Resist Me

by Samantha Lee

  Damn, Antony thought. She was his type. Her nice ass and those bountiful breasts all wrapped up in beautiful brown skin. When she stood and walked around her desk Antony couldn’t help but watch how her hips moved seductively in her skirt. Antony watched the slight bounce of her breasts clearly visible in her fitted blouse, as she walked toward him. Antony clenched his teeth at his wayward thoughts. No, that way lay madness, Antony couldn’t break his one rule not to mix business and pleasure, he already learned his lesson with mixing business and pleasure, and that’s one lesson that only needed to be taught once.

  Antony threw the stack of papers on the coffee table between them. He needed to regain his common sense and get control of his body, he couldn’t let his attraction to her get in the way of his business. He was her boss, she was his employee, he had questions, she needed to give him answers.

  “You can answer some questions.” He pointed to the stack of papers, “About the numbers in these reports.”

  Antony watched her bend over and pick up a few pieces of paper. Her shirt stretched tightly against her breasts with her movement and damn, he saw straight down her shirt, he could see her black and white lace bra. He rolled his eyes, and barely suppressed a groan. He loved lace. He loved the way it felt when he ran his hands over it as he undressed his lover. His mind seized on the idea of running the tips of his fingers along the lace skimming the top of her breast. Was she talking? Damn, she was talking, what the hell did she say?

  “Pardon me, I didn’t catch that.” Antony said.

  How she suddenly straightened, her body language told Antony, he had offended her, she bit out, “I said, I can certainly try.”

  Why did that sound erotic to him? She could try. She most certainly could. He would be willing to try with her on her knees or with her ass in the air. Antony shook his head, his thoughts were ridiculous, his dick was not in charge. Was he so hard up for sex that casual conversation was giving him a hard on? He would need to do something about that, but not right now, and not with her.

  He had to focus on the Family business, he couldn’t be fucking around entertaining any other thoughts. Resisting her allure, he gave her one of his calm sensual smiles. Antony needed her pliable not offended and on guard. The best way to get answers from a woman was to flirt, tease, then push his way inside her with his charm. He smiled seductively at Yvette.

  His smile fell flat. She wasn’t moved at all. She stared at him. That was interesting, he thought to himself. She didn’t respond the way he thought she would. The way every other woman did. Antony stood and walked around the small coffee table and sat next to her. He reached over her and pulled the papers out of her hand, he intentionally grazed her hand.

  “Who signs off on and reviews the financial reports? “ Antony asked.

  Yvette moved, she put space between them, “Peter and Jim always handled that. I asked to be a part of those meetings and Peter told me, that it was ‘too much for my little mind to handle.’ I never pressed him for the information, I was already overwhelmed from running the day to day operations.”

  Antony looked at the space she put between them, her resistance to him annoyed him, which settled his mind, and forced him to focus on what was important, the money. This was Antony’s first damn day and both the illegal, and legal faces of B&E were on the precipice of bankrupting. Common sense told him it wasn’t his fault, hell, the facts said it wasn’t, but that wasn’t how the Family would see it. They would see it as his failing and that he wasn’t ready to be the boss when his father was ready to step down. But he was ready, and he would succeed in any situation. Antony pushed the papers to Yvette, who now sat at the far edge of the couch. “Look at this report and tell me what you see.” Antony told Yvette.

  ***

  Yvette reached out to receive the document, carefully avoiding any physical contact. Antony smelled so good, he was wearing her favorite cologne Bleu by Chanel. Damn, how long had it been since she got laid? Apparently, too damn long. She was thinking about moving closer to Antony, to feel the weight of a fine man’s body against hers, even if it was her insanely wealthy CEO, a man far out of her league. Something about him pulled her in and made her want to fall into his arms. She gave her head an imperceptible shake. Was she going insane? Discreetly she moved further away from him.

