The Heat

by Alice Ward

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wyatt

  In my many years being groomed for the position of CEO of Watts Enterprises, I’d been through some pretty stressful situations. I’d given boardroom presentations to people who’d been in business their whole lives. I’d had to settle an employee dispute before it developed into a full-blown strike. And earlier today, I’d had to confront several protestors who were out for blood.

  But I’d never been more nervous, ever, than during that three-minute walk to my hotel room with Atlee.

  I wasn’t sure why. I’d been called a lot worse than a scumbag before, but it was only today that I’d actually started to care.

  And when she’d cried back in the restaurant? I saw what the tears had cost her. I saw how much all of this meant to her.

  Right then, my mission in life had changed. Oh, I was still dedicated to WE’s success. But come hell or high water, I was determined not to see Atlee Young cry. Ever again.

  I didn’t want her to hate me, and I didn’t understand why I felt so strongly about it either. I’d given up giving two shits what people thought of me many years of go… but Atlee Young was different.

  I didn’t know why.

  What I did know was that she looked like a walking two-by-four beside me, she was so stiff I thought she might break at any moment.

  As we waited for the elevator, I got her to talking about Malaysia, and she loosened up a little. She told me about how, yes, it was her first trip to Asia, and how she was dreading going back because the flight had been so intolerably long. Her roommate, who was also a lawyer but had traveled to Singapore once for a school trip, had given her a few tips, but the plane ride had been utter hell for her.

  “I hate sitting still for any length of time,” she said, and I could believe it. The girl had practically been bouncing off walls with her energy since I’d met her. “Didn’t you hate it?”

  I nodded but didn’t share that my first-class seat had practically reclined into a bed.

  “And yes,” she said with a smile. If I wasn’t wrong, it was almost a genuine smile, the first I’d seen. “As you saw in the video, it was last-minute, so I packed kind of haphazardly and forgot some things.”

  “I did that too. Forgot my razor. What did you forget?” When she didn’t answer, I prompted, “Anything I can lend you?”

  She shook her head, a secret, mysterious look in her eyes. “Probably not. I could lend you a razor.” She laughed, and the sweet, joyful sound vibrated in my balls. “It’s pink, though.”

  I didn’t usually shave every day, but the stubble was already longer than I was used to. I rubbed my jaw and turned to adjust my shorts, making sure the linen shirt fell down to hide my growing arousal. “It’s fine. I’ll deal. It’s only a few days.”

  “Oh? When do you head back to the States?” she asked me, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the tension in her shoulders loosened up a little more.

  “Not until Monday. You?”

  “The first flight I could get out is the day after tomorrow.”

  That surprised me. “And you got here today? Seems like a hell of a long trip to make, just to turn around and go back. You have to get back to work?”

  She looked at the wall behind me, then at the ceiling, then at the center of my throat before giving her head a little shake. “I don’t… no. I, um, took some time off.”

  There was something troubling her about that. I wanted to delve deeper, to find out what made her tick. I wanted to know just which buttons I could push on her to convince her I wasn’t such an asshole. What I could say to be a person she respected, admired even. I didn’t know why I wanted it so bad, why I wanted her so bad.

  I just did.

  It was crazy how much.

  When I opened the door to the suite, and she stepped inside, it took every ounce of willpower I had not to sweep her up and place her on the bed.

  Because damn, her simple presence improved the place. Tremendously. I could only imagine how much she’d improve it if she was naked, thrashing under me, screaming my name.

  I had a hell of a long way to go for that, though. At this moment, I’d have settled for her not looking at me like she wanted to kill me.

  She walked a lazy path around my suite, running her finger over the wicker dresser, peeking out onto the darkened lanai.

  “It’s nice here.”

  She turned on the light to the bathroom and peered inside. In the reflection of the mirror, I saw a frown appear as her eyes fell on my small black toiletry bag, with WE’s SmileBrite toothpaste sticking out of it.

  Yep. Pure hate.

  Just then, my stomach rumbled. Turned out, two bites of steak weren’t enough of a meal for me. And Atlee’d had nothing. “Are you hungry? I could order room service while we talk.”

  She eyed me, doubt mixed with loathing. “Steak?”

  I shook my head and opened the menu. “No. Um. Hey…” I closed the menu and handed it to her, “this time, I’ll let you order.”

  She smiled, and it was like the sun peeking up over the curve of the Earth to brighten the day. “Seriously?”

  I was so mesmerized by that smile that I could only nod. She took the menu and opened it, and I could see the devious smile widening on her lips as she picked up the phone receiver to call room service. Payback was a bitch, but I guessed I deserved it.

  When she hung up, I led her over to the dining set in the corner, where I’d spread out most of my research. She eyed it, her eyes widening. “What is all this?”

  “Basically everything I’ve been looking into. Hey…” it took everything in me not to reach out to her so I stuffed my hands my pockets, “maybe you can help me with it.”

  She reached for the legal pads I’d brought with me. Between them, they held at least a hundred pages of notes on what I’d learned over the past few weeks, and at the summit, including ideas for how we could bring sustainability into our operations. Her mouth slowly opened.

