by Nalini Singh
"Hey, you mind if I grab this seat?"
Charlotte looked up from her book, her sandwich halfway to her mouth, to see the Boy. That was the name she and Molly had given him after spotting him on campus at the start of the semester.
He was blond, the kind of streaky, summer blond that came with hours in the sun, his skin always deeply golden. From a T-shirt he occasionally wore, one bearing the label of a local surf shop, Charlotte had deduced he was a surfer. He had the lean, muscled body for it too.
Today, he slid in on the other side of the table without waiting for her reply. "I'm Richard."
His smile, it was like something out of the movies. His teeth were flawless, his lips perfect. Add in the chiseled jawline and the bright blue eyes, and he was the most physically perfect human being she'd ever seen in real life.
"Charlotte," she managed to say, not quite daring to believe he was talking to her. Boys who looked like Richard did not talk to nerds like Charlotte unless they wanted to borrow lecture notes--and as far as Charlotte knew, she and Richard weren't taking any of the same classes.
Then he said, "I've seen you in Introductory Accounting."
That was a huge first-year course with hundreds in each lecture theatre.
Charlotte still couldn't imagine how she'd missed him. "Oh." She wanted to slap herself for the monosyllabic response--you'd think she'd have gotten over her shyness by now. "Did you want to borrow the notes from today's lecture?" A whole sentence, she'd managed a whole sentence.
Shaking his head, he bit into an apple. "No, I was there. God, the prof drones on, doesn't she? I call her lectures War & Peace & Accounts."
Charlotte felt her lips tug up at the corners. "Yes."
"So you want to get into accounting?"
"I thought I might, but it's not me."
When he smiled again, it was as if the sun had come out. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm taking first-year law too, but I don't think I'm cut out for the life of a lawyer."
Charlotte and Richard had ended up talking for so long that she'd missed her next class. It was the first time she'd ever played hooky. The fact she'd done it with the cutest boy she'd ever met had sent her skipping across campus after they finally went their separate ways.
Now, alone in her bedroom, Charlotte wiped away a tear. Not for Richard but for herself. She'd been so young, so naive. She might have been a few months past eighteen, but she'd known nothing about men, not really. If things hadn't gone so terribly wrong for Molly at fifteen, Charlotte would've learned by watching her best friend--Molly had always been the braver of the two of them. But Molly had changed after that awful year, boys far, far down on her list of priorities.
That was how Charlotte came to be the first of the two of them to actually have a serious boyfriend. While Molly focused on her studies, Charlotte fell dizzyingly for the beautiful boy who'd noticed the mouse in amongst all the butterflies. Unsure about her path in life and searching desperately for something to fill the hole left inside her by the deaths of both her parents two months earlier, she'd felt hope for the future. Maybe, she'd thought, maybe even shy girls with glasses got happy endings.
Molly had been so excited for her. They'd giggled in Charlotte's bedroom as they picked out outfits for her dates with Richard, trying out different makeup looks they'd found in magazines or online. Things most girls did in high school. It had been fun and innocent and hopeful.
No one could've predicted the horror to come.
Taking a shuddering breath when her heart began to thump, Charlotte got up and went to wash her face. She could refuse to allow the memories to drag her under, but one fact she couldn't avoid: she was still clueless about men. Richard had been a cruel boy under his golden looks, and she could rely on none of her experiences with him when it came to dealing with an adult male like Gabriel.
Should I stop?
The memory of his deep voice, his steely eyes holding her own, his big body so close to hers, it made her shiver. "No," she whispered into the mirror, her heart in her eyes. "Don't stop."
The phone rang.
Her heart thumped again, this time in anticipation. For so long, late-night calls had been a cause for fear, but those memories stood no chance against the reality of Gabriel's voice in her ear. "Am I disturbing you?"
Her thighs pressed together, her skin suddenly tight over her body. "No. Did you need something?"
"Yes."
Knees weak at the way he said that, though she knew she was reading far too much into a single word, Charlotte sat down on the edge of her bed. "I'll grab my laptop."
"It's not for work," he said. "Do you know how to make a pasta sauce from scratch?"
