Chapter 4 A MEDDLING MOTHER

CHAPTER 4

A MEDDLING MOTHER

ZAC

A furrow appeared in her brow at once, and I knew she was about to argue with me. If there was anything that my mom was good at, it was arguing-not just with me, but with the world at large.

She'd had to do it after my father had cheated on her and left her with nothing to her name. Which was exactly why she had changed it back to the name she'd been born with and set out to make a name all for herself. A name that had nothing to do with him.

Most of the time, I admired her temerity and refusal to back down, but when it came to my own life, sometimes I felt like a little more respect was in order.

"You need someone to help take the load off," she protested. "And you're never going to hire them. I need to take matters into my own hands or you're never going to get any time away from that office. Or realize you don't have to carry everything alone."

"I get plenty of time away from work," I replied.

She cocked her head at me and raised her eyebrows. "Oh, okay, and when was the last time you took a full week off work? No checking emails, no replying to calls, no nothing?" she asked with a knowing look on her face. I would lie, I like working. A lot.

"It doesn't work like that," I replied. "You know that I have to stay on top of stuff."

"That's what you've hired other people for," she reminded me. "So you didn't have to stay on top of it. Otherwise, what's the point of keeping all that staff around? You brought them on because you knew you couldn't do it all yourself, yet here you are, still trying to act like you have to oversee every little detail that goes on."

"I do," I replied bluntly. "It's not that easy for me to step back. You know that."

"Which is why a personal assistant would make your life so much easier," she said, spreading her hands wide as though she was delivering some grand universal truth to me as I sat opposite her at the upscale taco joint.

"How long have you been interviewing these people behind my back?" I asked her. "And do any of them know that you haven't actually gotten my approval for a position?"

"Not long," she replied cheerfully. "But long enough that I think I have a couple of good options lined up and ready to go when you figure out that I'm right about this."

My mind flashed back to the woman she had been with earlier-and as much as I hated to admit it, the sight of her was already burned into my memory.

Not that I was going to let my mother know that, of course, because she would hustle her ass to get me set up with a house and two kids with this woman before I had time to catch my breath. But she was pretty. No doubt about that.

Not that I was even thinking about spending any more time with her than I had already. One glimpse over the reception area was all that I needed because there was no way in hell I was letting my mother get it into her head that she knew what was best for me better than I did.

"I'll let you know when I think I've found the perfect one and you can meet with them," she suggested. "Just one meeting. That's all. And if you don't like them, you can forget that any of this ever happened, all right?"

"That's the plan," I said. "Apart from the bit where I meet with them."

"You're going to burn yourself out if you don't allow someone else to come in and help take some of the load off," she said. "You know that, right? You've been working so hard for so long, you need to give yourself a break."

"I need to get myself a beer," I replied, and I caught the waiter's eye and asked for a couple of bottles. I knew I shouldn't have been drinking this early in the day, but it was the only way I was going to be able to get through lunch listening to my mother's insane obsession with the notion that I needed someone to come in and make my life easier."

"You're going to drop this, right?" I asked her after I had taken my first sip. "I don't want people applying for a job in my company that I know I'm never going to deliver on."

"The process has already started now," she replied with a shrug. "I might as well see it through."

"And that's it?" I asked. Getting her to drop something she had already gotten her teeth into was difficult, but hopefully, she would see that this wasn't her call to make. She nodded at me at once.

"And that's it," she replied.

I leaned back in my seat, satisfied that I had managed to convey my point to her. For now at least. But the look in her eyes told me that she hadn't entirely been listening-and that I might have to fight on this a little harder yet.

My mother, like me, wasn't a person who gave up on what she wanted easily. And that meant when the two of us butted heads, we were in for a bumpy ride. Because neither of us ever wanted to be the first to back down, and neither of us was likely to concede that we were in the wrong. Even when, as right now, one of us obviously was.