by Joyce Jordan
Seduction
Book Two by Joyce Jordan
Copyright © 2014 Joyce Jordan
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in ay form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
To contact the author:
[email protected]
Table of Contents
Chapter_1
Chapter_2
Chapter_3
Chapter_4
Chapter_5
Chapter_6
Chapter_7
Chapter_8
Chapter_9
Chapter_10
Chapter_11
Chapter_12
Chapter_13
Chapter_14
Chapter_15
Chapter_16
Note_from_the_Author
One
Ana walked into the apartment and found Kelly in the kitchen making coffee. Walking to her, she took her in her arms and held her tight. “You never responded yesterday, are you okay?”
“I did,” Kelly replied.
“Kelly, a one word answer does not constitute a response.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry, I was just feeling sorry for myself, but I am truly good now.”
Looking into Kelly’s eyes, Ana saw that she was telling the truth. Her friend was back. Men can be such assholes sometimes. Some more than others. Ana hoped that Brad didn’t try to make things difficult for Kelly at work. Smiling at her, she took down two coffee mugs, “How about that coffee?” Ana said to Kelly. “And I see you stopped by and bought some of those delicious pastries from the bakery around the corner.” Taking a plate she proceeded to place the pastries into the plate. Kelly poured the coffee and the friends moved to their dining table for some much needed guilty pleasures.
Sinking her teeth into the yummy pastry, Ana almost choked when Kelly spoke. “How was sex with Mr. Hot & Sexy?”
“Goodness Kelly. You want a blow by blow account?”
“That good? I am so jealous.”
Knowing Kelly wasn’t really jealous of her, she wouldn’t have pushed her into the relationship otherwise, she answered truthfully. “Yes, that good. I’m sore all over.”
“Scale of one to ten.”
“One hundred,” she whispered grinning like a fool.
Now it was Kelly who almost choked. “Jesus Ana. That’s way off the charts. Now I’m even more jealous.”
The rest of the morning passed by with Ana telling her about her weekend with Gabe, after the Saturday night they had parted. She told her about meeting his family, how she had been nervous, more like frightened, but how the family had made her feel welcome, at home, such that she had been sad to leave.
With Kelly going back to day shifts on Wednesday, they agreed to meet up with Evelyn for lunch the next day. After that Kelly went to sleep and Ana went to her office to take care of some business before they met up again with Kelly for some girl time.
By the time Kelly woke up mid afternoon, Ana had made some serious headway into her work. She cleared all work to free up her afternoon and the rest of Tuesday. She worked on Gabe’s problem and found loopholes in his system that she realized had been used to breach his security. Placing a band aid on the loophole, she moved on to write a couple of recommendations and made some queries for what she had in mind as their best solution. Ana called Nate to make an appointment to discuss her findings and recommendations. Both Sullivan brothers were not in the office so she left messages but decided to try their cellphones. Reaching Nate on his phone, he told her he was with Rafe, in a meeting with Gabe and told her he was putting her on speaker.
“I’m sorry to disturb. Why don’t you call me when your meeting is done?”
“No need. I believe you are calling about the same issue we are discussing here,” Nate answered before she could hang up.
“Sure. But I was hoping to meet with you first before discussing with the client.”
“Or we could just kill two birds with one stone and discuss this together?” Rafe added.
As much as Ana would have liked to discuss her findings without Gabe, she realized she would have to repeat with him at another time, so she plunged ahead. “I found your men, and that’s two of them. Would you like to meet in a couple of days to go over my findings and recommendations?”
“Hold on Ana. Are you saying there were…are two people involved in this?” Gabe asked. She could hear his shock through the line.
“Yes, and no. I can explain when we meet.”
“How about we do this today?” Gabe asked her.
“No, today doesn’t work for me.”
“Tomorrow?” she heard Gabe asking again.
“Tomorrow won’t work either, but I can do Wednesday.” Ana heard muffled curses and didn’t need more than one guess to know they were coming from Gabe. Was that something breaking in the background? The guy sure had a temper when things didn’t go his way. Ana was just glad he hadn’t mentioned this whole issue all weekend. She prefered to keep business and personal separate, especially seeing how often they clashed heads. Gabe wanted everything his way, but she may have allowed him to bombard into her personal life, but wasn’t willing to do the same in her business. She had worked hard for it and had learned over the years to not take crap from her clients which were mostly men. Sadly. But all thanks to Massimo, one of her clients from Las Vegas, who owned a group of hotels along the strip and used her services from time to time. From their first encounter, he had immediately taken a father role with her and taught her a few things about how to handle big executives, how to gamble, how to invest money, all for which she was eternally grateful for.
After what seemed likes minutes, but had just been a few seconds, Ana heard Rafe talking. “Please Ana, can you squeeze us in today or tomorrow? We really need to move onto this and rectify whatever damages have been done so far; and make sure this doesn’t continue.”
“Don’t worry about that for now. I have put in place a temporary fix until we meet.”
