I Logged In As The CEO's Mother And Crushed His Favorite Girl novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Is She Not a Woman

Chase checks his assistant for rain before he looks at his fiancee, his mother puts Brielle on the site eight hours a day, and a feverish Holly says Jocelyn's real name.

I dropped the cane and ran.

This body wasn't built for running.

My knees jarred on every step, and the mud sucked at my shoes until one came off.

I left it.

I got down on my knees at the edge of the pit and rolled her over.

Her face was gray under the mud. Her lips were blue at the edges.

But her chest moved.

"Holly. Holly, look at me."

Her eyes opened a slit and rolled away.

The driver came sliding down the slope behind me with an umbrella that was useless in this wind.

"Call an ambulance," I said. "Then help me get her out of the rain."

He dialed with one hand and got his coat off with the other.

We wrapped her in it.

She was so hot I could feel it through two layers of wool.

I sat in the mud and pulled her head into my lap.

That was when headlights swung across the site.

A black Maybach rolled through the open gate and stopped twenty feet from us.

The back door opened.

Chase Pembroke stepped out under a big black umbrella.

He was taller than he looked on my phone. Navy suit. Dark blond hair combed back. Not one drop on him.

He didn't look at us.

He walked around the car and opened the other door.

Brielle climbed out.

Chase held the umbrella over her and ran his hand down her arm.

"Did you get wet? Here. Stand closer."

He checked her shoulders. He checked her hair.

Only then did he turn around.

"Mom? What are you doing here?"

I looked up at him from the mud with his fiancee across my knees.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

A pickup truck pulled in behind the Maybach. Then a second one.

Men in yellow rain gear got out and stood by the fence. The crew had heard there was trouble at their site.

Brielle pressed her hand to her chest.

"Chase, I tried to tell her. She came into the office and started yelling at me in front of everyone. She's interfering with your project."

Chase's jaw went tight.

"Mom, Brielle works for me. Cut her some slack." He nodded at Holly like she was a spill on the floor. "The site walk was my idea. Holly wanted Riverbend. I wanted her to get some real experience."

"Real experience."

"She's too soft. She needs to toughen up if she's going to be a Pembroke."

I looked down at Holly.

She was shivering so hard her teeth clicked. Her eyes were half open and seeing nothing.

"This isn't experience, Chase," I said. "This is abuse."

One of the crew by the fence took his hat off.

"She has a fever of a hundred and three," I said. "Your assistant handed her a hard hat and sent her into a storm the crews had already walked out of. And you're standing there under an umbrella."

"Mom."

"So let's do it your way." I raised my voice so the men by the fence could hear. "Since you're so proud of Brielle's toughness, she can take over Riverbend."

Brielle's mouth opened.

"Starting tomorrow. Eight hours a day on this site. Rain or shine." I nodded at the crew. "These gentlemen will sign her in and sign her out. Let's see what real toughness looks like."

Brielle's face went white under her makeup.

Chase stepped forward.

"Mom, come on. Brielle's a girl. How is she supposed to work a construction site?"

I laughed.

I couldn't help it.

"Oh," I said. "So you do know construction sites are hard on women."

He blinked.

"Then tell me, Chase." I lifted Holly a little higher against me. "Is Holly not a woman?"

Nobody said anything.

The rain came down on the hood of the Maybach.

One of the men at the fence coughed into his fist in a way that wasn't a cough.

Chase's face went dark red.

Brielle tugged at his sleeve. "Chase. It's fine. I don't want to cause a fight."

"Good," I said. "Then you'll be here at seven."

The ambulance came in with its siren winding down.

Two paramedics took Holly off my lap.

One of them looked at me, an old woman with one shoe in the mud, and helped me up without being asked.

I rode with her.

Chase didn't follow.

At the hospital they took her straight back, and a nurse handed me a towel and a pair of paper slippers.

I sat in a plastic chair for two hours in a ruined suit.

At last the doctor came out and pulled down his mask.

"She's lucky," he said. "Severe pneumonia, dehydration, and her temperature was climbing. Thirty more minutes out there and she'd have been in the ICU. Maybe worse."

My hands started shaking then, not before.

"Can I see her?"

"She's in and out. But yes."

Her room was dim and quiet.

She was so small in the bed.

An IV ran into the back of her hand, and someone had wiped most of the mud off her face but missed her hairline.

I pulled the chair up and sat.

I took a tissue and cleaned the mud out of her hair a little at a time.

"You idiot," I whispered. "Three hundred million. Around the world. Look at you."

Her eyelids fluttered.

Her hand came off the blanket, searching.

I gave her mine.

She gripped it hard, harder than a sick person should be able to.

Her eyes opened all the way and found my face.

Not this face.

Mine.

"Jocelyn?" she said.

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