by L.J. Shen
“Nice veins.” I pointed at his forehead, fishing my cell phone out and dumping it onto the table.
“You’re very funny, Rexroth. Your charm has brought you a long way, to Beverly Hills, to Todos Santos. But I see underneath it, and I’m less than impressed.” A hiss slid between his thin lips.
I shrugged. “Thanks for the analysis, Dr. Strangelove. Now let’s do this as quick and as painless as possible, so that Jordi can go back to admiring the reflection of himself on the four-grand mirror in his office. Shall we?”
“We shall.” Jaime slapped the desk, dark circles framing his eyes. His wife, Mel, had just given birth to their second daughter, Bailey. He looked as happy as a pig in shit and as tired as the person hired to clean up the pigpen.
The poll had started off with Jordan, who obviously voted for keeping his daughter employed. Then came my turn, and I surprised everyone, including myself, with the answer.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” Vicious blinked, giving me his what-the-fuck-is-your-game look. “Yes means you vote for her employment,” he explained slowly, like I was an idiot.
“I know what yes means, dickbag.”
Vicious, Jaime, and Dean exchanged puzzled looks. They were going to go with my plan, but now, I’d changed it. Jordan appeared out of sorts, looking among all of us, searching our faces, trying to make sense of it all.
Jaime was the first to recover, rubbing the dark bags under his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
Dean’s turn. He tossed his tennis ball onto the table. “If Trent’s fine with it, I don’t give a damn if she works here.”
Then Vicious. He looked up at me, shaking his head slightly in warning.
I don’t want to fuck her, asshole. I mean, I do, but I won’t.
Then again I’d never had a serious girlfriend in my thirty-three years, and the one thing I did have was a runaway ex-stripper whom I’d knocked up in a dirty hookup and who’d left me with our kid. So maybe I did deserve that warning.
But even though Edie Van Der Zee was definitely trouble, Luna seemed to like her.
Maybe.
Probably.
Goddammit, hopefully.
I knew I was making zero sense. I didn’t give a damn. Let them think I was crazy. More power to me. No one liked to mess with crazy. Ruthless? Why not. Powerful? Sure. But crazy was unpredictable, the worst attribute in human nature.
Vicious opened his lips, relishing the power of having the room. “It’s a yes from me.”
She was in.
My friends were my tribe, my custom-made, hand-selected family. Saying we had each other’s backs was an understatement. Nearly twenty years and counting, we were still blindly loyal toward one another. When one of us jumped, the others gladly took the fall.
Dean stood up, collecting his shit from the table. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call my wife. She had a doctor’s appointment today. Mazel tov, Jordi.”
Vicious and Jaime got up and started discussing a conference call with Japan they had tomorrow at the butt crack of dawn.
Van Der Zee and I found ourselves alone in the boardroom, surrounded by nothing but the white noise of the air conditioner. Jordan tapped his finger on his thin lips, his foot mimicking the irritated movement.
He was waiting for me to explain. Foolishly, I might add. Volunteering information to the enemy was a rookie mistake, one I’d learned not to make long before my rich, sheltered friends had learned how to wipe their own asses.
“Feeling indecisive today?” His long, bony, Voldemort-like face twisted in displeasure. He looked like a tsar and acted like a tyrant. Jordan thought he was intimidating, and maybe he was, but not to me. To me, he was all bark, zero bite.
I shrugged, resting my legs on the table, knowing it’d drive him nuts. “Nah, I was always okay with your daughter working here. Just wanted to make you sweat a little. Cardio is important at your age.”
“How considerate of you. You’re not one to waste time, and you just wasted plenty of ours, so I am guessing there’s a plan behind your change of heart. Let me be clear—my daughter is completely off-limits for you. You will be wise to stay far away from her.”
I couldn’t get butthurt over his comment, because no matter how wildly insane and sick it was, I did find his teenage daughter good enough to eat. At the same time, I knew better than to even think about it. She acted like a child. I had one at home. They weren’t much fun, and were ridiculously hard to tame.
“I expect the other guys won’t be getting the same warning?” I tipped my chin down, averting his warning. Not that I was going to fuck little Edie, but he didn’t have to know that. Pulling at his strings was my version of a hobby.
