“I’m asking the questions here, not you.”
David found himself smiling at her Domina voice. She had great control, but it made him want to kiss her sweetly, and then tie her up and show her the ways in which life would be better with him in charge. It wasn’t a sexist sentiment as much as it was a sexy one.
“If you’re here to cause trouble for Mr. Calder, then you’d better think twice. I won’t let you hurt him or the company.”
Coming from her, the statement was shocking. “Why would you think I have bad intentions?”
“Stalkers generally think they have good intentions, but they don’t.”
“Mr. Calder threatened your job if you didn’t work with me. He seems like a dick, and I’m sure he’s an asshole boss.” David stopped talking because he was going down a dark path and he didn’t need to take her with him.
“Bill Calder gave me a job when I needed one. I didn’t have the skills or experience, but he saw my potential. He hired me anyway and put me through training. I’ll admit that he didn’t show his best side today, which means something is stressing him out. I’m going to find out, David, and you’d better not have a hand in causing that man pain. Where do you live? I can only circle the neighborhood so many times.”
David’s brain short-circuited. He’d never heard anyone speak about his father this way. “He was going to fire you if you didn’t do exactly what he wanted.” She couldn’t overlook facts forever.
She chopped the air with her hand to dismiss his concern. “He’s all bluster. He might have fired me, but he’d have called me by dinner time to apologize. Either way, I’d be back at work in the morning.”
No. His father was not full of bluster and he was not a generous man. She was clearly delusional. “What, exactly, could I possibly do to cause him pain?”
“If I knew that, I’d be accusing you instead of warning you. Where. Do. You. Live?” This time her glare had some heat to it. For some reason, that made David feel better. He liked the passionate side of her nature.
He pointed to the building she was passing, and she slammed on the brakes. He braced himself on the dashboard to avoid lurching forward. At least the hunk of junk had working brakes, so he didn’t have to worry about her bashing into someone. “Why don’t you come up? I’ll make tea and try to justify following you tonight.”
“Are you also prepared to explain why you arranged with Ms. B. to spend last Friday night with me when you knew we’d be working together come Monday?” She stared through the windshield, and her low tone was tight with suppressed emotion.
She had to be fishing. Nobody at CalderCo knew who he was or why he was really there. Jesse hadn’t said a word about the mission to Beatrice DePau. He’d stumbled on the connection when doing a search of Autumn’s tax returns. The connection had proved fortuitous. David opted to obfuscate. “Maybe when I saw your picture, I knew I had to meet you?”
“My picture doesn’t appear on the Elite Solutions website, and though I’m listed under the Pro Domme page, it’s only as Mistress Bree. Try again. Maybe the truth this time?”
At a loss, he could only stare.
“When you’re ready to be honest with me, I’ll come up to your apartment and listen to what you have to say. I’ll have tea, or maybe you’ll serve wine and I’ll kiss you before I leave. Think about it.”
He recognized when to retreat so he could live to fight another day. Pausing with one hand on the door handle, he leaned across the console to kiss her cheek. “Nothing I’ve said to you was a lie.”
She didn’t shy away from his overture. “And yet, it wasn’t the truth.”
He watched her drive away, her tail lights reflecting in the wet street. At least it had stopped raining. When she was out of sight, he headed back the way they’d come instead of going inside. His car was parked near the coffee shop. It was only four blocks, but it was late, and he had some calls to make. First, he tried Dean.
“What’s wrong?” True to form, Dean wasted no time.
“I tailed her, and she made me.”
Silence for a second. “It’s not like you to be careless. How do you know she made you?”
“She told me. I followed her to a convalescent home—Sunshine Acres—where she spent about two hours. Then she went to a local coffee house to meet with a man.” He related the details of his conversation with Autumn. “She’s somebody, Dean. She managed to not answer a single question.”
