by Holley Trent
“Whatever, Abi.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I just assumed you made that royal lineage story up when I was a kid just to make me feel special.”
“Oh, mi abejorro. What ever happened to you to have so little idea of your self-worth? Of course you’re special, and not just because of lineage.”
“I thought I did have a pretty good idea. It’s been a rough few months. Still, I’m not playing secret lover with Aaron Owen anymore.”
“Owen? Any relation to that woman Elly?”
Mandy had rubbed her eyes and sighed.
“Miranda, I know I taught you to pick your battles, but you’re not picking the right ones. You love him?”
Mandy was silent, but Abi plowed on. “You need to figure out if what he’s asking of you is all that unreasonable. If it is — fine. You’ll move on. If not, figure out a way to make it work. Besos. I have a date with some cake.”
The conversation had left Mandy feeling even more confused than when she’d started.
Michael stood with some difficulty. “Ugh. Well, speaking of cars, I need to get to work. I’ve got to go to an auction in Greenville today. Hope I don’t run into Dad. That’d be awkward.” He stretched his arms over his head and groaned when his back popped. “You working at the office today? We can carpool and I’ll have Frank bring me home.”
She picked the remote up, turned the channel to a morning news talk show and curled her legs up under her. “No. I’ll probably work from home. I need to figure out how some of the part-time techs ended up with overtime last week.”
“I don’t envy you.” Mike shuffled into the kitchen, deposited his mug into the sink, and limped toward the bathroom to shower.
“Right. Fun.”
The truth was she had already figured out the overtime glitch. She was actually avoiding Aaron. They’d been communicating only in terse instant messages for most of the week. He had tried to call her once, but she quickly hit the ignore button on her phone and shut it off for the rest of the day.
Attempting to avoid him that day turned out to be a moot exercise when at eleven o’clock she realized she was missing about half the files she needed to update the employee handbook. She’d transferred them from Aaron’s computer at work onto a thumb drive the week before and left them in her rarely occupied office. Or at least she hoped. She thought with it being nearly lunch he’d be out of the office, or perhaps on the road where he preferred to be.
That hope was dashed the moment she realized the thumb drive wasn’t in her office at all, but his. She’d left it in there when she’d had to place some sticky note reminders on his computer monitor.
She backed into his office and closed the door as soundlessly as she could only to have a pair of large hands grip her around the waist and pull her against a warm, sandalwood-scented chest.
“I’m going to guess by the way you just leapt a mile into the air you weren’t expecting me to be here.” The rough pad of one of Aaron’s fingers dipped into the collar of her shirt and edged down her shoulder. He grazed his lips down her neck and stopped at the place her bra strap should have been. “You’re not wearing a bra?” He answered his own question by looking down the front of her casual tee-shirt dress.
She pushed her collar back up and edged away from his hold. “It’s usually just the girls here during the day. I figured I’d just drop in and run right back out with what I needed.”
When she finally turned around to get a look at him, she sucked in a breath. He was wearing a dark gray suit that seemed to have been cut precisely to his athletic build. Beneath the jacket was a crisp white shirt with the top three buttons undone. A light blue silk tie with a gray fleur de lis pattern hung around his neck. He looked damn good in Tar Heel blue for someone with such an aversion to the color.
He walked to his desk and leaned against the front edge, crossing his legs at the ankles. “And what do you need?”
“I’ve lost a thumb drive … that I need for … going somewhere?” she squeaked.
He made a beckoning gesture with his hands and she found herself walking forward without having given her feet the permission to do so. When they were toe-to-toe, he reached out to her and swept her long bangs out of her eyes.
“That’s better. That’s where you should be.” He let his thumb linger, tracing a trail down the side of her face to her jaw and chin. “I have an important meeting with some potential financial backers. Funding may be a bigger issue come next year.”
“Why?”
He smoothed his palm down to where the heart-shaped pendant on her necklace hung. He fingered it idly and let it fall back onto her chest. “My father thinks he can control me by controlling my grant eligibility.”
“Do you need to be controlled?”
His palms crushed her breasts, pushing them up and together beneath the stretchy fabric of her dress. “No. I don’t.”
She could see a bulge forming at the front of his pants and impulsively put her hand over it.
“I missed you,” he whispered, bringing his head down to the level of hers and locking his lips onto her mouth. He palmed her rear, scrunching the fabric of her dress up in his hands so her ass was exposed to the air. “When are you coming home?”
Home.
She whispered back, “We’ve already had this discussion.”
“Give me an answer I want to hear, then.” He nudged her panties down and parted her cheeks with his fingers. He silenced her with his kiss once more and moved one hand around to her front, tapping into the wetness of her sex and rubbing it onto her swollen nub. When his fingers breeched her tight entrance the only think keeping her from moaning loudly was his mouth over hers.
She placed trembling hands at the waist of his pants, fumbling with the belt and trying to work his button free. Somehow she managed to release the fastening without ripping it off and looked up into his eyes as she encircled her hands around his cock. The head was slick, and she shuddered at the accumulated memories of how many times it’d breached her before.
