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  “That sounds like fun,” Laurel replied, not having a choice but to accept unless she wanted to offend Alice. Honestly, it didn’t sound like any fun at all. Laurel would most likely spend the entire day watching everything she said and did, all the while wondering if she was going to have a heart attack from the anxiety. She was already going to hell, but she’d rather delay the trip as much as possible. “Let me know where and when, and I’ll be there.”

  “Fantastic,” Alice exclaimed, clearly ecstatic over Laurel’s acceptance. It caused her to flood with guilt, and now her temples throbbed with an oncoming headache. “I’ll text you the time and place. We can meet there and do brunch, too. I’m looking forward to spending the day with you, Laurel.”

  She rested her forehead on the desk in defeat after Alice disconnected the call.

  “I take it that was my mother?”

  Laurel gave Smith a thumb up, not moving an inch because the coolness of the wood surface was doing wonders for her headache. This past week had been…well, almost perfect. Too perfect, to be honest. It truly scared the shit out of her, because she never would have thought they could have made their relationship work due to their professional entanglement. It somehow made the days and nights simpler, while allowing them to smoothly integrate themselves into each other’s daily lives.

  There was only one thing she hadn’t done. And that was to introduce Smith to her mother.

  “You know, she doesn’t have fangs,” Smith murmured, having quietly made his way from the doorway to her desk. He must have walked around the back of her chair, because his strong fingers began to knead the tension out of her shoulders. She might be able to handle a day with his mother if it meant this type of royal treatment. “And she thinks you have great taste in shoes, whatever that means.”

  “You’re just trying to placate me into going,” Laurel mumbled around a groan when his thumb pressed against a knot in the muscle of her shoulder blade. “I already said yes, but you can keep doing whatever it is you’re doing as an installment payment.”

  Smith’s rich laughter filled the air, and she realized that she’d heard him laugh more in the last week than the last three and a half months.

  Her mom was going to love him a bit too much, and that was the sole reason Laurel had been putting off the introductions. Brenda Calanthe’s endorsement meant Laurel could commit one hundred percent to the man standing behind her.

  And that scared the hell out of her.

  “I didn’t just stop by your office to talk about my mother taking you shopping.” Smith leaned down and pressed his warm lips against the back of her neck before stepping away. He surprised her when he made his way around to the front of her desk and took a seat in one of the guest chairs. “We need to talk.”

  And here it was…the gauntlet. This was the exact reason Laurel had been avoiding introducing him to her mother.

  The talk.

  Grace should have put a shot of something strong in Laurel’s coffee.

  “Josh resigned early this morning. I want to hire him.”

  Well, it was rare that Laurel was caught behind the cart, but that appeared to be the case. Her stomach was still kind of nauseated, but she managed to respond without sounding like an idiot.

  “Hire him? You’re still around nine months out from opening your doors, aren’t you? The man has to make a living somehow, and I doubt that he’s going to want to be unemployed for that long a period considering the house he just had built and the debt that goes along with that whole mess.”

  Laurel wasn’t even sure why Smith was soliciting her advice. They had yet to discuss the fact that he wanted her to work for him.

  “What if I could make it so that he had a temporary position, prepping the ground so to speak, before coming to work for me full time? You’ve worked with Josh for years. He’s damned good at his job. Honestly, the best I’ve ever seen.”

  “Smith, you’re not here to talk about Josh, are you?”

  “I want you at my firm.”

  Laurel’s heartrate stuttered at his forthcoming response, but she managed to save herself from entering a discussion she wasn’t ready to have when Marilyn appeared in the doorway with a questioning look.

  “Smith, someone is here to see you by the name of Catherine Greenlee. Her appointment was with Paul, but she stated she wants to see you first.”

  It was obvious that Marilyn didn’t like Catherine Greenlee, and Laurel could relate. She was one of their high net worth individuals who ran in the same circles as the Gallo family. Unfortunately, the woman didn’t contain one ounce of human decency like Smith’s family encompassed. It was people like the Greenlees that made Laurel reluctant toward entering that type of lifestyle around those kinds of scavengers.

  “I’ll be there in a moment. Please ask her to wait for me in my office.” Smith waited for Marilyn to walk away, giving him the privacy he clearly wanted for what he had to say regarding their previous conversation. His dark eyes met hers with that familiar intensity she was coming to expect from him. It still caused her heart to flutter in anticipation. “I want to make myself crystal clear.”

  Laurel wasn’t expecting Smith to walk around the desk, holding out his hand for her to take as he guided her to her feet. Something told her that he was about to take a giant step forward, and she wasn’t so sure her Garavani heels could follow suit. Catherine Greenlee was the perfect example of why doing so wouldn’t be a good idea.

  “Don’t think for a second this gets you out of our conversation,” Smith warned, his patience apparently running thin at her hesitancy. She couldn’t really blame him, considering they’d spent almost every night at his apartment since they’d been forced to make their relationship public. They’d stayed at her place last night, but that was because she’d worn the couple of business suits she’d hung up in his closet. That in and of itself had been a pretty big step for her. “I’m serious, Laurel. I didn’t want to do this here, but the look on your face makes it evident I couldn’t wait.”