Dean cleared his throat. “She did give you a couple things, though. I’ll have Jesse hack Sunshine Acre’s medical and personnel records, but in the meantime, you need to talk to your dad. Why did he hire her if she had no experience or training? From what you’ve told me, that’s outside his normal behavior pattern. Your dad knows more than he’s letting on.”
Though David had reported most of what his father had said to Dean, he’d left out the part where his father speculated about Autumn’s extracurricular activities. Had Bree known she was being followed when his father had hired someone to tail her? He could see her leading the unsuspecting private investigator on a wild goose chase. That seemed like something she’d find fun. Still, if he knew anything about his father, he knew that Bill Calder only revealed the information he wanted David to know. “Probably. I’ll ferret it out eventually.”
“I just got the pictures you took of the man. Can you have your friends at the FBI do a search? We’re pretty high-tech here, but facial recognition software is not helpful without access to state, federal, and international databases.” Dean coughed.
David frowned. “Are you getting sick?”
“Maybe a little bit. Don’t worry. I’ve stocked up on vitamin C, zinc, and cherry cough drops.” He paused to hack up something disgusting. “I may send out for some chicken soup.”
“Jordan fed a picture of Autumn into their system. He said it would take a week or more to get results. Send Jesse here as soon as he comes up with something. And make up a great resume. I can’t pull strings to get him a job—I don’t want anyone connecting us—and I’ll have him tail her.” He couldn’t because she not only knew what he looked like, but now she’d be on high alert where he was concerned.
“Will do. I’ll contact you as soon as I know more.”
Go with your gut, kid. You have a fantastic sense of intuition. Her father liked to say that success was due to equal parts planning and luck. He’d maintained that Autumn had been born with a combination of great instincts and luck.
Autumn didn’t put much stock in luck. Meticulous planning left little to chance, and if luck was supposed to have played a role in her life, then she was still awaiting its grand entrance. So she set to work. An Internet search of David Eastridge turned up some pretty interesting results that had her both relieved and anxious. Though he hadn’t lied about who he was or what he was doing at CalderCo, as she’d suspected, he hadn’t been truthful.
He’d evaded every question she’d asked, and she knew why. She also knew why Mr. Calder had been so rattled. It hadn’t been David; it had been the reason Mr. Calder had been forced to hire him.
Just to be sure, Autumn called Beatrice DePau. Ms. B had been an associate of her father’s. Autumn wouldn’t call Ms. B a friend, exactly, because the two had a passive-aggressive relationship that had begun two years earlier when Autumn had been forced to go to Ms. B for financial help. Neither of them had quite walked away from that meeting with what they wanted, but both had established a grudging respect for the other. She trusted Ms. B to select good client prospects for her, but she wasn’t willing to pay the price demanded for being allowed access to the best prospects.
The business woman picked up on the first ring. “Autumn, how are you, dear?”
“Great. Guess who is my new boss?”
“Did you get a new job?”
Autumn sighed. “Let’s not play games. Why did you pair me up with David Eastridge last Friday—and as a submissive?”
“Darling, though you are an adequate Domina, you’d m
ake a better submissive. I thought you might like David. He’s very handsome.” She covered the phone for a minute, issuing a muffled command to whomever was in the room. “I thought the two of you had chemistry.”
Autumn couldn’t tell whether the woman was smirking or if she thought she’d done something nice. “He asked for me. He knew who I was before he ever called you. I need to know what you know. Ms. B, this is serious. I know how he knew I work for CalderCo, but I don’t know how he knew about my association with you.”
“I don’t either, dear. You’re right. When his associate called to set up the date, he asked for you. I told him you were strictly a Domina, but he managed to convince me to arrange a meeting. I thought it went well. You said he was a gentleman, and that you had fun.” The way she inhaled and exhaled, Autumn figured that Ms. B was now on her balcony, smoking.
“He blackmailed you? How?” The dirty side of Elite Modeling Solutions was something in which Autumn did not participate. Though the models were not, in fact, prostitutes, they served a more deceptive function. They were paid bonuses for obtaining sensitive information on the clients. Though Autumn didn’t have proof—and she had no plans to go searching for it—her intuition told her that Ms. B was in the business of blackmailing clients.
