Her Untamed CEO

Chapter 7

Sitting in the hospital trauma unit while it feels as if his leg is being torn from his body, he takes a deep breath while the doctor is busy cleaning the wound. It’s all that damn girl’s fault! If Alicia didn’t invade his thoughts, he wouldn’t have lost control over the damn boat!

Melinda rushes into the room and a nurse stops her while she throws a huge tantrum.

“It’s fine, let her come in.” He waves at the nurse.

Anything to get her squealing to stop! His head is pounding, and he can’t deal with hysterical women. If he wanted one, he could have just called his mom and told her what happened.

The doctor starts to wrap a bandage around his leg and asks if there is anyone that can help him get home.

He signs himself out of the hospital and walks out the door, finding all his friends waiting in the parking lot. Feeling slightly woozy from his medication, he is convinced that they are going back to the yacht and is incredibly disappointed when Gab drives into the driveway of his house.

“What are we doing here? My mom is going to have a fit!”

“Dude, where else am I supposed to take you?”

“Uhm, take me to the penthouse. She doesn’t know that I’m back from the weekend. I will think what to do later.”

Gab pulls out through the gate and makes his way to the apartment building of Bartlett Industries. It’s the weekend, and most people are at home relaxing. Gab helps him into the lift, and when they reach the top, Noah shows him to go to the door on the left.

When they walk in, Gab helps Noah to the couch, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

“You know your toned body weights a ton!”

“Hey, whatever makes the ladies fall at my feet. Grab us beer, won’t you?” He waves his hand at Gab, tilting his head back on the couch to look at his friend.

“I take it you will need some help?” Gabriel shouts from the open-plan kitchen.

“Don’t worry, bud. I will find a girl that will be willing to nurse me back to health.” He grins when Gab hands him the beer and walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“This place is incredible. I don’t understand why you don’t move here permanently.”

“After the last fight with my dad, I think I might just.” He sighs.

He sits down next to Noah and takes a long sip from his beer. Noah pops one of his pain meds, washing it down with the beer.

“Dude!”

“What? It has water in it.” He rolls his eyes.

The penthouse is huge and covers half of the floor. The only other apartment on the floor is the second penthouse. His parents keep them for important staff members, but there hasn’t ever been one his father viewed important enough to move into one of them.

He stole a set of keys for the apartments from his dad’s home office and arranged for one of the staff members to make sure it’s regularly stocked and cleaned. The girls in the administration office will do anything for a little attention from him.

“Okay, well, I have to get going.” Gab gets up, grabbing his keys to leave and Noah complains.

He tries to convince his friend to stay and Gab reminds him of his big mouth that could get any girl he wanted to come and look after him. When Gab is gone, Noah pages through his phone, but for some reason, none of the names on his phone appeals to him.

None of the girls on the list makes him think that they would actually come and take care of him. He throws his phone to the other side of the couch and gets up on his crutches to make his way to the bedroom.

The apartment has beautiful black floor tiles and his foot makes a print with each step he takes. The tiles might look great, but when the cold hits and an injured leg? It’s not the desired feeling.

Walking into the bedroom and feeling the soft fluffy carpet under his foot, he takes a deep breath. He will do anything to take a shower, but the doctor told him not to get water on the wound for at least the first twenty-four hours. Flopping down on the huge king-size bed, he shouts out in pain when his leg reminds him that he is injured.

Maybe staying here on his own wasn’t such a great idea after all, but having to explain to his parents that he got injured on his trip would make things way worse. His father already accused him of being irresponsible.

He hears footsteps coming down the passage and sits up.

“Decide to come back and join me?” He shouts thinking that Gab might have changed his mind until he looks into the eyes of his very angry mother.

“Mom?!”

“Noah Bartlett!” She glares at him with her eyes burning with anger and her hands on her hips.

“Great.” He falls back down onto the mattress.

***

Alicia pulls the laptop closer and starts to double and triple-check her numbers on the overheads report before sending it out to the board members.

She switches off the laptop and curls up underneath her blanket feeling the cold medication starting to do its job as it pulls her into a state of half-sleep.

The next moment her alarm screams right next to her, and she jumps up sitting upright in her bed. Grabbing her phone to look at the time, she tries to get her heart rate to calm down.

It’s already time to get up! But she just closed her eyes! She drags herself out of bed, feeling completely beat, and gets ready for work. She is feeling much better, but all this getting up early and only getting home in the middle of the night is catching up to her.

She will soon have to look for a place closer to the office, or she might just pass out at the wrong time.

Not that there is ever the right time to pass out…

She shakes her head to stop the rambling thoughts in her mind and grabs her keys and laptop before rushing out of her apartment. Because she is so slow this morning, she very nearly misses her train, and the rush of the morning has her completely out of breath by the time she reaches the office.