  “You can wait. There’s no need for the Olympic pace.”

  Laurel swallowed around the lump in her throat, terrified he was about to say something he couldn’t take back. She could admit that quietly sleeping with him without the world knowing had given her the best of both worlds. He had no idea what it was like to live with expensive student loans, helping her mother out financially, and working harder than any other employee for a partnership because she didn’t have the right surname to be automatically included. The Catherine Greenlees of the world didn’t open their arms and take anyone into their circle. Not for any reason. She would always be outside to those select few.

  “I don’t want to wait, sweetheart.”

  Alice Gallo had opened her arms, though.

  “You should wait,” Laurel encouraged as she struggled to maintain her composure. She wasn’t one to get nervous in situations like this, but he was about to talk about their future. “Give it some more thought. We’re working, and we promised Paul that we would—”

  “We’re having a discussion, Laurel. We’re not fucking on the desk.”

  Laurel had to bite her tongue at the thought that she’d rather be doing the latter, because it was in those precious hours when she felt whole. Reality was what made her second-guess herself.

  “Catherine Greenlee is waiting for you.” Laurel would have taken a step back, but her chair was in the way. “It’s not good for business to keep someone of her ilk waiting, especially one who has the kind of money she has to invest in your future hedge fund.”

  “You are something else.” Smith’s lips curled in a small smile as he cupped the side of her face with his warm hand. She was going to short-circuit if he didn’t stop. “I had planned on an intimate dinner with rose petals and champagne. There was going to be—”

  “We can still do that,” Laurel urged, tamping down the need to escape. “There’s nothing to say we can’t postpone this talk until—”

  “Laurel, I w
ant you to stay in Minnesota after the doors close on Manon Investments.”

  Well, that was straightforward. And not nearly as terrifying as she thought this topic would be in the grand scheme of things. “I want you here with me, and I want you as my retail analyst.”

  “And you believe we can work seamlessly together while still seeing one another?” Laurel asked, able to breathe a little better now. “I’m not saying it can’t possibly work, but there are—”

  “It can work with you as my wife.”

  And there went all the oxygen in the entire room.

  What had he expected? She’d been upfront with him all along that she wasn’t sure the two of them were right for one another. It didn’t matter that Alice Gallo wanted to take her shopping, or that Nathaniel Gallo had been elated when she’d challenged him at a game of chess last night. None of those things prevented flashing lights from dancing in front of her vision as she grappled with Smith’s marriage proposal.

  Only it wasn’t a down on one knee proposal, per se.

  Was it?

  Laurel reached up and grabbed his wrist, needing something solid to hold onto. He’d somehow become her anchor over the past four months without her ever realizing how entangled they’d become in each other’s lives.

  “That didn’t come out right,” Smith murmured, resting his other palm on her other cheek. “When I properly ask you to marry me, Laurel, it certainly won’t be in the office. What I need you to know is that I do love you. All of you. From your odd sense of humor to the fact that you allow your neighbor to keep her breastmilk in your freezer. I love that you never allow my father to intimidate you and that you secretly adore that my mother is taking you shopping. And let’s not forget your heel fetish, because sometimes it’s the only thing getting me through those daily meetings. I love you, Laurel Calanthe, and I want you to stay in Minneapolis because you love me, too.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was clear that Smith had stunned Laurel with his declaration of love. Honestly, he’d shocked himself with his unorthodox timing. The office was no place to have this conversation.

  “Don’t say anything quite yet,” Smith directed when she parted her lips in surprise. He wasn’t finishing this discussion here. “Let’s manage to get through today, and we’ll talk more tonight over those rose petals.”

  “You can’t just drop a bomb like that and—”

  “Smith? I only have thirty minutes this morning,” Catherine stated from her sudden presence in the doorway. It was a wonder that she wasn’t tapping the toe of her high heel. There was absolutely no remorse for interrupting his and Laurel’s private conversation. In fact, her striking blue eyes had a gleam of satisfaction shining brightly as her gaze skimmed over Laurel in judgement. “I saw the receptionist come this way to deliver my message, so I figured you were back this way somewhere.”

  “Catherine, you can wait for me in the foyer or my office.” Smith dropped his hands from Laurel’s beautiful face, but he remained close. Catherine’s stare followed his movement, landing on where his fingers rested on Laurel’s hip. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Catherine seemed to weigh his words, almost as if she were going to argue with the merit of his edict. Though Manon Investments dealt with high net worth individuals all the time, it was rare that the clients were downright rude. It was more than apparent that she had an agenda here, but he wasn’t about to play her childish games. She was worse to deal with than a pit of ravenous vipers.

  “Fine,” Catherine responded, though it was clear she wasn’t okay with his decision to place her in a box. He wouldn’t deny that she was stunning in a red pantsuit, with beautiful accessories that screamed garish wealth. It was too bad she couldn’t buy a bit of class with the money in her bank account. She didn’t hold a candle to Laurel. “I’ll see if the receptionist can manage a decent cup of coffee.”

