Messing with Miki (A MFM Ménage Romance) (Playing For Love Book 5)

by Tara Crescent

  After eight hours of non-stop effort, I’m about ready to give up. Finn is the chief architect of Imperium’s defenses, and he appears to have thought of everything. I try every trick in the book to get access to Ben’s account, and I come up short every single time.

  A weird sense of déjà vu grips me. I’m not vain; I’m good at what I do. I’ve only been stymied this badly once before. Last summer, Wendy was the divorce attorney for a woman whose husband was hiding his money. That system was really tightly secured as well.

  There’s a knock at the door, and Janine sticks in her head. “Miki,” she scolds me, “did you remember to eat lunch?”

  Lunch. I knew I was forgetting something.

  She shakes her head at me. “You’re terrible,” she says. “Listen, I need to take off. Are you at a stopping point?”

  I still don’t have after-hours access to the Imperium offices. I get to my feet, every muscle in my body aching in protest. “Yeah. I’m ready to leave.”

  “Oh, I forgot to ask this morning. How was the apartment search?”

  I didn’t look at apartments over the weekend; there didn’t seem any point. I’m not going to stay employed at Imperium for long, and I need to save every dollar to pay my divorce lawyer. “Not too great,” I mutter, unwilling to get into long explanations.

  After all, Janine’s loyalties are clear. She’s been friendly so far, but if she finds out why I’m really at Imperium, I’m sure her attitude will change dramatically.

  This Monday, my girlfriends are meeting in a bar in Hell’s Kitchen. I make my way there after work. Piper, Gabby, and Bailey are already there, half-empty drinks in front of them.

  “I’m not late, am I?” I ask, sliding into the booth next to Bailey.

  Piper shakes her head. “We’re early.”

  Katie and Wendy show up a couple of minutes after me, and the three of us order drinks. “So, what’s going on with everyone?” Wendy asks, looking at her club soda with disgust. “This baby cannot show up soon enough.”

  “We can stop meeting in bars, if you’d like,” Piper offers.

  Wendy shakes her head. “Don’t mind my grumbling. The pregnancy is making me cranky. I’m a whale, and I need to pee all the time.”

  I roll my eyes. “You’re barely showing.”

  She laughs. “Yes, Asher used the phrase ‘drama queen’ yesterday.”

  Katie’s eyes widen. “He did? Asher’s a brave man. Or stupid.”

  “A bit of both,” Wendy replies with a grin. “It slipped out by mistake. Don’t worry, he groveled.” She turns to me. “How’s the new job?”

  “And the hot bosses?” Bailey interjects slyly. “Still want to sleep with them?”

  Last week, I happened to mention that I thought Oliver and Finn were hot. I’m never going to hear the end of it. And if I tell them about Friday night…

  Gabby’s face twists into a frown. “Please tell me you’re not going to sleep with your bosses,” she says, her voice clipped. “Because that would be really dumb.”

  Piper raises an eyebrow. “Umm, Gabby? Miki’s an adult. Besides,” she says, her cheeks going pink, “It’s not always a terrible idea. I slept with my bosses, and it worked out okay.”

  “Technically, they weren’t your bosses,” Wendy points out. “They were investors in your restaurant. I slept with my partners too, and obviously, it went well.” She pats her belly with a grin. “Still, I’m afraid that Gabby’s right. The situations aren’t the same. If things go wrong, you’ll lose your job. It’s not worth the risk. Don't dip your pen in the company ink.”

  “Or whatever the female equivalent of that saying is,” Katie adds.

  Confession time. “Too late,” I mutter, keeping my eyes fixed on my drink. “I slept with them Friday night.”

  “Both of them?” Piper squeaks. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Hey,” I say indignantly. I point to Bailey, Piper, Gabby, and Wendy in turn. “Ménage,” I say. “Ménage, ménage, and ménage. Are you that shocked that I was curious?”

  Katie chuckles. “I’ve never been interested,” she says. “Then again, Adam is the perfect guy.”

  Gabby looks thunderous. “How did this happen?” she demands. “And where?”