  “What…?” She made a sound that was half laugh and half snort. “You really are trying to transform Watts Enterprises with sustainable practices and ingredients?”

  I nodded, keeping my face carefully blank. “I told you. That’s why I’m here.”

  Her voice was soft, and a faint blush crept up to her cheeks as she continued to look through my notes. “The media said you were here to defend yourself.”

  I pressed my fingertips together, stopping my hands from closing into a fist. “We’ve done that for thirty years. We’re past that now. My father handed the reins of the company to me a little over a month ago, and my first order of business is correcting the mistakes he’s made.”

  The blush deepened as she placed the notebook down. “Well, maybe I was a little hard on you, but you must know you could have done a better job defending yourself earlier.”

  “I agree with that.”

  She gave me a suspicious look. “You’re not just agreeing with me because you want to get into my pants?”

  I dug my hands into my pockets and gave her an innocent look. “Is it working?”

  She frowned.

  God help me, I could look at that little crease of passion in the center of her forehead all day. “Fine. If you want me to be completely honest, then, yes, I want to be in your pants. But I also happen to agree.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Okay. If you truly mean it, then maybe I’ve misjudged you.”

  “Well, if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll let you say in your next video that it was you who changed my mind.”

  She froze, and a look of horror passed over her face. ““Oh, no. The video!”

  In a whirlwind of activity that gave me wonderful glimpses of bare arms and legs, she jumped into action. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone, her thumbs working wildly. She stopped and gazed at the screen, the horror morphing into abject dismay. “Oh my god,” she said, dropping the phone on the table and backing away from it like it was explosive.

  “Wha
t?” I picked it up and instantly saw what the problem was.

  The last video on Atlee’s Angles YouTube channel, uploaded mere hours ago, already had over fifty thousand views… and counting.

  I scratched my itchy chin. “Wow.”

  She snatched the phone from me, her thumbs madly working the screen again. “I’m going to delete it. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Whatever,” I said, sitting back in the chair and stacking my research up into a neat pile again. While I wasn’t thrilled with how the video showcased me, I was happy for her.

  She looked at me, confused. “You don’t care?”

  I hitched a shoulder. “The only person whose opinion I care about right now is in this room with me. What can I do to convince you?”

  She eyed me warily, still blushing, but looked away as she said, “I’ve been dying for one of my videos to go viral, and when it happens… I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” And I realized I actually meant it. In some backward roundabout way, I was doing something to help someone else. And it felt good. Even better, I hadn’t seen hate blazing from her eyes in over two whole minutes.

  There was a knock at the door. I pushed off the chair to open it. A man came in, wheeling a large cart with two covered dishes. I directed him toward the table, where he began to set everything up.

  “This’d better be good,” I said to her. “Or else.”

  She gave me a look filled with supreme confidence. “Oh, it will be.”

  The room slowly filled with the scent of the food. It wasn’t appetizing. In fact, it smelled like roasted broccoli. I breathed through my mouth. I was so close to having flipped her opinion of me, I was not about to ruin it by gagging. No, I’d stomach this. Maybe get a burger later, if I was still hungry.

  When I signed the check, and the waiter left, I sat down across from her. She’d gotten us glasses of wine, which I thought was encouraging. Before, she obviously seemed in no mood to relax.

  She pulled the covers off the dishes with a flourish. “Voila!”

  It was a brown rectangle, sitting above a bed of tomatoes. “I’m afraid to ask what this is.”

  “Parmigiana di melanzane,” she said, as if that explained everything. It explained nothing. At all. Well, except for the “parm” part, but even that didn’t compute with the mess on my plate.

  I took a fork and poked it. “It looks like… I don’t know. Translate.”

  “Oven baked eggplant over Roma tomatoes. You’ll love it.”

  “Oh. Right. I know how you feel about eggplant.” I gave her a wink. “Should I leave you two alone so you can share a private moment?”

  She flushed, and if I wasn’t mistaken, squirmed in her seat. “I’m good.”

  As she started to dig in, I remembered the orgasmic look on her face from the video. If she was that excited about a vegetable, I could only imagine how hot she’d get with my tongue inside her. I could just picture her squirming on my face as she came.

  Realizing I was staring at her, I turned my attention to my plate. I cut off a small piece with my fork, brought it to my nose, and sniffed it. Then I dropped it into my mouth. It was actually not terrible. Not steak, but not too bad either. I pointed the fork at her as I chewed. “You’re lucky.”

  “So you like it?”

  In answer, I cut off a larger piece and forked it into my mouth, then followed it with a drink of wine.

  She smiled, pleased with herself, and started on her own plate. “You know, I could film you, if you like, explaining what you’re trying to do. Would that help?”

  Help?

  I searched her eyes before looking down at my shirt, which was still damp from the beer she’d thrown at me. The white cotton was dotted with brown and red spots, from the thrown steak I could only presume, all the remnants of our earlier food fight. And really, the only thing that would help me right then, we still weren’t good enough friends for.

  “Not tonight.” An idea struck me. Something that would be beneficial to both of us. “Do you have plans for tomorrow?”