“He did not blackmail me. Do you remember a few years ago when I had some issues with my grandson in Mexico?”
The details were vague, both because Ms. B never told the whole story and because it had happened not long after the accident. “Yeah.”
“He’s home, alive and well, thanks to Mr. Eastridge and his colleagues. I owed them, you see, and by providing an introduction to you, I have wiped out that debt.” She threw the last part in there as a triumphant salvo. “I need to run, dear. I’ll call you if I have a job, maybe next week, okay?”
“Sounds fabulous.” Autumn injected enough dryness into her tone to evaporate Lake Michigan, but it went over Ms. B’s head.
“Great. Ta-ta for now.”
Chapter Five
Autumn went into work early. She didn’t often do this because she had an on-again, off-again relationship with the snooze button. However, today she had a mission. A thrill of anticipation tingled in her belly. She was going to show David a thing or two about truth today. She’d dropped her things at her new workstation on her way out the evening before, so she quickly unpacked and got everything squared away.
By the time he waltzed in with the rest of the staff, she was elbows-deep in preparing the acquisition forms he would need in order to get the information he needed to do his job. She knew he was close by the way the pitch of women’s voices rose and men’s voices dropped. Both genders sought his attention. Though she knew it was just because he was handsome and new, she couldn’t help the pangs of jealousy that pinged around and annoyed the heck out of her. In order to disguise her feelings, she dove back into her tasks.
“Good morning, Autumn.” A stack of folders manifested on the other side of her desk.
She flashed her most winsome smile as she stood. “Good morning, Mr. Eastridge. I hope you didn’t have a long walk back to your car.”
He laughed, and it was the genuine article because his irises lightened. “Not too long. It gave me a chance to dry off a bit.” He set a travel mug in front of her. Scrumptious aromas assaulted her senses. Too intent on getting to work, she’d skipped her usual morning cup. Next to the mug, he plopped a brown bag. “I don’t know how you take your coffee, so I threw a bunch of cream and sugar in here. I made you a Turkish blend because it reminds me of you—exotic and spicy.”
She looked from him to the mug and back. “This is for me?”
“Yes, and I brought you a refillable mug. It’s much more environmentally conscious. If you rinse it out when you’re done and give it back to me, I’ll bring you more tomorrow.”
Autumn couldn’t remember the last time anyone besides Julianne had done something so thoughtful and unexpected. “Thank you.” She gestured to the pile of file folders. “Are those for me as well?”
“Nope. These are mine. They’ll stay in my office, and they’ll never be logged electronically.”
She tore her gaze from his face. Looking at him was like staring at one of those spinning disks with black and white swirls. It drew her in and threatened to hypnotize her into doing things she wouldn’t normally do.
“Give me ten minutes, and then come into my office so we can discuss your responsibilities.”
“Yes, Sir.” She hadn’t meant to say that. It slipped out, a response to his authoritative tone.
His grin grew. He scooped up the pile of folders and disappeared into his office. She watched for far too long.
“I heard a rumor that you moved to a new department.” Julianne set a muffin next to the travel mug. She flung her enviable red tresses over her shoulder as she perched on the edge of Autumn’s desk. “Congratulations. A lot of people are very jealous of you right now. There is talk of restructuring, and you’re in a prime position to know who is getting the boot and who is getting the scoot. Also, you’re in the perfect position to do a daily booty check.”
“Thanks for the muffin.” The thoughtful gesture touched a tender place in her heart. Julianne might be asking for the scoop, but she would have brought the gift even if there was nothing she wanted to know. Autumn understood the rumor mill that was the lifeline of too many workplaces. “They want details. Sorry, but I’m probably seven minutes away from being sworn to secrecy. If it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure that nobody who is fulfilling their work responsibilities is in danger of losing their job.”
“Why didn’t you call me last night? I have questions.”