  I exchange curious looks with Wendy. Gabby’s tone is too heated, too angry. I’m not sure what’s going on with her. Her employers are short-staffed, and Gabby’s working in Manhattan for the next month. Perhaps she misses Carter and Dominic?

  “Don’t worry; it was just a one night stand,” I reply, my cheeks flushing under their scrutiny. “I don’t know why you’re so shocked. You ladies threw me an intervention and told me to get a life. So I did.”

  “No kidding,” Bailey laughs. She lifts her glass and clinks it against mine. “Let’s toast to Miki and good sex.” She takes a sip of her beer. “It was good, right?”

  “Pretty spectacular, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

  The gathering breaks up at nine. Gabby lingers at the table as everyone else gets up to leave. “Miki, will you stick around for a second?”

  I heave a sigh. “Listen,” I tell her once the others are out of earshot. “I appreciate you watching out for me. But I am an adult. You have to trust that I can make my own decisions.”

  She looks acutely unhappy. “My company does a lot of crisis management PR,” she says. “If a celebrity is caught driving drunk, he calls us. Beating his wife in an elevator? We’re on speed dial. I don’t see a great slice of humanity.”

  “Okay.” I’m sure there’s a point here, but I have no idea what it is.

  Gabby takes a deep breath. “I met a new client today. He was into BDSM, and he’d taken photos of his ex-wife without her consent. She’s furious and is demanding compensation.” She crumples her paper napkin into a ball, then straightens it out and methodically starts shredding it. Her eyes don’t meet mine, and a chill travels down my spine.

  “And you’re telling me this because…”

  “Because the guy taking the photos was Oliver Prescott,” she says in a rush. “Miki, I don’t have anything against BDSM, and I don’t care what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms. But this guy took photos of his then-wife without her consent. He violated her trust. Is that the kind of person you want to sleep with?”

  I stare at Gabby, my heart hammering with shock. My stomach roils, and I think I’m going to be sick.

  She takes in my expression, and her face softens in sympathy. “Oh fuck,” she says. “You’ve fallen in love with them.”

  “What?” I gape at her, startled beyond belief. “No, of course not. I’ve only known them for a week, Gabby. You can’t fall in love with someone in seven days.”

  “Can’t you?” A small smile creases her lips. “I spent one night with Carter and Dominic, and I couldn’t forget them. When I ran into them again in Atlantic City, there was something between us already. A familiarity, a comfort, a deep certainty that I knew who they were. At the risk of sounding like a head-in-the-cloud romantic, my soul knew theirs.”

  “No.” I shake my head violently. “The situations are entirely different. You slept with Carter and Dominic. I flew on a plane with Oliver and Finn.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “TV shows,” I reply. “Doctor Who. The world-building in Dune. Inception’s ending.”

  “Most people,” she says, “will have no idea what you’re talking about, but Oliver and Finn shared your interests, Miki.” She lifts her hand and counts off. “Shared values, shared life experiences, roughly the same age. People tend to fall in love with other people who are like them.”

  I roll my eyes. “Lancelot and Merlin on the DefCon forums have the same interests as me. Lancelot’s even been divorced, for heaven’s sake. The stuff you’re talking about isn’t as rare as you think.”

  Part of me wonders why I’m trying to prove her wrong, why her assumption that I’ve fallen in love bothers me as much as it does.

  “Okay,”
she says. “Fine. I’m glad you aren’t in love with them. After Aaron, you deserve good people in your life, Miki, and based on what I learned today, Oliver Prescott isn’t one of them.”

  17

  Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Oliver:

  My life is like a roller-coaster. I lurch between the highs of the good days and the dismal lows of the bad ones.

  I get home a little after five. It’s already dark outside, and the only thing in my refrigerator that resembles food is a carton of eggs that’s tucked away in the back.

  Another day, another pizza delivery.

  This morning, I had a contentious meeting with the board. According to the projection Lawrence had drawn up for Ambrose, closing the private security division would cause our revenue to drop by ten percent. “Do you know what’ll happen to the stock price if our revenue declines in the first quarter after we go public?” David Blake had demanded.