  Maybe if she moved away, she could regain some of her sanity. It wasn’t so bad when he was sitting on the sofa across from her. Why did he need to sit next to her, much less, so close to her? When his hand grazed hers, her entire body broke out in goosebumps. She hoped he didn’t feel the shiver that ran through her body at the accidental contact. But all too soon her trance was broken when he gave her that cheeky smile, a smile that said, “I will give you the best sex you ever had in your life.” She’d seen a similar smile on Donato, and every other womanizer she had come across in her life.

  Antony Carbonaro, was a player. He was trying to do the same thing that Donato tried to do to her, he wanted answers, so he thought to use her body against her to get them. That was insane, she would give him answers because he was her boss. She would never give Donato answers because he was an ass. Upset that Antony thought something like that would work on her, Yvette pushed the thoughts of his good looks aside and focused on only doing her job.

  Antony asked her a question, he pushed a document on to her. Yvette scanned the document, her mouth dropped opened in shock, disbelieving she reached over Antony, and grabbed several sheets of paper from the stack Antony threw on the table. She paged through them. Her mouth shut tight with anger. That sneaky motherfucker was embezzling money, hundreds and thousands of dollars. What was it about people? This company was not made for Peter Jennings, this company employed hundreds of people and if his antics collapsed the company all of us would be out of a job. His selfishness had no limits.

  “I didn’t know,” Yvette said, she turned to face Antony. “If I had known, I would have put a stop to it.”

  Antony looked at her for a long time. Yvette could tell he was trying to decide if she were being honest. “I believe you, but that doesn’t answer my questions. I need to know how much was lost and how we will pull it all back together.” He grabbed the papers in her hand and threw them on the table with the others. “I can’t believe any of these reports. They were all cut from the same poisonous tree. I need you to find out our true financial standing and develop a recommendation to pull us out of the hole.”

  Yvette was impressed with Antony, he looked at the financial reports and understood them well enough to make a quick analysis on the company’s financial health. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to work long hours to take care of things that were better suited for the CEO and not the President. But then again, from the sound of what he just said, she would work long hours until they figured out what happened in accounting.

  “I can work on an analysis but crunching the numbers and figuring out what happened in accounting is something Jim should do.” Yvette said to Antony.

  Antony didn’t tell her he fired Jim. That wouldn’t help him right now. He ran his hand through his hair again and sat back against the sofa. He rubbed his hands down the front of his pants, don’t intimidate her, Antony thought to himself. Antony couldn’t remember a time when he thought about another’s feelings. Antony said what he meant and didn’t care what anyone thought, but with Yvette, he wanted to take care with his words and his body language. He wanted Yvette to feel comfortable around him, which he realized was abnormal.

  “I prefer for you to head up this project and work with accounting, but on a need to know basis. You and I will work together to determine the next steps.” He watched her, he was trying to guess what she was thinking. Did she think this was a good or bad idea. He couldn’t tell, Yvette’s facial features gave nothing away. “I will help you. I don’t expect you to do all of this on your own, I can’t believe only two people covered this up, there has to be more involved, and until I know who, I can’t trust anyone.”

  She nodde
d, “You are right, we should keep this between us, because if someone in accounting realized the peril of the company’s financial health and told others, things could become chaotic.”

  Antony nodded, that was also a good reason, “Good, you need to clear your personal schedule for a while, because we will work on this project together after hours. We both have business during the day that we need to deal with.” He watched her bite her bottom lip. “Are you nervous about something?”

  Yvette swallowed hard, “I don’t think that’s a good plan, it-it is dangerous at night for women in Hell’s Kitchen…” Not to mention that being locked in a room with a gorgeous man after hours was not a recipe for success in her book, she knew her thoughts and possibly her hands would run away from her. Antony had a way about himself that she wasn’t entirely sure she could resist.

  “Don’t worry, I will get you back to your car safely, if that is what you are concerned about,” Antony said.

  Yvette mumbled, “That’s one thing.”

