by Ashlee Price
It was true that I was lying, so it was going to be hard for me to contest her on that. But this was not the truth I was trying to cover up.
“Really, Mrs. Alister—”
“I know he’s been sleeping with someone for weeks now, Sheryl, and I know you’ve been harboring a crush on him since he hired you last year.” She was right on both counts, but once again neither of these things added up to me sleeping with her husband. I wondered how much she knew about Lisa Ling. Could that be the affair she’s talking about? I certainly can’t speak to that, I gave John my word! As much as I tried to reason things out, Margaret didn’t give me a chance to rebut her. She jammed an angry index finger in my face. I was sorely tempted to snap it into halves, but I knew I had a responsibility to John to protect his secrets, all of them, and that was more important than my own ego.
Lips pulled tight over her yellowing teeth, Margaret said, “Just stay away from my husband, you little slut! Or I will gut you like a fish, you got that?”
Stunned into silence, I could only stand and nod slightly while Margaret stomped past me and out the door, passing Ricardo as he entered. She hissed, “Get outta my way, Tinkerbelle,” before disappearing down the hall.
Ricardo looked at her, then at me, closing and locking the door. “Wasn’t that—?”
“Alister’s wife, yeah. She thinks I’m sleeping with him.”
Ricardo’s eyes went wide. “Are you?”
“No, Ricardo, of course not.”
“Then why does she—? Oh, the list?”
“Partly, I guess.”
Ricardo shook his head. “You better watch out, girlfriend. When the wife don’t like you, you’re on the chopping block. It’s just a matter of when.” I knew Ricardo was right, that my opportunities at Alister Fashions were about to hit a dead end. We stood in a nervous silence, and then Ricardo set down his camera bag. “Glass of wine?”
“Bottle.”
We cracked the chardonnay and started talking; about Ricardo’s latest photo shoot, about Margaret Alister, and of course about Langdon Cane. Ricardo sat wide-eyed as I shared the details… all of them.
“Alleluia! Praise God and pass the Vaseline!”
“Ricardo, come on!”
“What? That’s something worth celebrating! I was beginning to think you were going to live your whole life without the big O. And honey, I don’t call that livin’!”
We shared a lusty little chuckle. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Can’t wait to do it again.”
“Really? When’s that gonna happen? Can I watch?”
“Ricardo!”
“I’ll hide in the closet. He’ll never know!”
Through my chuckles, I said, “C’mon, Ricardo, seriously, knock it off.”
“Let’s compromise… you knock it off, I’ll rub one out!” The laughter kept coming. But after it trickled away, Ricardo’s eyes fixed on my expression. “Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“You’re already in love with him, aren’t you?”
“What? No, Ricardo, I… I like him… a lot… and I can’t wait to see him again—”
“Because you’re in love with him. Don’t feel badly about it, Sheryl, be glad! Celebrate it, shout it from the rooftops!”
“You know I can’t do that, Ricardo. That’s not the kind of person I am.”
Ricardo shrugged and took a sip from his glass. “Keep trying. But be careful, baby girl.”
“You think he’ll break my heart?”
“I think that Alister bitch is gonna bust your balls! She finds out you’re in bed with the competition?”
“But he’s not the competition in this case, Ricardo. He’s in town to make some kind of deal with John Alister, a joint venture.”
Ricardo tilted his head forward, glaring at me from under his skeptical eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
***
Langdon extended his hand as I led him across John’s corner office. There was an instant tension between the two men, each an alpha male in his own world. They weren’t meeting for the first time, but it seemed like their first professional clash. I knew that neither was going to come out with swords clashing.
“How ah ya, J.A?”
They shook hands.
“Very well, Langdon, very well indeed. Thank you for coming.”
“No worries.” Langdon looked around at the spacious office, the floor-to-ceiling windows with views of Fifth Avenue, Central Park, and points beyond. “Nice place, cozy.”
John smiled, absorbing the backhanded compliment with every bit of grace he could muster. I just sat there quietly, watching every move each man made. I knew there was more going on between them than met the eye. Neither man was so guileless that they’d put what they wanted right up front without disguising their true intentions. But it was the truth of those intentions that interested me—and frightened me more than a little bit.
Langdon sat down at the opposite side of John’s big walnut desk and I took a seat at one end, precisely between the two men. They stared each other down with dry smiles which lacked humor, civility which lacked warmth. The tension was so thick you could have eaten it with a fork.
“Thanks for sending me such a… a competent steward as Miss Francis here,” Langdon said.
“She took good care of you, I trust?”
I looked down, just a little bashful and hoping to hide my blushing cheeks. “She certainly did,” was all Langdon said—and all he needed to say.
John nodded, glancing at me and then back at Langdon. “Very good. But of course I brought you here for more than that. Langdon, we’ve been competitors too long. I know you agree.”
“Always better to make a friend of an enemy, an ally of an adversary.”
John’s eyebrows rose a bit. “You know your Sun Tzu?”
Langdon smiled. “Fahthah read it t’me in the cradle, that and Mahchiaveeeelli.”
John chuckled. “Sounds like a man after my own heart.”