“I was busy, and I don’t know the answers to your questions.”
Julianne rolled her eyes, blue this morning, thanks to the peacock-hued dress suit she wore. “I don’t fear for my job. I heard you fought Mr. Calder on moving from accounting.”
“David rubbed me the wrong way.” Details would not be forthcoming. Julianne had no idea she moonlighted a few times a month as a professional dominatrix.
She arched one sculpted brow. “You looked cozy enough when I came up.”
“We’re working on our differences. He’s not a bad person, I just…I really liked accounting.” It sounded lame. There was no way to make accounting—or a love for it—not sound lame. Autumn grabbed her tablet and got to her feet. “How about we have lunch? Right now, my new boss wants to tell me what I’m going to be doing with my days.”
Julianne heaved a dramatic sigh that let Autumn know she expected some good gossip later because she wasn’t getting it now. “Usual place and time?”
“Yes. I’ll see you later.” She took her mug of coffee into David’s office. He was in his chair, bent over a file drawer behind his desk, sliding the files where he wanted them. “I can do that for you.”
“Did you have a nice chat with your friend?”
“Did you plant a listening device in my desk?” Trick question—she’d already swept for bugs.
“Not yet. Put that on my to-do list, will you?” He tucked away the last file and faced her with a serious expression. “I love this answering-a-question-with-a-question bit we do, but at some point, I’m going to need actual answers.”
She sat in the chair across from him. “Then I’m going to need actual questions. You don’t want to know if I enjoyed talking to my friend. You want to know who she is and what we talked about.”
He pushed a file toward her. “Julianne Terry, acquisitions, been with CalderCo for thirteen years, recommended you for hire.”
Fine. If he wanted to know so badly, she’d throw him a catfish, which was like a bone, only it had sharp points, and it was given to hissing. “We talked about your ass. The office staff, in general, derives pleasure in admiring it, but they all wonder if you’re going to fire theirs.” She set the thumb drive on the folder. “I put this together for you. It’ll be your first priority.”
“What’s on it?”
/>
“If I tell you, it’ll ruin the surprise, and where’s the fun in that?”
He fought the urge to laugh, but not with resounding success. Shaking his head provided a little bit of recovery. “Autumn, I’m going to have to insist on straightforward responses.”
“David, we’re not at the point in our relationship where we’ve established enough trust for straightforward responses. You’ve got your brand of truthiness, and this is mine.”
Wearing a look that said he’d like nothing better than to turn her over his knee, he put the thumb drive into the port on his laptop. His eyes moved as he looked over the file names, and then he tapped one. She knew which one it was because she’d labeled it “Open Me First.”
He swore under his breath. “Fuck me. I told Frankie to take this down.”
She’d taken a screenshot of the SAFE Security website. Autumn waited in silence, letting him look through everything.
“These are your files. Why are you giving them to me?”
“I figured that if you’re going to do a quality assurance review, then you’d better start with me. As the person working closest with you, it’s important to know what you’re getting.” She knew he heard the air quotes around “quality assurance review.”
He sat back in his chair, rested his elbow on the arm, and studied her intently. “I’m ready to be honest with you, or as honest I can be at this point. But I’d like the same courtesy from you.”
She had no problem telling him anything about CalderCo he wanted to know. “That sounds fair.”
“Fine. My place, after work. You remember where I live, right? I’m in penthouse three.”
“Yes, but I have errands to run first. How about seven-thirty?”
All the buildings where he lived looked alike, but Autumn had cased some of them before, so she could tell them apart. He lived in one she may have allegedly broken into six months ago. Digital security doors had so many flaws. If the right circumstances presented themselves, she didn’t even have to override the system. For example, eventually someone with a lot of bags was going to need to get inside. As a passerby, she might hold the door for a parent struggling with a small child and a handful of bags from various stores. Slapping a piece of tape over the lock was simple, and nobody ever seemed to notice the move.
Re/Leased (Doms of the FBI Book 5) Page 7