“Sure,” she said distractedly, picking up her cell phone and holding it up. “You mind if I’m rude for a second? I’m dying to edit the Wedding Belles photo and post it.”

He waved his hand, used to Audrey spending time on her phone and not minding in the least. Her phone was her job, and her job wasn’t nine-to-five. He knew that if he needed her full attention, he’d have it without a second thought. That if he needed her in any way, she’d have tossed her phone into a fire and given him every ounce of her energy.

But he didn’t need her now, was content to have a moment to catch up on his own work. Clarke was second in command behind his father at York, Inc., a media conglomerate that had done well to keep its head above water even as competitors bit the dust. As vice president of strategy, Clarke knew full well that much of that success was due to him. When other media companies had clung desperately to their print publications, their bread and butter in the twentieth century, Clarke had been one step ahead of everyone else. He’d been the persistent twenty-something who’d annoyed his more senior colleagues in every meeting, not just by virtue of being the CEO’s son, but because Clarke had been relentless in his insistence that the company make a name for themselves in the digital space back when the digital space was still forming.

Eventually the old farts had simply turned the entire digital department over to him, probably hoping he’d fail. He hadn’t. As competitors were just starting to notice the decline in print sales, York was ahead of the game, already primed to serve content to an ever more device-reliant public via apps and an optimized website.

Clarke’s colleagues and superiors hadn’t hesitated to give credit where it was due, and Clarke had risen through the ranks quickly, he liked to think, because of his contribution rather than his last name.

Especially since the one person who stubbornly resisted giving Clarke even a modicum of praise was his own father. Alton made it clear every chance he got that Clarke didn’t hold the second-in-command spot alone. He shared it with the vice president of operations, Maria Folse, who had her eye on the CEO position.

Clarke respected Maria. Hell, he liked her. He enjoyed wine-filled dinner parties with her and her wife every bit as much as he enjoyed butting heads with her in the conference room.

But he had zero intention of conceding the company to her, no matter how often his father tried to undermine him. Not that Alton ever undermined Clarke in front of Maria or anyone else in the company. His father, for all his flaws, was a professional.