“Ours too, me and mum.” Langdon stared off in an uncharacteristically somber moment, his smile melting away.
John and I shared a quick glance before John said to Langdon, “Anyway, what I propose is that we keep our companies as is. Even let the world think we’re still rivals. But we set up a third company, one to compete against us both.”
Langdon didn’t have to give it much thought. “Join up and become our own competition.”
“Exactly,” John said with a single clap of his hands. “Niche marketing.”
“But J.A., we’re in different markets as it is. AussieGarb specializes in sportswear, Alister Fashions is more of that high-end snooty garbage.”
“There’s a lot of money in that high-end snooty garbage, and I know you’ve been rooting around for a way into that market. Meanwhile, your sweat socks and sports bras move a lot of material, and that’s a market I want a part of.”
“And you think a third company can produce a line that satisfies both markets at once?”
John leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Langdon’s. “I do, Langdon. I know it sounds crazy, but if any two people are in a position to make it happen, we’re those two people.”
Langdon nodded as John leaned back, adding, “And if we can pull it off, the profits could be in the hundreds of millions, even billions, not to mention what it’ll do for both of our individual empires.”
“What if we wind up running ourselves out of business?”
“Won’t happen, Langdon. You know any market can support at least two major players. At the very worst, Alister Fashions and AussieGarb each pull up a strong second to the company we own together.”
Langdon leaned back, eyes shrewd as he looked John over. He even shot me a skeptical glance before responding, “We’d be cornering the market, eh?”
“That’s right.”
Langdon scratched his chin. “That legal? I know you got regulations out here—”
John smiled and raised his hands to his sides, as
if indicating that the office around us, and everything it was predicated on, was a violation of some regulation or another. “Regulations, please, against big business? Those antitrust laws won’t mean shit by this time next month, if they still mean anything at all now. And if anybody gets it in their head to come after us, we buy ‘em out or shut ‘em down.” This time it was Langdon’s turn to glance at me, a quick shot at reading my mind before returning his attention to his counterpart.
“I like what I’m hearin’, but I’ll need a little time, yeah?”
Langdon stood, John and I both following suit. “Yeah,” John repeated, “of course. You’ll probably have some ideas of your own.”
“Oh, you can count on that, J.A.” Langdon shot a little wink my way, and I looked away just an instant too late. To John, he said, “Meantime, your Miss Francis here was kind enough to take me on a little sightseeing tour. Think I can steal her away from you for another few days?”
John looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “Of course, Langdon, whatever you’d like.”
The meeting broke up, and John moved on to some private business he had to tend to. I didn’t ask and didn’t even want to know. But I had at least two hours of mail to sort through which I’d missed while in Langdon’s company, so I dropped the big stack onto the desk of my little side office and started separating the bills from the bullshit, the professional communications from the crap.
“There she is.” I turned at the familiar voice to see Flynn sticking his head into my office. His red hair had recently been cut and—it looked like—even styled up just a bit. “The angel of the hallway.”
“Flynn,” I said with a little smile. “How’s everything on the east side of the wing?”
“Quiet. Where you been? I was worried.”
“Just taking care of some things outside the office, Flynn.”
He nodded. “Oh, cool. Hey, did you hear?”
I’d heard a lot more than just one thing, so I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Watch out for office gossip, Flynn. It’s ruined better careers than either of ours.”
Flynn stepped in and closed the door behind him. His voice soft and low but still enthusiastic, he said, “This isn’t gossip. Turns out the bossman’s having an affair.”
“Flynn, that’s none of our business—”
“With a black chick, in Harlem! That’s where he keeps disappearing to.”
“Enough, Flynn,” I snapped at him, as angry and impatient with his subject as with his general persistence. I also knew that if he was gossiping about our boss, it wouldn’t be long before he’d be gossiping about me—and I’d just given the whole world plenty to gossip about. “First of all, whatever John Alister does in his free time is none of our business.”
“No, you’re… you’re absolutely right—”
I stood up to face him. “Secondly, gossiping about him like that could not only get you fired, but it could be considered slander, and that’s actionable, Flynn! Actionable! I thought you told me you’d learned your lesson about this kind of thing.”
“And I thought you told me you were a decent, honest person, not some corporate shark just cutting her teeth.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Flynn stood there, fear turning to confusion and then into skepticism. “I see what this is. Maybe it’s not some black chick in Harlem he’s fucking after all.”
“That’s it, Flynn, pack your things.”
“You can’t fire me! You’re just Alister’s gofer girl! Just because you’re fucking him doesn’t mean you can screw me!”
I couldn’t help it. My hand leapt out from my side as if of its own volition, so angry that it sought to stand up for me, to repel this obnoxious aggressor once and for all.
Slap!
Flynn’s face snapped to the side and we both stood in the shocked silence after the echo dissipated. Flynn looked at me, white cheek reddening, green eyes wide. “Okay, this is how you want it? You got it, you fucking little slut!” he screamed before pulling the door open and adding, “You fucking got it!”. Then he stomped out into the hall and slammed the door behind him.