  “Well…” she poked at her eggplant, “I thought I would take in some of the local flavor, I guess, while I was here. But… I don’t really know where to start.”

  “Do you want to go with me? To a palm oil plantation upcountry?”

  “A plantation? Isn’t that…”

  “Yeah. I went to a plantation in Borneo this morning, and it was eye-opening. While you’re here, you might as well really understand what the process is like. There’s another plantation and a mill about four hours north. It’s where most of our oil is refined. It’ll be good for your YouTube channel.”

  I hadn’t planned on it. Of the opportunities afforded to me, the trip with Ajay was the only one I’d agreed to. There were other site visits I could make, but I turned them down, thinking one would be enough. But this made sense. No, I wouldn’t have Ajay with me, but we could handle it. I’d been told that most of the people who worked at the mills spoke English, anyway. And unlike my earlier visit, there was no better way to see how a place truly operated than by dropping in on them unannounced.

  Plus, I’d promised myself I wouldn’t plan so much. I’d do.

  There is much more worth in doing than planning.

  So there it was. My dad would be proud. Me, acting on impulse, going by my gut.

  Or maybe I was just going by my dick.

  I watched her carefully process my proposal before her eyes lifted to mine. “Yes, I guess I’d like that.”

  The rest of the evening went by too quickly. She was a good investigative researcher, that was for sure, because she kept me busy, answering questions about my qualifications for managing WE. I gave her the full rundown on my background attending Harvard for undergrad and business school as well as my full seventeen years working at the company.

  I’d gotten my first official paycheck there as an intern opening my dad’s mail when I was thirteen years old. After that, I’d risen in the ranks from stooge, to territory sales, to marketing director, and finally to Vice President of Finances before taking over the reins as CEO. She seemed impressed, but I half-wondered if she would turn around and tell her followers what a scumbag I was tomorrow.

  Whatever. She was easy to talk to. Well, when she wasn’t trying to bite my ass.

  Without realizing, I’d polished off my food and drink. She drained the last of her wine and said, “I really should be going.”

  I stood. “It’s late. The streets outside of the resort likely aren’t safe. Can I walk you to your hotel?”

  “It’s just down the street…” She bit her lip and looked out at the darkness beyond the windows. “All right.”

  Outside, it was finally getting cooler. Still sticky, but definitely more pleasant. She rubbed her hands together. “That was something I forgot. Bug spray. I’m a feast for mosquitos.”

  Sweet skin, I thought. “I’ll make sure we have some when we go to Chiku. I’ll have to pick you up early. Probably before six?”

  “That’s okay. I’m an early riser,” she said as we strolled out of the gates of the complex. I was glad to be with her. It was dark, and who knew what kind of people were out here. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  She said it so earnestly, like we were going on a pleasure trip. It occurred to me just how much this meant to her. Mentally cursing myself, I realized that I’d squandered my time with her. I wanted to know what made this woman so passionate, and yet all I’d been doing was talking about myself and the company. “So, what made you decide to get active in environmental law?”

  She swiped her hair atop her head and twisted it into a messy bun by making a knot with the long strands. I’d realized over the course of the night that that was something she just did instinctively — hair up, hair down. She was constantly playing with it, especially when she was deep in thought.

  It was damned sexy. And now, with a little bit of wine in me, I wanted her more than ever.

  “I grew up in a lead mining town in Oklahoma
,” she said. “It eventually became so contaminated by lead that it started sickening its residents, me included. Not only that, the mining weakened the infrastructure, and a lot of the buildings were declared unsafe. They were actually in danger of caving in on themselves. So we had to move away, and the town became a ghost town. But for a long time, people were told there was nothing wrong. Even at a young age, I knew that wasn’t true, so I started watching movies like Erin Brockovich and reading books like A Civil Action, and I really wanted to do that. I wanted then and still want today to go after people who fuck with our planet.”

  There it was again — a little more of that sassy bite that turned me on. When we got to her motel, a seedy little place called First Inn, sandwiched in the busiest part of the city between two other buildings that could’ve been crackhouses, I looked at her. “You are one brave woman.”

  She looked up at its bright red front, its bare windows, the banner that read CALL HOTEL #1 BEST IN TOWN HOTLINE, and said, “It’s not that bad.”

  We walked into the lobby. She was being much too generous. The place was a hole, with garbage everywhere and peeling wallpaper. It smelled overwhelmingly of fried fish and mold. Upstairs, someone was shouting bloody murder in Malay.

  We climbed a long, narrow staircase until we landed in front of a door. She opened the thin barrier, and when she turned around, she was flushing. “Well. Thank you for seeing me back here.”

  I looked up and down the hallway. There was a shady-looking man the next door over, sitting in the hallway, smoking a cigarette. I leaned forward and murmured, “I’m not sure I want to leave you here.”

  She smiled. “I’ll be fine.” Her eyes trailed to the man, and she seemed to think better of it. “Do you want to come in?”

  I nodded. Hell, yes.

  She let me step over the threshold, and wow. Hell, no.

  You couldn’t pay me to stay in that dive. The place was the size of a postage stamp and was basically a small bed atop a grungy shag carpeting that looked like it had been around for the past half-century. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You are brave.”