  He heard her, “Pardon me? Did you say something?”

  Yvette shook her head and pasted on a smile, “No, nothing at all”

  Antony smiled, “Good,” then he opened the door and walked out of her office.

  Yvette stared at the closed door, then she looked down and stared at the stack of papers on the table and thought about the monumental task in front of her, the task Antony said he would only let her work on after hours. He was like Areyanna, he used his looks to get what he wanted, but underneath all that gorgeous was a real asshole. Who the hell was he to tell her what she should plan for her personal life? Obviously he didn’t understand the concept of work and life balance. If she closed her door, there was no reason she couldn’t work on this project during her regular work hours. She would try her damnedest to figure out a way to get her work done before the sun went down, and she would try hard as hell not to be left alone with Mr. Antony Carbonaro, a man that melted her resistance. Yvette bit her nails. She laughed, ‘I will get you to your car safely,’ he said with all the bravado of a man who was a little too into himself. Yvette wasn’t afraid of walking outside at night, she was afraid of acting on the attraction she felt for him. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself and fall all over him, trying to get his dick to accidentally fuck her. Hadn’t she learned anything with Donato? There had to be a separation between work and personal, she had to draw a clear line in the sand and she couldn’t step over it.

  Yvette checked the time, it was five thirty. She glanced at the stack of papers on her end table, she could get a jump start on looking through them. Yvette sighed, there was never a time like the present, Yvette thought to herself. She picked up the stacks of paper on her end table and walked them to her desk. She sat down and pulled the chrome handle to her desk drawer and removed a pen and paper. Yvette had resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t be leaving until well into the night.

  ***

  Antony sat at his desk and looked at the records for the Family’s smuggling operation. The records were a mess, if he were being optimistic it would take at least a week to figure out what was left of his records, and even longer to bring this operation back up to speed, or at the least, remove all the bullshit Peter had put in place. He couldn’t allow the smuggling operations to fall. The smuggling operations brought in too much money, and the Family would be in a difficult position if they lost their clients due to Peter’s deliberate ignorance.

  Antony sighed and dug into his pocket. He pulled out his phone to call Sal. Antony could depend on Sal to be there every time he called. When Antony became boss, he planned to make Sal his consigliere. It was the least he could do for a man that had been next to him for his entire life.

  “Yo Antony, I was just on my way to see you.” Sal said when he picked up the phone.

  “Good, because I need to talk to you. Do you think you can be here within the hour?”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  Antony laid his head back and sighed, there was too much to do.

  ***

  Donato arrived at Yvette’s apartment at seven o’clock. He was a lot of things but he was never late. Donato thought of Yvette and how happy she would be to see him. Yvette was playing hard to get and he would play her game for a little while, because he needed information about B&E, but when he got what he needed from her, he would teach her a lesson in manners. If she wanted hard, he would give her hard, she looked like she liked it that way. Women like her said one thing and meant another, he knew how to break that kind of woman, to make her understand who she was at her core, a woman that needed to be led by a strong man. He would get Yvette, because he always got what he wanted. Grinning with satisfaction, he picked up his phone. He sent her a text that he was outside and waited.

  Yvette’s phone chimed, it was a notification that she had an incoming text message. She looked at the time and rubbed her eyes. Yvette had been looking at rows of numbers for the past hour and a half, she even missed dinner. She stared at her phone and read her text, it was Donato. What would she have to do to get him to understand that she was not interested. Hadn’t she told him not to come to her house, that she didn’t want to go out on a date with him, but he didn’t listen.

  Yvette slid her thumb across the screen to unlock her phone, “I’m outside come down.” She turned the phone over, he should have listened, Yvette thought. Ten minutes later three texts came in. “Did you get my text? Come down, I am ready to go,” then another, “I told you to be ready why the fuck aren’t you ready and why aren’t you answering me?” his last text was disturbing, Yvette thought and bit her nails. “Okay, let’s see how you like it when I find another piece of ass for tonight, but don’t think we are done.” His final text confirmed something was seriously off with Donato. He couldn’t be serious after they had only went on one damn date. One!