“Your colleagues are gentlemen.”
My colleagues had fucked enough women between them to populate a medium-sized country, but I wasn’t going to argue this point. Not with him, anyway. I stretched in my seat, yawning. I may have been The Mute—I was the one to never, ever talk. Not at meetings, not at company functions, and not to mingle with anyone—but when the situation called for it, I was happy to fight for what I wanted.
“You know, Jordi, I sometimes feel inclined to pull the race card on you. You seem to approach me with a bag of prejudice that doesn’t apply to my fair-skinned partners.” My voice was breezy, and so was I. I really didn’t care if Jordan was a racist, as long as he stayed out of my way.
Van Der Zee snorted, shaking his head. “Don’t even go there, Rexroth. You’re practically white. You look like you’re working on your tan.”
“A simple, ‘I’m not a racist’ would have been more sufficient,” I pointed out.
“At any rate.” He stood up. “Stay away from my daughter if you want to survive a year in this company.” A year ago, Jordan had agreed to buy forty-nine percent of the shares in the company, with us four splitting the remaining shares. We did it so we could all move to Todos Santos and live close to each other. But we never knew Jordan would be such a pain in the ass.
“Color me bored at your idle threat. Besides, I heard you the first time.”
“Heard, yes. Acknowledged? No.”
“I’ve got your acknowledgement right here, sir: Fuck. Off.” I slid my hands out of my pockets and showed him my two middle fingers before getting up and grabbing my phone and wallet. I dialed Sonya’s number to give her the good news about Luna nodding. She answered after the first ring. “Sonya, hold on one sec.” I shot him a smirk, pressing the receiver to my chest. “Word to the wise, Van Der Zee—next time you get into business with someone, make sure they are a gentleman. Because I sure as hell am not, and I don’t care how many shares you have in my company. Let it be known—if you threaten me one more time, I will leave you to collect dust and a string of financial losses. We’re done here, partner.”
TWO DAYS.
Not a lifetime, but not a minute, either. Two days had passed since Trent Rexroth broke my mother’s precious Louboutins, and truth be told—I was still both disorientated and ridiculously aroused at what he’d done.
A delighted shudder seeped into me, bone-deep, from watching the lavish designer footwear snapping—seeing expensive things devalued was one of my favorite pastimes—but in the same breath, I was glad to put some distance between me and Broody O’Asshole.
I had no one to blame but myself. I mean—I’d asked him specifically not to hire me. Should have known it would only make him want to be petty and do it to spite me.
Work had left its mark on my body, soul, and mind. I had to wake up at half past four in the morning every day to make time for surfing. Then, I usually did five hundred coffee runs for Vicious (cold and rude), Dean (fun and crude), and Jaime (polite and impersonal) before kicking off my shift as the secretaries’ and PAs’ bitch. Picking up clothes from the dry cleaners, holding ties for stock brokers to choose from before meetings, helping maintenance when one of the faucets in the men’s restroom was leaking—my father hadn’t been joking. I’d been appointed to do th
e most mundane, mind-numbing tasks.
After our encounter, Rexroth steered clear of me, not even sparing me a glance as he glided the hallways like a fire-breathing demon, darkness gleaming from his light eyes.
On my lunch breaks, when I sat alone outside the building and sucked on a Ramen noodle from the sad pack I’d bought at the Dollar Tree to save some money, I found myself wondering whether my stunt on his desk had made an impact, or if he thought I was a weirdo unworthy of his attention.
Didn’t matter. What did matter was that now, I was one of the many overworked, overstressed assistants to these privileged, rich, self-entitled men, who in two short days had managed to make me want to commit serious crimes.
I hate this place, I hate these people, I hate this life…
I was standing in the break room, picking at a fancy fruit basket (those were delivered daily to the fifteenth floor of Fiscal Heights Holdings, accompanied with fresh pastries and cold-pressed organic juices) when the cute girl and Camila walked in.
“Show me what you want to eat for lunch.” Camila handed the girl a tablet with pictures of food items. My old nanny looked up, saw me, and her face split into a grin. “My sweet Edie, we meet again!” Camila clasped me in a bear hug, and I embraced her back like she was an anchor. In many ways, she was. I firmly believed some people came into the world to make it bearable for others. Camila was one of them.