“You have?” All three voices could be heard over the phone. The relief in them was palpable even through the phone line.
“Yes, so you can relax. For now at least. So how does Wednesday morning sound? I could be there at nine or ten.”
They all shot for nine and opted to meet at Boyd Industries. Ana agreed and disconnected the call. Hearing Kelly in the kitchen, Ana cleared her desk and shut off her computer. She changed into some warm sweatpants and joined her. She had moved to the sitting area and was just finishing her lunch. When Kelly had rinsed her plate and fork, they both left the apartment and were on their way to go and do some volunteer work. They always tried to fit in a few hours every two weeks to help out at a retirement home they had found through another retirement home they used to volunteer at in California. They usually just sat and read to some of the folks there, sometimes played bingo or other board and card games with them. One of the gentlemen there claimed to have worked in a cassino and liked playing poker with Ana and Kelly. At one time he had suggested strip poker to which his kids had laughed but not taken offense. Ana and Kelly had been so embarrassed worried that the grown kids would think they had been encouraging their dad.
When Gabe’s call came Ana had her hands full and so Kelly answered her cellphone. She on
ly heard one side of the conversation but it wasn’t enough to understand what it was about. Her mind on helping one of the residents into his chair, she soon forgot about the call until they were on their way home.
Tired, Ana leaned her head on the back seat of the taxi. “What did Gabe want?”
“Not sure, but when he found out where we were and that we hadn’t had dinner he said he would order us food and we would find it with John in the limo.”
“He did, did he?”
“Very thoughtful. I am so in love with your boyfriend Ana.”
“He is not my boyfriend.”
“What would you call him?’ Kelly turned to her and asked. “He has wooed you since you met, sent you flowers to start your own flowershop and introduced you to his family. If that’s not a boyfriend, tell me what it is?”
“I guess when you put it that way, it’s sounds better than fuck buddy,” Ana giggled. “I’m surprised he didn’t send his limo to pick us up.”
“Oh he wanted to, but at the last minute he said he didn’t want to get on your bad side, especially after what happened this afternoon. What was he talking about? Did you guys fight?”
“Not exactly. Him, Nate and Rafe wanted to meet today. I finished my proposal,” Ana backtracked by way of explanation to Kelly when she had a surprised look on her face. “Anyway, so I called Nate and they were all together. I told them I was unavailable today or tomorrow and none of them were pleased, especially Gabe.”
“You do like to live dangerously my friend. But why can’t you meet them tomorrow morning or after our lunch with Evelyn?” Kelly asked perplexed.
“This is something that could take hours, and I don’t want to take too much time away from our girl time. Besides I also don’t want to lug around my equipment between lunch and Gabe’s office.” Ana looked at Kelly and saw that she understood. Kelly knew that when Ana did presentations she usually went prepared and moved around with her equipment which she sometimes used to demonstrate to clients or at times even fix issues. Besides Ana was still lining up some of the pieces she needed to help in her proposed solutions.
The cab dropped them off behind Gabe’s limo. Heart beating fast, Ana was first to exit while Kelly paid the cab driver. She walked over to the limo wondering if Gabe was inside. When John handed her the bag of food, telling her Gabe had asked him to drop the food off, Ana felt a little disappointment wash over her.
It was crazy how she had spent the weekend with the guy and now she wanted to see him every day. Besides she had just seen him that morning. Maybe she should agree to meet them tomorrow after all. That way she would get to see Gabe. No, she had to stick to her guns and not allow her emotions to rule her business decisions. Besides what kind of a friend would she be, ditching her friend for a guy. A guy with some great sex moves, that gave her multiple orgasms. Who would blame her?
By the time Kelly joined her, John was driving away. As they walked into their apartment, Ana went to drop the bag of food on the coffee table and Kelly went to the kitchen to get plates and silverware. Ana joined her in the kitchen to pour some wine into two glasses which she walked with back to the sofa. They ate their Thai meal watching some repeat comedy show none of them really bothered to listen to.
Calling it a night, each of them went to bed. Ana’s last thoughts before sleep claimed her, were of Gabe. Needless to say her dreams were filled with Gabe.
Two
Tuesday morning brought a light snow. Ana did a little work for an hour and then joined Kelly who was watching one of the morning show channels.They were showing some of the upcoming spring trends for the year. That soon rolled into travel tips, weather report and then finance tips and by the time the show ended, it was time to go and meet Evelyn.
They were meeting her at a small art gallery, close to Central Park, where she said she was meeting a client who wanted to buy something for his house that she was helping him decorate. As they walked in, Evelyn was just finishing up with her client. A couple of minutes later she walked up to them and gave Ana a hug like a long lost sister. Turning to Kelly, she did the same. “Gosh, am I glad to see you. Kelly I have heard a lot about you from Ana. I am so glad to finally meet you. I heard you all met at one of Rafe and Manuel’s clubs one night?”
“Rafe and Manuel have a club?” Ana and Kelly explained.