Charlotte was momentarily lost for words at the unexpected question. "Why are you cooking?" As far as she could tell, he lived on ordered meals--healthy, balanced ones created by the best chefs in the city.
"I want to impress a girl."
Charlotte's smile faded, the bubbles in her blood fizzling out. "I can talk you through it." She hoped her voice betrayed nothing of her humiliating crush. It was all her own fault for seeing too much in what had clearly been nothing but a little light flirtation on his part.
Something crashed in the background on Gabriel's end. "Shit."
She frowned, hearing pain in his tone. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just smashed a glass, cut my finger." He sounded like he was moving around. "I don't think I'll be practicing any cooking today."
Charlotte worried her thumb over the knuckle of her middle finger. "Are you sure you don't need a doctor?"
"Yeah, I'm a big boy."
Her toes curled again despite all her intentions and admonitions to the contrary. "Okay, good night."
"So eager to get rid of me?"
Charlotte didn't know how to deal with Gabriel when he got like this. "Aren't you sick of the sight of me?"
"Careful, I might take that as a not-so-subtle hint about your own feelings."
Her face cracked into a smile she simply couldn't fight. "Can I have a long lunch on Tuesday?"
"Meeting your friend Eggplant?"
Charlotte choked back her laughter, not about to encourage him in his determined and irrational dislike of poor Ernest. "I want to buy a few things for a care package for Molly from a couple of stores near the office." She could go into the city over the weekend, but it'd be crowded and noisy because of an outdoor festival, and she didn't do well in crowds.
"Isn't her rock star taking care of her?"
"I just thought it'd be a nice surprise to send over her favorite snacks from home." Impulsively she shared something else. "She already sent me a whole box of American chocolate bars."
"Oh yeah? Which one was your favorite? Tell me so I can buy it for you the next time you get mad."
They talked for another fifteen minutes. It was easy, comfortable, except for the stupid compulsion inside her toward him. He wasn't for her, she reminded herself--he was planning a meal for his next conquest.
That fact should've poured ice-cold water on her fantasies. Too bad her brain didn't want to listen.
That night, she dreamed of straddling his lap while they were in the office, those hard thighs under her own and his big hands on her hips as she undid his tie, unbuttoned his shirt. Dream Charlotte was confident, pushing him back in his chair while she licked and kissed her way across all that hot, satiny flesh.
She didn't mind when he fisted his hand in her hair and ordered her to her knees in front of him, told her to use her mouth on his cock. Dream Charlotte was so aroused she could barely breathe as she did exactly that, as she allowed him to direct her mouth with his grip in her hair, as she moved her mouth over the hardness of him, the veins beneath his skin plump and inviting the stroke of her tongue.
Her shirt was suddenly open, her bra gone, and when Gabriel reached down to squeeze and caress her breasts with one warm, rough hand that wasn't gentle but demanding, she moaned and--
Charlotte's eyes snapped awake on the
moan, the sound cutting through her sleeping mind. Pulse a rapid thud and skin hot, she looked down to see that her nightgown was bunched at her waist, her hand under the waistband of her panties. Thighs clenching around that hand, she turned to her side and buried her face in her pillow.
Then, for the first time since she'd survived hell, she stroked herself to pleasure, all the while imagining that it was Gabriel's big hand taking care of her while his body burned hot and hard around her.
14
A Woman Named Tiffany (Uh-oh)
Four hours after waking, Charlotte was still inwardly blushing over what she'd done. She was also in the office. On a Saturday. Gabriel had asked her to come in to help him finalize the documents for a major deal that had acquired legs overnight, sending a car to pick her up after her two-hour "Working with Pastry" master class. She'd been grateful--the public transport into the city was no doubt shoulder to shoulder today.
They'd been working for ninety minutes and Charlotte was in the outer office printing out a financial report on the small French company Saxon & Archer was about to purchase as part of Gabriel's plans to control production of their higher-end inventory, when security called up from the ground floor.
"Hey, Charlie," the guard said. "I gotta lady down here says she needs to speak to the big boss."
