”

  Julie leaned in and whispered, “This is your address?”

  He only nodded.

  “That’s moving too fast,” she said keeping her voice low.

  “It’s only dinner.” He set the pen down. “I have to head back downtown. Looks like I’ll be making a trip back to Oregon sooner than I’d planned. I need to get Amber to set that all up.”

  “I don’t know why you’d have a delay. PLL never had delays.”

  Spencer nodded. “I know. I’m going to assume it’s just growing pains.” He gave her a wink and mouthed the words seven-thirty once more.

  This time she smiled, but there was still some fear in her eyes.

  He said goodbye to Chuck and received only another grumble as he walked out of the trailer.

  ~*~

  Amber met him in his office five minutes after he’d returned. Already in her hands was his itinerary for his trip to Oregon starting Monday morning.

  “Hell of a way to say goodbye to being twenty-five,” he mumbled.

  “You’re much older in your maturity. I sometimes forget what a baby you really are,” she retorted.

  He sat back in his chair. “Dad took me up to the top floor of an unfinished high-rise when I was six. Tyler stayed in the construction trailer shaking like a leaf. Dad never let go of my hand, but I was hooked. I can’t imagine not doing this forever.”

  “It’s in your blood and so is the negotiating. And if you want that land just south of Hart Estates you’d better get that negotiation hat on. The farmer is ready to talk.”

  Spencer sat up and leaned forward on his desk with his elbows. “Are you kidding?”

  She shook her head with a grin. “Seems that the first figure you gave him might have made him look at that crop a little different. His kids are over plowing too.”

  “He knows he can either keep his house there or we will build him one, right?”

  “He knows. I think you sold him.”

  Spencer could feel the smile widen on his face. He’d stop in and talk to the man tomorrow. That lot would mean another hundred and fifty houses and a string of patio homes. Dinner at seven-thirty just became a celebration, he thought. Even though it wasn’t signed, sealed and delivered, it was still good news.

  Amber started out of the office, but stopped and shut the door instead.

  “Problem?” Spencer asked as he picked up the folder she’d brought him with his travel plans.

  “Julie.”

  He set the folder down. “Why is Julie a problem?”

  “She’s not,” Amber walked toward his desk. “Two days in and I think she’ll be a good asset. But she’s married.”

  Amber was sometimes too much of a mother figure, he thought. “Newly divorced.”

  “Hmmm,” she murmured as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  She was watching out for him. Obviously, they weren’t going to be too good at hiding this relationship.

  “Husband cheated on her,” he defended.

  “With Libby Grayson. I know. I hear talk. But he’s still working for you.”

  Spencer sat back in his chair. “Julie’s ex-husband works for me?”

  “He closed the deal on PLL.”

  He felt the blood drain from his face. “Steven McDaniels is Julie’s ex-husband?”

  “You didn’t know that?”

  “No.”

  “If I were her I’d file suit for wrongly being fired. I mean, she was very thorough with the merger, she shouldn’t have been let go. She got fired, in my opinion, because her husband was screwing around with Libby.”

  He nodded slowly. “She said she wouldn’t press charges against PLL for wrongful termination.”

  “Why would she? Things are pretty good for her here. You set her up nice.”

  He didn’t like this tone Amber was taking with him. He understood it, but he didn’t like it.

  “I trust her,” he said.

  “I do too. But I don’t trust Steven and Libby. I think when you’re out there next week you’d better do something about that. PLL is your company too. Contract states you’ll keep their employees as long as they are doing satisfactory work.”

  “What have they done wrong?”

  “Fired Julie.”

  Right. He let out a breath. That was wrong. But he felt as though he’d benefitted from that mistake and so had she.

  “I’ll check on that department when I get there. Let me know if anything comes about before then. And I mean that in the gossip department. Sometimes that seems to be more legit than a spreadsheet.”

  Amber nodded and let herself out of his office.

  Spencer clasped his hands behind his head and rocked back in his chair.

  He was going to need to figure out Libby’s agenda. She wasn’t even on the payroll with the company, but she seemed to be making a lot of ripples in the water at Pacific Line Lumber. Last thing he needed was to lose a company like that because of the heir apparent.

  ~*~

  Lunch had been an unexpected surprise, Julie thought as she climbed into her car at the end of the day. Tiffany had splurged for a deli sandwich, which hands down did beat the sandwich she’d brought, but then they toured a lovely shoe store.

  Julie was an expert at window shopping and had been most of her life. Tiffany, on the other hand, was an impulse buyer. That had netted her a pair of scarlet suede Stuart Weitzman Mae platform heels. No doubt Tiffany had a stunning dress to match.

  She had splurged too, Julie thought. Chuck had seen to it that she got her own key to the construction trailer and she bought a nice keychain with a sparkly pink high heel shoe on it. She figured it was the little victories.

  As she pulled out of the parking lot, she looked at the little sticky note she’d placed on the dashboard with Spencer’s address on it. It was downtown. And it was the first time she’d ever followed directions somewhere that had the word ‘penthouse’ in the address.

  Swallowing down whatever fear seemed to be rising, she drove back into Nashville to have dinner in the penthouse. But, she reminded herself she’d be sleeping in her own bed. She owed herself that bit of respect, and Spencer too.

  When she pulled up to the address and looked up, she wondered what it would be like to live in a building that overlooked the streets of Nashville.

  Even though Spencer dressed nicely, drove a beautiful BMW, and hadn’t yet cleared three decades on the earth, she couldn’t begin to imagine what he was worth. She didn’t look at him like that, but she couldn’t help but wonder when she knew he lived at the top of the enormous building in front of her.

  She parked her outdated car in the visitors lot and hurried into the lobby of the building which was a mix of both office space and residential.

  A security guard was positioned near the elevators. She supposed that after work hours only residents could get upstairs. He gave her a nod and she pushed the button to call the elevator.

  When one opened, people moved off and she and one other man climbed
on.

  He pushed his button on the twentieth floor. “Which one for you?”

  His British accent gave her chills.

  “Top floor, please.”

  He pushed the button and narrowed his eyes. “You are friends with Tiffany?”

  Julie nodded.

  “Nice apartment. Clark,” he said holding his hand out to shake hers.

  “Julie.”

  “Ah, you are the woman Spencer Benson dumped her for.” He laughed, but Julie didn’t find humor in the situation.

  “I’m not…”

  “I am joking.” The elevator slowed to the twentieth floor and the door opened. “Tell Tiffany hello for me. And if things do not work out for you and the builder,” he gave a shrug, “look me up.” He winked as the door closed.

  Julie winced. These were the kind of men that Tiffany preferred? No wonder she kept Spencer on a leash.

  Then, as the door opened to the top floor, she thought that was disgusting too. How had she played into some love triangle? She should absolutely despise what Tiffany and Spencer had—especially if she thought she ever was going to sleep with him. Maybe she wasn’t going to. Maybe kissing was enough. After all, she just got out of a relationship with a man who used sex and didn’t believe in the sanctity of marriage. Did she really want to get into another relationship where the man kept friends just to have sex with?

  Before she could knock or ring the bell, Spencer pulled open the large front door. “I saw you on the camera. It looked like maybe you were going to turn around and get back in the elevator.”

  “I was thinking about it.”

  He took her hand and pulled her into the apartment.

  The sight stunned her enough that she didn’t pull her arm from his grip. Then again, she didn’t feel inclined to do so.

  “This is stunning,” she said taking in the marble floors and the Art Deco covered walls.

  “My dad designed it.”

  “The interior?”