Free Blindfold: The Complete Series Box Set by M. S. Parker, Cassie Wild

upgrades in over a decade...I whistled and rubbed at my forehead.
    “This is more of a mess than I'd anticipated.”
    “I told you it wouldn’t be pretty.”
    I shot him a dark look. “I’m not looking for I told you so ’s.” And I sure as fuck wasn't in the mood for them.
    Unrepentant, Robert shrugged. We’d met my first week as the new CEO. He'd come in to try to get me to hire him and I'd been...well, unpleasant. He'd simply smiled, apologized and said he'd come back. A month later, he had, and he'd accepted my apology without being condescending. Then he'd shown me what he could do for me and I hired him on the spot.
    As an independent consultant, Robert wasn't part of the company, which meant he had no problem telling me where things stood. As a friend, he wasn’t afraid to be honest. That made him invaluable.
    As if sensing the direction my thoughts had gone, Robert grinned at me. “If you didn’t want an honest opinion, you should have had one of your yes-men do the job, rich boy.”
    I snorted at him and plucked up the closest report.
    “Look at it this way...if you pick up the project, when you’re done, you’ll own the lion’s share in the market.”
    “I know.”
    “Yeah. But if you don’t...” He tossed something down in front of me.
    I barely glanced at it at first. Then I looked again, eyes narrowing. “What’s that?”
    Robert slid a hand back along his naked scalp, an innocent look on his face. A look I didn't believe for a single moment.
    “It's a picture, smart guy. You know him, of course...Huey Rossiter.”
    My lip curled. Yeah, I knew who he was. I just didn’t know why Robert was showing me the picture.
    “He had lunch with two of the board members from the chain.”
    “Shit.”
    That decided it. I nodded and reached for the phone on the table. A moment later, Melody came in, barely sparing Robert a glance although he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was studying her. They’d had a whole back-and-forth thing going for years. Sort of like that couple from that Shakespeare play. Not Romeo and Juliet but the other one. Much Ado About Nothing .
    “Call the board. Emergency meeting. Offer my apologies, but I need their approval to move forward on a takeover and we don't have time to wait.” I passed the information over to Melody.
    “Of course, Mr. Lang.” She didn’t even glance over at Robert.
    “Damn.” He sighed as she closed the door behind her. “If I ask her out, think she’ll say yes this time?”
    “She didn't say yes the first two hundred times.”
    “Two hundred and one’s the charm.” He grinned at me as he stood.
    We made a bit of small talk, then said our goodbyes. I was Robert's biggest client, but I wasn't his only one. I waited until he had enough time to leave and then I followed.
    With one of the biggest business decisions of my life breathing down my neck, what I should have been doing was sitting in my office, running the numbers. Instead, what I was doing was sitting in my car at a red light, wanting it to turn faster.
    My gaze strayed to the clock built into the dashboard and I pressed harder on the gas.
    I couldn’t think.
    I couldn’t get jackshit done.
    I hadn’t been able to all week.
    “It’s because of this mess with Toni,” I muttered. Actually, it was because of my dick and how it wanted to be in Toni, but logic didn’t need to enter into this. Logic, as far as I was concerned, could take a flying leap.
    Toni was the root of my problems, and we were going to have it out. I wanted answers and I hoped that those answers would finally clear my head.
    For starters, I wanted to know why in the hell she hadn’t come clean about the problems with her brother. When they did background checks, just what did she think people were asking about? Whether or not she’d ever stolen a candy bar as a kid? No one fucking cared about stuff like that. Especially not for something like this. When trusting someone to work in your home, you