Charlotte frowned. "Who is it, Steven? I'll ask Mr. Bishop if he can see her."
A short pause before Steven came back on the line. "Says her name is Tiffany. She's pretty convinced he'll be happy to see her."
Charlotte's hand squeezed the phone. She knew of one Tiffany in Gabriel's life. The two had gone out on a date a month ago, the morning after which the requisite red roses had been dispatched; Tiffany had left the country that same afternoon, on her way to a modeling contract in Japan. Now it appeared she was back.
"Give me a second," she said and, placing the receiver down, poked her head into Gabriel's office. "A woman named Tiffany--I assume Tiffany Summer--is here to see you. Should I have Steven buzz her up?"
Gabriel looked up from his papers with a scowl. "Who?"
"Tiffany," she said again, though a tiny little evil corner of her heart was laughing in glee because he appeared to have totally forgotten the other woman. "Long, straight brown hair to her hips, blue eyes, six feet tall." What Charlotte didn't add were the woman's knockout breasts and perfect cheekbones.
In all honesty, stand Tiffany and Gabriel next to one another and they'd look like the perfect match.
"Christ." Thrusting a hand through his hair, Gabriel glanced at his watch. "Yeah, buzz her up."
Charlotte passed on the message, and two minutes later, Tiffany Summer wafted in on a wave of sultry perfume, her body clad in tight white pants and a blood-orange silk top that would've looked like a tent on Charlotte. Tiffany Summer had no such problem--she was stunning in the piece. Her black stilettos somehow went perfectly with the rest of her outfit.
"Oh," Tiffany said once through the glass doors. "I hadn't realized Gabriel had staff here."
Charlotte recognized that tone. While her family hadn't been wealthy--far from it--her mother had worked as a teacher at an exclusive all-girls private school. As a result, Charlotte had been permitted to attend the school at the discounted fee rate offered to children of senior employees. It was one of the biggest perks of the position.
Because of her mom's long service, the school hadn't kicked Charlotte out when Pippa Baird got sick and could no longer continue to work. Thanks to Charlotte's five-year stint in those hallowed halls, she'd come into contact with more than one rich girl. Some were normal kids who happened to have wealthy parents, but there was another, far more vicious group.
The Queen Bees, she and Molly had labeled them. The rich, beautiful ones who got their kicks out of humiliating or otherwise hurting girls not as genetically or financially blessed. Part of the Queen Bee motto was to never be obvious about it. Snideness, malicious gossip, and backstabbing whispers were their hallmarks.
However, give them enough ammunition and the ugliness came out into the open. The Queen Bees had attacked Molly in a rabid pack when the scandal with Molly's father had broken; Charlotte had seen the true depth of the vitriol and the poison that lived behind those perfect smiles. She saw echoes of that ugliness in this woman who referred to Charlotte as "staff" with the slightest sneer to her tone.
Not enough to be objectionable. Just enough to remind Charlotte of her place.
Too bad Charlotte had never cared what the Queen Bees of the world thought. It did make her question Gabriel's judgment, however. Then again, she thought grimly, women like Tiffany had a way of turning on the charm for male eyes. "Please go on through, Ms. Summer," she said in her usual professional tone. "Mr. Bishop is expecting you."
As Tiffany sauntered inside and shut the door, Charlotte tried to focus on work but found herself gritting her teeth, her attention very much on that closed door.
She jerked as the door opened a bare three minutes after Tiffany had gone in. Face set in hard lines, the model strode out, and Charlotte had the feeling she would've slammed the doors to Charlotte's office if they hadn't been automatic.
"Call Steven," Gabriel said, walking over to stand in that doorway, his narrowed eyes on Tiffany's retreating form. "I want to make sure she doesn't decide to cause any mischief. She's in the elevator now."
Charlotte made the call, stayed on the line until Steven confirmed Tiffany had left the building. "I think that's the fastest you've fired anyone." She didn't know where the quip came from, but it made Gabriel grin.
"I didn't fire her, Ms. Baird. I told her the position had been permanently filled." He glanced at his watch again as her stomach turned to concrete. "We're still on timetable to make the deadline."