“Is it wrong to be jealous of a three-year-old because she has you?” I murmured into her white, delicate hair, allowing myself some self-pity. Camila laughed and pulled away, running her fingers over my face, doing inventory, making sure that everything was in place. Physically, it was.
“She’s four.”
“Oh.” I leaned against the counter, watching the pretty girl more closely. This was our second encounter, so I noticed things I hadn’t in the first one. Like, she was dressed like a boy, as though trying to hide how lovely she was. It made me like her instantly. She regarded her beauty as a secret, and like any secret, she chose the people to confide in carefully. Which was probably why she was stingy with the smiles, too.
“You’re not much of a talker,” I observed, scrunching my nose at the kid. Years of being talked about when I was in the room had taught me that kids listen, discern, and hate being treated like they’re invisible.
“Guess you could say that.” Camila cleared her throat and averted her stare to the fruit basket, grabbing a strawberry and popping it into her mouth. “She doesn’t talk.” She chewed instead of elaborating.
“Huh.” I crouched, offering the girl a pecan. Did kids her age eat pecans? I wasn’t sure, but she took it anyway, pocketing it.
“I never asked what her name was,” I said as an afterthought.
“Her name is Luna.” Camila’s voice cut above my head. She brushed the girl’s soft, brown curls. The kid was enchanting. A mixture of everything beautiful in the human species crammed into one person. Mocha skin on blue eyes. It reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t remember who. Maybe a baby Adriana Lima.
“I’m Edie.” I offered Luna my hand. She didn’t take it. I wasn’t embarrassed or annoyed by her rejection.
“Fine.” I withdrew my hand. “I don’t need your germs all over me, anyway.”
Luna swallowed down a snort.
“In fact, don’t get anywhere near me, okay? You look like a nose-picker.”
I loved children. Not in the way most girls my age liked them. I liked the hardened and the disorderly. The ones who struggled to communicate their feelings and felt trapped inside their bodies. Maybe because I saw so much of me in them.
I walked over to the other side of the kitchenette, opening the fridge and grabbing a can of Coke. Luna followed me with her eyes, a taunting smirk on her full lips. I arched an eyebrow and cracked the can open.
“I bet they don’t allow you to drink pop, huh?”
She shook her head. There was something hesitant about her movements. Like she wasn’t entirely sure how to do them—or if she should be doing them at all.
“If I give you some, would you tell on me?”
“No, no, no, no,” Camila interrupted, rushing toward us, her palms waving. “Her dad would kill both of us. Lord, no.”
I said nothing, because ‘no’ meant ‘maybe’ in Camila’s world. It was a matter of how hard you pushed for something. Luna looked between us, trying to pick on the nuance of our relationship.
“I need to go to the bathroom for a second. Can you watch her?” Camila smoothed her long skirt and blazer.
I nodded. “’Course.”
“No soda.” She wiggled a finger from the door.
I nodded again. She knew better than to believe me, but still felt her duty to point the same threatening finger at Luna. “I mean it, Luna. Your dad will not be happy.”
Needless to say, as soon as she left, Luna’s lips united with her very first can of Diet Coke. I held the can in my hand as I allowed her a small sip, squatting down to catch her every reaction when the fizz hit her taste buds.
“It’s good, isn’t it?”
Luna nodded solemnly in agreement. I took a long pull, staring into the little hole.
“Yup, so good. Wait till you taste beer,” I snorted.
“No need, since that will never happen,” a steel voice came from the entrance of the kitchenette and I twisted my head, my jaw slacking in horror.
Shit.
Trent Rexroth walked in, looking fifty shades of pissed off and wearing one of the most sinfully sexy suits I’d seen on a human being. I wasn’t even big on suits, mainly because Jordan liked them and I hated everything he loved by association, but the way the silky black fabric hugged Trent’s ripped, tall frame made me wonder what he’d look like in a wetsuit. Or out of one. Either way, he’d leave Bane and the other guys at Tobago Beach eating his dust. I wasn’t sure what he did to maintain this kind of body, but it wasn’t sitting on his ass from nine-to-five, writing angry emails and scowling at me and everyone else.