  Smith sighed and rubbed his eyes in frustration.

  “Well, this day isn’t going as planned.” Smith turned so that he could lean back against Laurel’s desk while facing her. He wanted to gauge her reaction and ensure that she wasn’t about to book a flight to New York. “What are your thoughts, little minx?”

  “That you should really go and take that meeting before she burns down the building.” Laurel pulled her hair over her right shoulder. Her gesture spoke volumes. She grabbed the coffee that had been on her desk as if it were a lifeline. “I have a feeling that she’s going to pull her funds early and reinvest somewhere more responsive to her needs.”

  “And you’ll still be here when I’m through?”

  “Of course, I will.”

  Laurel seemed to take offense at his question, but he was on a playing field that wasn’t quite level. His family had welcomed her into their home. The intimacy they shared had become even more familiar, if that were even possible. Their relationship had gradually moved forward in the most gratifying way.

  “If you’re wary of us working together, then I’ll just have to move the firm to New York.”

  Smith had learned early on in his life that nothing couldn’t be overcome with enough effort. He would move mountains if it meant keeping her in his life.

  “Smith, you can’t be serious about that—”

  “No?” Smith asked, quite taken aback that she would question such an announcement. “If your hesitation lies in us working together while being personally involved, then I’ll move my firm to New York. You said yourself that you have prospects lined up in the city, so that’s where we’ll go. I’ll have my lawyers start the process by the end of the business day.”

  “Smith, stop,” Laurel exclaimed as she held up one hand, setting down the coffee she’d just picked up. She was also shaking her head and frowning at him as if his proposal was ludicrous. “Can’t you see that this is part of the problem? Money can’t solve everything.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Wealth has nothing to do with this, and until you realize that, we’ll continue to circle this issue in an endless loop.” Smith didn’t bother to point out that money did make things a hell of a lot easier. That wouldn’t help his cause at the moment. He needed to stick to the facts, because that was the only way he had a chance to get her to see that what they had was more important than anything monetary. “It’s our decisions that affects our present and future. Us. Money is just a byproduct of our labors. We’re not what we do.”

  Smith wanted to delve deeper into this conversation, but Paul would inevitably come looking for him. This was too important of a discussion to skim over. What else could he do or say that would cause Laurel to see that the only thing standing in their way was her own insecurities?

  “Our jobs, where we live, what we make…take it all away. We’re still two people who’ve connected in the most intimate way possible.” Smith slowly reached out to touch her beautiful face, having not one doubt that she belonged in his life. “You are so confident in every other aspect of your life except for when it comes to me.”

  There was nothing left to say in this moment, because anything else he tried to convey would just be lost in the day to day operations that awaited them.

  “We’ll talk more tonight,” Smith said softly, gently pressing his lips against her forehead. “You know me well enough that I’m not a man to give in at the first sign of troubled waters.”

  Take it all away. We’re still two people who’ve connected in the most intimate way.

  Smith’s words continued to echo in Laurel’s mind over and over again until she couldn’t take another moment alone in her office. She grabbed what was now a cold cup of coffee that Grace had supplied her with and went in search of some type of moral support.

  Could it really be that simple?

  She considered herself a highly intelligent person. Hell, she could even checkmate Nathaniel Gallo in five moves on the chess board when he’d underestimated her as a player. So how was it that she couldn’t get out of her own way to claim the happiness that Smith was obviously offering he
r with his whole heart?

  Marilyn was at her desk, typing vigorously away on her keyboard. A quick peek in the trading room showed Steve on the phone, with Vern sitting in the other seat and helping out the best he could, given that Josh had resigned from the firm and left them in a lurch. Blair was in her office on the other side, but Grace was nowhere to be found.

  Laurel detoured into the kitchen, taking the white lid off the plastic cup before warming it up in the microwave. She then covered the rim before seeking out Cynthia, who was almost always in her office.

  Sure enough, Cynthia was focused on whatever document was displayed on her monitor. The black rimmed reading glasses matched the color of her hair and both were striking against her red lipstick. How could she look so put together when Laurel was practically coming apart at the seams?

  “Am I materialistic?” Laurel asked, taking the guest chair across from Cynthia. “Seriously, do I put a value on money where there shouldn’t be any?”

  “You’re only materialistic when it comes to high heels, as well you should be. Especially considering your predilection for high-end brands.” Cynthia continued to scroll through the document she was viewing on the bright display, not even bothering to look Laurel’s way. “Do I think you give too much deference to the wealthy? Absolutely.”

  Laurel both admired and loathed Cynthia’s bluntness.

  “Smith’s currently in a meeting with Paul and Catherine Greenlee. He, um…well, he said he loved me before he left my office and referenced me as his future wife.”

  Now that bit of news garnered Cynthia’s attention, who slowly allowed her chair to turn toward her desk. She ever so carefully removed her glasses and held them gently in her hands as she let Laurel’s words soak in.

  “Please tell me that you reciprocated his declaration and concurred with his views toward the future Mrs. Gallo.”