Those proved to be famous last words.
Gabriel had to leave Charlotte alone in the office for half an hour not long after Tiffany's visit. "My mother just called," he told Charlotte, having taken the call on his cell. "She's in a cafe nearby." He shoved the phone in his pocket, gut tight at the tone he'd heard in Alison Esera's voice.
Today was the worst possible time for this, with Gabriel up against a hard deadline to get this deal finalized before the man with whom he was negotiating--the hereditary owner of the company Saxon & Archer wanted to acquire and a botanist with no interest in business--disappeared into the Amazon jungle for six months, but he couldn't ignore his mother. "Will you be okay alone?"
Charlotte picked up a stapler. "I'm armed and ready."
If he didn't kiss her soon, he'd go mad. "I told you," he said as he left, "use the hole punch."
Leaving to the sound of her laughter, he made his way to the Vulcan Lane cafe his mother loved. Upstairs in a two-level building, it had windows that looked down on the wide pedestrian lane. When he glanced up, he saw her at a table by an open window, her dark brown hair brushing her shoulders and her gray eyes watching the people below. She spotted him just then, and smiling, raised a hand. Waving back, he ran up the narrow steps to the second level.
"I already ordered for you," she said when he bent down to kiss her cheek.
"Thanks." Taking a seat, he didn't waste any time. "Did Brian call you?"
Her smile faded. "He's your father, Gabriel."
"No, he was never that." Shoulders tense, he held his silence until after the waiter had delivered his black coffee and his mom's cappuccino. "Why do you let him screw with you? I know you don't love him anymore."
Sighing, his mother leaned back in the chair, hands cupped around the white porcelain of her coffee cup. "I also have two children with him, gave him ten years of my life. It's difficult for me to give up on him despite the fact my feelings for him died long ago."
Gabriel tried to understand how she could have any sympathy in her heart for the man who'd abandoned her, abandoned them all, and came up empty. "What did he want?" Brian Bishop always wanted something.
"He's sick." Sorrow lay heavy on her face. "He asked me to go with him to his
oncologist's appointment, and because he was once my friend, I did."
Gabriel's hand fisted on the tabletop. "How bad?"
"Serious enough that he might not make it." Holding his gaze with her own, she said, "He needs his sons--he has no one else."
Gabriel thought of how they'd been evicted after Brian Bishop abandoned them, of the nights in the homeless shelter, the sneer on the face of the welfare officer and the shame and humiliation on his mother's. "No," he said flatly. "He gave up all rights to his family when he stole every cent you'd both saved and disappeared." For two years afterward, Brian's only attempts at communication had been postcards that said he was on to "something big."
Then he'd had the nerve to be surprised when Alison handed him divorce papers after he did finally show up.
"Does Dad know about this?" he asked, referring to the man who had stepped in a year after Brian left them with no home and, because of his debts, nothing but the clothes on their backs. The only reason Gabriel and his brother, Sailor, still bore Brian's name was that Brian had refused to allow Joseph to legally adopt them, regardless of the fact he never saw his sons.
Rather than allowing themselves to be tied to Brian Bishop, Gabriel and his brother had reclaimed the Bishop name through sheer grit and determination, made it their own, until it no longer led back to the man who'd sired them. Now, it was associated with "the Bishop" and with the nationwide chain of gardening stores Sailor had set up in his twenties, after starting his working life as a landscaper.
"Of course." Alison closed her hand over his fist, her elegant manicure and soft palm a world away from the reddened and chafed skin he'd become used to seeing as a child. "Joseph and I don't have secrets." A deep and abiding love in every word. "He knows I just feel sorry for the man Brian once was--if we don't help him through this, no one will."
"Ask Sailor."
"You know your brother takes his cue from you."
Gabriel loved his mother, but she was asking the impossible. "I can't do it, Mom." He withdrew his hand, his jaw clenched so tight it felt as if his bones would crack. "I'm sorry. I can't forgive him." Everything else--the loss of their home, the fear and shock of having their belongings repossessed--he might have been able to forgive, but the beaten look on his mother's face as she asked for welfare help?