He seemed to be reading her thoughts, or perhaps something in her gaze impelled him, because he picked her up and set her back flat against the desktop. Seeming to change his mind, he backed off her just enough to slip his fingers under her sides, and turned her over, sliding her back to the edge so her ass was presented to him like a gift.
He slid into her in one easy thrust, the force of which made her try to dig her nails into the wooden desk. She thought she should feel brazen there over his desk with him pounding into her, but with him filling her the way she’d so desired for the past few sleepless nights she found it difficult to care about propriety.
“God, Miranda … please … ”
“Please … what … Aaron?”
She was so close. So close to that brass ring — the queen of all orgasms. She could feel it forming in her loins and spreading upward to her breasts and all the way down to her clenched toes. Her breath had gone shallow, vision blurred, and she spilled over the edge when she felt his teeth clamping into the tender skin between her neck and shoulder. He jammed the heel of his hand against her mouth just in time to stifle her scream.
“What an awful knack of timing I have! I’ll give you two a moment to tidy up,” a deep, cheerful voice said from behind them just before the office door clicked closed.
CHAPTER 16
“I don’t really have time to have this conversation right now,” Aaron said as he knotted his tie by feel and glowered over his desktop at Rick. He had a lot of nerve coming into his place of business unannounced and into his office without even so much as a knock.
“I would imagine you don’t have a lot of time for … ” Rick fixed his stare on Mandy who was standing behind Aaron’s chair at the moment and waved a hand in a dismissive fashion. “Diversions when you’re at
the office.”
“It’s none of your business, Rick.” Aaron straightened his cufflinks and stood, pinching up the suit jacket draped on the back of his chair. Mandy stepped forward and grabbed the shoulders, holding it up so he could easily slip his arms into it. The gesture had seemed so automatic on her part, probably a leftover compulsion from working in a clothing store, but he appreciated the sweet gesture all the same. He offered her a small smile and was pretty sure there was a reddening of her cheeks before she turned her back to them. He turned his attention back to his father’s dear old friend, his smile already gone.
“Oh, but it is my business, you see. That’s my job, remember?” Rick pressed his palms onto the desk and leaned in close. “The public wants to know if your hands are clean, Aaron. Doesn’t matter if Charles is attached to this outfit or not. People assume he is, so they’re watching you. But you already knew that. Been good until now.” He drummed the desktop with his fingers and pushed himself upright before pacing in front of the guest chairs. “You have to be above reproach. Squeaky clean. So, if you’re screwing your staff, people are going to assume your sense of morality is a bit loose. Funny how the public is, huh?”
Aaron stared down at his hands for a moment, let his eyes blur on a spot where motor oil stained his cuticle, and took a deep breath. He wouldn’t get loud. Not with so many staff members in earshot. He chose his words carefully.
“I hired Miranda after we became personally involved, not before.”
Rick’s shoulders bounced upward into an elegant shrug. “I’m not certain that makes it any better. Nepotism and such.”
“It’s not nepotism if she’s the most qualified person for the job. And as you might have noticed, we’ve been quite discreet. Otherwise we would have had this confrontation before now, right?”
“I think your father is going to want to know about it.” Rick spun on his expensive Italian heel and walked toward the door.
Shit.
He’d obviously driven all the way out to Durham for a reason, and whatever it was still wasn’t apparent. Aaron hated to call him back, but …
“Rick, what did you want, anyway? I know you didn’t come all the way out to Durham to play hall monitor.”
Rick stopped, turned his gaze to Mandy briefly, then to Aaron. Aaron didn’t like the way he’d looked at her — like some game that needed hunting. When Rick spoke again his voice was, low. Sibilant, even.
“Nothing. It’s irrelevant now.” He made another flicking gesture with his hand and left.
Mandy slipped in front of Aaron’s desk chair and leaned her backside against the edge. He automatically wrapped his arms around her thighs.
“What does this mean?” she asked.
He rubbed her through the back of her skirt for a moment, then leaned back in his chair and slipped his pen out of his pants pocket. After threading it through his fingers for a while, he admitted, “I don’t know, sweetheart. And at this point, I also don’t care. Fuck it.” He pushed his seat back and stood.
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over his breasts. “You don’t care about what exactly?”
He bobbed his head in the direction of the closed door. “That.” He gave Mandy a gentle peck on the cheek and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Answer your phone when I call you, please.”
Her expression was wary but she nodded. “Yeah.”
Aaron left Mandy to the office where she appeared to be resuming her search for her thumb drive and he walked out to the reception area, thinking he owned Jasmine a stern talking to. For some reason, she always turned into a pile of goo every time that man walked into the office. What had he done to her? She was sweet, but usually don’t let people bowl her over.
He found the reception area empty. The out-of-office greeting light was activated on her phone, so he figured she must have stepped out for lunch.
Rick stood from the wingback chair he’d sat and crossed his legs in and gestured to the door. “Decided to stick around. Shall we talk over lunch?”