Chapter 7
I picked up the phone and called security, sitting down behind my desk to give my trembling legs a rest. What’s wrong with me? I’ve never been so aggressive, so ready to fight. For twenty-three years I’d have backed down from him, from that whore on the street. Now I can’t even stop myself sometimes. What’s happening to me? Is it New York, its violent influence finally settling on me like the hand of fate?
Or is it Langdon, finally pushing me forward like the hand of love?
“Sheryl?” I looked up to see John standing in the doorway of my little office. I dropped the phone and ran into his arms. “Sheryl, what’s wrong?”
I looked slowly up at him. “You didn’t pass Flynn on the way here? You didn’t hear from security?”
“Security? Flynn? No, what happened?”
I caught my breath, easing myself out of his arms. “It’s… it’s just that… he’s got this office crush on me, I guess, and I finally had to put an end to it.”
John looked at me, slow and shrewd. “He didn’t take it well.” I shook my head. “I’ll call H.R., have him pink-slipped, tell security to keep him out of the building.”
That certainly made me feel better, and being in John Alister’s powerful arms was comforting. It was also rekindling feelings I’d indulged before meeting Langdon.
Langdon!
I eased myself out of John’s arms and sat back down behind my desk to compose myself. “Was there something you needed, Mr. Alister?”
“I was interested in your thoughts on our meeting today with Langdon Cane. You seem to have struck up a certain… chemistry with him. So what do you think? Is he on the level?”
I wasn’t sure if he was, but I was also beginning to have serious doubts about whether John himself was being honest and forthright about his intentions.
“You seem to know him… fairly well on your own. You’ve met, I assume?”
John flinched as he paced around my little office. “Seen each other on and off, various gatherings, auctions, things like that. Met him about ten years ago when he was just coming into his own, the Golden Boy of High Finance. My Lori thought he was really something, I’ll tell ya.”
“Bailey’s mother.”
“She told me, ‘You watch out for that guy. One day, he’s gonna come gunnin’ for you.’ Well, she was right about everything else.”
“But this time, all this… it was your idea, wasn’t it? You invited him here, didn’t you?”
John Alister looked me over with a flat-lipped expression, eyes steady, revealing little of what he was thinking. But what they were revealing sent a shiver down my spine.
“I think maybe the idea took him a little off-guard,” I said, clinging to what shreds of the truth might sustain me through the conversation. “I don’t suppose I blame him.”
John sat down on the side of my desk and leaned toward me. “And I don’t blame either one of you. But I didn’t get to where I am by playing by the rules, Sheryl. Can I be honest with you a moment?”
“I thought you always were.”
He smiled. “I meant frank. Of course I’ve always been honest with you, and I always will be. But frankly, Sheryl, I think you’re capable of a lot more than just being my personal assistant.”
My heart rose in my chest to hear it, but I knew I had to remain skeptical. Nothing was as it seemed; that was the only thing I knew for sure.
“I knew it last year, but you needed time, seasoning, experience in the field before I could confidently promote you. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Oh, um, of course, sir. I thought of myself as lucky to get the job with you at all.”
“And you were, Sheryl, you definitely were. But you’d also earned it, and in the year since you’ve earned a lot more. And this, this is the crucible, this is the ultimate test.”
I didn
’t like where the conversation was going, but steering it wasn’t going to be easy. “What do you need me to do?”
“Atta girl,” he said, inching almost imperceptibly toward me, arm reaching out to set a hand on my arm. “You just stick close to him, let me know if he comes to you with, y’know, any offers.”
Any offers, I silently repeated. He already came this close to offering me a job, though I can’t really say that he actually did, and he’s made no mention of it since, so…
“Okay, Mr. Alister, I can do that, sure.”
“It’s simple professional ethics, Sheryl. If he’s trying to turn you into a corporate spy, I think it’s your duty to be loyal to the home team.”
“Um, right, absolutely.”
“We’re an American company, Sheryl, born and bred, raised and reared. We hire American, we buy American, we sell American. Our factories are all in America, Sheryl, and the people who run those factories are Americans. But AussieGarb? Look, I don’t blame you for not looking into it; that’s not your job. I’ve got guys whose job it is, smartest guys in the world. My God, add up their IQs, they gotta be over a hundred.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle.
John went on, “And let me tell you what they told me. Chinese kids stitch every shred of AussieGarb clothing, work sixteen hours a day for ten cents a week, Sheryl. They’re forced to work as sex slaves in their off hours. And the clothes fall apart after just a few weeks. That’s how they make so much money. But their profile is so high in that British prison they call a country, people just can’t stop buying the stuff up. And there’s something else I don’t blame you for, Sheryl; mostly, it comes down to Langdon Cane himself.”
I knew what he meant when he said he didn’t blame me for that. I knew he was recalling the glance Langdon and I had shared during the meeting, regarding Langdon’s satisfaction with his visit so far. Instead of saying anything, I took the smarter approach and said nothing at all.
“Hey, he’s charming,” John said, “I get it. Paparazzi always following him around, segments on that new Lifestyles channel or whatever the hell it is…”
Of course, I thought to myself with a sudden revelation, that’s where I’d seen him before. He’s been profiled as a jet-set celebrity. That dream was no prediction, no supernatural experience, it was just a memory of—