  The first revenue numbers will come out before the board can sell their stock. David’s not concerned about Imperium’s long-term success, just the value of his holdings.

  “Block and Shield will be released before then,” I’d argued. “Right now, we’re spending a disproportionate amount of time on the private security division. We’ll be able to reallocate our efforts to more profitable areas.”

  Miguel Vazquez, about my only sure ally on the board apart from Finn, had thrown me a bone. “Kent’s numbers seem high to me,” he’d said. “Oliver, if I were you, I’d double-check them.”

  Ambrose Sutton’s brows had creased in annoyance. “Lawrence Kent is the CFO,” he’d snapped. “Are we to trust Oliver’s numbers more? It’s clear that the two of you,” he’d nodded to Finn and me, “want to shutter this division. Let me remind you that the board won’t rubber-stamp every decision you make. Our duty is to the shareholders of Imperium.”

  “Of which there aren’t any yet,” Finn had replied calmly. “Let me remind you that Oliver and I founded Imperium. Our decisions have got us to this point.”

  “Finn’s right,” Barbara Rhodes had interjected. The older woman rarely spoke, but when she did, she was always listened to. Barbara had taken the small grocery chain her father had founded and grown it into the second largest retailer in the country. “So far, your judgment has always been sound.”

  So far. What happens when Claudia’s photos leak? I don’t know what faith the board will have in my judgment then.

  The meeting had ended inconclusively. My afternoon meeting, with the PR firm that Susan had recommended, had gone no better. The Aventi employee assigned to my case was a woman called Gabriella Alves, and she’d been hostile and disbelieving of my story. “You’re telling me that you run a data security company, but your ex-wife was able to take these pictures without your consent?”

  I grab my swim trunks and head to the building’s indoor pool. I’m the only one there, which is a relief. I’ve never been less in the mood for small talk.

  I swim lap after lap, my muscles straining, pushing my body beyond its usual limits in a quest to quiet my mind. As my arms slice through the water, I’m not thinking of Ambrose Sutton and the rest of the board. I’m not thinking of Claudia, Lawrence, or Sebastian Fitzgerald.

  There’s only one person on my mind. Miki.

  After Claudia, I swore I’d never make myself vulnerable again. I never went out with a woman more than once; I wasn’t ready to risk my heart.

  But Miki slipped in. Our relationship was formed online. I knew things would change if I slept with her, and I did it anyway.

  It’s ironic. I’m the CEO of a data security company. I know how dangerous the Internet can be. I just didn’t think I’d risk losing my heart.

  You know what the right thing to do is. Tell her everything.

  Finn drops by shortly after I get back to my apartment. He’s holding a six-pack in his hand. “What a train wreck of a day,” he says.

  I step aside, and he walks in. “When did our lives get so complicated, Oliver?”

  “Money corrodes everything it touches,” I reply bitterly. “We wanted to go public, remember?”

  “It doesn’t seem worth it.” He sits down on the couch with a sigh. “I’m beginning to wonder if we wouldn’t be better served to call it off.”

  “Sure, you’re saying that today,” I reply. “But tomorrow, you’ll still be at work at a quarter to seven, and you’ll leave at ten at night.”

  “Maybe not.” He opens a bottle of beer and takes a long drink from it.

  I pick up my phone. “You want pizza?”

  He nods, and I dial the Italian restaurant two blocks down the street and place an order. They know me well. “Your usual order, Mr. Prescott? One extra-large pizza, half Hawaiian, half sausage and mushrooms? It’ll be thirty minutes.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I grab one of Finn’s beers and settle next to him on the couch. “Anything good on TV?”

  He’s flipping through channels aimlessly. “Not really,” he replies. “Nana is right. There should be more to life than work.”

  He’s thinking of Miki too.

  Finn and I have shared women in our twenties. We even had a relationship of sorts with one of them, Karina, until she moved back to Brazil. That’s not the most important issue confronting us.

  There’s a knock. “That’s fast,” Finn comments, as I grab my wallet and head to the front door.