I drew the can away from Luna’s lips, straightening up.
“Is she…” My gaze wandered around, looking for a distraction or a sharp object to defend myself with, should he decide to kill me.
“My daughter,” he cut into my words. “She is. Where the hell is Camila?” He sounded like the beast from Beauty and the Beast. Low, gruff, and commanding. But I refused to shrink into a corner and let him intimidate me.
“What kind of four-year-old has never tasted Coke?” I accused, throwing my arms in the air.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I put a hand on Luna’s shoulder, hoping she wouldn’t shake it off. She didn’t. “Seriously, what is wrong with you? She shouldn’t have it every day, or even every week—agreed. But not, like, ever? Why? Soda is awesome. It’s sweet and it fizzles in your mouth and it makes you feel happy. Right, Luna?” I nudged her.
She nodded vehemently, and now it was Trent’s turn to stare at me, bewildered. He took a step forward, his eyes moving from me to his daughter.
Silence. And awkwardness. And what the hell was happening?
“What? What!” I lost my cool, looking between them.
“Do it again,” he said, to both of us, I think.
“Do what?” I rubbed the back of my neck, still trying to read the situation.
“Make her nod again. Please.” The last word came out reluctantly, as if admitting defeat. I worried my lower lip, inspecting him like he’d just landed from space wearing a pineapple hat and a Hula skirt.
“Okay…” I scrunched my nose, looking down at Luna.
“Hey, dude, want another sip of Coke?”
Luna nodded and reached for the can. Trent laughed. God, he laughed. And not the way he’d laughed at me when he caught me trying to steal from his mother. He laughed like the world was ending and he didn’t care. Like this office wasn’t a hellhole and we didn’t hate each other’s guts. He laughed with a promise, with a melody, with a mellifluous sound that trickled bone-
deep and changed the rhythm of my heartbeat. My knees snapped like thin twigs, and I almost stumbled down in shock.
He was such…a man.
Not that Vicious, Dean, and Jaime weren’t men. They were—along with eighty percent of the people populating this floor. But only Trent Rexroth looked tortured and serious enough to cross all the bridges in the world and burn them shore to shore to get his way. Only Trent Rexroth looked liable to ruin your life if he put his mind to it. The fear he’d ingrained in me turned me on. And that worried me. A lot.
“I can do it again,” I mumbled, half-desperate to hear the sound coming out of his mouth again, half-hoping it would make him look at me as more than a potential sacrifice.
He arched a devilish, thick eyebrow. “Let’s see. But no Coke.”
I squatted down to Luna and whispered something into her ear. She lowered her head and tried to stifle her laugh with her tiny fist. Triumphant, I looked up to examine Trent. This time, he wasn’t smiling. His eyes were gleaming with something I wasn’t entirely sure he could even feel.
For a fleeting moment, something passed between us, but I didn’t know what it was. He looked at me with an intensity I could feel on my shoulders. Like I had a superpower he wanted to get his hands on. I was almost relieved when Camila walked into the break room and he snapped his head toward her while I hurried to discard the Coke into the recycle bin.
“Mr. Rexroth! I’m s-so so sorry. I told her not to give Luna any soda. I would never let Luna stay with a complete stranger.“ She was stuttering, her eyes moving frantically among the three of us as she cupped one of her cheeks with her hand. “Luna, come here, sweetie. Look, I was Edie’s nanny for eight years. I know her very well. And I was just down the hallway, in the restroom…”
Wow. He must be a shithead for a boss. Although I didn’t need Camila’s reaction to know he was the take-no-prisoners type. Trent waved her off, losing interest in her speech.
“It’s fine. Camila, can you take Luna to the play room on the tenth floor? I’ll be right down.”
“Of course.” Worry still marred every cell in my old nanny’s face as she scooped Luna in her arms and rushed outside of the spacious galley, her steps quickening as she glanced behind her shoulder at her dictator employer. Trent and I were left alone, and even though I felt disgusted with myself, my stomach flipped the way it usually did before a first kiss.