  Yvette wondered if she should go to the police, she didn’t have much in the way of evidence. Yvette had his texts but they weren’t enough and they were vague. The police wouldn’t do anything about him with those texts. That was the beauty of the justice system, they only reacted to crime, rarely did they work to prevent it. Yvette would have to be beat up, kidnapped, raped, or murdered before they would take action against Donato. There was nothing she could do about it now so she went back to work. At least she was safe here.

  ***

  Antony sat back on the brown leather sofa and took a long pull out of his bottle of water. He looked at the papers scattered over the coffee table and wondered at the insanity of his current situation. There were missing manifestos and records in the General Ledger as well. Antony did not know what was coming in and going out. Hell, he didn’t even know what he had in his inventory. For all he knew there was a million dollars in a container being eaten by rats. “Damnit!” Antony said slamming his hand on the table, which caused the papers to scatter across the table and fall to the floor. The table made a creaking noise as it took the brunt of his anger. Antony looked up at Sal, he was still reading a report, unruffled by Antony’s rage. He glanced from the report and lifted a brow in question. “Exactly what the fuck happened here and how is it the boss had no clue about it until now.” Antony asked.

  Sal put down the paper and sat back. He crossed one long leg over the other. “I don’t fucking know. Somebody should have caught this long before now.”

  Antony stood and paced, “Who told the boss about it?”

  “I think Torre told him,” Sal said.

  “Then what the fuck was Torre doing?” Antony unraveled his tie and threw it on the sofa.

  Sal shrugged and picked up another piece of paper. “Did you read the copy of this email?”

  Antony walked over to Sal and held his hand out, You have twenty-four hours to bring in a clean product. It can’t be delayed again. Even a child could understand the context of that email. Antony looked at Sal, “Whose our contact with the Feds?”

  “Jerry Fields” Sal answered and pulled his phone out of his po
cket.

  “Get him on the phone, now.”

  “Already dialing,” the phone was already to Sal’s ear.

  The whole operation was running sloppy as shit. This wasn’t how the Carbonaro Family carried out business. They had people being blackmailed with drugs and whores, embezzlement, and god only knew what else. It was only a matter of time before this thing blew up. Sal was on the phone and his conversation became background noise to Antony’s thoughts, there was the occasional, “Okay,” but that was it, he didn’t want to listen. Antony felt overwhelmed, he had only been here one day. One fucking day! What the hell would happen tomorrow?

  “Alright, keep me in the loop Fields,” Sal said as he hung the phone up.

  Antony sat down on the sofa and braced himself for the news. He couldn’t ignore it, he wanted to ignore it but that would only make matters worse. Antony sighed, “Was there any news about our operations? Any movement on their end? I can’t imagine the Feds not knowing about this, Peter was so fucking sloppy.”

  “He said he all is quiet on the Carbonaro front. They have been focusing on the Belmonte’s.”

  Antony ran a hand through his hair, “Good, it needs to stay that way.” He picked up his abandoned bottle of water and drank the last of its contents. He threw the empty plastic bottle into the trashcan near the door.

  “Good shot!” Sal said and stretched his lithe body across the sofa, his legs dangled over the sofa’s armrests and his forearm lay over his eyes. Antony looked at his lifelong friend and wondered when was the last time he slept in his own bed.

  Antony stood and walked round the couch, he picked up the tie he’d thrown on the sofa earlier. “Let’s get going, we aren’t going to figure all this shit out in one night. Can you be here in the morning? I can use your help to review more of this shit while I manage the front business.” He went to his desk and grabbed the cufflinks he’d taken off earlier and placed them in his pocket. Sal gathered everything from the table, “Do you have a safe or something Antony? These can’t just be put in a drawer.”