Mr. Bartlett is already here, and she puts her things down quickly to make him a cup of coffee.

She wasn’t expecting him so early this morning, and when she walked into his office, he looked absolutely livid!

“Miss Moonvalor, did you send out the report?!”

“Yes, Sir. All the members received it last night. I called and confirmed with each of them.”

“Oh. Fine. Mrs. Bartlett is not coming in today because our son went and had an accident with his damn boat!” He growls.

“Oh, dear. Is he okay?” She feels her heart leap at the news.

“He is perfectly fine. It’s the fact that he tried to hide it and his mother found out that is causing utter madness in my house. I need everything to at least go smoothly in one part of my life for once. I’m counting on you to convince the board of our financial stability today.” He frowns looking at her, and she feels her heart sinking to her feet.

“Of course, Sir. I won’t disappoint you.”

She excuses herself, feeling her palms starting to sweat on her way to the board room to prepare for the meeting. She keeps taking deep breaths to try and calm her nerves, but she is slowly feeling as if she is about to hyperventilate.

When she originally got the job, she was excited and could wait to get started. Now she’s not so sure anymore and all of this because of some spoiled brat who couldn’t stop spending money and now got injured!!

She steps back from the table when the glass in her hand shatters into pieces because of the force she put it down with. She closes her eyes, focuses on calming her heart rate as much as possible with breathing, then moves back to the table to clean up the mess.

“You can do this.” She tries to give herself a pep talk and replaces the glass with a new one.

Giving the boardroom one last look, she is satisfied with her work and walks back to her desk to grab her laptop so she can set up her presentation. A man in his late forties is hanging around the reception area when she walks in, and she stops in her tracks.

“Hi, can I help you?”

He turns and smiles at her. His grey eyes were looking right into her soul. His broad shoulders are relaxed.

“I’m Liam. I’m here for the meeting.”

“Oh, uhm, it’s only at nine.” She tilts her head wondering who he is.

Maybe he is one of the bodyguards of the board members. Some of them are pretty important, and she saw guards arrive with them the last time they were all here.

“Can I perhaps get you something to drink?”

She asks and he smiles, making her knees almost give way under her. She almost trips over the carpet and a pair of strong arms catch her before she falls flat on her face.

“Coffee would be nice, thank you.” He smiles, and she looks up into those grey eyes, feeling the strong muscles beneath the jacket that just caught her.

She moves away quickly, pulling her shirt back into place, and blushes bright red before walking to the kitchen to get him some coffee.

“Ah! Liam, good to see you.” She hears Mr. Bartlett greeting their guest realizing that she didn’t even let him know the man was here!

Taking his mug of coffee out of the kitchen, his eyes immediately lock with hers, and she feels butterflies forming in her stomach.

She has to get out of here quickly… Her brain jumps into flight mode, and when his fingers touch hers when he takes the coffee from her, she nearly jumps.

“I… I have some preparations to do.” She almost mumbles, and Mr. Bartlett shows this Liam into his office.

It feels as if she took a breath for the first time since he arrived in her reception area, and she quickly moves to her desk to grab her laptop.

What the hell is wrong with her?! She’s never reacted like this to any man… Well, okay, there is Noah, but he just infuriates her!

The board members start to arrive, and she shows them to the boardroom, feeling calmer after she set up her laptop and quickly went through her presentation. She takes a minute to go to the bathroom and splashes some cold water on her face before putting on new lipstick and stepping out feeling more composed.

She steps into the boardroom looking right into the grey eyes of Liam. He has taken the seat right next to Mr. Bartlett, and she feels slightly off-balance at seeing him.

“Miss Moonvalor. I don’t believe we have been properly introduced.” He stands up and holds out his hand to greet her.

“I’m Liam Phillips. I’m the CFO, and I have to say your report really impressed me.”

“We have a CFO?” She is feeling stunned and smacks her hand over her mouth realizing she said that out loud.

“Yes, but thanks to Gary here, I don’t really do much except for making sure that the board doesn’t get too rigid with their decisions. I'm looking forward to your presentation.” He smiles that stunning smile again, and she feels her breath being knocked out of her chest.

Mr. Bartlett calls the meeting to order and introduces Alicia as his assistant. Leaving it over to her to do the presentation, it takes her a moment to compose herself again and drag her eyes away from the intense stare of Liam Phillips.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the board. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy days.” She starts her first slide, but she can feel a set of eyes on her and not on the presentation.

Feeling her voice waver slightly, she takes a sip of water and focuses on the numbers.

“Numbers, Alicia… Numbers.” She sighs and starts explaining the new set-up of the report.