Aaron ground his teeth and leaned over Jasmine’s desk to pull a sticky note out of the dispenser. He clicked his pen and scribbled a note: See Mandy later about establishing protocol for reception back-up.
When he stood again, his impulse was to say “no” straight out, but hearing Mandy rustling in his drawers several doors down gave him pause. If he was going to have it out with the man, they might as well do it in semi-private. That’s what his mother would have had him do, anyway. She’d told him to be the captain of his own ship — the master of his own destiny. That if he didn’t want the press to control him, then he’d better start controlling them.
He gave a curt nod. “Fine.”
Aaron trailed Rick in his own car to a restaurant allowed the hostess to lead him and Rick to a back booth. Rick immediately put in an order for whiskey on the rocks. Given the early hour, Aaron abstained.
When Rick didn’t seem to be forthcoming with the expected haranguing, Aaron tapped his fingers against the tabletop and said, “Well?”
Rick cleared his throat. “As you’ve already been counseled, next year’s race is expected to be one of the tightest ever, even without us knowing who’s going to be on the ticket. People are ready for change. Bad news for us.”
“Yeah, I keep hearing that.” Aaron swirled the ice in his water around so it made a complete circuit in the glass.
“Shy of having everyone hold their breath, we need everyone to be on their best behavior.”
Aaron set down his glass and cracked his knuckles. “Say something new.”
“Fine, how’s this? I did some checking on your staff coordinator. Motley little family she has. Father was thrown out of the Army on his ear for insubordination about thirty years ago and now lives off the grid in the southwest. We’re looking into that. Her mother’s road to citizenship is a bit unusual in my opinion, if it’s even legal. I have my doubts. Her stepfather — ”
“I don’t give a shit about her stepfather. Why are you doing background checks on my girlfriend, anyway?”
Rick scoffed and took a long sip of his drink. “Until this morning, we weren’t aware of the exact nature of your relationship, not that it matters. We did a bit of checking on her because I was thinking about offering her a position with the campaign.”
Aaron balled his napkin up into his fist and tried his hardest to squelch the urge to rip it to shreds. “You can’t headhunt my people.”
“Why not? Isn’t that what you do? Swoop in to little ma and pa shops and steal their people? You did good. Looks and a brain. She’s a political wet dream.”
Aaron reached across the table, grabbed Rick’s tie and yanked. “Don’t you dare talk about Miranda like she’s some kind of object. You want me to behave? You damn sure better act like it. Pass that on to Dad if you want. I’m not playing puppet anymore.” He released the tie and stood. “And I pretty sure Miranda voted for the other guy three years ago.”
Rick made a choking sound while he loosened the noose. “I guess you’re not concerned about your funding for next year, are you Aaron?”
“You let me worry about the funding. You just worry about that contract you obviously signed with Mephistopheles, ’cause you’ll have to pay up your end eventually. Enjoy your bloody steak, you fucking vampire.”
• • •
“Tell me about these people and why I should hire them.”
Mandy sat in the conference room of CTW with the headquarters staff feeling slightly ill at ease at the seating arrangement. Aaron had pointedly followed her into the room on her heels and took the seat immediately adjacent to her. He’d even gone as far as to share her handouts. His behavior was an odd reversal to her.
Mike spoke up first. He really was good at being the volunteer. “Luciano Gurka. My old roommate from UNC-W. He currently lives down i
n Florence. He flipped houses until he became a millionaire then the market softened. He’s been living on savings for the past couple of years, but he’s ready to go back to work.”
“He’s motivated? He’d be in that zone all by himself.”
“Hell yeah. He’s got a new wife and a little baby. He’s the kind of guy if you give him a short string he’ll find a way to turn it into a sweater.”
“Great. Miranda, can you get him up here for an interview? You’ll need to jibe it with my schedule as well as yours.”
“Got it.”
“Anyone else?”
Mandy put up her hand, felt silly for doing it, then put it down. “My friend Chelsea expressed an interest several weeks ago. I thought perhaps she was pulling my leg, but she got in touch with me again last week wanting to know how to formally apply. She sent her résumé and some references over.”
Aaron gave her a warm smile that made her cheeks burn. She didn’t feel like she deserved it, especially not with the conversation she intended to have with him.
“What is she aiming to do? Screen?”
“Yes. She doesn’t have experience working with NPOs, but she has spent the past four years doing social work. She’s at the burnout point now.”
“I’m surprised she lasted that long,” Tina said from the opposite end of the table. “I only lasted two.”
“Well, if her background’s anything like Tina’s, bring her in. Is she willing to travel?”
Mike chuckled. “Oh yeah, I’ll answer that. I believe her exact phrase was ‘I’m single and ready to mingle.’ She has no attachments whatsoever and could spend days on the road if she had to.”
“Good. She’d need to meet with me and Tina. Schedule it?”
Mandy nodded.
“Anyone else?”
Several other people put names of friends and loved ones they thought deserved a chance forward. Aaron approved them all for an interview except one who hadn’t quite been released from jail yet. Once they’d run out of people to refer, he asked her to put up some ads.