  It’s not the pizza delivery guy that greets me. It’s Miki. “I need to talk to you,” she blurts out. “Did you take nude photos of Claudia without her consent? Is it true?”

  Fuck.

  Miki:

  Oliver steps aside, and I enter his living room. Finn’s sitting on the couch, his eyes watchful and wary. As usual.

  Friday night, we’d sat around on the floor and played a game of strip poker, and the three of us had made love. I thought I knew who they were, but I’m not going to lie. Gabby’s revelation has rocked me.

  “No,” Oliver says calmly. “I didn’t.”

  “Yet you met a crisis management PR firm,” I reply.

  He holds out his hand for my coat, and I remove it and hand it to him. “We have pizza coming,” he says. “Want to stick around? Finn can’t find anything good on TV, but there’s always Netflix.”

  I exhale in frustration. “Oliver, don’t stonewall me. I slept with the two of you on Friday. Tell me I can trust you.”

  His expression is stricken. “I didn’t take photos of Claudia, Miki,” he says. He waves me toward the couch and disappears into his bedroom.

  I sit down. Finn looks at me. “Do you really think Oliver would do that?” he asks me.

  I’m torn. My heart says No. Of course Oliver wouldn’t have done it. But I force myself to remain skeptical. I’d trusted Aaron too, and he had made a fool out of me. “I don’t know what to believe, Finn.”

  A pulse ticks in his jaw.

  Oliver returns with a large envelope in his hands. He throws it down on the table. “These are the photos,” he says.

  A sick sense of curiosity compels me to reach for the pictures. I open the envelope. The first photo shows Claudia kneeling on the floor, naked except for a leather collar around her throat. The second photo shows her on all fours, a man in black pants standing behind her.

  I swallow hard. Oliver’s ex-wife is beautiful and seeing her naked is extremely dispiriting.

  “Keep looking,” Oliver says.

  I pick up the third photo. In this, Oliver’s kneeling next to Claudia, a whip in his hands. With a start, I realize what’s wrong with the picture I’m looking at. “Your face is exposed.”

  I’ve worked with Oliver for a week. He’s not as paranoid as Finn, but apart from a habit of leaving his phone lying around in meeting rooms, he’s pretty conscious about data security. Like me, he doesn’t post on social media, and Janine’s mentioned more than once how averse he is to getting his photo
taken.

  Oliver wouldn’t have allowed his face to be visible in this context.

  “Exactly,” he replies. “No, this is Claudia’s doing, not mine. She wants half my share of Imperium.”

  “What?”

  Finn nods soberly. “She’s threatening to make these public otherwise,” he says. “We think Fitzgerald is behind it. He’d love to get his paws into our company.”

  “I’m not going to do it,” Oliver interjects. “Claudia is demented if she thinks I’m going to bend to her will. No, these photos will go public. I met the PR firm today to see how we could manage the fallout.” He crooks an eyebrow. “How did you find out about that?”

  “You met my friend, Gabriella,” I mutter, my cheeks flaming. I’m feeling really, really sheepish. Gabby works with wildly overpaid soccer players, and her job makes her cynical about people’s motivations. “She knows about Friday night, and she was being protective.”

  “That explains the hostility,” Oliver says. There’s a knock at the door, and he gets up to answer it, returning with a large pizza box in his hands. “Have a slice, Miki?”

  “You’re not angry with me?”

  He smiles warmly in my direction. “Miki, the only person I’m angry with is Claudia. We don’t know each other very well. You have every right to want to know the truth.”

  He’s being really nice, and shame trickles through me. Finn gets three plates from the kitchen and hands me one. Flipping the box of pizza open, he grabs a slice and holds it in my direction.

  “I should go,” I say awkwardly. “I just barged in here.”

  Finn grins. “Yes,” he agrees, “We had quite an epic evening planned. You interrupted us drinking beer and bitching that there’s nothing to watch on TV.”

  I laugh. “When you put it that way.” I help myself to a slice of Hawaiian, smiling inwardly when I think of Merlin. Evidently, the ham and pineapple combination is more popular than I realize.