“Several, actually. Didn’t they tell you?” Evelyn asked surprised. “I thought you knew.”
“No, we didn’t but that seems to explain some of the service we received. Our drinks were served very quickly and we seemed to have a dedicated waitress,” Ana said to Evelyn and looked at Kelly to concur.
“We should go together some time. All their clubs are great. Now let’s go and find something to eat.” Evelyn seemed to jump from one topic to the next without waiting for a reply. She ushered Ana and Kelly outside and led the way to a bistro around the corner from the gallery. Two hours later Evelyn left with goodbyes and promises to meet up and go clubbing the next time Kelly was off. Not wanting to go back so soon, Ana and Kelly opted to go to the movies. It had been months since they had watched a movie on the big screen. They found a comedy and gorged on popcorn and chocolate.
“I feel so stuffed, I just hope I don’t throw up before we get home.”
“Me too,” laughed Ana. Anyone seeing them exiting the movie theatres would have thought they were drunks. Laughing they weaved their way around until they hailed a cab. Their drunken like behaviour continued all the way to their apartment, where they entered and fell down on the sofas. Tears streaking down they continued laughing like lunatics. Unfortunately Gabe chose that moment to call and couldn’t make sense of anything as they kept laughing hysterically, imitating one of the characters in the comedy they had just seen. The only thing he managed to find out was that they were home, so when he realized they were safe he hung up and left them to it.
They slept half the night on the sofa, until Kelly woke up and helped Ana up. Walking hand in hand, they managed to make their way to their separate bedrooms.
∞∞
The alarm woke Ana the next day. Her stomach felt shitty and if she thought she could get away with postponing her morning meeting she would have. But knowing the three men would likely come and find her, she went to the kitchen to find some coffee hoping it would settle her stomach and wake her up. Kelly had already left, but there was a pot of coffee waiting. Ana poured a cup and thought about her upcoming meeting. She went through her morning ritual on auto pilot, her movements slow. Swearing never to gorge like that again, she packed her stuff and grabbed a coke from the fridge.
In the cab, she drank her coke which seemed to settle her stomach a little and at least fully woke her up. The coffee had done nothing to help with her stomach, but had at least partially woken her up. She needed to be on her A game, especially with Gabe in the room. Ana paid the driver and got out with her laptop bag swung crosswise across her body and a small bag in one hand. As soon as she entered the building, she dropped her small bag and pulled it on its wheels. Remembering she had a card to the elevator that Jeff had given her the last time she had been here, she searched for it in the pockets for the laptop bag. Greeting Jeff as she walked by, he smiled at her and she went to find the express elevator to the penthouse offices.
Checking herself out in the elevator mirror, Ana was glad to see that she didn’t look like shit anymore. The coke had helped apparently. The ding of the elevator doors brought her around and she walked out to meet Andrea. Andrea announced her and all three men turned and stood up. She offered Ana coffee or tea and something to eat, but her stomach flinched at the mention of food. She, however, asked for another coke, if they had it, which Andrea assured her they had.
As soon as she joined them at Gabe’s sitting section in his office, Ana saw the plate of pastries and her stomach recoiled. She only had enough time to utter, “Bathroom,” before she felt her stomach pushing whatever was still inside up her throat. Gabe who had been looking intently at her jumped
and led her to his bathroom across the room. Ana had just stepped in before she threw up and fortunately down the toilet bowel. After she had emptied her stomach, she felt so much better that she started laughing.
“You want to tell me why you are laughing after you have just thrown up?” Gabe asked her while he handed her some tissues to wipe her mouth.
She stood up and answered him, “It’s a long story. For another time.” Ana walked over to the sink and rinsed her mouth.
“Did you get drunk last night?”
“No, nothing like that. We need to start the meeting.” When Gabe made no effort to move, Ana added, “I promise to tell you all about it. But I am okay now.”
When Gabe saw her fleeting smile, he seemed to be satisfied. He walked over to her and gave her a brief kiss on the forehead before he opened the door for her.
Once she assured both Nate and Rafe she was fine, she finally managed to set up her equipment. She told them how she had come across two footprints when she was digging around. The first one had been easy enough to find, but the second had done a good job of trying to cover his or her tracks. And then while she had been testing their network she had run across more clues left by the second person.
The saboteur they had been looking for, Ana learnt had been with the company for three years. He had moved from a competitor and was a hard worker who Gabe knew personally. Unfortunately for the second person, Ana stated that she needed more time to get more information. From the looks of it, it was someone under age. “He hasn’t logged in for a while,” she explained.
At noon Andrea interrupted them to take lunch orders. Not sure if her stomach was ready for a proper meal, Ana ordered a sandwich. Junk food she knew she could stomach, so she added some chips, cookies and more coke. They worked through lunch and then Ana went through the three recommendations she had put together on how to fix what Jason, the saboteur had done; and adding security features to prevent people from hacking into their network. She had already set things in place so that there was no danger of being hacked further, but their systems would need to be tested as often as hackers found other ways to get in.